The English Course - Writing Book 1

Syllabus and Content

Unit 1 − Getting started
● Understanding the basic rules for the layout of writing
● Understanding what a paragraph should look like
● Understanding how to write simple sentences
Unit 2 – Recognising common errors
● Understanding grammatical terms
● Recognising the parts of a sentence
• Recognising common errors
Unit 3 – Writing better sentences
● Understanding conjunctions
● Writing compound sentences
● Writing complex sentences
Unit 4 – Writing good paragraphs
● Understanding what a paragraph is
● Writing topic sentences
● Writing supporting sentences
● Recognising irrelevant sentences
Unit 5 – Brainstorming / prewriting
● Organising ideas and making plans
● Creating clusters and lists
● Creating spider graphs and extended lists
Unit 6 – Writing reports
● Doing research and finding information
● Conducting surveys
● Organising information and writing reports
Unit 7 – Writing reviews
● Understanding the difference between facts and opinions
● Writing a factual review
● Expressing opinions
Unit 8 – Writing about the past
● Using the simple past and past continuous tense
● Using time-sequence words
● Writing about an experience
● Writing a biography
Unit 9 – Writing about the future
● Using the future tense
● Expressing probability
● Writing about plans and ambitions
● Writing predictions
Unit 10 – Writing narratives
● Writing fictional stories
● Organising information by time
● Organising several paragraphs
Unit 11 – Writing correspondence
● Understanding block style letter writing
● Writing formal correspondence
● Replying to correspondence
Unit 12 – Writing an essay
● Understanding what an essay is
● Prewriting skills
● Rewriting skills
● Understanding the importance of peer editing

Main Features at a Glance:
● Integrated package: textboook, 2 DVDs & self-study web site
● Interesting & relevant topics for writing practice
● Video clips to stimulate students’ writing
● Fun quizzes that test and entertain in each unit
● In-depth guides to laying out writing, grammatical terms, building good
sentences & common errors
● Follows a logical progression from sentence to essay
● Full & free support for the teacher is available online
● Student online activity can be tracked fully by the teacher
● Audio & video clips can be downloaded to mp3 players & mobile phones
● Fits the 30-week academic year at colleges and universities.
● Easy for teachers to use while providing a stimulating, feature-rich set of
materials for students.

Aims and Components

The English Course is an integrated lower intermediate English language course for students from false beginner to lower intermediate levels. Writing Book 1 comprises a textbook, a teacher’s DVD with quizzes and audio/video activities, and a self-access web site. Writing Book 1 is principally intended for young adult learners at college or university level. The aim of the course is to balance extensive guided writing practise, through numerous textbook exercises, with cutting-edge technology for both classroom use and student self-access study. The units in the textbook cover a variety of writing genres and are designed to teach writing skills in a logical order, starting with basic sentence structures and building up to essay writing. Each unit in the course includes the following: examples and several textbook exercises; two revision quizzes and an audio/video stimuli for the final assignment on the teacher’s DVD; and at least seven online revision/practice exercises on the student self-access web site, plus audio/video material for students to use.

Gary Ireland (Author)

Gary Ireland image

Gary Ireland first came to Japan in 1986 and since then has taught students of every age and level in a variety of additional teaching positions, including a preparatory school, culture centre, vocational school and several business English centres. Gary began teaching in college and university in 1993 and has taught at six Tokyo colleges and universities since. After graduating from university and before settling in Japan, Gary spent several years travelling around the world, and has continued to travel as often as possible since being based in Japan. In total, he has travelled in over 50 different countries throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and Central America.

Mick Short (Author)

Mick Short image

Mick Short is from Derby in the U.K. He came to Japan in 1984 to work in a small English language school in Shibuya teaching English. Shortly after that he started working as an Industrial Designer for Seiko Epson and Ricoh. From 1994-95, Mick worked in Eigomedia (now eigoTown) as Art Director and Interface Designer, designing English language learning CD-Rom publications. Mick set up Mindstorm, a company that develops products, including those for The English Company. At various times in Japan, Mick has taught both English and Art and Design. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Art at Lakeland College.

Max Woollerton (Author)

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Max Woollerton came to Japan in 1987 and began teaching English at a private language school before moving on to a vocational college, a preparatory school, a public high school and a school for overseas returnees. Max has taught in numerous other educational settings and his students have included people from all walks of life. Max began teaching in universities in 1999 and has taught at eight Tokyo universities. Max Woollerton is a Master of Education graduate of the University of Manchester's Education Technology and ELT programme. He is committed to the development of the use of technology in a practical and useful way within the Japanese EFL classroom. He hopes that The English Course will, as it develops, come to embody all of the positive aspects of using technology to learn a language. Max is also particularly interested in learner motivation and how to encourage it's development.