The aim of this leaflet

This advice sheet helps you analyse your needs in writing and offers tips for you to plan and organise your learning. It is designed to give you guidance on how to develop a self-study programme for yourself.

Analysing your needs

You want to improve your writing skills — but what specific skills are you thinking of? Spend a few minutes to answer the following questions and reflect on your needs.

After you have analysed your needs, you should know what areas of writing you want to improve. You are most welcome to discuss your needs with any of our Language Commons Advisers; we are very happy to help you devise a self-access learning plan to improve your writing skills.

Planning your learning

In order to help you plan your learning, please complete the following statements:

• The writing skill(s) that I want to improve: ___________________
• The Writing Advice Sheet(s) that I have read: W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8
• I find the Writing Advice Sheet W __ most useful.
• My learning goal: I want to be able to____________________________________________

In your learning plan, you should consider the following aspects:

• Learning methods/styles:
  Many students think learning English by using the self-access methods means having to go regularly to the Language Commons to do language exercises or listen to the tapes. While you are most welcome to use any materials or facilities in the Language Commons to make your learning enjoyable and effective, learning English with self-access methods DOESN’T mean that you have to go to the Language Commons regularly. It’s perfectly OK if you want to stay at home to study English – all you have to do is to figure out your learning styles and preferences and then make sure that you feel good in the learning process. For example, if you enjoy studying English in your dormitory with music on, then you should try to get learning materials that you can use in your room.
• Time management:
  How regularly will you do the learning? How much time per week? Try to be realistic: if you plan to spend 5 hours per week on reading and another 5 hours on writing, ask yourself whether you can really stick to it. Most people find it more realistic to set aside a fixed time for practising writing; for example, 30 minutes before going to bed, or every Saturday morning etc.
• Learning materials:
  What learning materials will you use? Books? Websites? CD-ROMS? The learning materials for writing do not have to be print materials; speaking materials or listening materials are equally good for improving your writing. For example, you can improve your vocabulary and writing by listening to speeches and lectures. There are many innovative ways to make writing fun – one of the ways is to expose yourself to different materials.
• Evaluation methods:
  What will you do to check that you are making progress? Do you want to count the errors in your writing? Do you want to check if the fluency in your writing has improved? Or do you want to see if the organisation in your writing is getting better? The evaluation methods will be different depending on your learning goals. So it is important to think about your learning goal and how realistic your plan is, then you can judge if your evaluation methods are effective. Do come to the Language Commons and discuss with an Language Commons Adviser your evaluation methods.

Taking action & reflecting on your learning

A good way to get started is to make an appointment with one of the Language Commons Advisers and show him/her your learning plan.

First of all, select the materials you like and think about the learning methods. The next step is: do it! When you encounter difficulties, come talk to our Language Commons Advisers — we’re all very happy to help you.

It is also important that you record your learning experience. When you reflect on your learning experience, you are evaluating and monitoring the progress of your own learning programme. And this is the first sign of success.

Want to have a look at a learning journal? The following is a learning journal written by Steve who is studying Civil Engineering at HKUST. He has planned to improve his writing skills through reading:

You have probably noticed that Steve is not following a traditional way to improve his writing. He is willing to try out different strategies and see if he can write better by using new methods.

Whether you’re like Steve who wants to try out new strategies, or you prefer using traditional ways to improve your writing, you have to take action and do it.

Creating writing opportunities

• Entering a Writing Contest

  Writing contests can be fun and a motivation to get something written. Before entering a contest, however, be sure to check what rights you’re giving away, and whether you need to send an entry fee. If you’re entering an on-line writing contest, make sure you know what kind of personal details you’re disclosing.

Recommended site:
http://www.writersdigest.com/annual

Submit your personal essays on writing challenges and triumphs and win US$3,000!

** Note:
While a lot of writing contest sites are real and even prestigious, some are fake which have only one aim — to take your money. In order to play safe, never enter any writing contest which takes an entry fee. If you want to know more about the warnings and cautions for writing contests, read this site: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/contests.html

• Sending a ‘Letter to the Editor’
  http://www.lexicon.net/~lis01101/Pages/WRIT_LET.HTM

This website gives you guidelines and tips for writing a ‘letter to the editor’. Why write to the ‘editor’? Because one of the most powerful tools for changing public opinion is ‘the Letter to the Editor’. Every day, millions of people turn to their newspapers’ editorial pages to see what others are thinking about current events.

