Okay.
Good morning.
Good afternoon.
Good evening.
Wherever you're located.
As you know, this class is a global course.
So I have students from all over the world.
Donna.
Nigeria.
Brazil.
Cote d'Ivoire, France and Japan, Saudi Arabia, all over the world.
Okay.
Yeah, everybody.
Okay.
You don't have to tell me where you're from, okay?
Don't do.
Please don't hold on.
You know, Singapore.
Everybody.
Brazil.
Some names I can tell where you're from.
Like the only people I know name.
Like Elena's last name.
I know that's either a Brazilian or Portuguese name.
Okay, everybody, please stop.
Stop putting stuff in the box.
Okay.
All right.
So in this live class, I'm going to be going over the general writing task number one.
This is the live class for July 2020.
As you know, I teach one live class a month and the focus this month is on the general writing test
and the one.
So as we're going through this live class, it will be interactive.
There'll be some points during the class where you will be writing something alongside with me.
I will look at.
I will be looking at some of the examples of what students write.
Of course, you could note there are 60 students in this class.
So this is not about looking at every single example that's written.
Pulling out and looking at some examples because there are things that we can learn from them.
So this is a group class.
It is not a individual private 1 to 1 class.
There's a group class, and so it involves group learning.
So throughout the process today, I'll be looking at some examples of student writing so we can learn
from it.
Okay.
Let's go ahead and get started.
And I would ask that everybody for the chat box is only for asking questions.
So please, please, please stop noting countries.
I appreciate it.
But I want the chat box to be four questions.
Four questions that will help me keep it organized and that will allow for me to be able to see somebody's
question.
All right.
So today in class, I'm going to first talk about I want to talk about moving from a band six to a band
seven.
A lot of students have trouble with being able to move their writing from a band, six or 6.5.
They're stuck.
At a 6.5 or six or 5.5 where they don't know how to move up into a seven.
I'm going to talk about that briefly.
I'll go over some of the in terms of the rubric, in terms of the score differences, and then we'll
go over outlining a letter introductions on the letter and discussion points on a letter.
And and then throughout that process, I'll be looking at some of the student introductions for those
different aspects.
We're going to start off by going over the basics of task number one.
The reason why I'm going over the general basics of task number one is because I have students that
are at different levels within my class.
Some people have never done the illness exam before.
Some people have taken the illness exam, unfortunately, six or seven times.
So they're practically experts at the basics.
But I have to cover for everybody, for every possible situation if I can.
So first, I'm going to start off with the basics of task number one.
So when we're talking about task number one, you have to be able to separate your paragraphs.
I'm going to teach you and go over with you today about how to analyze, outline and write the letter
with a minimum of 150 words written in under 20 minutes.
The organization and separation of this information into paragraphs in the proper paragraphs is really,
really important.
One of the best things you can do with the general letter is when you're starting out.
When you're starting out with a general letter, the best thing you can do is to do an outline.
Doing our line.
Take 1 to 2 minutes and do an outline for each discussion point.
You want to make sure that you note each discussion point.
And then after you do an outline, you want to do an introduction.
You want to explain why you are writing this letter?
Do not mix the discussion points into the introduction.
The introduction is one sentence by itself.
And then normally you're going to have three discussion points.
Normally, there are three different points they want you to talk about.
Each one of those discussion points gets their own paragraph.
So in terms of the process.
Right.
You outline.
You write the introduction, and then you write a paragraph for each discussion point.
That's proper structure.
Somebody just mentioned somebody named Rain.
Just mention that rain is in Hong Kong.
That they can't hear me.
Ken, can you hear me?
Can everybody hear me just fine?
Because I want to I want to make sure that this is just a problem for rain and not a problem for everybody
else.
Okay.
All right, good.
Okay.
I just want to make sure because.
If I'm doing all this talking and nobody is hearing me, then that's a problem.
Okay.
All right.
So let's keep going.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
So when we're talking about the general letter, this is just some basic information.
With the general letter.
You're doing descriptive writing.
And you're doing narrative writing.
You're doing both of those descriptive writing and narrative writing.
In writing a letter, you have to be very you have to really describe what you're talking about.
You have to really describe your ideas of what you're talking about for each discussion point.
In addition to that, you're doing a type of narrative writing.
You're telling a story, basically.
Whether it is informal, semi-formal or informal, it is narrative writing and it is descriptive writing.
So the more descriptive you're writing, the better you're going to score, the more visual it is,
the more sensory it is.
Descriptive verbs and adjectives.
Those really help a score.
And then narrative writing when you're telling a story.
When you're telling a story, all the parts fit together.
All the parts fit together.
So 1/2.
A teacher or I'm teaching the general letter.
So what I'm talking about does not relate to the academic.
If I were teaching an academic class, I would not be talking about descriptive and narrative writing.
Okay.
