Corporación Universitaria del Caribe “CECAR”

Bachelor in Education
Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Subject: Writing Strategies in English
Writing a sentence and a paragraph
In this section you are going to plan, write, revise and edit descriptive paragraphs on the
following Topic: 

¬ Describe two things that improved the teaching

practice ¬
Writing Descriptive Paragraphs

1. Brainstorming: Think of the teaching practice, you know well that is better to do a class

now than it used to be. How was the teaching practice in the past? How is it nowadays?
Think about strategies, methods, resources, role as a teacher, etc.

Complete the Image with words related to teaching practice:

Write here!!!

Education over the years has evolved and had important changes, which some
consider for the better and others not so much, but what is important to highlight is
that there are two main factors that have revolutionized the way we understood
then and now the classes: the methodology of learning and new technologies.

In the past, teaching relied heavily on theory and little on practice. The way of
learning was based on repetition. To study, the student mentally repeated the
lesson, memorized it, and with that he already took a topic or lesson for learned. It
was about “capturing” data, but without necessarily understanding or internalizing
it, now education is more participatory and teaching is more advanced and practical,
where teacher and student are two actors who are at the same level.

Author: Diana Margarita Araque

Adapted by: Rubén Mauricio Muñoz – Elsy Marina Cantor
 Corporación Universitaria del Caribe “CECAR”
Bachelor in Education
Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Subject: Writing Strategies in English
Writing a sentence and a paragraph

Complete the Chart with your ideas: 

City:
In the past:
Many things of the cultural
heritage were conserved, they
had their own culture and
customs, in the past the essence
of each one was reflected much
more
Today:
The vast majority of cities in the
world today have a technological
advance that grows more and
more every day, this means that
there is a great variety of cultures
and that cities are becoming
tourist sites where it is common to
visit them and bring beautiful
memories.

2. Applying: Write about past conditions in the teaching practice you thought about in your
brainstorming notes. Write the affirmative sentences and two negative sentences. Use simple
past and used to.

Affirmative:

1.
2.
3.

Negative:

1.
2.

3. Planning: Follow the steps to make notes for your paragraphs

Step 1. Write a name of your teaching practice you are going to discuss in the chart below.
Look at your brainstorming notes (image and chart) and choose the most important things that
make this topic a better way to do today. Write these two things in the outline.

Step 2. Complete the thesis statement in the outline

Step 3. Write topic sentences for each of your body paragraphs. In your topic sentences, use
the key words in the reasons that you circled in your thesis statement.

Step 4. Now write two (or more) examples or details for the supporting ideas in each body
paragraph.

Author: Diana Margarita Araque

Adapted by: Rubén Mauricio Muñoz – Elsy Marina Cantor
 Corporación Universitaria del Caribe “CECAR”
Bachelor in Education
Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Subject: Writing Strategies in English
Writing a sentence and a paragraph
Step 5. Think of some general information about your teaching practice where is explained?
How much aspects are in the education and the pedagogy topic? What do most people know
about there? Include this information in the paragraphs to support your ideas.

4. Make a Draft: Complete the following chart with your ideas from the previous steps.

City:

Two things that make it a better teaching practice today:

1.
2.

Thesis statement: The quality of teaching practice _______________ is better today than it
was in the past because __________and___________.

Body paragraph 1: Topic sentence: _________________ is one thing that has improved
teaching practice in____________.

Supporting idea 1:

Supporting idea 2:

Supporting idea 3:

Body paragraph 2: Topic sentence: _________________ has also improved teaching practice
in____________.

Supporting idea 1:

Supporting idea 2:

Supporting idea 3:

Ideas for introduction:

5. Writing and revising: Use the previous draft to answer in the following chart the given
questions, and then revise you writing using the editing checklist below.

Author: Diana Margarita Araque

Adapted by: Rubén Mauricio Muñoz – Elsy Marina Cantor
 Corporación Universitaria del Caribe “CECAR”
Bachelor in Education
Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Subject: Writing Strategies in English
Writing a sentence and a paragraph

Editing Checklist YES NO

Are all the words spelled correctly?
Is the first word of every sentence capitalized?
Does every sentence end with the correct
punctuation?
Do your subjects and verbs agree?
Did you use the simple past and used to correctly?
Are other verb tenses correct?

Author: Diana Margarita Araque

Adapted by: Rubén Mauricio Muñoz – Elsy Marina Cantor