10 ESL Writing Activities for English Class

10 ESL Writing Activities for English Class

Writing is a crucial talent, so ESL teachers shouldn’t undervalue its significance for their students. Writing boosts vocabulary and solidifies their mastery of English. It also improves the student’s knowledge, creativity, and, ultimately, intelligence. As an ESL teacher, you would be thinking about ways to groom these skills, so worry not! In this article, we will be telling you about the top 10 writing activities for English Class!

Creative Writing Prompts (ESL writing activities)

Here is a list of some exciting creative writing ideas that you can download for free! These 60 FREE Writing Prompts will help you a lot in helping your students dive into their imagination.

In-class graffiti

In-class graffiti is a great ESL writing activity for English class. For this activity, you can make six stations with four charts around the classroom, each with the following titles.

• Conflicts
• Personality qualities
• Settings
• Themes

Then divide the class into four groups, and each group should enter one of the stations. The group members will work as a unit to scribble potential conflicts, character features, places, and themes on the paper. That may show up in a work of fiction!

Afterward, have them go to the following station and repeat the procedure. When they are finished, ask each student to choose from the graffiti pages one character characteristic, one conflict, one setting, and a theme to create a unique tale. If the students are at a lesser level, you can utilize other stations, such as characters, actions, objects, and descriptive phrases. This way, a lot of learning and creative writing practice can take place in an ESL class.

Consult an Oracle

Consult an oracle is another great ESL writing activity for English class. For this exciting writing practice, you can instruct your students to write one question they want the oracle to answer on the top of the page. They must then pass the paper from each writer to the person on their left. That student must write the response to the question. The writer must fold the top piece to hide the question before handing it to the person on the left.

This technique is challenging but intriguing. After reading the previous response they see in the paper, each writer must create a potential query. The same round continues until the solution is given at the bottom of the page. To read their initial question, the responses they believe to be correct, and everything in between, all the writers unroll their papers. Quite fun yet productive, isn’t it?

How to Write a Paragraph for Aliens

Writing a paragraph for aliens is one of my favorite ESL writing activities for English class.

This activity will make your ESL students want more of the class.

This is like a game rather than a writing practice where the students provide detailed instructions for aliens to imitate them. For instance, you can ask them to describe how aliens should go to school in the morning. The extraterrestrial needs to be able to pass for you exactly without being noticed.

It is important to make kids consider something that comes naturally to them. They must deconstruct and characterize activities. Students need to consider both their actions and their methods.

See a video

See a video is another great practice for ESL writing activities. For this activity, You are welcome to use your video. We will be using this video as an illustration. It is from Coca-Cola and contrasts a grandfather’s and his grandson’s lives to demonstrate the differences between today’s life and the past. You should bring the student into pace first, after which they view the video. Then pose the queries to them. Begin gently. What beverage is your favorite? Describe what you saw in the video.

You will definitely value the difference it makes. Describe how your life differs from that of your grandparents. Then take another look. Each participant should note the differences they notice. People used to bring their lunches to work in the past. People purchase lunch today. Ask the children to create an essay about how life has changed using some of the concepts from the board. This way, young learners would have much to jot down on their blank sheets.

Detailed writing

For this ESL writing activity, students must write about a single object of their choice. In this activity, you can utilize a cube to ask six different questions to assist the students in defining an object. Each question offers a learner a unique perspective on a concept or item. The response yields a wealth of data that aid pupils in developing their writing’s depth and richness. 

Describe the concept and sentence construction. Give them an illustration. What the thing appears to be. Describe it using sensory-focused language. Is it comparable to something else? Compare and contrast how it differs from others. What distinguishes it? Analyze, and organize everything into manageable pieces. Apply how it can be put to use. Who employs it? What can we learn from it, and discuss your thoughts about it? Is it good or bad, right or wrong, good or terrible, yes or no? Explain your choices with logic.

In this way, the students will have loads of learning, and their writing will improve drastically.

Four seasons (ESL writing activities)

Another great addition for ESL writing activities. You can instruct your students to write about two connected seasons in two paragraphs.

 Express your preferences for the best and worst seasons of the year. Make sure your pupils consider all the activities they do throughout different seasons so that they can create thoroughly developed paragraphs. What they do in the summer instead of the winter. How is the weather today? Students should be reminded to engage the reader’s senses.

Music while Writing

For this artistic, creative writing activity, you can distribute a piece of paper to each student. Invite them to start their narrative at the beginning. Then begin playing music and instruct students to adapt their stories to the tone of the music. Whatever suits you, whether it be pop, classical, Star Wars, or African drumming.

They may write whatever they want. They hand the paper to the person sitting next to them, who reads it once the music stops and then continues the narrative. Furthermore, the longer this activity lasts, the more time it will require to read this narrative. So instead of making it excessively long, you should keep each narrative to five or six turns.

Association game

This is an excellent ESL writing game to play with your students. 

Ask them to make an association chain for a word when you provide it. For instance, an airport, a trip, a holiday, a party, a night out, a move, or space. There need not be a general topic, but each word must relate to the one before it. Ask the pupils to compose a narrative entirely in their own words.

This way, creativity will flow inside them, and they will have more command over writing.

Report about an actual incident

You can give the pupils a newspaper for this ESL writing practice. Let them discuss it collectively and choose a news item to write about. They can either copy an article in their own words, albeit doing so can include some plagiarism, write it from a different angle, such as writing it from the perspective of a player in a sport, or they might send a letter to the editor.

Later, you can allow pupils to speak in front of the class to deliver a report and respond to inquiries on the subject. It is a perfect way for the students to nourish their writing skills!

Conclusion (ESL writing activities)

These ESL writing activities in English class are an excellent way to polish students’ writing skills in a productive way where they don’t get bored or feel burdensome. We hope these top 10 activities will aid you in your ESL classroom and make a difference in student performance.

For more free ESL resources come to check out our list of freebies HERE.

For online English teaching jobs to apply for, check out our JOB LISTS HERE.