


Genre-based approach to enhancing secondary students' English writing ability in science subjects
Materials
Week 1: What is scientific research?
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Consider what “scientific research” means, by exploring some key words and ideas
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Introduce the concept of ‘scientific method’ and considers the different steps in doing scientific research
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Consider how scientific English texts vary according to who is writing them, who is reading them, and what their purposes are
Week 2 & 3: Getting started
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Explore a topic by answering some questions
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Be guided through the steps you should take to start doing the research.
Week 4: Reporting research
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look at what sections reports usually contain, in what sequence (order) the sections occur and some of the language you might find in different sections
Week 5: Exploring introductions
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Explore the introduction sections of two reports written by students in Hong Kong
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Identify six elements which often occur in such introductions
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Explore some features of vocabulary and grammar typically used in introductions
Week 6: Drafting your introduction
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Put into a logical order notes from one of the introductions and then to re-write part of or the whole of the introduction from the notes
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Re-write from notes the part of the second introduction that reports previous research
Week 7: Explaining how the research was carried out
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Examine a sample of the method section from reports written by students
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Write a methods section based upon a set of instructions for carrying out a research project
Week 8: Drafting your methods section
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Write the first draft of your method section
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Share your draft with your classmates and get comments from them
Week 9: Presenting and describing results
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look at ways of displaying and describing results using two different kinds of formats
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Practice describing some results yourself
Week 10: Drafting your results section
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Write the first draft of your result section
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Share your draft with your classmates and get comments from them
Week 11: Discussions and conclusions
Week 12: Preparing the whole report
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Write the first draft of your discussion and conclusion sections
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Share your draft with your classmates and get comments from them