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People often wonder whether the term “grammar”, when referring to English learning, includes punctuation or not. This article explains whether “punctuation” is a part of “grammar” or whether it is in its own category.

Is punctation part of grammar?

Grammar is the construction of sentences and paragraphs and how they form meaning. One aspect of grammar is “punctuation”, which relates to the symbols used to add meaning to sentences. Many grammatical rules cannot be followed without punctuation; therefore, it does form part of “grammar.”

The Cambridge Dictionary states that punctuation is “symbols used to separate phrases.” These symbols have many functions, including informing whether a sentence is a question or exclamation. They also inform when to pause and signal the end of a sentence.

Essentially “grammar” is the blueprint of the rules of the English language and how to put words together, and “punctuation” is one “branch” of these rules.

Some people argue that ”punctuation” is not part of “grammar” because “grammar” exists in spoken English, but punctuation doesn’t.

However, a person’s ability to speak well and without “grammatical” errors is intrinsically linked to a basic understanding and competence in written English’s grammatical rules, including punctuation.
In some grading systems and rubrics, “punctuation” is a separate category. However, errors in this section would directly affect the “grammar” section of the grading because the sentences would not be constructed correctly. For example, misusing commas and semi-colons would result in “run-sentences” or “sentence fragments”, which are classed as “grammatical errors.”

Furthermore, on the IELTS grading rubric for writing, “punctuation” forms part of “grammatical range” as well as “coherence and cohesion.” This rubric is relevant because to gain a high score on the “grammatical range” section; you need to use different punctuation like colons, semi-colons, and commas to show a “wide range of structures.”

The term “a wide range of structures” refers to “complex sentences” and “complex compound sentences”, which require commas and semi-colons to be correct.

What is grammar?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “grammar” is the “use of words and how they change form and combine with other words to make sentences.”

A fundamental aspect of how they combine with the other words is “punctuation” because it determines how the words in the middle of a sentence combine with a comma or how the final word in a sentence combines with the first word of a new sentence.

When grading “grammar” as an English teacher, there are essentially five main “branches” that are taken into consideration:

• verb tense
• determiners
• connectors
• punctuation
• word order

Some schools or organisations sometimes grade one or more of these categories individually, or “punctuation” is sometimes graded with “spelling.” However, It is the combination of these five areas which essentially determines a person’s “grammatical range.” 

What is punctuation?

The Cambridge Dictionary states that “punctuation” is a collection of symbols that separate phrases and add meaning to sentences.

It is an essential part of English learning for both natives and non-natives because the incorrect use of “punctuation” can make text confusing for the reader and implies that the writer has a low level of English or lacks care and attention to detail. Also, when “punctuation” is used correctly, it makes writing more concise, accurate, and easier to understand.

It has always been the case that some people punctuate correctly and others don’t. However, some people are quite old-fashioned and strict regarding the use of “punctuation” and take “offence” at the misuse of punctuation, such as this man in the UK.

Indeed, in ESL and academic writing, “punctuation” is crucial and is often the difference between passing or failing. However, there is evidence that in today’s society, fewer and fewer people are using “punctuation” because of the growth of writing on the internet and in text messages. 

Is the use of punctuation declining?

People in today’s society, especially young people, write far more instant messages on the internet than traditional paragraphs or letters. Due to the nature of these instant messages, there is obviously not much need for punctuation because they are often informal and do not really require full stops or quotation marks.

Omitting punctuation may be acceptable in instant messaging, but there is evidence it allows people to form bad habits, which are then mirrored when people try to write formal paragraphs.

Also, many younger people have an aversion to the full stop because they perceive it as “aggressive.” This perception could lead people to omit it completely when they are writing anything, which is obviously not ideal for when they are writing formal or academic texts.

However, it seems apparent that whilst the traditional “punctuation” rules will probably always apply, there has always been a disparity in how some people use and perceive “punctuation” compared to others.

Furthermore, based on the significant debate online between younger and older generations about the differences in “punctuation”, it seems that this disparity is only likely to increase as we evolve into a “digital society.”

Final thoughts

“Grammar” is the “rulebook” of English and determines how words function together to form meaning in sentences. One essential part of this is “punctuation”, which is the use of symbols that connect words and sentences. Incorrect punctuation results in poor sentence structure and, therefore, “grammatical structure.”

