🦋 "Irina, what is your writing routine?" A student asked. 🦋

In short: between 9 and 9:30 am on work days and any time in the morning on Sunday.

I prefer to write in the morning because my mind is fresh. But I do not write exclusively in the morning. I can write any time if I have a deadline or if I have a thought that I absolutely have to put down on paper.

How did I come up with this routine? It's easy. I am a creature of schedule. So I looked at my weekly schedule and identified the time that is reliably free. I start teaching at 10 am. I can't start writing immediately after I wake up. And I need some time before my first class. This makes the slot from 9 to 9:30 my window of opportunity.

If you need a writing routine, the trick is not to follow mine, but to come up with your own. Do you think better in the morning or in the evening? When is the time you can be reliably free? Do you need to be alone to write? If so, when is that time in your life?

Sometimes breaking a routine helps too. In summer, I would take my "typewriter" (that's what I call my tablet with a detachable keyboard) and go to write in a cafe in the evening. These times were productive for me too because of the break from the routine.

Do you have a writing routine? How did you find or create it? 🦋

❄️ Winter 2024: new groups and good old ones you can join ❄️

❄️ Writing

1. IELTS writing
Several groups, different levels - tons of writing, tons of feedback.
https://vk.com/market-47977221?screen=group&w=product-47977221_3696544%2Fquery

2. Writing with New Scientist
A writing course based on articles from the "New Scientist" magazine and geared towards IELTS prep. A perfect pre- or post-IELTS course.
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_5061302%2Fquery

3. Writing Essentials
A great introductory writing course. You will try different tasks, both from exams and real life, and gain the confidence you need to write.
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_5043592%2Fquery

4. Writing with ScienceNews
A writing course based on academic articles from the "ScienceNews" magazine. Geared towards essay writing in general, it's a perfect introductory pre-exam writing course (IELTS and CAE).
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_7531320%2Fquery

❄️ Speaking

1. Speaking with New Scientist (C1+, C2)
A speaking course based on articles from the "New Scientist" magazine and geared towards IELTS and C2 Proficiency Speaking tasks, but also good for those who have a penchant for deep, meaningful discussions. Very rich in lexis.
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_5911089%2Fquery

2. Speaking with TED (B2, C1, C1+)
A speaking course for those who want to make sure their speaking skills are always at the ready, be it for a business meeting or an international exam (IELTS and CAE).
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_5538677%2Fquery

❄️ General English

1. General English C1: Outcomes Advanced
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_6185850%2Fquery

2. C2 Proficiency
This is more of a general English course with some exam preparation rather than an exam format based course. Flipped classroom. Lots of additional materials. Now doing "Expert Proficiency" Unit 8.
Schedule: Friday 16:00-17:30 MSK.

❄️ Creative projects

1. My legendary Creative Writing Club
Unleash your creativity and get more practice writing in English!
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_1461432%2Fquery

2. Small Stories Big Ideas
A short story discussion club - a club based on stories we wrote in my Creative Writing Bootcamp. The writers will be joining the sessions. So you'll be able to ask them not only about their stories and stylistic devices, but also about their writing process. How cool is that? (Very!)
https://vk.com/market-47977221?w=product-47977221_6876490%2Fquery

❄️ All enrollments are now open. ❄️

The enrollment process looks like this (except for creative projects):
1. I'll ask you to tell me a bit about yourself in a private message. Questions might include: What is your experience of learning English? What is your experience of writing? Have you taken IELTS? What are your course expectations?
2. If you want to enroll in a writing group, I'll give you a placement task. For most groups, it's an IELTS or IELTS-like essay.
3. We'll schedule an interview.

💌 Message me @iraluts

"Irina, tell me about your American experience." 🇺🇸

A potential student asked today. My answer was, "Which one?"

I've been to the US three times so far:

1️⃣ January - May 2003
- student at Ferrum College

2️⃣ August 2015 - May 2016
My 💎 year with University of New Haven
- teacher of Russian as a foreign language
- non-degree student

3️⃣ March 2023
- ELEX exchange program, attended TESOL 2023

Sometimes I think my life is an open book because I talk about myself all the time. But apparently it isn't.

So which experience would you like to know more about? Oh, and are there any 💎 alumni among my subscribers, by any chance? 🇺🇸

Two creative projects coming up:

1️⃣ Creative Writing Club

A project for those who want to unleash their creativity and have fun writing in English.

Says Timur, one of the former participants: "My takeaway is this: it doesn’t really matter where you start with your writing: prompt or no prompt, you end up writing about yourself in some form or other.

