At REM+ Tuition, the focus of our English tutors is to help year 10 students to develop a range of key skills that enhance their ability to read, write and engage with texts of all types. There is an emphasis on ensuring that they are prepared for the challenges of year 11 and year 12 English and Literary Studies courses at both SACE and IB.
Each English tuition session will generally provide students with an opportunity to read a text, discuss it with their English tutor and other students, and then respond to that text in a variety of different writing styles.
The overall aim of what we do in our English tuition programme is to give students the tools they need to approach essential tasks, such as critical reading and text production, with greater confidence. The key areas of focus are text analysis, text production and grammar & language.
Analysing Texts
The aim is for students to engage with and analyse texts of all types, including fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose. They have opportunities to read and talk about a variety of text types, and then write about these texts in many different ways.
Examples of tasks
- Students learn how to express their opinions about a text and how to write about their preferences in an organised and informed way.
- The ability to summarise a text is an important one, and students learn how to write summaries of both fiction and non-fiction texts, with an emphasis on how to structure and organise this type of written response.
- When reading any type of text, we focus on structure and how writers create these texts in terms of organisation, literary techniques, language choices, etc., as well as how the structure of a text is a manifestation of its meaning.
- One of the key skills students need to develop is the ability to compare texts and write about their similarities and differences. In our English tuition classes, we compare and contrast a variety of both fiction and non-fiction texts and learn how to organise written responses.
- When reading fiction texts, being able to understand, analyse and write about characters is an important skill. We look at the different ways in which writers create characters, and how to write about characters effectively.
Text Production
In year 10 English, students are called upon to produce a variety of text types and so it is important that they have an understanding of how different types of texts are created. Our English tutors provide students with the opportunity to write in a variety of ways and to practise different writing styles in order to produce texts for a range of purposes.
Examples of tasks
- Students are shown how to write effective reviews of texts from a variety of genres. This includes reviews of short texts and films from a literary standpoint, as well as ‘real world’ reviews e.g., writing reviews of retailers, restaurants, etc.
- We also learn about how to write practical non-fiction texts, with a focus on organisation, clarity and structure. The tasks might include writing a guide to a favourite city or place, or an instruction text on how to use a mobile phone, etc.
- In English tuition classes, students have the opportunity to produce fiction texts in a wide variety of styles e.g., thriller, romance, comedy, etc. The focus is always on using an understanding of structure and literary techniques to inform students’ writing, and incorporating what they have learnt from analysing other writers’ texts into their own work.
Grammar and Language
When analysing any type of text, our English tutors place a strong emphasis on looking at the grammar and the language used, examining the ways in which a writer’s word choices and the structure of their writing is part of the way meaning is conveyed in a text. Students are then given opportunities to incorporate this understanding into their own writing.
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