Related links

• Punctuation

Why writing skills are important

With the world becoming more interconnected through electronic messaging, writing has taken on a new prominence. So a communicative language approach is essential for English language students who want to be successful. For students who wish to study business, English need these essential communication skills for instance, in a business that may need to persuade clients of potential investments who may be in another part of the world.

IELTS writing

Writing an IELTS essay is a challenging task for any EFL student who achieves it, as well as for the teachers who teach it. To be a successful IELTS teacher, as with all lessons preparation and planning is the key that includes everything from the rise and fall vocabulary to the grammar used to glue it all together. However, from that point forward, the essay development starts. But how is this accomplished? Better still, what, we may ask, are the most economical ways to do this? Of course, every teacher will have their methods, but, whatever methods they use, some theories related to educational psychology and instructional modelling are often essential factors.

The zone of proximal development

To be a skilled teacher in any subject, one must understand the basics of the zone of proximal development of a class or a particular student. The ZPD is a classic theory in education and is related to the idea of a conceptual zone between what the student cannot do and what they can do with some help from the teacher. It is a judgement made by the teacher as to what to do next. It relies on two ideas: firstly, the students’ potential next step in their development and secondly, the quality of the teachers’ instruction to get them there.

The gradual release of responsibility

This instructional model begins with a stage where the teacher takes all of the responsibility for teaching. Then over several lessons that may take a week or more creates a situation where the students take on more responsibility for their learning and become more competent, independent learners. Another way to look at it is this: I do it first, you watch me; then we do it together as I guide you; now you do it by yourself as I watch you.

The shared writing model 

If you are teaching writing skills in any program and don’t use this method you cannot teach writing effectively. Shared writing is the soul of teaching writing skills, and it is the method used for teaching writing directly to students as they watch. This method is similar to the gradual release of responsibility because students will eventually do it by themselves. The model uses two integrated phases, the demonstration phase and the joint composition phase. But for shared writing to be effective, the teacher should choose a task that is just above the students’ ZPD so that they are constantly engaged in the process.

The demonstration phase

Every good teacher models what they want their students to do, so the teacher demonstrates how to do it. The teacher is doing most of the work at this stage, writing the essay on the board and giving a running commentary on the choice of words, grammar and punctuation as the students watch. Students should copy what the teacher is writing to use this copy as a model for their next essay. Use coloured pens to highlight different parts of the text or individual words and make a deliberate mistake now and then for entertainment. As the teacher writes, the students can comment and make suggestions to keep them fully engaged and not just passive observers.

Joint composition

This phase is similar, except the students are encouraged to contribute more to the writing. Firstly, the teacher asks the students to write a similar essay to the one they copied during the demonstration phase. However, this second essay has slightly different data from the first one. Additionally, this encourages students to take a little more control of their writing and makes it their own. Because the data is slightly different, the vocabulary and grammar will also have to be adjusted. However, the teacher is there to guide students through this and students are encouraged to offer their ideas of how to write the data, then it becomes a two-way challenge; students suggest then the teacher corrects and guides them as they write. The shift from teacher to students has begun.

IELTS as a way to develop critical thinking

IELTS requires students to produce two essays, and many of the advantages students receive while doing this are hidden in the details. For instance, during the essays students, are constantly having to use their skills in deduction, at the same time comprehending and organising data, but also using their powers of logical analysis. Other thinking skills are comparing and contrasting data and ideas. Furthermore, having to decide between what is or is not essential information, and at the same time making judgements and writing about their opinions, also writing about two sides of an argument or writing about a problem and, in some cases, even being asked to propose a solution. All these are valuable critical thinking skills often gained by experience.

Before teaching the IELTS exam, you need to find out more about the exam format so that you know how to deliver the lessons for this specific exam. One idea is to actually try the exam yourself but as the cost is around £200 it might be quite an expense. There are TEFL/TESOL course providers that run exam preparation classes, which cover the IELTS amongst other proficiency exams and will give you a good grounding in how to effectively prepare students for such exams.

You can find out more about the exam and it’s actual format at ielts.org, where there is information about the two types of test, the test format and sample test questions. It’s also very helpful as it has a section on how the IELTS papers are scored. Finally on this website there is a section for teaching, research and examiner recruitment.

It may be an idea to check where your nearest exam centre is. Usually, they are in capital cities and the larger cities across the world. Find out more about the exam centre on the day of the exam, aspects such as room setup, timing, schedule and what you are allowed in the exam room (water bottle etc). Knowing this type of information will help your students to feel confident and relaxed on the exam day.

