Pedagogical Suggestion
ESL students generally lack audience awareness and place more emphasis on the form over meaning. That means, they would focus on correcting English errors overlooking the importance of establishing coherence in their writing. According to Lee (1998, pp. 37-38), the coherence-creating mechanisms in writing include:
(a) Purpose, Audience and context of situation
(b) Macrostructure
(c) Information distribution
(d) Propositional development
(e) Cohesion
(f) Metadiscourse.
Below is a suggested lesson plan to teach ESL students how to write an effective letter of complaint (expository text) using appropriate vocabulary , tone and register and coherence features.
Sample lesson plan
ESL students generally lack audience awareness and place more emphasis on the form over meaning. That means, they would focus on correcting English errors overlooking the importance of establishing coherence in their writing. According to Lee (1998, pp. 37-38), the coherence-creating mechanisms in writing include:
(a) Purpose, Audience and context of situation
(b) Macrostructure
(c) Information distribution
(d) Propositional development
(e) Cohesion
(f) Metadiscourse.
Below is a suggested lesson plan to teach ESL students how to write an effective letter of complaint (expository text) using appropriate vocabulary , tone and register and coherence features.
Sample lesson plan
Lesson objective
Students’ profile Class size Topic Pre-requisites Duration |
At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
1. apply what they have learnt from previous lessons to produce a letter of complaint (expository) through the application of vocabulary usage, discourse coherence and genre-based approach. Secondary One Express, Average ability 40 Expository writing - Writing a letter of complaint - Expository discourse structure (Situation, problem, solution and resolution) - Propositional development - Coherence and cohesive devices - Tone and register 90 minutes |
Lesson Development
Introduction Development (Stage 1) Main Activity Main Activity Writing task Conclusion |
Key Approach and Instructional Strategies
Tuning in Students share about the different complaints and a mind-map is drawn by teacher. A. The teacher distributes a few samples of complaint letters. Students (in groups of 4) are to categorize them and give reasons. E.g. Personal, public, corporate or others. B. The teacher conducts a discussion and evaluates students’ responses, helping students see how context influence Tone and Register . Key Teacher Language (KTL) 1) What is the issue/point of view expressed in each text? 2) Who is the target audience? 3) Where is the setting of each text? Stage 1 – Modeling through good example The teacher will screen a well-composed letter of complaint. Students (in groups) will be asked to comment on the structure and quality of the discourse based on what they have learnt in the previous lessons. KTL 1) How did the writer go about persuading or bringing his opinion across to the audience? 2) What language features/choice of words enable him to do so? 3) What language features did he use to link his arguments/opinions/persuasion? 4) Is his choice of words suitable for the target audience? Why do you say so? After the discussion, teacher restates the important features to take note of when writing an effective letter of complaint. Stage 2 – Deconstruction of a bad letter of complaint In groups of five, students critique an example of a poorly-written letter of complaint. Teacher selects a few groups to present their analysis of the letter. For KTL, refer to Stage 1. Teacher gives students some scenarios for complaints in the school context. Students in groups to write a short letter on A3 size papers and apply the principles discussed. An academic word list is given to assist students. The letters will be presented in class with peers assessing the quality of writing. Teacher recapitulates what was learnt in this lesson through the following KTLs: 1) How is coherence at the sentence level achieved? 2) What are the language features that enable the writer to achieve coherence between paragraphs? 3) Provide examples of discourse markers. Can you remember how they are used? Students do a reflection of what they have learnt . (eg. K-W-L ) |
Rationale for classroom instruction
Tapping of prior knowledge to engage students. The teacher helps students to activate background knowledge, make connections, predict and draw inferences (Tompkins, 2010, pp 260 - 261). Through this activity, the students realize the tone and register is dependent on the target audience. They also recall what they have learnt about purpose, audience, context and the genre. Materials: Whiteboard, Samples of complaint letters Students analyze the expository text for language features and text structure which enabled the writer to achieve his objective of writing the text to his target audience. This analysis provides a writing model for students Materials: Sample of letter from newspaper Forums. Students are given the opportunity to engage in hands-on learning. Through collaboration, they arrive at a consensus on what is unacceptable in the letter. Materials– Sample of bad letter (Appendix 4) A hands-on application of the concepts learnt through a collaborative approach. Materials– An academic word list, Pen and A3 paper. Teacher will give a brief summary of what was covered in class, to reinforce students’ learning. |