Advice for Writing
Skill: Writing based on Reading and Listening
Performance Level: Limited
Score Range: 1–16
1. Read and listen to academic articles and other material in your own language. Take notes about what you read and hear.
Start out taking notes in your own language and then take notes in English.
Summarize the points in complete English sentences.
Ask your teacher to review your writing and help you correct your errors.
Gradually decrease the time it takes you to read the material and write these summaries.
Practice typing on a standard English (QWERTY) keyboard.
2. Listen to recorded lectures in English. Practice finding the main points and taking notes.
Stop the recording every 20–30 seconds and write down the main points.
Replay the recording to check your notes and add information you may have missed.
Use your notes to write out these ideas in fuller, more complex English sentences.
3. Learn important phrases that help you figure out what is happening.
Determine who the source of the information is.
The speaker
Someone else the speaker is talking about
Find out how certain the information is.
Might be versus is
Listen for words that indicate the main ideas being discussed.
point
factor
issue
4. Practice writing grammatically correct sentences and use appropriate words to summarize information from text and lecture material.
Each week focus on a different aspect of English grammar. Complete grammatical exercises that reinforce this aspect.
Record news broadcasts and informational programs in English from the radio or television.
Practice listening and writing grammatical sentences about what you hear the newscaster say.
Ask your teacher or a friend review your work.
Read factual informational articles in English.
Underline sentence structures and words you are not familiar with.
Ask your teacher or a friend to help you understand what they communicate.
5. Learn to pay attention to differing ideas about a topic, and to find the similarities and differences of opinions.
Look at different articles about the same topic (for example, editorials in the newspaper). Make a list of the similarities and differences of opinions about that topic.
Take a controversial cultural issue and write about how your culture understands it. Then compare your ideas with someone from another culture.
Study expressions that are used to compare and contrast ideas
in contrast
on the other hand
however
but
although
similarly
like