What I read
Although I've read a few things in preparation for it, this post has a different purpose. I want to welcome you to your EAP class on Saturday mornings.
So, welcome.
So, welcome.
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My response
Thank you for joining our Saturday class in Reading and Writing for academic purposes. I hope you find the next six weeks useful, productive, also challenging, and perhaps even fun.
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Bixby and Scanlon's questions
As you will see in our book, online discussion makes an appearance early on in Unit 1 (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013, p. 9) and there is a more extensive coverage of this common part of modern university courses on page 66, so I do have a question. Also, in her foreword to students on page 4 (or perhaps page 6 if you have a later print than mine), the series editor, Dorothy E. Zemach, gives some strategies for successful learning, one of which is to "be an independent learner" (in Bixby & Scanlon, 2013). This class blog is one way for us to do this. As Zemach suggests in her comment, it is one way for you to "find and then share information about ... different topics." Some of the topics you will write about here are the unit topics, but I also Zemach's suggestion that "reading for pleasure and using the Internet in English" are important, so your writing here will not be limited to the topics of the units that we study over the next six weeks.
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At the end of the page, they ask us to discuss two different questions:
One more useful tip: When you respond, write as though your readers have not seen the questions you are responding to. This strengthens your writing by making it an coherent, independent piece of work.
- Why are academic writing skills important for an online discussion board (such as our class blog)?
- How do you think an online discussion board might improve your learning in a course?
One more useful tip: When you respond, write as though your readers have not seen the questions you are responding to. This strengthens your writing by making it an coherent, independent piece of work.
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Reference
- Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing, Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
I'm one of the people who preferred online discussions, although I also think traditional discussions are very useful, and as I've said, we will do both in this class.
ReplyDeleteI like online discussions because, as you will see later, it can lead to more ideas if everyone writes their response independently before we go into oral discussion. But it isn't just that online discussion produces a greater range of ideas, they are also often better. I think this is because when we write, we have a bit more time to think our ideas through, even when writing quickly. Also, when we are writing, we can look back at what we have already written, and perhaps revise it to make the idea stronger, also adding more support than is possible in verbal communication. When speak, once the words have been said, they are gone, unlike written words that remain to be reviewed and revised.
Why are academic writing skills important? I started hinting at this above where I talked about reviewing and revising our ideas in ways that cannot be so easily done in a spoken discussion, but academic skills are also important because they also focus on clearly and precisely expressing our ideas, which is always important in an academic context.
Since online discussion board is not an casual space for people who want to chit-chatting, students need to write in formal style and essential to use grammatically correct sentences. By practicing on the discussion board, student will actually write down their own opinion and improve their writing skills.
ReplyDelete1. I think academic writing skills are important for an online discussion board because firstly , you have to write before posting on an online discussion board. Secondly , your post will be seen by everyone in an online discussion board so if you make a mistake , everybody will see it.
ReplyDelete2.An online discussion board can help you to improve your writing and reading skills such as writing comments , comments , replying comments etc. In addition , you can help each other to improve an English skills too.
Academic writing skills are important for an online discussion board because basically when we post or share something like opinion, we may refer to the sources to support our answers. This is very helpful for others to read or acquire some information.
ReplyDeleteI think that online discussion board can help me improve my learning. Especially, I and other classmates can share our opinions, and these response may lead us to further information which we have not yet know about it. Moreover, nowadays, we can access internet everywhere and every time, so it is easy to join the board
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ReplyDeleteI think an academic writing skills important for an online discussion because it useful to write correctly and more formal.It's like a guide line how you create and support your ideas.
DeleteAnd the online discussion board might improve my learning because nowadays we can use internet everytime in our smart device and we can make an online discussion borad to exchange ideas and find the most strongly ideas that answer the topic of discussion.And you'll get more ideas, information and experience with each other to improve your skills.
Answer no.1 I think academic writing skills important for online discussion board because people in the classroom include a teacher can see what I post, so I have to think carefully before I submit my post.
ReplyDeleteAnswer no.2 I think online discussion board can improve my writing skill because I can share my comment to people in this board and I also learning how to write good and correct sentence.
If you chat privately with your friend, you can use slang or the shorten word. For the public online board, you need to show your opinion by using the formal language because other people who are not your friends do not familiar with your personal character.
ReplyDeleteUsing online discussion board may help many students in learning English. When they write their comments on the board, they are practicing their writing skill.
In my opinion, the academic writing skills important for an online discussion board because every time you use the online discussion board, you need to write it down. The academic writing skill would help to make the discussion more trustworthy. Moreover, when you just write something down without any outline or any main topic, it is very easy to confuse the topic.
ReplyDeleteThe online discussion board will improve my learning in a course every time we write something related to a topic. We can practice from there. Moreover, we can read the other writing and learn from it.
I prefer online discussion because I have used an online discussion board when I was university class. I feel it easy to share the information that we know or ask the question that you want to know more.
ReplyDeleteThey can know style of your writing. They can know references or sources of the text . If We write essay a lot , we will improve writing skill.