How to enhance English writing and
presentation skills in History
WaYing College
History Panel Head
Miss Yeung Sau-fung
20 June 2014
CDI020140497
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Think-and-Pair
Do junior and senior form students share similar concerns / face
similar difficulties when they study History in English?
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Students are …
 Unable to grasp the requirements of key
question words – especially in essay-type
questions
 Unable to study political cartoons / numerical
interpretation / written sources
 Unable to express their answer precisely
 Unable to understand the content of textbooks
3
Is students’ written
English really important?
DSE Marking
Guidelines – marks for
language?
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Objectives
 To introduce the development of our school
policy on enhancing English writing and
presentation skills in History
 To share teaching strategies on enhancing
students’ reading skills in junior forms
 To introduce how to develop writing and
assessment teaching packages in History (DSE)
 To share current challenges and future
development
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Knowing my school
 Located in Kowloon City
 EMI
 F.1 to F.3 History -- individual subject (2 lessons per week)
 F.4 to F.6 History is offered as one of elective subjects
 Cross-classes: Including Science and Arts stream students
 About 40 students take History every year.
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A. The development of our school policy on
enhancing English writing and presentation
skills in History
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Development ….
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Early Stage
 For junior forms -- provide glossary lists and design
worksheets
 simplified sentences / point forms
fill in the blanks
 For senior forms – Collaborate with English teachers – Read
English magazines or extracted some articles from various
sources
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Turning point
 Supported by School-based Language Support Team
 Focussed on developing students’ reading skills in junior
forms
 Results:
 A good start of collaboration among different subjects in
teaching and learning
 Develop students’ learning habit – transfer knowledge and skills
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Reinforcement
 Developed 7 – 8 writing and assessment teaching packages
 Target group: DSE students
 Objectives:
 Enhance students’ performance in DSE
 Enhance students’ writing skills
 Address diversified learner needs in class
 Opportunities:
 Employ external professional manpower
 Release some manpower in school to develop teaching packages to
strengthen students’ English writing ability
 Results:
 Effective
 Further strengthening collaboration among different subjects
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B. Teaching strategies on enhancing
students reading skills in junior forms
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3-year program design
Pre-reading
Whilereading
Vocabulary
Building
Postreading
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F1
(06-07)
F2
(07-08)
F3
(08-09)
Predicting
KWL
Anticipation
guide
Questioning
Double entry
journal
INSERT
Clarifying
Spell Say
Define Draw
Word Map
Summarising
3.2.1.
Strategy
Summary
frame
How it works
Collaboration with other subject(s)
English
Department
Pre-reading
Anticipation guide
Subject
Department
While-reading
Reading
Passage
INSERT
Word Map
Post-reading
Summary frame
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Reading
Passage
2013-14 Reinforcement scheme
F.1 Survey
Topics / tasks I wish to cover in LAC English classes (Please
use back side if more space is needed.)
Unit
Topic/Task
History
IS
Focus areas/Difficulties to address
Vocabulary
Introducing science
Learn the basic scientific terms for future learning
Looking at living things
A lot of names of living organisms need to be learned.
Concept of classification is more important.
Cells & reproduction
Students might have difficulty in identifying all the
terms in reproduction.
May discuss later
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Contents…
Theme 1: Subject SpecificVocabulary – History
• Word families – key words in history subject and their parts
of speech
Theme 2 : Subject Specific Sentence Building – History
• Short reading exercises
• Group discussion to identify specific sentence patterns in
reading
Theme 3: Subject Specific Forms of Expression – History
• Specific examples of language forms and functions used in
history
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C. Develop writing and assessment
teaching packages in History (DSE)
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Collaborate with English Department
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Identify the major learning focuses in
DSE History
 Language skills in handling generic skills, like graphical
interpretation & presentation in DBQ, critical thinking,
numeracy skills & problem-solving skills.
 Students were weak at graphical interpretation & presentation, like
bar charts
 Students were weak at handling questions demanding high level
thinking, such as to ‘discuss’, to ‘comment’ & to ‘evaluate’.
 Students were strong in making descriptions & explanations.
 Assessment of organization & development of ideas of essay-
type question
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Teaching packages include…
 Public exam papers – Marking Guidelines
 Worksheets (Student version & teacher version)
 Samples (at least 2 levels, the first level aim at average students;
the second level aim at the high achievers)
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Language input
 Adjectives
 Comparative language
 Connectives – to make students’ presentation more precisely
and concisely
 Knowing how to develop an argument
 Cite proper evidence
 Explanation
 Summarize topic sentence and conclusion
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Language input
 Adjectives – for cartoonist’s “view”
 Vocabularies and phrases
 Connectives
 How to develop an argument (e.g. citing the relevant clues to
elaborate argument, proper use of connectives etc.)
Exam skills training
 Skills on studying political cartoons
 How to develop counter-balance answer
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D. Current challenges and future
development
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Build on the prerequisites …
 Trust among the two subject teachers
 Spend time on meetings.
 Nurture a habit of peer class observations in
school.
 Release the workload of teachers’ involved.
 Principal orVice-principal is the supervisor of
the program
 Sustainability – embedded into history teaching
curriculum
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