ESL Essay Writing Activities.The Structure of an Essay

The thing that is first will have to do is make fully sure your ESL students understand how an essay should really be structured. Generally, it’s always best to introduce students towards the traditional essay structure that is 5-paragraph

• 1st Paragraph: The introduction, which lets readers know what the essay will be about.
• 2nd-4th Paragraphs: your body paragraphs, which provide arguments and evidence to guide the point that is main of essay.
• 5th Paragraph: The conclusion, which summarizes the human body paragraphs and reiterates the main point for the essay.

Keeping a visual with this structure will allow students to start to see the whole picture so that they are aware of what they are working towards while writing an essay. It could be very challenging for ESL students to put their thoughts to be able; therefore, it is essential to introduce activities and methods which will help result in the writing process easier.

Essay Writing Activities

The activities that are following be used in the ESL classroom to greatly help students better understand the essay writing process. Make changes as required to best match students’ English and writing ability.

Hamburger Essay Builder

This is often a graphic organizer, or piece-by-piece project, to greatly help students better understand the structure of an essay.

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1. Give students an outline image of a hamburger
2. Provide label sections for every single associated with the hamburger parts (top bun, tomato, essaywriter lettuce, meat, bottom bun)
3. Have students label each part of the hamburger to represent each part of the essay (introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion).
4. Provide students with cut outs shaped like each one of the hamburger parts.
5. Have students write the description out for every single associated with corresponding essay parts to their buns, lettuce, tomato, and meat.
6. When finished, have students assemble their hamburger that is essay to as reference once they begin writing their first essays.

Free Writing

Utilize this fun activity to have students practice their writing skills as they race against the clock. The object with this activity is to have students focus more on getting words in writing, and less on worrying about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Be sure they know errors will not count. The target is to write as much as possible inside the right time limit to allow them to observe how much that amount will increase each and every time the game is completed in class.

1. Provide a list of interesting topics students can choose from (favorite hobby, childhood memory, future goals, embarrassing story, family tradition).
2. Tell students they will write for a designated amount of time (2-5 minutes depending upon the age/language level) without stopping.
3. When completed, allow students to learn their writing aloud, or perhaps in pairs, so that they can enjoy each other’s work.

This can be a way that is great help use the pressure away from ESL students when it comes to writing. Be encouraging while making sure to keep the activity lighthearted and fun.

Creative Writing Activities

Have students practice their writing skills by incorporating mini creative writing lessons into your day by day routine. Allowing students to publish from many different angles can help them feel much more comfortable using the English language in written form.

• Use writing prompts that may spark students’ interests by having them write on their sport that is favorite, book, hobby, vacation, or holiday.
• Have students write a sequence piece explaining how to make a move they have been good at (cooking a meal, scoring a soccer goal, writing a blog post).
• Ask students an impression question; for example: could you rather save money or spend it on a holiday? Do you might think it is important to complete homework? Ask them to write out their answer, along side a description for that answer.
• Pose the question, »What could you do if. » and add in various scenarios. For example, »What could you do in the event that you got lost in a city that is big? What can you do if you won a million dollars?» Have students write their responses down to made within the scenarios.

Help students identify common grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors, that could have popped up inside their creative writing pieces by having them work in pairs to edit the other person’s work. Emphasizing this important step will help develop your ESL students’ self-editing skills.

Argumentative Essay Debates

To make the process for writing an argumentative essay easier, hold debates in class to demonstrate students how to collect supportive evidence, examples, and details before they begin writing. Make note of new vocabulary, concepts, and ideas on the board so students can better understand the pieces that are key include in this essay style.

1. Divide your class into two groups.
2. Introduce a topic that is debatable students should be able to understand.
3. Write out a couple of questions that are higher-order each group to discuss.
4. Ask the questions aloud; allow the debate begin with moderation and extra questioning that is higher-ordering.
5. Have students take notes of this discussed points that are main examples, support, and oppositions for their side of the argument.

Once the debate is complete, go over ways for students to prepare this information into a plan so it are able to be used to form a very good argumentative essay.