Blogging from Norfolk

In order to make the most of her learning adventure in the USA, Mariana has decided to start a travel blog: http://www.mytriptonorfolk.blogspot.com/ to share her experiences in Norfolk with us. I simply suggested the possibility of starting an “online journal” about her trip to capture her views and impressions while honing her writing skills in English and she accepted the challenge right away!

Why blogging?

Because it allows us to engage in expressive and meaningful writing and develop self-reflection. What’s more, blogs are open conversations with the world. As a teacher, I’ve improved my own writing and learned more from other people than I could have ever imagined since I started sharing and spreading my ideas on the web, engaging in relevant conversations with my students and with colleagues worldwide.

Let’s join Mariana on her blogging trip and help her blog grow and develop. It’s a great way of keeping in touch with a friend while also learning ourselves and experiencing the joy of authentic communication.

TOEFL iBT Class Project

Dear all,

I am proud to announce a new edition of our TOEFL iBT Class Project!

Following the iBT integrated skills format, the project consists of oral presentations on an academic topic that belongs to your own fields of study, complemented by written summaries that will be complied on our class wiki for future reference.

The TOEFL iBT Wiki is an ongoing construction that represents our shared body of knowledge, our interests and our learning paths.

This year the first presentation will be delivered by Mariana next Wednesday (before her trip to the USA) on In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).

Can't wait to get started!

Cheers, Carla

TOEFL iBT Webinar: Writing

Dear all,
I’ve just attended a TOEFL iBT Teacher Webinar (web seminar) on the Writing Section offered by ETS. The presentation focused especially on the Integrated task and reviewed its main features as well as general strategies, classroom activities and useful resources that can help students improve their writing performance.

As you already know, the TOEFL Writing section includes:

1 Integrated Task in which you’ll have to synthesize the information from a reading passage and a lecture in a written response. Time: 20 minutes Length: (150 -225 words)

1 Independent Task in which you’ll have to express and support an opinion in the form of a written essay. Time: 30 minutes Length (250-300 words)

Each task is rated on a 0-5 scale. The average score is based on the two tasks and then converted to 0-30 scale.

You can find the recommended resources on our Class WIKI (link on the sidebar).

Next month we will be focusing on the Integrated Writing and we’ll discuss some strategies that can help you excel in this new task.

Enjoy the resources!

Independent Writing: Brainstorming

Today we went over the main steps of the writing process:

-Brainstorming: generating ideas
-Planning: organizing ideas
-Drafting: writing several versions of the essay
-Editing: Correcting mistakes in content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics(spelling, punctuation, capitalization)

This week we are going to brainstorm ideas on a new topic:

The Best Source of News
“Due to the development of new technology such as satellite communication and the Internet, we can get updates on the latest breaking stories as soon as they happen. However, some people argue that these sources mainly report unconnected events while newspapers or weekly magazines provide a deeper and contextualized analysis of the news, helping us understand what those events mean.”

What do you think? What is the best source of news (newspaper, cable TV, the Internet, magazines, the radio)?



Let's brainstorm the pros and cons of the different sources!

Need some help to get started? Listen to six people from different countries talk about where they get their news from.

Remember we are going to use your contributions to start working on the essay next week!

ZOOS

Are they necessary?

Feel free to comment.

Writing

Last class we discussed the layout and organization of essays based on independent writing prompts. We also analyzed sample responses trying to see how language mastery, use of sophisticated vocabulary and a wide variety of structures accounted for a high level of achievement.

Just as we need to write more, noticing how other texts are organized and how language is used to convey meaning is equally important to develop good writing skills.

Here's an online activity on paragraph development you can try: Constructing the Paragraph .

I'd like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Hanson-Smith for granting us permission to use this activity.

More resources:

Introduction

Paragraphs
Practice with paragraphs

Conclusion