Asian students lack creativity. That is what we Westerners are told. However, in 28 years of teaching Japanese kids how to write, I did not find that to be the case. With the right training, they are as capable as their North American counterparts in writing creatively. The problem is writing logically.

Surprisingly, Japanese students lack the skills to write logically. They’ve never learned to use critical thinking in writing. They don’t know how to express opinions in an essay. Luckily, there is an easy remedy: learn how to structure an essay. 

English essays have a simple, straightforward structure. We use a topic sentence, a number of reasons (typically three) and then examples and explanation for those reasons. In my experience, Japanese kids can learn to do this quite quickly. Many can learn in a week. Of course, writing really good essays takes a lot of time and practice. However, learning essay structure is great motivating. Kids begin to think, “Hey, I can do this!” and come to enjoy writing essays. International students see instant improvements in their grades, just by properly structuring their essays.

More importantly, this process – creating a topic sentence, three good reasons, and specific examples before writing an essay – helps students to improve their critical thinking and logic ability. These skills can take you a long way in school; but also in life.

If you are interested in learning how to write an essay in English, give me a shout!

(by Robert McMillan)