Essay writing for leanning english

English for Academic
Purposes Lesson Plans

Essay writing

LEVEL

Preparation

In academic writing, you will often have to write a discursive essay. This type of essay presents a balance of
views, both for and against an argument. It is therefore important that your writing is well structured and uses
appropriate language. This sample essay about the value of lectures in higher education shows you how to plan
and write a discursive essay.
Task
‘The traditional lecture is neither appropriate nor effective as a medium of instruction in today’s tertiary educational
environment.’ Discuss.
Write a discursive essay of about 750 words. Do not change the essay title in any way. Aim to make your essay
interesting and original.
Sample Answer
With the growing importance of tertiary education worldwide, it is legitimate to
focus on the quality and effectiveness of the industry. I take ‘tertiary’ to mean
all forms of adult education; that is colleges, polytechnics and universities but not
high schools. A major method of teaching in such establishments remains the
lecture. For centuries lectures have been offered as the main way of getting
knowledge across to a large number of people. What I understand by the
traditional lecture is a teaching and learning experience led by an experienced
lecturer during which the lecturer does the talking while the students listen and
take notes. It is different from a discussion, seminar or tutorial: these tend to
take place with fewer students and are more interactive. This leads us to ask
about the effectiveness of lectures today, even to ask whether they are
appropriate. This essay aims to discuss these issues, offering first reasons

against, followed by support for the lecture; a particular area of focus is the role
of the participants. Finally, I offer an evaluation of the main arguments and give
my own opinion.

2. Obesity in western children Vocabulary Activity (British
English ID: MVA006288, American English ID: MVA014068).

Today’s students are familiar with multimedia and interactive resources. From
computer games to internet forums, students today expect communication to be
both fast and interactive. Lectures, they may feel, are neither fast nor
interactive, but slow and passive. Typically the lecturer speaks fairly slowly and
clearly, the visuals (if there are any) are not very exciting, and the students are
not expected to speak or interrupt. Lectures are long, ranging from one to three
hours without a break. Seats are frequently uncomfortable. For these reasons
many would argue that the lecture is past its sell-by date and needs to move into
the 21st century. Podcasts, for example, can be developed to meet a wide range of
up-to-date needs. With today’s technologies, such as virtual discussion rooms
between students on a given course, podcasts can be used together with
interactive responses from students via their chat room.

• The first resource Do lectures work?: planning a discursive
essay can be found in Unit 3, Syllabus Item ‘Get
© Macmillan Publishers 2008.
organised!’ of the Advanced English for Academic
Purposes (EAP) course.
• The second resource Obesity in western children can be
found in Unit 9, Syllabus Item ‘Do it right!’ of the English
for Academic Purposes (EAP) course.
• You can search for the resource by typing the ID into the
Word & Phrase Search.

• You can check the resource ID by hovering over the resource
title with your mouse.

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Macmillan English Campus awareness

• You: Remind yourself of the logging on procedures.
Remember your password. If your learners want you to, keep
a note of their passwords.
• Your learners: Check your learners know how to complete
drop-down gap-fill activities on the English Campus. During
these activities, you will probably want to encourage learners
to add items to their Word Lists, so you may also want to do
some revision on this.
• You and your learners should remember that English
Campus Sample Essays will open in a new window and can
be printed out if necessary.

1.Lead in 1

(In pairs or groups and using the IWB/Data projector in class)
• Introduce the topic of lectures at university by asking the
whole class if anyone can tell you what a lecture is. Put the
definitions on the board. Ask the class what they think about
lectures, for example: enjoyable, boring, interesting, etc. If
you have a talkative class you can put learners in groups so
they can share their experiences of lectures.
• Explain to the class that they are going to read an essay

about lectures, but first they are going to think about some
positive things and some negative things about lectures.
• Group learners in fours and ask them to choose a secretary
who copies down the following table from the board:
Good things about lectures Bad things about lectures

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Sample Essay

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1. Do lectures work?: planning a discursive essay Sample
Essay (British English ID: MSE006275, American English ID:
MSE014055)

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RESOURCE TITLE

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To give learners practice in planning and structuring an
academic essay and in using an academic style register in
academic writing.

