Writing activities for beginning ESL students

Jodi Versawjversaw@iecminnesota.org

Opening questions

What do you remember about learning to write?

What do you remember about learning to write in a foreign language?

Learning to write

Learning to write…

◦takes years.

◦takes practice.

◦for some (many?) students is a lower priority than learning to speak.

Student characteristics that influence writing ability

Education level

◦no formal schooling; non-literate

◦limited formal schooling, low-literate ◦“emergent readers” (writers)

Student characteristics that influence writing ability

Cultures of origin that value oral communication over written communication

Student characteristics that influence writing ability

Native languages with different alphabets and writing structure◦Russian, Tibetan, Korean – different alphabets◦Arabic – unwritten vowels, written from right to

left◦Amharic – characters represent consonant +

vowel

Amharic

Learning to write

Brief questions, thoughts, observations?

Writing activities

Letter formation

Complete beginners need to start by practicing letter formation in English. They can do this by tracing and copying letters and words.

Letter formation

Longman ESL LiteracyName grid – print out and laminateuse Comic Sans font; change color to

gray; expand character spacing

Letter formation

Handwriting worksheets

Writing wizard 

Basic sentence formation

Beginners with command of the alphabet need support in creating full sentences.

Basic sentence formation

Teacher-modeled writing

Writing from “mingle” activity

Writing from pictures

Writing original thoughts and ideas

Higher beginners who can put words together into sentences need support and encouragement to put their own ideas and thoughts into writing.

Writing original thoughts and ideas

Free writing – starter question, 5 minutes to write as much as possible:◦What food do you like? What food don’t you

like? Why?◦Write about the people in your family. What are

their names? Where do they live?◦Write about your kitchen. What is in your

kitchen? What do you do in the kitchen?◦ Write about yesterday. What did you do?

Where did you go? What did you eat?

Writing original thoughts and ideas

Journals◦Personal observations◦Dialog between student and teacher

Writing original thoughts and ideas

Simple poems – less focus on sentence structure, more focus on creativity◦MLC volunteer curriculum Beginning ESL: Writing poetry

Building additional skills

When high beginners have some self-confidence with writing words and sentences, they should be exposed to basic paragraph form.

Building additional skills

MLC volunteer curriculumBeginning – Descriptive writingIntermediate – Personal writing