If that was the main revelation from the course, its main value was the inspiration that other participants have proven to be! Creative writing is not something you see people do every day, and one may think it’s the prerogative of professional writers to do it and do it well. But when you see your peers produce stories that grip you and keep you awake and reading till 3 am, you start believing that everything is possible for you!"

📅 Sunday, 11:00 am Moscow time

Find out more at: https://vk.com/iralutse?w=wall-47977221_12067

To join, message me @iraluts with a creative ending to this sentence: "The night sighed as if / like ... ."

2️⃣ Short story discussion club "Small Stories Big Ideas"

A project for readers.

It's plain and simple - the stories written in my Creative Writing Bootcamp deserve a discussion club, and the authors will be there to discuss them with you!

📅 Saturday, 18:00 am Moscow time

Find out more: https://vk.com/iralutse?w=wall-47977221_12066

To join, message me @iraluts with a creative ending to this sentence: "Reading a short story is like ... ."

The things I write to my students...

... to foreshadow what we are going to cover in class.

To wit, this is a message I wrote to my evening group making sure to include some tools and techniques used in writing for stylistic purposes:
- direct speech
- hyphenation
- capitalization
- punctuation
- abbreviation
- italics.

You see, I think good writing is nothing but a bunch of tools and techniques. But you need to know what to look for.

So, take a look at this paragraph from the article from "The Guardian" about new year resolutions. What other writing tools and techniques can you spot? ❓

"Consider the situation. For one thing, you’re too busy (who isn’t?), so it’s not as though making time for several new daily habits is likely to prove straightforward. For another thing, you’re a good person, who generally seeks to do their best – so the fact that you’re not already working out thrice weekly, or meditating daily, or doing more to reduce your carbon footprint or organise your personal finances, isn’t for want of trying. There are reasons these behaviours haven’t proved easier for you. And now a resolution is somehow going to change things? Good luck with that."

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/30/the-key-to-keeping-new-year-resolutions-dont-make-them-in-the-first-place

"Irina, how long did it take you to write that story?"

A participant of my "Small Stories Big Ideas" my reading club asked.

My story, which is called "A Worthless Life" and which I wrote in my Creative Writing Bootcamp, is 3,300 words long. It took one month to write and three months to edit.

It's not as long as it sounds though.

One month means writing just 750-800 words a week, which is about 100 words a day. Instead of that, though, I wrote 400 words on two different days. Four weeks later I had my first complete draft.

That's writing. Then there is editing.

Three months of editing is, in essence, just several hours, but the hours were days or weeks apart so that I could see the story with fresh eyes. One indispensable part of editing was my Creative Writing Bootcamp team. Reading my own story is one thing, but having feedback from fellow writers is absolutely priceless.

Then you also need ideas to write. My ideas came when I was doing completely different things, like walking or cooking.

So, four months of very relaxed work with my creative team's support and I have a story I am happy with -- one I can share, discuss, or submit to a publication. 💜

🇺🇸 A creative writing course with an American educator 🇺🇸

To make this happen, I first won a grant and now I won a grant extension, so you have one more chance to join an awesome creative writing course! 🎉

Tentative syllabus (subject to minor changes):
- Introduction to Course & Creative Nonfiction
- Flash Creative Nonfiction Form & Detail
- Flash Nonfiction: Using Sound and Language
- Flash Nonfiction: Point of View
- Flash Nonfiction: Structure
- Critical Response Process

📅
Schedule: Monday 16:30-18:00 Moscow time
Course duration: 8 weeks
Starting date: 22 January

❗️❗️❗️
- The course is free of charge
- Limited number of places, admissions on a competitive basis
- Compulsory attendance
- Certificate upon successful completion (over 75% of classes).
- Only for Russian teachers working in Russia
- Brought to you by the RELO office
- Commitment to participate is a must!!!

Message me @iraluts. In your first message, tell me briefly about your motivation to join the course. 💌

📝 The difference between coherence and cohesion in short 📝

1️⃣ Coherence present, cohesion absent
"I lost my key. I couldn't get home."

2️⃣ Coherence absent, cohesion present
"I lost my key. As a result, hedgehogs are cute."

3️⃣ Both are present
"I lost my key. As a result, I couldn't get home."

4️⃣ Neither is present
"I lost my key. Hedgehogs are cute."

Coherence is the logic -- it's not seen, but it's understood. Cohesion is the linguistic means to support the logic -- it's seen.