Want to give it a try and send a letter to the editor of SCMP?

• Reading and Writing Film Reviews

Writing film reviews? Why? Well, if you enjoy seeing movies, why not?
This interesting website, http://nd.essortment.com/writingfilmrev_rbej.htm, shows you how to write film reviews step by step. You will also find a lot of useful phrases and expressions for reviewing films.

From this website: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/, you can find reviews of almost any film. Have a go — this is an extremely comprehensive film review site. You can also send your film reviews to the site.

• Forming your own Reading/Writing Group

Are you thinking of forming your own Reading/Writing Group so that you can have your private forum to discuss your reading and display your writing? What can you write? Anything you want: essays, diaries, film reviews, book reviews, travelling journals and so on. Why don’t you come to the Language Commons and talk to our Advisers. They will be happy to have a chat with you about forming a reading/writing group.

Learning tips

• You will be able to write better if you have ideas. So read widely before you write. For more information about reading skills, read the Advice Sheets on Reading: R4, R5, R6 and R7.
• Set yourself a regular ‘reading time’ just to enjoy reading in English. Don’t force yourself to read academic materials if they are not your cup of tea. Come to our Language Commons and see if you find our readers (located near the reception in Area A of the Language Commons interesting. Just relax and do some reading. And why read regularly? The answer is simple – your writing skills will naturally improve if you keep reading because you are constantly feeding yourself with English input.
• Writing is not a one-off activity. You need to allow yourself time to think, write, and rewrite. You will enjoy writing more if you allow yourself ample time to do the thinking, writing and editing. Like any other skills you can think of, writing skills won’t be improved over a few days. Be patient and keep practising.
• Make writing a habit. Apart from course assignments, there are other kinds of writing you may enjoy — diaries, learning journals, emails, letters to friends and so on. If you want to know more about using learning journals to record your learning experiences, make an appointment with our Advisers. They will be happy to discuss this with you.
• What is stopping you from writing effectively? Grammar? Sentence Structures? Vocabulary? Why don’t you do a Diagnostic Test? Simply make an appointment with an Language Commons Adviser and s/he will discuss with you what areas of writing you can improve in.

Apart from getting help from the Language Commons Advisers, different academic departments do offer additional support to students to improve their English skills. Science and Engineering students, for instance, can seek advice from their department’s communication tutors, while Business students can join the WSC – the Writing and Speaking Through the Curriculum Programme to strengthen their communication skills. To find out more about the WSC, you can go to the following website: http://lc.ust.hk/~support/wsc/index.html.

• Do a Diagnostic test for grammar and/or vocabulary level (please read Grammar Advice Sheet G3 and/or Vocabulary Advice Sheet V5 for more information on online tests), find out your weaknesses in writing and then decide what practice you need to improve your writing skills. You need to identify the areas that need improvement — simply writing more won’t necessarily make your writing better.
• Go to the library and look for the language learning magazine: The Language Key. In fact, our library carries both the print and electronic editions. To preview some sample issues, access http://www.workplace-english-training.com/emagazine/welcome/free_sample_issues.html. If you are always busy and feel that you can’t do your self-learning regularly and systematically, you will find this magazine useful. There are different foci in different issues so even if you don’t have time to devise your own learning plan, you are still able to do your learning systematically, with the help of this learning magazine.

And Now …

Remember, you are now in full control of your learning plan. If, however, you need an Language Commons Adviser to look at your plan, make an appointment with us. We are most happy to help. To contact us:

•  
• see an Adviser, on duty at the Language Commons Advice Desk (for details of advisers and their availability, please go to http://lc.ust.hk/~sac/sacadviser.html)
• e-mail lccommons (lccommons@ust.hk) with your query;
• ask at the reception counter of the Language Commons — if the receptionist cannot help you directly, s/he will pass your query on to one of the Language Commons advisers

Note

The introductory leaflet in this series is Improving your writing (W1).

This advice sheet is part of the Writing series of leaflets supporting independent language learning, produced by the HKUST Center for Language Education Language Commons team. This advice sheet was written by Elza Tsang & Jessie Lam, Mar 2009. Version 4. If you copy from this advice sheet, please acknowledge the source. Thanks.