STARTING TO WRITE ENGLISH WITH NO MISTAKES: Presentation video

How to write correct English

Presentation video
Hello. Welcome.

This course is called How to write correct English, and in it Im going to show you how
to write correct English. How to write English that you know is correct.

This is a course for Intermediate level students of English. It is a course for students
who are at about B1 level of the Common European Framework and who want to write at
level B2 and above. There is a big difference between writing at level B1 and writing at
level B2. Basically, and Im not simplifying much, at level B1 you are allowed to
make some mistakes. But at level B2, if you have time to plan and the time to check
what you write, you hardly make any mistakes. At level B2 the Common European
Framework talks of good grammatical control and suggests that errors are rare.
What does that mean? Well, it means that at level B2 you should try to make sure that
there are no mistakes in your writing; it means, for example, that if you write january with
a small j instead of January with a capital J, or if you write He walk in the park every day
instead of He walks in the park every day, then you are in trouble. And at levels C1 and
C2 standards are even higher of course.

If you are a student preparing for an exam, this course will help you eliminate mistakes. If

you have a job in which you need to write in correct English, this course will help
you.

The good news is that this course may help you a lot. The bad news is that you will
have to work very hard I cant learn English for you. If you are hungry and I eat,
then you are still hungry; I cant eat for you. And I cant learn English for you.

Take a moment and ask yourself: how many of your essays have been thoroughly corrected
by a teacher? How many essays have you written and given to a teacher and the teacher
has spent 15 minutes carefully detecting and correcting all your mistakes? Teachers work
long hours. If they have 30 students in a class, and it takes 15 minutes to read an essay,
find all the mistakes and make the corrections, then that is seven and a half hours of
extra work for the teacher. So not surprisingly there is a tendency for teachers not to ask
their students to write essays. Thats a pity because writing and then seeing all the
mistakes you make and how to correct them is a very, very, very good way of learning
English. Mistakes are learning opportunities. You probably should be writing two essays
a week and learning from all the mistakes. In this course you will take advantage of
those learning opportunities. You wont depend on a teacher. You will depend on
yourself. So you can write as much as you like. And I hope to show you that the best

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 STARTING TO WRITE ENGLISH WITH NO MISTAKES: Presentation video

correction is self-correction.

I will help you. Your course companions will help you. But you will have to do the
work. And you will probably have to work in new ways. This course is not more of the
same. It is very different and it has an unusual methodology I will be showing you
some exciting tools and innovative methods that I hope will help you a lot

In fact Im going to make a number of suggestions and give you a number of ideas. Youll
probably find some more attractive than others you may like some and not others. Thats
fine. If theres just one useful idea that really helps you, then the course has been useful.
If theres nothing for you, then Im sorry its the best I have.

As you can see, Im going to speak in English. The transcripts of all these mini-lectures
are available all in one document.

And dont be pessimistic: maybe you dont feel you can write English with no mistakes
but I feel you can!

So why do mistakes matter?

Years ago when I started teaching English, I saw some graffiti on the classroom wall. It
said, Little mistak is not mistak!

Hmmm well, I understand the feeling but the thing is mistakes are mistakes. Imagine
if you write:

I saw Mary in several occasions.

Can you see the mistake? Hmm It should be:

I saw Mary on several occasions.

Now, it seems only a little mistake, doesnt it? One little word one little letter
And the meaning is clear And after all, language is about communication so if the
meaning is clear, then whats the problem?

Well, the problem is that mistakes draw attention to themselves. Mistakes distract the
reader from your message. If I am reading your essay and I come to the sentence

I saw Mary in several occasions.

then I stop thinking about your message the information about seeing Mary that you
want to communicate and I start thinking about your use of prepositions. I think,
Hey, wait a minute thats wrong Its not in several occasions, its on several
occasions. Yes, its on not in I wonder why we say on not in there ? And as you
can see, Ive stopped thinking about your message and Ive started thinking about your
mistake. Im not thinking about you seeing Mary; Im thinking about prepositions. So

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 STARTING TO WRITE ENGLISH WITH NO MISTAKES: Presentation video

communication suffers.

OK, at lower levels little mistakes are permissible but at Upper Intermediate and
Advanced levels, at levels B2, C1 and C2 no. No.

And examiners love it when you make mistakes. They love it. Ah hah, got you! Why do
examiners love it when you make mistakes? Well, it makes their lives much easier. They
have dozens, scores, hundreds of exams to mark They want to decide quickly what
mark to give And mistakes make the job easy. Mistakes are easy to find they draw
attention to themselves and they are objective. A mistake is a mistake is a mistake. If
you make mistakes and the examiner fails you and you complain, you dont really have a
leg to stand on.

So why do mistakes matter? Because they interrupt communication and because they
cause you to fail exams.

And there are other reasons for avoiding mistakes. Good reasons. A lot of people simply
like to do things properly After all, if a jobs worth doing, its worth doing well

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