ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING

You may want to try the following activities to improve your writing.

• Reconstruction: Collect examples of the types of writing you need/want to do (e.g. essays, newspaper articles. Read the examples and make notes on the content. Try to construct your writing with your notes. Then compare your version with the original version to see how well you have done. This method is especially beneficial for students who want to learn about specific written formats.

• Timed writing: One problem may be that you write slowly. Timed writing trains you to think briskly and write efficiently. Get at least two friends to write on the same topic for three minutes. Write as much as you can and ignore grammatical mistakes and spelling. If you can't think of a word or a phrase in English, either write in your language or just draw a picture. Look the word or phrase up in a dictionary later. Make sure your text makes sense. Alternatively, you can practise timed writing by yourself. Get a stop-watch and write as much as you can for three minutes. Keep a record of all your texts and see whether you write more ideas on the next topic. Improvement can be measured by counting the numbers of ideas you have created in each attempt.

• Brainstorming: Perhaps it takes you a lot of time to generate ideas for a piece of writing. Think quickly and without inhibition on a given topic; create as many ideas as possible. You should allow yourself to think of strange and unusual ideas. Then you should organise your ideas. This method is useful for generating ideas before actually writing.

• Write to pen pals: Make this a habit so that you can have constant writing practice. For example, you could contact International Pen Friends, P.O, BOX 340, Dublin, Ireland or by e-mail at neilodonnell@ipf.ie for details.

• Keep an English diary: Train yourself to use the English you already know while you are writing the diary. You can also deliberately use any new vocabulary/phrases in your diary. You will become a more efficient writer of English because you will be frequently activating your existing knowledge of English and spending less time looking in a dictionary.

• Write to newspapers:. You can write to newspapers to express your opinions or lodge complaints. Before the newspaper publishes your writing, the editor will proof-read your work. Then, you can compare the published version with your own version to see how your ideas can be better expressed. You have the chance to check your grammar, too. Write to any opinion column or the Letters to the Editor section in your local newspaper.

• Keep a writing resource bank: Collect examples of the types of writing you need/want to do and make reference to these frequently. Because relevant phrases and appropriate vocabulary are essential to good writing, you should mark down some useful expressions from your daily life for future use.

• Use the e-mail system: The most advanced way of communication today is writing through E-mail. You can write to people all over the world in English. You can also e-mail your writing to me at ecterri@gmail.com for feedback.

• Try self-evaluation: One of the criteria of good writing is that it is error-free. Proof-reading and editing are the final stages of tidying language and presentation before writing the last version. You should learn to evaluate your own writing.

• Keep all your written work: Keep copies of everything you write in English, especially those which bear your teacher's feedback. They serve two purposes. First, they can remind you of the mistakes you have made and therefore help reduce the chance of repeating the same mistakes. Second, some of your writing can be recycled.