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For educators: ready-to-use lesson slides, revision notes for Vocabulary and sentence variety (English Language, Writing) — use them in your lesson, or run the topic as an interactive class activity your learners play as a live game.
Choose precise words for the intended meaning. “Ancient” describes great age; “dilapidated” describes disrepair. “Devour” adds intensity to “eat”, and “furious” expresses more anger than “angry”. They are not interchangeable in every context.
Check meaning, connotation, register and grammatical fit before using a thesaurus suggestion. Plain words and repetition can be effective; do not automatically replace “nice”, “good”, “very” or “said”.
Use specialist vocabulary for the topic where suitable, and adjust register (formal v informal).
Different impressions of a dwelling
Sentence variety
Mix simple, compound and complex sentences. Vary openings: start with a verb ("Trembling, she..."), an adverb ("Slowly..."), a prepositional phrase ("Across the field..."), or a subordinate clause ("Although he was tired...").
Use sentence length and pattern for the effect needed in context. A short sentence can create a pause or urgency; a long sentence can accumulate detail or sustain rapid movement.
A minor sentence such as “Silence.” can isolate a detail. Minor sentences lack usual full clause structure, but can contain a verb, as in “Coming?”.
Structure serves meaning
Techniques for impact
Fronted adverbials, supplementary clauses set off by commas, lists of three, repetition and rhetorical questions can add variety. Defining relative clauses and other subordinate clauses do not automatically take paired commas.
Check that variety serves meaning: do not use long words or complicated sentences just to show off.
Revising
Read carefully, silently in an examination or aloud during practice when appropriate. Improve words or structures only when the revision helps the intended meaning.
Preserve the intended meaning
Slides
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