Writing Book 1
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Main features at a glance
● Integrated package: textbook, online multimedia material and self-study web site
● Interesting topics for student writing assignments
● Writing styles and techniques cover a variety of needs
● Additional material online for students and teachers
● Full and free online support
● Student online activities fully trackable by the teacher
● Auto-marking online tests and downloadable paper-based tests
Aims and components
The English Course – Writing Book 1 (Second Edition) is an integrated writing course for false beginners
and pre-intermediate to lower intermediate (CEFR A2/B1 level) students. It is principally intended for
students at college or university and/or young adult learners.
The aim of the course is to provide structured opportunities of increasing complexity. Stimulating
and relevant topics encourage and enable students to learn and develop basic English writing skills.
The course is designed to be usable with a teacher in the classroom and by students in self-access
situations. The course takes a back-to-basics approach for the early units and then material and tasks
gradually develop in length and difficulty.
The course is intended to make learning to write in English enjoyable and interesting. The topics
chosen for each unit are contemporary, age-appropriate, internationally understood and hopefully
interesting to students. The writing situations are realistic and plausible in terms of the students’
English language needs. Each unit in the textbook teaches an important writing skill and is divided
into two foci that help students develop competence in utilizing that particular skill.
The principal components are this textbook and a self-access web site for each student. There is also
a workbook for students to use for their writing (available as an optional additional purchase). There
are also teacher guides and answer keys for each unit on the course web site.
Syllabus and Content
Unit 1 − Getting started
Focus 1: Writing simple sentences
Focus 2: Understanding other common errors in sentences
● How to write correct sentences
● How to recognise, find and understand common errors in sentences
Unit 2 – Writing Better Sentences
Focus 1: Writing compound sentences
Focus 2: Writing complex sentences
● How to write compound sentences
● How to write complex sentences
Unit 3 – Writing paragraphs
Focus 1: What a paragraph in English should look like
Focus 2: Understanding what paragraphs are
● What a paragraph should look like
● How to organize your paragraphs
Unit 4 – Brainstorming
Focus 1: Brainstorming to get ideas for your writing
Focus 2: Developing your ideas
● How to create clusters and lists
● How to develop your ideas further
Unit 5 – Creating Surveys
Focus 1: Getting started with surveys
Focus 2: Creating good survey questions and answers
● How to choose question types to use in a survey
● How to write good questions for a survey
Unit 6 – Writing reports
Focus 1: Organizing your survey report
Focus 2: Explaining data and analysing results
● How to organize a research report
● How to explain research data
Unit 7 – Writing Reviews
Focus 1: Understanding reviews
Focus 2: Writing a review
● How to consider criteria for topics
● How to use adjectives and adverbs for explaining your thoughts
● How to write a review (giving your opinions)
Unit 8 – Writing About The Past
Focus 1: Using the past tenses when writing
Focus 2: Using time-sequence words in biographies
● How to use the simple past and the past continuous tense
● How to use time-sequence words
● How to write about an experience
● How to write a biography
Unit 9 – Writing About The Future
Focus 1: Writing about plans and ambitions
Focus 2: Writing predictions
● How to use the simple future tense
● How to express probability
● How to write about plans and ambitions
● How to write predictions
Unit 10 – Writing Narratives
Focus 1: Planning and creating a story
Focus 2: Making a story clearer and more interesting
● How to write a narrative
● How to organize information by time
● How to organize several paragraphs
Unit 11 – Writing Essays
Focus 1: Organizing essays
Focus 2: Pre-writing and peer editing
● What an essay is
● Prewriting skills
● Rewriting skills
● The importance of peer editing
Unit 12 – Publishing Yourself Online
Focus 1: Understanding blog sites and regular web sites
Focus 2: Creating a blog
● What blogs are and why people create them
● The difference between a blog and a regular web site
● How to plan, create and promote a blog
Appendix – Additional Material
Glossary of English grammar and writing terms
Unit structure
All units of the book share the same basic design. The suggested schedule for teaching most of the units in the course is shown below. Some units do not exactly fit into this pattern, however. For example, the number and placement of tasks within each unit varies from unit to unit. Some activities will require more time than others.
Week 1: Review (or Warm-up) and Focus 1
Task 1: Review
Students complete an exercise or discuss material and ideas from the previous unit (except for Unit 1 - Warm-up).
First half of the unit: Focus 1
Input material
Students are taught the main ideas or grammar points associated with the introductory phase of the unit.
Tasks 2-4
Students complete various tasks related to the input material to check their understanding.
Quiz 1
Students attempt an interactive multimedia quiz with feedback and scoring, either individually or in teams.
Week 2: Focus 2
Input material
Students are taught the main ideas or grammar points associated with the secondary phase of the unit.
Tasks 5-7 (or Tasks 5-8/Tasks 5-9)
Students complete various tasks related to further input material to check their understanding.
Quiz 2
Students attempt an interactive multimedia quiz with feedback and scoring, either individually or in teams.
Week 3: Follow-up (either in-class and/or by self-access)
Task 8 (or Task 9/Task 10)
Students complete a final writing assignment.
Exercises and test
Students complete additional tasks using the web site.
Sample Material
Click on the images below to see sample material from a unit of the textbook and accompanying audio or video material.
Unit 4 pages from the Writing Book 1 textbook
Click the picture of the book on the left to open and/or download a PDF file of Unit 4 from the textbook.
Extra material: Unit 2 Quiz 1
Click the stopwatch icon on the left to download a file containing a quiz from Unit 2 of the textbook.
About the Authors
Gary Ireland
Gary Ireland was born in Leicester, England. Having first visited Japan as a backpacker in 1986, Gary returned in 1988 and began to teach English at a language school. He has lived in Japan ever since. He taught at a wide variety of institutions before beginning to teach in college and university in 1993, and has taught at eight Tokyo colleges and universities since. Currently, he is a professor at a university in Tokyo. After graduating from university and before settling in Japan, Gary spent several years travelling around the world, and has continued to travel widely since moving to Japan. He has visited over 50 different countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Central America. Gary and Max created the idea for The English Course series and set up The English Company in 2007.
Max Woollerton
Max Woollerton is also British. He came to Japan in 1987 and began teaching English at a private language school. Within six months, he had moved on to working in a vocational college and was the coordinator for a course on current issues and a course teaching English for Special Purposes. Between 1996 and 1999, he broadened his experience by teaching students of every age and level in a variety of institutions. Max began teaching in universities in 1999 and has taught at eight Tokyo universities as a part-time instructor. In 2004, Max gained a Master of Education degree at the University of Manchester (Education Technology and ELT Programme). Since 2012, he has been a full-time associate professor at Chuo University in Tokyo. In 2018-2019, he was a visiting researcher at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia in the UK.