Exam Strategies

Most importantly for your students, they need to know exam strategies and techniques. Once you are more familiar with the exam format you can develop your classroom activities to be engaging and helpful.

Firstly, you could use past papers – and there are plenty available. I would suggest bite-sized samples of papers, for example, and choose one out of the three reading texts to look at closely or take one part out of the three speaking interviews. Within a one-hour lesson you could cover a couple of aspects (or skills) to provide variety and pace.  

Using the exact timings of past papers enables the students to get a feel of the exam. So, if you look at only one text from the reading you could limit the time to 20 minutes as there are 3 texts with questions in a one hour paper for reading. Alternatively, if you concentrate only on part 2 of the speaking interview, the students have 2 minutes to prepare an answer from a prompt and need to talk for 2 minutes so give about 4 minutes for the whole part. I often have 2 minute topics all in a jar that students pick out and tell their partner as they need to get used to how 2 minutes of talking feels. My 2 minute jar of topics has a huge variety from ballet to the military, marketing to fishing, so that students become used to talking about an unknown subject.

During practice tests, read out the instructions to the class and perhaps get them to sit at separate tables. One example of the exam instructions for part 2 of the speaking is: 

‘Ok, next I’m going to give you a card with a topic on it. I’d like you to talk about it for one to two minutes. Before you start talking, you have one minute to think about what you’re going to say. You can make notes if you wish. Do you understand?’ 

If students are not familiar with these instructions, they might be a little confused by them on the day of the test.

IELTS reading and listening papers come with a separate answer sheet so start the habit of using these. They are available on the internet and following the exam process, you can give the students 10 minutes to transfer their answers. They transfer their draft answers from the question paper to the answer sheet. Getting used to the layout of the answer sheets and its boxes really helps.

Spend a lesson on mistakes that candidates often make that can be easily avoided. Examples of these include writing the correct number of words in gap fills or misunderstanding the question. Others such as not transferring answers (at all) in time or not understanding the marking criteria are a hindrance. Furthermore, poor structure in the writing or poor time management are unhelpful. Finally, over-interpretation of visual data in Task 1 of the writing or short simplistic answers in the speaking can decrease scores dramatically.

At the start of the course I often give my students a treasure hunt quiz of the exam components. Questions can be: how long does the reading exam last? Or how many words can you write for Task 2 of the writing. Working in pairs, it increases competition while broadening their knowledge of the exam and is very engaging. A follow up could be a text about the exam with 10 mistakes that they have to find – good practice for many reasons!

The Writing Paper

Task 1 of IELTS writing uses a visual form of data such as graph or pie chart. You could use infographics from the internet or create your own. Choosing pop culture topics would make these more engaging such as James Bond line graphs for movie revenue, bar charts for actors who pay Bond and pictographs for the number of martinis.  

During the course I implement the lesson tasks for the exam as collaboratively as possible. For example, working in pairs to generate ideas when answering an essay (Task 2) question. Or group work discussion, with a different essay question each they present their ideas for 2 minutes (also practicing the timing for Part 2).

Planning their answers is important for writing.  First, they could analyse the task and break it down into the topic, the issue and the instruction. For example:

1. People are increasingly using the internet to socialise.
2. Some people think this has made people closer, while others think people are more isolated. 
3. Discuss both sides and give your opinion.

Pairs could discuss each aspect. Furthermore to this approach of breaking down the parts, pairs could discuss each part to provide more structure to their essay and think of examples they can develop.

The Listening Paper

The audio is only listened to once in IELTS and practice of this is vital. Underlining keywords in the questions is also a very helpful habit to get students to do. Giving the class 6 to 8 keywords before the listening and they predict the content or type of listening text is good practice for anticipating ideas.  

You can use jigsaw readings so elements of collaboration are used which is helpful.  A and B listen to the same text but have different questions to listen for then they compare.  

Dictation (dictogloss) is extremely beneficial to practice all skills but especially listening as a bottom-up processing method. There are various formats, but you could read out a sample of IELTS reading or listening transcript – about 60 words.  

The Reading Paper

A well-known method is to read the questions first then find the answers in the text – this saves time! Introduce this process and use it in every lesson you give. When the class have ‘found’ the answer to the question, always ask them where they found it – to eliminate wrong answers and help others who didn’t find it!

There are several engaging activities you can try. Firstly, cutting up the academic text in 5 or 6 parts that students then need to put in order. Matching headings to each paragraph is a common question format – again you could cut the text up or display all the headings around the room.  