• To run this lesson you will ideally be in a computer lab with
use of a data projector or interactive whiteboard (IWB).
However, the activities can easily be adapted for use in the
classroom with a projector or IWB, or for use in a computer
lab with no IWB.
• This lesson will use two English Campus EAP exercises
to give your learners practice in essay writing. In the first
exercise learners will discuss and plan an academic essay
and look at an example essay, in the second exercise
learners will work with a text to make decisions about
academic style and register.
• Print out enough copies of the sample essay from Do
lectures work?: planning a discursive essay for learners to
have one copy between two learners. Cut each essay into
five parts, one paragraph in each part. Put the paragraphs
together in envelopes or with paper clips, making sure they
are mixed up.
• If you decide to use the Sample essay analysis worksheet
at the end of this worksheet, print one for each learner and
prepare the answer worksheet to show on the data projector
or interactive whiteboard.

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AIM

CA

Level 6 (Advanced)


English for Academic
Purposes Lesson Plans

Essay writing

• Learners discuss these ideas and the secretary notes down
ideas in the appropriate column.
• When the learners have finished the secretaries write up
their notes on the board so everyone can see each other’s
ideas. Clarify unclear points and help with new vocabulary
and phrases.

Sample essay analysis worksheet - answers

1. Learners move to individual workstations to have their
own sample essay on screen in front of them. Their task
is to analyse the essay using the sample essay analysis
worksheet (on the next page of this lesson plan), which
you can either give them, or put up on the IWB or data
projector.
2. Learners stay at their tables and analyse the printed
sample essay they already have.
• Help them to understand what is required by starting to fill in
the first box as a class.

Sample essay analysis worksheet
Paragraph 1
Function and content of paragraph:
Useful phrases:
Paragraph 2
Function and content of paragraph:
Useful phrases:
Paragraph 3
Function and content of paragraph:
Useful phrases:
Paragraph 4
Function and content of paragraph:
Useful phrases:
Paragraph 5
Function and content of paragraph:

Useful phrases:
I take … to mean…
What I understand by … is…
This leads us to ask about…
This essay aims to discuss … offering first reasons against,
followed by…
Finally, I offer…
Paragraph 2
Function and content of paragraph: Argument in favour of
the proposition -discusses the disadvantages of lectures
Useful phrases:
For these reasons many would argue that…
Paragraph 3
Function and content of paragraph:

Arguments against the proposition – giving the other view
point in favour of lectures
Useful phrases:
While…(negative point)…, it is worth noting several points in
its favour.
First,… Second,…
Paragraph 4
Function and content of paragraph:
The writer puts forward his own argument, takes a stance
Useful phrases:
As I have shown …
Provided … there need be no room for criticism.
A more logical solution would be to …
Paragraph 5
Function and content of paragraph:
The conclusion, writer sums up arguments, offers some
thoughts for the future
Useful phrases:
To sum up, …
I would argue that…
I have seen many examples of…
• When learners have completed the analysis put up the
answer sheet on the IWB or data projector and go through
each paragraph in turn discussing it.

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Useful phrases:

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(In pairs or groups and optionally using individual workstations)
• Put the learners into pairs and hand out the mixed up
paragraphs of the sample essay. Learners read them
carefully and put the essay into the correct order.
• When they have finished ask one learner from each pair
to stand up and move next to someone else to check their
essay. In this way learners will check the order of their essays
with other pairs. At this stage you have two possibilities:

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2.Macmillan English Campus activity 1

Paragraph 1
Function and content of paragraph:
Introduction to essay
Introduces the topic, defines terms ‘tertiary’ and ‘lecture’,
includes thesis statement ‘this leads us to ask about the
effectiveness of lectures today’.


English for Academic
Purposes Lesson Plans

Essay writing

3.Lead in 2

(In pairs or groups)
• Explain to the learners that academic writing uses the correct
academic style and register. Look back at the sample essay
and give them examples of academic register such as ‘This
essay aims to discuss...’
• Point out that if learners were using informal language they
might say something like ‘I’m going to talk about…’ instead.
• Look back at other useful phrases they noted down and
discuss what informal equivalents there might be. Explain
that the next exercise is going to give them practice in using
this academic style.

4.Macmillan English Campus activity 2

(Using individual workstations)
• Ask learners to open the exercise Obesity in western
children. You can have them work in pairs or individually at
their workstations.
• They choose the most appropriate phrase to complete
the sentences.

5. Further practice or homework

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• For homework learners must write a discursive academic
essay on a question which you set them. They should use a
similar structure and register to what they have practised in
class.
• The essay could be based on a title in another English
Campus EAP Sample Essay. To find these, type EAP into
the Word & Phrase search and filter the results by Content
Type: Sample Essay.