How to Develop Students' Writing Skills P4

1. How to Develop Students' Writing Skills P4 Canton Road Government Primary School Ms Yu Hing Yin, Marie

2. A. My Pupils • Pupils’ abilities in different classes vary a lot. • Our pupils are highly-motivated as they participate actively in most of the English activities.

3. My Students’ Strengths and Weaknesses • They are able to express their ideas by writing simple and clear discrete sentences, mostly descriptive texts. • They are weak in using appropriate cohesive devices such as suddenly, however. • They lack lexical competence to read complicated stories or to write stories with clear development.

4. I have a brother. His name is Keith. He is thirteen years old. He is tall. He is thin. He has short hair. He has small eyes. He has big ears. He (have) big mouth. He (have) black hair. He (have) many (football’s T-shirts). He likes playing computer games and (foot ball’s). I think he is kind. He lives in Tsing Yi. He goes to school by car. This is my friend, Emily. She is eight. She lives in Jordan. She likes skipping. She likes reading. She likes drawing pictures. She likes singing. She likes dancing. She is helpful. She is clever. B. Our English Programme • Curriculum tailoring started in 2002 at P.2 • Promote free writing – Use of Sketch Book

5. C. Purpose of the Sketchbook - Draw and write: help pupils to write and express their ideas with picture clues - Repetition: Recycle and consolidate the learnt language items - Revise the learnt sentence patterns - Develop a Vocabulary Bank

6. Myra is my friend and my classmate too. She is nine years old. She lives in Mongkok. Her birthday is on 21st March. Her family has a mother, a father and herself, but she has no brothers or sisters. She likes swimming, dancing and singing. Myra likes eating (chip) and ice cream. She studies in Canton Road Government Primary School She likes P.E., music (and) English lessons. Myra is good at running, singing, dancing and swimming. Her class teacher is Miss Wu. She likes playing game with friends. Myra is kind, helpful and clever.

7. My mother is fat and tall. She has long hair. She has small ears. She has (smell) nose. She has big eyes. She is beautiful. She is funny, (king), polite and (working) late. She is (sales). She (go) to work sometimes by minibus, sometimes by car. At weekends, we go shopping, swimming in the beach and eat (buffer). She likes swimming, singing and shopping. She has five sisters and five brothers. I like my mother very much.

8. My mother has black hair. She is tall and she has wrinkles. She has small eyes and small nose and big (mother). My mother is funny. She sometimes tells me a joke. Sometimes my mother is very strict. Mum helps me with my homework. Sometimes I help mum to carry the bags. Mum looks after me but she doesn’t read (story) to me. Mum always washes the dishes, cooks the dinner and sweeps the door. Mum doesn’t water the plants and feed the pets because I don’t have plants and pets but I like pets. I like my mother very much.

9. D. One of the Learning Objectives at P.4 Level Improve Pupils’ Writing Skills: • Provide the ending of short and simple stories • Write stories with clear development

10. E. Early Findings: • A quiz is set to test pupils’ reading and writing competence at the beginning of September • The less able pupils failed to provide an ending to the story

13. F. Another Interesting Findings: Background: Students’ performance in First Term Test Strength: able to write simple and short descriptive text about one’s classmate Weakness: unable to respond to text with personal experience and imaginative ideas (BC Skill 1)

14. Case 1 Kelly is my classmate. She is the most helpful in the class. She usually helps with my homework. She go to school on foot. She always go to swimming. She always does her homework. She often goes shopping. She has no brothers and sisters. She likes reading story in the library. She never playing football. I think she is nice.

15. Case 2 Kelly is my classmate. She is helpful and hard-working. She often read a books. She always goes her homeworks. She usually helps me wirt my homework. She sometimes helps her mother housework

16. Case 3 Aiyan is my classmate. She is thin. She always tells joke. She is funny. She is hardworking too. She has a brother.

18. Case 1 Case 2 Case 3

19. They were weak in developing an ending of a story in accordance with the main and supporting ideas of the reading text

20. Case 3 Case 2 Case 1

21. G. Teaching Strategies • Separate Reading from Writing. • Provide pupils with the beginning and ending of the story and encourage them to write (mini story). Purpose: Use story grammar/structure that comprises setting, characters, problems, events, and resolutions, to encourage pupils to present ideas coherently.

22. Suddenly, some robbers robbed Simon’s key. Then robbers go away quickly. Simon is crying. Joe remember robbers’ face. Then they call nine-nine-nine to report the policeman. Suddenly, his sister pushes Sam into the pond. Then, Sam’s sister is very happy, but Sam is angry with his sister. Next, their mother finds out Sam in the pond. She calls the firemen to help Sam. The children have ninty dollars. They buy a birthday cake. Then they go to book shop buy a card for Kelly. Some pupils show their understanding and they are able to complete the story sensibly and creatively.

23. Suddenly my father is go home. He open the door and then I can go to school. H. Learning Progress of a less able pupil

24. He has a breakfast. Then he is food-poisoning.

25. Suddenly, they see a robbers. He is climbes into the house. They call 999.

27. H. Some Useful Suggestions • Select specific language items. • Integrate what pupils have learnt with their personal experience. • Gather and share information and ideas by brainstorming and building concept map. • Highlight the key words which help pupils to think in a relevant context.

28. Thank You