Increase the habit of underlining keywords in texts to find answers more quickly then ask pairs to find synonyms of these – paraphrasing is consistently used in the IELTS exam. Time these activities so they become used to the limits they have for reading.

The Speaking Paper

During classes cover as many general questions as possible that are asked in Part 1 of the exam – there are a bank the examiners use. For example, what do you like about living in ….. ? or Do you work or study? Have these in a jar as a filler and provide plenty of regular practice.  

Provide practice of language used to give your opinion such as I think that ….. Or In my opinion… and think of ways the students need to give a reason (important in the exam).  Furthermore, practice of air time fillers such as ‘oh let me think …or good question! Or I’m not sure……or can you repeat that please?  These give students thinking time and show they possess some colloquial language too.

IELTS scoring

Information about scoring is on the exam website. Reading and listening are either right or wrong and are marked on the computer. The band scores derive from the raw data.  These are easily learnt so you can advise your students. However, speaking and writing are less objective and are marked by an examiner. The IELTS website has some ideas for marking these and with experience you become more accurate but exact scores are trade secrets. There are public writing band descriptors for tasks 1 and 2 online, and easy to find that are essential when marking – give these to your students too.

A lot of students feel added pressure when preparing for the IELTS exam as they often have a lot riding on their success or failure in the exam. Students often take the IELTS Exam to provide proof of their English skills for either immigration or academic purposes. 

When students start preparing for IELTS Writing, I often discover that they don’t know where to start when it comes to structuring their essays. In this post, I would like to share a simple but very useful method to help you structure your essays.

Read and understand the question

One key element is to understand the question and to be clear about what you want to say in your response. Clear thinking leads to clear writing. The first step is to read and understand the question. Let’s look at this question as an example:

Despite advances in medicine there are concerns that certain diseases such as diabetes are increasing and some people believe future generations will face greater problems with health and die younger than we do today.

What is your opinion?

This question asks you:

• about your opinion – this must be clear in the introduction and the conclusion
• about whether health will be better in future – this means that you need to talk about the future and now – there must be some comparison
• about whether people will live longer – this needs to be mentioned too

All these things must be included.

Think about the examiner – make your opinion clear

IELTS essays get marked quickly. You don’t want to allow the examiner to make a mistake. So make life easy for him/her by showing the structure of your essay as clearly as possible. There are three places you do this. This is what I refer to as the spine of the essay (your spine is your backbone – it’s what keeps you upright and gives you your structure).

• the introduction – that’s the first thing they read and where you make your first impression and first impressions count
• the first sentence of each paragraph (x2) – examiners are taught that each paragraph should have one main idea – show them what it is in the first sentence
• the conclusion – that’s the last thing they read and the first thing they remember!

The key is to link these things together so that:

• the introduction matches the conclusion – the opinion/point of view is the same: you just need to change the language
• the two body paragraphs link to the opinion/point view in the introduction

Think clearly about your opinion/point of view

You want your point of view to be clear. My basic rule is that if you can’t say in it two sentences, it’s too complex. So part of the planning process may be deleting ideas that are too complex or that you can’t express clearly in English.

See my example:

I’m going to go for a balanced type essay with an argument that health and longevity (living for a long time) will get worse in the West but better in developing nations. Before I start writing I make sure I can say this simply:

I think health will get worse in the west but better in developing countries and this will affect how long people live.

Build the spine of your essay – here is my example

All you need to do now is build the spine of the essay: the intro, first sentences and conclusion. I really do do this using my essay structure plan above. I ended up with this. Take a look at it. See:

• how simple it is – that’s good, you do want a simple structure
• how things repeat – that’s good too
• I crossed out my idea about stress and mental health. It’s a good idea, but would make the essay too complex

Now get the words

This lesson wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t show you the “end-product”. Your plan is only good if it helps you write well. Take a look at my opinions (in red) and the balance between developing countries (in green) and the industrialised nations (in blue).

Introduction
There is no question that medicine has progressed dramatically over the last century, but this does not mean that all our medical problems have been solved. Indeed, my belief is that the average life span in the Western world may actually fall in the 21st century. This is in contrast to the situation in developing countries where I expect health provision to improve and longevity to increase.

Paragraph 1
The main reason why overall health may become worse in the industrialised nations of the West relates to modern lifestyles there.

Paragraph 2
The situation in the developing world is, however, quite different and overall health is likely to improve.

