TSA寫作技巧系列: 唔好剩係寫prompts, 要elaborate

最近都在研究TSA.TSA中三的英文作文其實係一個幾好的練習.

2008年那年有條題目是這樣的：

"Last week, you went on a three-day trip. You promised your teacher you would write a short article for the school magazine.

To help you write your article, you can use the following pictures. They show what you saw and did during the trip. Describe what happened in about 150 words. "

題目附有５張圖畫和有些提示字(prompts)。包括:putting up a tent, canoeing, mountain climbing/hiking, group games, campfire-singing/telling stories。

大部份學生的問題都是這些：

1. 只懂base on prompts,無elaboration, 無details. 可能因為無ideas,或者無生字(limited range of vocabulary).
2. 句子結構少變化 (simple language patterns).
3. 錯grammar,例如tense錯.
4.唔夠連貫(lack coherence),原因可能係缺乏transition words.

以下是兩個犯了以下毛病的samples(在TSA的網頁可找到):
1.

2.

那麼好的作品呢? 好的作品, 作者會加自己的elaboration. 我underline那些就是作者自己加的details. 他/她不單止加上圖畫以外的節目,例如eat breakfast, sleep,還有佢自己的感想(different feeling):

"When we arrived at the place where we would have our camping, we first put up a tent. Five of our group put up the tent. We spent a lot of time since we often failed to put it up. After some time, we finally put up the tent.

Then it was time for our to prepare our dinner. We put on fire and cooked some canned food. After dinner, we had group games. All of us felt very happy. Although I had played these games many times, I had a different feeling when playing in that atmosphere. It seemed happier than I had played before. After these games, many of us became friends. 

Since we did a lot of things in the afternoon, we had been very tired. We all fell asleep quickly.

After we had our breakfast with sausages and eggs, we had an exciting activity-canoeing. I had never been canoeing before. It seemed very interesting to me. This activity was full of excitement. I really enjoyed it. 

We had campfire after the delicious dinner. Some of us had a beautiful voice, so we invited them to sing for us. Their voice was just amazing. I was good at telling stories, so I told them a ghost story. All of them seemed to be quite afraid! Some people danced and some told jokes. This was just like a talent show. 

The next day was also the last day. We talked about our feeling during these days. I thought this trip was memorable and precious. "