How I would help Yu to improve his essay writing?

Though I have sent Yu to Mind Stretcher class for one-and-a-half-month, I did not see much improvement in his essay writing.  But from teacher's marking of his written essays, I gathered the root problems and this allowed me to think of actions to resolve the problems.

I observed that Yu is very poor in his grammar. There are a number of mistakes.

(a) Joining many sentences using commas.

(b) Use present tense instead of past tense.

(c) Did not start a sentence with capital letter.

So, my immediate task is to train him to write simple essays with no grammar mistakes. It will comprise short sentences, with simple vocabulary, but must be grammatically correct.

After that, I will need to improve on his vocabulary. He tends to use plain languages like said, told. I would have to search and compile a list of words for him to use.

Below is a summary of my strategies:

1. Combine good phrases 

I have learned that by searching good phrases on the Internet and modifying them for my use, I can come up with pretty good paragraphs. This gives me a clue. I can train Yu to combine good phrases from Internet to come up with his own paragraphs in essay writing.

2. Inject feeling into the essay.
   Writing essay is about how you feel about an incident and not just a description of what happen.  Yu tends to just describe what happens and there is no mention of how the character feels. So, I will need to train him in this aspect.
   
3. Correct Yu's grammar
   • Encourage him to write in short sentences. He tends to write long sentences with a lot of commas.
   • Use past tenses only. He tends to use present tense and marks are deducted for grammar.
    
   
4. Replace 'said', 'told' by richer vocabularies.