dhugal tp 12

Yesterday evening I met up with Hamad again for a tutoring session. As mentioned in the previous tutoring session blog with Hamad, he has the IELTS test coming up, so more writing practice was in store for our session. Last time we went over some adjective connectors such as however, furthermore, etc., so we segued onto transition words to start new paragraphs, some of which are connectors themselves. 

It is important to be aware of the subtle meaning of transition and connector words, which may be unconsciously understood by native speakers but escape the learner. Some imply agreement or equality, such as: together with, similarly, by the same token, correspondingly, and additionally. Some transition words point out causes and conditions, such as: with this in mind, in the event that, provided that, and since. There are many different implications that can be presented with transition words that can advance the progression of an argument within a paper. I couldn’t find any other way other than to introduce a few of each meaning to Hamad and provide examples, then have him give me examples. This is pretty slow going but Hamad is very bright and caught on to every example.

I suggested to Hamad that between now and his test that he read essays online or find a book from the library and just read; I actually had a book I bought a few years ago called ‘America’s Best Essays’, so I lent it to him to have a look at. I hope these tools will help him on his writing test.