Online Tools to Develop Writing Skills

The mid-year school holidays have come to an end and the next semester will be a stressful one as SPM and PT3 examinations are just around the corner. I believe teachers and students will be bogged down with preparatory activities geared towards the public examinations. 

If you are one of those not – so – lucky students taking the public examinations this year, you’re are right in the thick of it and I believe you will have essays to write. And let's accept the fact that writing is not everyone’s cup of tea and I have also had students who struggled to build sentences. If you struggle to write essays or if you abhor writing lessons, then writing essays can lead to frustration and stress.

Fortunately, there are ample tools and resources available online. They are also free (for basic use). I have listed the 10 most useful online tools that I have introduced to my students and they are my favourites too. Some of the tools may need you to become a premier member, but I don’t think that will be necessary as the basic use of the tools is good enough to help you write better. So don’t worry about making mistakes, use these tools to improve your essays and score well in PT3 and SPM. 

The online tools below have very similar functions. Therefore, I am not going to review them one by one. Just click on the links below and it will direct you to the websites. 

All you have to do is type your essay in the text box and get it checked for grammatical errors. You may try different websites and get your essays corrected.

I believe this is an easy way for students to learn to correct their mistakes and write better as well as grammatically correct essays!

So good luck and happy writing... 

Polish My Writing

Virtual Writing Tutor

Paper Rater

Grammar Checker   

Scribens  

Online Text Correction

Spelling and Grammar Checker 

Grammarix

Grammarly

Slick Write

Directed Writing : Informal Letter

Informal letter has not been tested in SPM for quite sometime. I think students need to get prepared from all aspects rather than spotting questions ( I have never spotted questions). Here I would like to share a sample.I hope this will be helpful to those who are preparing for SPM English this year. 

The Format 

Students are to write an informal letter, describing their holidays. This piece of work requires students to use descriptive words. It would be easier for students if they are exposed to some examples of descriptive words before they are given the writing task. 

A brief introduction will do 

The first content point is elaborated with precise descriptions

It is always important to have some background knowledge on the topic that you are working on. Students who have better knowledge of the topic will have more things to write. Therefore, it is important for students to read more to develop their knowledge on different things. 

You do not need to use proverbs and idioms in your essays if they are irrelevant. Proper elaboration with good structure and choice of words are the most important. I have noticed, some students are too obsessed with idioms and proverbs that they use them for the sake of using them without even knowing the meaning. 

Also remember to 'call a spade a spade'...

That is all for now,....

Happy writing!

Peer Correction Activity for Writing Lesson

Writing lessons can be thought - provoking when teachers involve peer correction activity. This activity is a way to help students to correct themselves and their friends. It is simply an evident that students will be much aware of their mistakes and correct themselves when peers correct their mistakes. It is greatly effective with low - proficiency learners. I believe the activity would be a festal in classroom when done in groups as no individuals get insulted for making mistakes. Any mistake made is from the entire group. The activity would be more conducive if students of the same proficiency level are put in the same group as they work within their level. Here are the steps for an effective peer correction activity :

Material

The task

The teacher should ensure the task is right for the students. For this task I chose an intermediate writing task where the students have to elaborate 12 content points for directed writing.


Step 1 

Students are working in their small group

Group the students in small groups. Preferably 3 to 4 in a group would be ideal. it would be better if students of the same proficiency level are put in one group as it would help them to work within their level and when the weak ones are grouped together they will struggle to construct sentences. Let them struggle as that is how they learn. If they are assigned with others most likely they will be left out. 

Step 2

Assign each group one content point from the task given and ask each group to write an elaboration for the assigned content point in about 30 to 40 words on a piece of mahjong paper/mini whiteboard. Do not allow them to refer to any materials. The idea should be solely based on their discussion. Give them about 15 to 20 minutes to complete their paragraphs. Once the task is complete,  students should display their work for other students to read. The teacher should prepare an empty space below each completed task for the peers correct. 

Step 3 

Students discussing their peers' work

Once all the groups have put up their work, students from other groups will walk around from one group to another to do the correction. Be aware that some students might correct the right thing, don't say anything until the entire correction process is done and do not let the groups that are being corrected to retaliate. Also please remind the students that they should not correct their own group and also remind them that they should not correct the corrections. 

At the end of the correction process you will find that some errors are corrected 'correctly' and some errors are not.  Remember, this is a process and students learn from their mistakes. This is one way to help them to correct themselves from the  frequent errors they make in composition writing.    

@lousyteachersaidthebulldog

Creative Writing Workshop During Holidays

I conducted a two - day workshop for  form five students during the holidays. I thought nobody would turn up for a workshop during holidays but could not believe that almost all the students who were hand - picked to attend the workshop turned up and it was almost a full house. The commitment from the students  lifted my spirit and I was more than enthusiastic throughout the two days. 

Discussion of task 

I decided to have a creative writing workshop this year as in the past I did not have much time to guide students to develop ideas and creative expressions during formal lessons and most of the time I only shared with my own students and did not have the opportunity to share with students from other classes. Therefore I decided to have this workshop during holidays so that I could work with all the students. 

The objective of the workshop was to help learners to develop ideas and techniques to write creatively. The workshop started with word level activities where students were taught how to use adjectives creatively to make their composition interesting and then it was followed by creative sentence construction. 

The final slot was paragraph writing. It was time for students to let their creative juices flow without any limitations. At the end of the day they shared their ideas with other students. Pondering from the workshop, I could see that many of them have got the talent in them and if guided to the right path they would turn up to be better writers one day. 

Sample of powerpoint presentation 

I hope through the workshop the students have learnt some new ideas and techniques for essay writing that would help them to obtain a better grade in their SPM examination. 

For those who are interested on the materials used for the workshop. Please click here to download them. Sharing is caring. However, I do not provide answers as I don't believe in spoon feeding.  

Catch Us If You Can - Sample Questions and Answers

For those who will be sitting for the SPM examination next week, here are some sample questions and answers based on the novel Catch Us If You Can.... I hope these samples will be helpful in your last minute preparation for the battle next week.  I have analysed past years papers and hope one of these questions or anything related will be tested. Please click here to download the samples.