Taking a developmental approach to improving writing skills, Writing Better English helps you increase your level of proficiency in both grammar and vocabulary. The author draws on his extensive teaching experience to
Tools nonnative English speakers need to become better writers A series of exercises and practical-writing activities Tests for comprehension of basic grammatical structures, such as verb tenses and pronouns A practical section on writing personal and business letters
This is a fantastic book for sharpening your grammar. It's in a workbook format that provides comprehensive exercises and easy to follow instructions.
The book is divided into six sections: Preparing to Write, Beginning to Write, Writing Original Sentences, Story Completion, Writing Letters, Writing Original Themes, followed by an Appendix that discusses irregular verbs in past tense and past participles. There is an answer key at the end.
In the first section, the author discusses many topics including passive voice, the subjunctive mode and the comparative and superlative. The other sub-sections deal with tenses, auxiliaries, conjunctions and such.
In the second section, the author discusses sentence completion.
In the third section, the author discusses how to understand the format, and writing according to format.
In the fourth section, the author further discusses format and completing stories with original phrases.
He provides a section on writing letters both friendly and business next.
Lastly, he discusses theme.
Although simplistic in its writing, this book is geared more toward high school students. I find it useful and perfect for my resource shelf because of the grammar practice exercises. If you need to brush up on grammar, refresh yourself about story writing, then this book is for you!
A thorough grammar review for learners is offered at the very beginning. In addition, a methodical step-by-step process guiding them from very controlled writing practice activities towards ultimately, freer/creative practice, is provided. This is done in a manner that will give the learners confidence and allow them plenty of opportunities for success. As a teacher trainer, I'll utilize this as a tool for trainees who are teaching writing lessons and may need some ideas on particular scaffolding / activities to provide to their learners.