Foundations: Writng Skills 1, Elementary Level

FOUNDATIONS WRITING SKILLS is a two-level, self-contained course in writing English aimed at elementary and intermediate level Arab students. The course guides students step-by-step towards writing simple and accurate paragraphs, paying close attention to sentence structure, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics, guided paragraph writing and the process of writing.

Continuous graded practice is provided through a variety of exercise types such as reading comprehension, gap-fill, table completion, the correction of passages and the writing of sentences and paragraphs using pictures and tabular information. All exercises are based on realistic topics and content and language functions, useful in real life situations. Places from various Arab countries are commonly mentioned, but the locale should be unimportant for the comprehension of the model compositions, and students will substitute their own environments in their writing.

The book is divided into ten units. Each unit is subdivided into six sections: model composition, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics, sentence-joining, guided paragraphs, and the process of writing.

All model compositions focus on certain purposes for writing, such as narrating and describing, and certain means of organizing ideas such as chronological and spatial ordering. The assumptions here are that even on an elementary level there is more to composing than mere sentence-level exercises and that English learners can understand and use sophisticated principles and techniques of English compositions writing without waiting until they are more fully fluent in English