This is so we don't don't don't mix things together.
Okay.
The general letter is the general letter.
I wouldn't if I I've never mentioned this in an academic writing class, so it does not apply.
Keep in mind.
Be descriptive.
Be narrative.
And of course, everybody knows that there are three types of letters formal, semi-formal and informal.
Let me say something really quickly about the formal the formal and semi formal.
For the formal and semi-formal semi-formal.
There really is no difference in terms of the language.
There's no difference in terms of the of the language.
A formal a formal letter is where you're writing to a city council or to a store or to a government
office.
Right.
You don't know who you're not writing to a specific person.
That's how you understand when something is a formal letter.
A semi-formal letter is wear is where you're talking to the manager of a place or your boss.
Right.
Or the or an administrator.
That's really the main difference between formal and semi-formal.
There's no real difference in terms of the language that you would use.
Okay.
So some people think that they are completely different and the real difference is one of them.
You're writing to a specific person.
The other one you're writing to just an entity.
That's the best way to understand that.
So.
Okay.
Before I keep going, I'm going to mention one more time.
Please keep your microphone off.
Keep your microphone off if you can't keep your microphone off.
I am going to have to put you out the class and I don't want to do that because I'm trying to record
the class.
So if you see me turn off your microphone, that's me doing it.
Please keep it off.
Okay.
How to move your score from a band seven to a band nine.
This type of information.
This type of information is information that applies to the general letter and that applies to the academic
task one.
You want to have seen this cohesion?
A lot of times students rely on words like first, second, third, moral.
But furthermore, those are basic level transition words.
And a lot of students mess up their score because they overuse those words.
Every other sentence or every sentence is first, second, third.
You know, it's it becomes very robotic, very clunky when you write that way.
That's one of the things that's keeping you in the score of a 6 to 6.5.
You have to use.
You have to learn how to use language.
Language that builds cohesion.
And a lot of times that's done with reference pronouns and other types of language that makes the cohesion
to be seamless.
We've talked about segregating your paragraphs properly.
We're going to go over that.
And then you want to make sure that you're able to change word, form, paraphrase and use synonyms.
The more of that that you do, the better chance you have of moving from a seven to a nine.
In addition, you want to make sure that if you want to get a score of 7 to 9, that the majority of
your sentences are mistake free sentences.
This is a big, big mistake that I see in letters.
I've seen people write letters before.
And the organization is very well is very well done.
They have enough sentences in each paragraph.
They have great information.
But then they have a grammar or word mistake in in almost every sentence.
And when you do that, when you do that, it's very easy for an examiner to just put you in a six or
6.5 because you're not able to really write the majority of your sentences to be mistake free.
Um.
You want to make sure that you show grammatical range just because you.
Just because you write a letter.
Does not mean you're allowed to write just simple sentences.
They are grading you remember that?
They're grading you.
If just just think about it.
If you are able to write all simple sentences and use simple, basic vocabulary.
If that was good enough to get you a seven, eight or nine, there would be no difference.
We can't differentiate one student from the other student.
That's why there is a rubric.
And you want to make sure that when you're writing a letter, you have a very clear purpose and your
letter is fully developed and fully, fully developed.
It shouldn't be where the first discussion point is one sentence.
The second discussion point is three sentences.
And the third discussion point is one sentence.
That's not being fully developed.
Right.
And then when it talks about having clear purpose, they're talking about where the discussion point
is, the purpose of that paragraph clear.
Now when we're talking about the rubric, you have to be able to notice the differences, the differences
of what they're talking about.
A lot of students say, well, I'm stuck in a six.
Like, my coherence is a six, or my task achievement is a six.
And you have to be able to be able to know, what does that mean?
What does that mean?
So for example, we're TASC achievement.
Four six, Assayas presents a purpose that is generally clear.
There may be inconsistencies in tone.
Move up to a seven.
Presents a clear purpose.
Clear purpose, not generally clear a clear purpose.
With with the tone, consistent and appropriate.
Right.
So you have to be able when you're talking about differences in scores, you're talking about how well
you do something according to the rubric.
How will you do something according to the rubric?
And then it's the same thing in terms of looking at coherence.
We're looking at the same thing.
There are differences between six, 7/8 and nines.
The examiners have a chart like this.
And in fact, the examiner chart has more detail.
This is the public chart that they give you.
The examiner's chart has even more detail to help them put you into different categories.
We could see the same thing when it comes to lexical resource and grammar.
If you are using simple sentences and complex sentences and making some mistakes, that's what gets
you down into a sixth for your grammar.
If you're using a variety of sentences and frequent error free sentences, that moves you up to a seven.
Now we're talking talking about eight.
It means the majority of your sentences are error free.
Examiners love error free sentences.
Examiners love seeing a range of vocabulary.
So it's important to understand how do you move up in the in the rubric.