From the room, last lesson
Six sentences collected during the discussions. Three are marker errors. Three are packaging errors. They are not the same problem, and only one of them is fixable with a marker.
Six sentences. One error each.
1. The training is public, however the graduate is free to leave.
2. The sending country loses doctors. Moreover, the receiving country gains them.
3. The remittances, they do not come back as doctors.
4. In many countries it has a shortage of trained staff.
5. Nevertheless, all three positions are correct. — nothing has been conceded
6. What the argument is about it is which cost counts.
The finding
The repair is one layer down
When a paragraph does not hold together, the instinct is to add a connective. It is a reasonable instinct: connectives are what we were taught cohesion is made of, and adding one is quick.
It is also applied to the wrong layer. Cohesion in English is a property of what the sentences are about, in sequence — each one opening from something the reader already has. A marker does not create that relation. It names one. If the relation is not there, the marker is a label on an empty box, and the reader feels the emptiness while reading the label.
This is why marker practice does not transfer. A student who completes twenty gap-fills on however and moreover goes on to write the same disconnected essay, with better-chosen markers in it. Nothing has changed at the layer where the problem lives.
It also explains a pattern every teacher of B2 writing recognises: the most heavily signposted essays are usually the least coherent ones. That is not a coincidence and it is not a style. A writer who can feel that a paragraph is not holding reaches for the tool they were given, and the tool does not do that job — so they reach again, and the density of markers rises in proportion to how broken the chain underneath is.
The repair is to look at what each sentence starts with. Nothing else about the paragraph has to change.
Three questions.
1. What does a discourse marker do?
2. Why does marker practice not transfer?
3. Why are the most heavily signposted essays often the least coherent?
Three habits, and the vocabulary to do it with
The habits
| Habit | What you do | What it catches |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · The three-word column | Write the first three words of every sentence in a column, down the margin. | Everything. A column that reads as a chain is a paragraph that holds; a column of unrelated nouns is one that does not, whatever the markers say. |
| 2 · Strip and read | Delete every marker and read what is left. | What is still connected was connected. What falls apart needs repacking, not a marker. |
| 3 · Name the relation | Add markers back only where you can say the relation out loud — addition, contrast, concession, consequence. | The ones that were filling a gap. Most of them, usually. |
What the column looks like when it works. From Lesson 2’s column extract: Cities are usually… / That defence is… / Six months is… / It is a barrier… Every entry picks up the one above it, and the paragraph contains one marker.
And when it does not. From the strategy document: A regional mobility… / Stakeholder engagement was… / Furthermore, alignment with… / However, delivery timescales… / Moreover, resource allocation… Five entries, no relation between any two of them, three markers.
Use the word in capitals to form a word that fits the gap. All eight are from this unit’s vocabulary.
- The scheme was designed to encourage rather than short stays. SETTLE
- Their was recorded in the parish register. DEPART
- The two communities remain largely after thirty years. INTEGRATE
- The report questioned the that people move for money alone. ASSUME
- Housing policy has been across the region for a decade. CONSIST
- She wrote about the that took her twenty years to feel. BELONG
- The city’s growth was almost entirely . MIGRATE
- Their coincided with the closure of the mills. ARRIVE
Four questions.
1. Your paragraph does not hold. What do you do first?
2. You delete every marker and the paragraph still reads. What does that mean?
3. You delete every marker and it falls apart. What is the repair?
4. When do you add a marker back?
Diagnose, repack, then label
Eight gaps. Most of them want a link back; two want a marker whose relation you can name.
The most heavily signposted essays are often the least coherent. is not a coincidence. A writer who can feel that a paragraph is not holding reaches for the tool they were given, and does not do that job. they reach again, and the density of markers rises. density is a measurement: it tells you how broken the chain underneath is. the repair is not at the joints. It is in what each sentence begins with. the markers are wrong — many of them are perfectly chosen. they are labels on an empty box, and the reader feels the emptiness while reading the label. is the whole of the diagnosis.
Eight sentences. Seven need work; one is correct.
1. The city grew quickly. Furthermore, it grew unevenly.
2. The mills closed in 1978, however the arrivals continued.
3. The assumption that people move for money, it is questioned by the report.
4. Belonging took her twenty years to feel. — correct as written
5. Nevertheless, the two communities remain separate. — nothing has been conceded
6. In the north it has fewer arrivals than the south.
7. Moreover, the opposite is true in smaller towns.
8. What the report questions it is the assumption itself.
The three-word column
Task card · Pairs · 10 minutes · Writing and diagnosis
Write six sentences arguing one side of your Lesson 5 question. Then swap and diagnose each other’s.
Four minutes writing, six diagnosing both.
- Write the first three words of each of your partner’s sentences in a column.
- Read the column aloud. Does it read as a chain, or as six unrelated openings?
- Delete every marker from their paragraph and read it again. Mark where it falls apart.
- Together, repack the two worst sentences — then decide which markers, if any, go back.
Read the column aloud, not silently. Silently you supply the connections from what you remember of the paragraph. Aloud, and out of order, you hear only what is actually there.
What the column showed
Two questions.
1. Could you tell which paragraphs held from the columns alone?
2. How many of the deleted markers did you put back?
One layer down
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. What does adding a marker to an incoherent paragraph do?
2. What does the three-word column diagnose?
Next. Three hundred and thirty words — the first essay of B2, with the column written down the margin before it is handed in.