我和一个美国朋友聊“迷你写作训练营”
Recently I caught up with an American friend, an ESL teacher. When he asked me about the Mini Writing Progam I direct, I gave him a detailed account of what it is, how it works, and why I elect to take this particular approach. Below is an even more detailed version, which I hope you will enjoy. This is the first time that I have put my thinking on the subject in English.
The Mini Writing Program is intended for intermediate English learners to improve their writing through imitating sentence patterns (SP) and learning from feedback.
Every month I curate eight SPs from English nonfiction and leading newspapers such as The Economist and The Guardian. Then I write a commentary on each, in which I would provide the context for a chosen SP, give a translated version, and explain language points that are essential to understanding.
More importantly, I write in plain and largely jargon-free language about how and why an SP is worthwhile, when and how it can be used, possible caveats when using it (e.g. grammatical pitfalls), before rounding off with a couple of sentence examples I write.
Members are encouraged to read and learn the commentaries by themselves and write one sentence using the taught SP. Then comes a highlight of this course: copious and timely feedback. Although not every assignment is guaranteed individual feedback, there is an hour-long recorded feedback session twice per week.
Feedback matters
First, I reiterate the key points in the commentary, with a focus on how I write sentence examples (how a writing topic comes to me; how I write and rewrite a sentence; what linguistic, syntactic, and stylistic factors I take into consideration; what dictionaries and tools I use and how I use them; what writing habits I adopt; what takeaways can be extracted for members).
Second, I pick and comment on several best-written sentences from the assignment pool (what makes these sentences stand out; how they can be further improved; what everyone can learn from them).
Third, I would analyze the commonly-made mistakes (or bugs, which I personally prefer): why they occur (are they avoidable or blind spots?); what they reveal about a writer's knowledge of English or learning/writing habits; how to deal with them.
Fourth, and the biggest highlight: rewriting. I would pick a few sentences written by members and rewrite them, walking them through what goes wrong, and how to rethink and rewrite them.
The idea of the Mini Writing approach is that writing can be learned by imitation. This is true for everyone but particularly true for non-native speakers, who lack the range and intensity of linguistic exposure available to native speakers. The shortcut, if there is one, is to imitate the oft-used, idiomatic, plain SPs, not to reinvent the wheel or rely on whimsical impulses. This is how we acquire our mother tongue subconsciously; it works too in second language acquisition.
This course is deliberately SP-centric. Intermediate learners struggle when they speak or write not because they lack the basic vocabulary, but rather they have difficulty stringing together words and phrases using idiomatic and appropriate sentence patterns, the kind of linguistic chunks or models natural to native speakers.
Here is one example. To native ears, the quoted sentence is a no-brainer. For most Chinese English learners, however, even though they perfectly understand it, they somehow cannot use it. Therefore, by emulating or deliberate practice, they can solve the somehow puzzle and internalize not merely vocabulary, but SPs—the powerful structures that are central to high-quality output.
In sum, members in the Mini Writing Program will master how to emulate SPs, build a solid language foundation, cultivate good writing habits, and are able to produce grammatically correct and stylistically elegant sentences. Most importantly, perhaps, they will become confident writers and foster a life-long love of the English language.
P.S. Any questions about the Mini Writing Program? Just ask.
孟庆伟 Justin
个人微信 ID：justinqmeng
现象级英语联合创始人
雅思写作 8 分，口语 8 分
题图：M coffee
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