Conclusion
My conclusion is therefore a mixed one. While it is true that people may face greater problems with their health in the future, this only applies to industrialised nations and not to the developing world where life expectancy may increase.

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This is just a simple but very effective method for helping to create a structured and coherent essay for your IELTS exam. Preparing for IELTS might be daunting but it is possible to succeed!

Introduction

Are you preparing to take the IELTS test? Are you worried about writing your Task 2 essay? You’re not alone! For most students, IELTS Writing Task 2 is the hardest part of the test, so in this article I will give you some tips to help you prepare for it.

1. Understand The Assessment Criteria

The first thing you should do is find out how IELTS examiners assess Writing Task 2. You can download the public version of the assessment criteria from the IELTS website.

In this document, you will see 4 assessment areas: Task Response (TR), Coherence and Cohesion (CC), Lexical Resource (LR), and Grammatical Range and Accuracy(GRA). TR and CC mainly assess your academic writing skills; LR and GRA assess your English language skills. So getting a high band score in Task 2 is not only about your language skills, it’s also about your academic writing skills. This means your ability to develop and support your ideas in a logical way. This is difficult for many students so…

2. Read IELTS Model Essays…and IELTS Reading Texts

One way to help you develop your academic writing skills is to read academic texts. One very good source of these are model IELTS essays. You can find these online, but be careful…many websites containing “Band 9 model essays” are often not even close to a Band 9…or even a Band 7!

Another source of academic reading material are the texts used in the Academic IELTS Reading Test. These texts are written in an academic style, so reading these will show you how to write in an academic style yourself.

3. Build your vocabulary

If you want a high band score for Lexical Resource, you need to use vocabulary that conveys your ideas in a clear, precise way. This means using topic-specific vocabulary. So you should try to learn vocabulary that is related to topics that  often come up in the IELTS writing test, such as the environment, education and jobs.

One way to do this is to read model essays and IELTS reading texts. Look at the vocabulary used in these texts. How are the words and phrases used? What words are often used together?

4. Practise Using Authentic Essays

It is very important to practise writing IELTS essays, but be careful when looking for essay questions to answer. Some essay questions which you can find online are very badly written: they can be badly worded, and on topics that are almost impossible to write about.

Instead, try to use authentic IELTS essay questions: the best source of these are questions found in the Cambridge English Authentic Papers series. I have included some of these IELTS sample essay questions on my website. I’ve also included suggestions on how to answer each question.

5. Practice Planning Essays

Don’t just practise writing essays, practise planning essays.

To get a high band score, you need to write a well-structured essay with well-developed and supported ideas. To help you do this, you should plan your essay carefully before you write anything.

So find an essay question and spend 10 minutes planning it. Then look at another question, and plan that. You don’t need to actually write these essays – simply practise planning them. If you practise planning essays, your planning skills will improve…and so will your essays.

6. Use the official answer writing sheet

You should write at least 250 words in your Task 2 essay. But don’t waste time in the exam counting your words. Instead, you need to know roughly where on the answer sheet you will reach 250 words.

How do you find this out?

Count your words – where, on the answer sheet, do you reach 250 words? Maybe you need to write 25 lines, maybe 30. You will probably find that you hit the 250 word point at around the same with each essay.

This means that in the exam, you won’t need to count your words – you will know where on the sheet you should write to. This will save you time – time which you can spend planning, writing or checking your essay!

7. Get Feedback On Your Writing

You should try to get feedback on your essays, ideally by a teacher who has a good understanding of the IELTS writing assessment criteria. Getting feedback is the most effective way to improve your band score, because you will find out what you are doing wrong, and how you improve.

If you enrol in an IELTS class, ask the teacher for feedback on your essays. Alternatively, find a teacher online who offers IELTS tutoring or an IELTS writing correction service. These services can be quite expensive, but they are cheaper than having to re-sit the IELTS exam.

There are also free options. The best one is to join an IELTS group on Facebook, where you may be able to post essays and get feedback from teachers in the group. However, these groups usually have lots of students, and very few teachers, so you may not be able to get feedback immediately, so….

8. Read The Feedback Given To Other Test Takers

In these Facebook groups, read the essays that other students post, and look at the feedback they get from teachers. Many students will have the same problems as you, and they will make the same mistakes as you, so the feedback given to one student may also be useful for you.

Conclusion

So use these 8 tips to help you prepare for Task 2 of the IELTS Writing Test. I hope they help. Tell me what you think of these tips in the comments below, and please add any of your own preparation tips. Best of luck in the IELTS exam!