Tutorial on English for Studying Unit 3 Tutor: Wang Wei BWOL Tutorial Centre wangwei@tutor.beiwaionline.com

Unit 3 Getting Ideas Sorted Out An English paragraph Coherence The main idea & supporting ideas Writing a topic sentence Writing notes Writing summaries

Pairwork (5 minutes) Exchange notes on the following: a paragraph coherence cohesion topic sentence

An English paragraph

Coherence (3-1) One of the most important organizational principles … Each sentence in a paragraph leads naturally and logically to the next in explaining the central idea. [ES p. 101]

Coherence (3-2) if a piece of writing, set of ideas etc is coherent, it is easy to understand because the information is presented in an orderly and reasonable way [LDCE]

Coherence (3-3) As a rule, we do not write just one sentence or even a number of unrelated sentences. We produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain ways. … They form what we may call a “text”. Byrne (1988: 1)

Improve the sentences: [10min] She began to speak very fast at the meeting at ten o’clock. I read the novel on the train, which did not interest me at all. On entering the room, no one was seen. Fred is energetic, capable, and a man you can rely on. [From Ding 1994: 75]

Write 1 paragraph: [10 min] Choose any one of the topics below: Friendship Memory Life Happiness

Paragraph Reading Excerpt One: topic sentence Excerpt Two: coherence & cohesion

Writing notes Excerpt Three: write down the key ideas in the key phrases

Writing summaries Excerpt Four A summary of the main ideas

Tutorial on English for Studying Unit 4 Tutor: Wang Wei BWOL Tutorial Centre wangwei@tutor.beiwaionline.com

Unit 4 Describing What You See Countries, towns, & landscape Travel guide Scenes Weather What people are doing What people look like Character Custom and habits Processes and procedures Instructions

Countries, towns, & landscape location expressions “Ireland” “Australia”

Travel guides A good guide is general and impersonal leads the “tour” of the place describes places of interest and the landscape “A Guide to …” -- essay reading

Scenes A room with a view “a vantage point” in describing a view Show your Picasso dictations to your classmates. Have brief discussions on the tasks. “My own PD” – essay reading

Weather weather expressions weather changes weather and people “What’s the weather like today?” -- Write your friend an email and complete it with a comment on weather. [10 min.]

What people look like Words, words, and words … people’s dress offensive descriptions

Custom and habits frequency expressions “Those were the days” – essay reading Tell an Eskimo family about the Chinese Moon festival. [15 minutes]

Processes and procedures baking bread “The bread is baked.” “You can bake the bread.” making jiaozi How is it done?

Instructions Homework: How to … ? send a letter; send an email go shopping in a department store; go shopping in a supermarket Choose a pair and compare.

The final reading for today Excerpt Five The “ separate worlds” on campus