“学而时习之，不亦说乎”这句古训不仅体现在雅思学员的学习过程中，更体现在我们雅思老师教学的日常实践中。在近期的教学中，对小作文，特别结合我们的现行教材，有了一些新的感悟，借此机会与各位同仁分享一二。

写作一向是中国雅思考生的软肋，小作文的质量其实是现今雅思考试写作部分成败的关键所在。之所以这样说是因为大作文中，至少其中起承转合和以及一些程式化的表达是可以事先准备的，这也就是我们所谓的模板或者模板句。但是小作文单个图表结构的变化、图表组合叠加、数字的选取和标志性的趋势、特点的界定都会影响到考生们小作文的表现。在此特别就《雅思写作基础段标准教程》中第103页的柱状图在原文中进行小作文写作的简单剖析。教材原文和意见如下：

The chart shows the number of hours of leisure enjoyed by men and women in a typical week in 1998-1999, according to gender and employment status.

本文的开头四平八稳，包含了问题题目、图表标题、图表图例中所传达的所有信息。句型略显单薄，且介词in使用不当。建议文本如下：

The pie chart depicts the number of leisure hours for a typical week between 1998 and 1999 with categorisation of gendre and employment status.

原文主体段落的结构划分值得学习：原文没有简单粗暴地从性别进行划分并随后展开主体段落，从而避免了重复数据再现句型的风险;原文根据图表中的不同工作性质的内在属性进行了归类，把调查群体分为工作的人群(part/full-time)，不工作的人群(retired & unemployed)和其他类别(housewives)，然后分类进行描述。这里给学员的启示是：简单的分类例如从性别入手，固然直接再现数据固然可行，但是因此产生的麻烦则在所难免，例如句型重复、描述复杂等等。针对成组对比的柱状图，还有一种划分主体段落的方法，即A柱比B柱高的几组用一段主体段进行描述，相反的几组写在另一个主体段落。

Among those employed full-time, men on average had fifty hours of leisure, whereas women had approximately thirty-seven hours. There were no figures given for male part-time workers, but female part-timers had forty hours of leisure time, only slightly more than women in full-time employment, perhaps reflecting their work in the home.

本段结构清晰，如能够添加划分段落结构的标题句且删除其中主观臆断成分，必为好文。建议文本如下：

Generally, workers despite gendre difference enjoyed 35-50 leisure hours. In the category of “employed full-time”, men had fifty hours of leisure while women approximately thirty-seven. As part-timers, women were using inconspicuously more free hours than full-timers of the same gendre, and no data were provided for male part-timers.