Pop quiz: what is one cohesive device that you don't see, but you understand it's there?❓

🌹 Synesthesia: a taste that will tickle your olfactory receptors louder than Mona Lisa 🌹

Synesthesia is the stylistic device we played with in my Creative Writing Club today.

It involves describing a thing with the help of senses not normally associated with it, e.g. describing a voice (= sound) with the help of touch, or a dish (= smell, taste) with the help of sound. This stylistic device allows you to come up with vivid denoscriptions that will be more memorable than something bland like, "beautiful" or "delicious" (or, god forbid, synonyms).

Just take a look at the beauty my awesome creative writers came up with for this prompt "He brought me a bouquet of roses —":

1️⃣ He brought me a bouquet of roses — an annoying earworm of a song you might hear in any shopping mall.

2️⃣ He brought me a bouquet of roses — and every time I looked at them it was like hearing bright red acrylic nails scratching on a chalkboard.

3️⃣ He brought me a bouquet of roses — a bland morning oatmeal eaten on a gloomy day.

4️⃣ He brought me a bouquet of roses — they were shouting at me with their red petals and thick thorns.

5️⃣ He brought me a bouquet of roses — crispy like the brown paper they were wrapped in, crying in protest in its high-pitch voice once I started uncovering them.

6️⃣ He bought me a bouquet of roses — a dozen small crimson vortexes, pulling me deeper into this mad infatuation and dulling my vigilance like a small brassband playing a lullaby.

It somehow turned out that roses don't have a good reputation...

So try your hand at synesthesia in the comments saying something good about a bouquet of roses or using a different flower:

📝 He bought me a bouquet of [any flower] + synesthesia.

🦩 Fancy terms like "an appositive": a do or a don't? 🦩

When I teach writing, I sometimes throw around fancy terms like "appositive" or "cataphoric reference." And students sometimes tell me, "Irina, do we really need to know the terms? Can't we learn to write without knowing the terminology?"

Generally, I don't think terminology is really necessary - you can be a good writer without knowing the academic terms for the tools you are using. But I still think the fancy terms can serve a useful function.

Consider the appositive. An appositive is a noun or pronoun set beside another noun or pronoun to explain or identify it. It is a really good way to avoid using a "which" clause, a clause that many students tend to overuse in IELTS writing.

Here is an example from IELTS Writing Task 1:

1️⃣ The less economical way, one with a "which" clause: "The figure then plunged to 2%, which was an all-time low."

2️⃣ The more economical way, one with an appositive: "The figure then plunged to 2%, an all-time low."

So, when giving feedback, I could tell a student, "Why don't you use that thing here where you use a noun or pronoun set beside another noun or pronoun to explain or identify it?" Or I could simply say, "Why don't you use an appositive here?"

Where do you stand on this? Are fancy terms a do or a don't? Also, speaking of fancy terminology, did you spot any resumptive modifiers in my post?❓

A freelance copywriting side hustle in English! 📝

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🐾 Your foot in the door: pronunciation or writing? 🐾

My recent quest for a pronunciation coach gave me a lot of food for thought.

One discovery was that pronunciation classes are surprisingly expensive. But why? I asked my students. One opinion voiced was, “Pronunciation is what makes a good impression because it’s the first thing people hear from you. The stakes are high, and so are the prices.”

I wish I could say, “Can’t argue with that.” But I can argue with that – and I have experience to support my case.

Let’s consider some of my achievements – four random choices off the top of my head:
1. My 💎 application
2. My ELEX application
3. My RELO grant proposal
4. My TESOL 2024 talk proposal

The first two had an interview stage, a stage where you can let your pronunciation shine. But it was the second stage, a stage that you get to if and only if you pass the first one – writing.

The remaining two did not have any interview or speaking stage at all. The decision was made based entirely on writing.

It’s not just beautiful pronunciation that makes a good impression, you know. Writing can be your foot in the door for some awesome, life-changing experiences too.

🐾 What is your experience? What was your foot in the door – pronunciation or writing?

📝 Two new IELTS Writing groups starting soon:

- Wednesday 16:00-17:30 Moscow time (Starting on 7 February)
- Thursday 16:00-17:30 Moscow time (Starting on 8 February)

A 10-month, thorough skill-building course for levels C1+ and above (IELTS 7.5+). Synchronous, live, on Zoom, with me.

💌 Message me @iraluts

Find out more and read testimonials (don't need an account to open):
https://vk.com/iralutse?w=product-47977221_3696544%2Fquery

Thank you, British Council Uzbekistan! 💜