“Can't write it” does not always mean “not enough English”
Plenty of students who are perfectly comfortable chatting in English still stall on a writing assignment. That is often not about English ability at all, but about assignment-specific skills: understanding the task, structuring an answer, and supporting a claim with evidence.
Where writing commonly stalls
- Not quite understanding what the assignment itself is asking
- Not knowing what the teacher actually expects
- Not being able to come up with content or ideas at all
- Having ideas, but not being able to decide on an order or structure
- Weak evidence supporting each paragraph's claim
- A narrow range of usable vocabulary and grammar
- Not knowing how to read the rubric
- Not knowing how to apply feedback to the next piece
Work back from where the writing stops
“Weak at writing” is too broad to act on. Noticing where the student stops usually narrows both what to check and what to try next. If the difficulty runs across school English generally, why international-school students struggle with English may help too.
| Where they stop | Possible bottleneck | What to check | Useful next step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before writing anything | Understanding the task | Can they explain the task in their own words? | Restate the task in Japanese and in English |
| Has ideas, cannot begin a paragraph | Structure | Can they state the main answer in one sentence? | Outline the claim and each paragraph's point first |
| Claims with nothing behind them | Evidence and reasoning | Can they answer “why?” and “how do we know?” | Add evidence, then explain how it supports the claim |
| Same teacher comment every time | Using feedback | Did they actually rewrite after the comment? | Rewrite one paragraph, then check the same point first next time |
| Repetitive wording, constant dictionary use | Vocabulary and grammar | Can they say the idea simply? | Simplify the idea, then add expressions one at a time |
| Cannot tell why the mark is low | Reading the rubric | Are they looking at each criterion separately? | Pick the lowest criterion and read the next level up |
This is a starting point, not a fixed verdict. Causes often overlap, so checking the earliest stage first usually saves time.
A worked example, from assignment to revision
This example is invented for illustration and does not describe a real student. The assignment is an argument task: “Do school lunches support students' health? Argue your view with reasons and evidence.”
| Stage | What to do | In this example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Assignment | Find the command and what it requires | “Argue” needs a position and reasons; “health” is the lens. |
| 2. Evidence needed | Check what counts as evidence | Class sources or concrete nutrition information; personal opinion alone is weak. |
| 3. Brainstorm | Get everything out, in Japanese if needed | Balanced meals, food waste, choice, cost to families. |
| 4. Main answer | Decide the answer in one sentence | School lunches support health by reducing nutritional gaps. |
| 5. Paragraph plan | Give each paragraph a job | Nutrition gaps; food waste as a limit; why the benefit still holds. |
| 6. Draft | Finish a rough version first | Leave Japanese placeholders where wording is stuck. |
| 7. Feedback | Sort comments by priority | “Paragraph 2 evidence does not support the claim”; “vocabulary is repetitive”. Evidence comes first. |
| 8. Revision | Apply it, then carry it forward | Add specific information and a sentence on why it supports the claim; check the same point in the next assignment. |
What matters is deciding the task, the main answer and each paragraph's job before building English sentences. Many students who look stuck on English are actually stuck at stages 4 and 5.
Using the rubric before writing
A rubric tells the student what each level of performance looks like, so it is most useful before drafting, not only after marking. Count the assessed criteria, underline the action verbs (analyse, compare, support), then read the middle and top descriptors side by side to see what changes. Often the top level adds words like specific, consistent or convincing.
Criteria and scoring differ between schools and subjects. Use the rubric your child's own school provided.
Making feedback usable
Comments that are read once rarely change the next piece of writing. The Education Endowment Foundation's Teaching and Learning Toolkit entry on feedback rates feedback as high impact for low cost, and its key findings include giving pupils opportunities to act on feedback after it is given. Receiving a comment and using it to revise belong together.
At home: pick one comment, rewrite only that paragraph, then check the same point first in the next assignment. Starting from the lowest-scoring rubric criterion keeps this manageable. The EEF's secondary literacy guidance also recommends breaking long writing tasks into smaller steps, which is what the eight stages above do.
What home support should and shouldn't do
Home support works best when it helps a student understand the task and think it through, rather than supplying the content or writing the sentences for them.
- Read the assignment prompt together and confirm what is actually being asked
- When ideas won't come, talk it through in Japanese to organise her thinking
- Check the structure together: introduction, body, conclusion
- Review a finished draft with her: prompting her to notice issues, rather than fixing them for her
When should a parent step in?
A useful test is whether the ideas and sentences are still the student's own at the end. Appropriate help varies with age and the school's rules, so check the school's guidance if unsure.
| Stage | Helpful | Better avoided |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding the task | Read it together and ask the student to explain it | Giving the answer first |
| Planning | Draw out ideas and help set up an outline | Deciding the outline's content |
| Checking | Check that task requirements and rubric items are covered | Rewriting sentences until it no longer sounds like the child |
| Routine | Set a time and place, and work in small steps | Turning homework into a parent's task |
How Petra Tutors approaches this
When a student's writing stalls, we first check whether it is an English-ability issue or a different stage entirely. If the block is understanding the task or generating ideas, we sometimes start with that thinking process before touching English itself.
We can work with school textbooks and homework, but we do not complete assignments on a student's behalf. The goal is a student who understands the task and can carry it forward independently.
Tutors who support IB and international-school writing include Tina, Cian and Dominic. For how Japanese-language support fits, see when Japanese support helps, and for the wider service, international school support. If the next step is turning a summary into analysis, see from IB summary to analysis.
