Some students find writing to be of lower priority than learning how to speak. To get them excited and motivated to practice writing, you’ll need great writing activities.
Through fun activities, you can help students understand the importance of writing. Moreover, you can show them that writing doesn’t have to be exhausting and demanding. It can actually be entertaining and inspiring.
Do you want to help your students improve their writing skills? Then, try out some of these activities that are aimed to evoke their motivation for writing.
1. Summarizing a Video
Videos are typically used as an engaging listening activity. They are great for helping students develop their vocabulary. For beginners, listening to a video dialogue is the perfect practice for exposing themselves to a second language.
What you can do is to take this listening activity and upgrade it to a writing activity. After they’ve seen the video, ask students to write a summary (up to 3 sentences).
Since they’ve been listening prior to writing, the new vocabulary and sentence formats will still be fresh in their brain. Thus, they’ll be able to write more comprehensive sentences.
There are lots of videos for ESL storytelling on YouTube (e.g., A Story about Sushi). You can single out those that would fit your students’ current level of knowledge.
2. Writing from Pictures
There are two ways in which you can approach the “writing from pictures” activity. The first one is to provide students with a single picture and to ask them to write a short story about it.
The second one is to let students draw out three pictures (that contain a single object) and write a short story that includes those three objects.
However, when choosing these pictures, make sure that students have already covered that vocabulary. Use simple images of a dog, cat, hat, house, girl, and similar. You want to make this activity interesting and creative.
3. Writing Activity Related to Their Passion
When we are passionate about a certain thing, we get a motivation boost for any activity related to that passion. Motivate your students to engage in writing by assigning them a task to write a few simple sentences about their passion.
However, bear in mind that not everyone has a deep passion for something. That’s why you should provide some backup topics for students who can’t think of anything to write about.
For some inspiration, you can check out essay topics on the website of the best college writing services. There you can pull out some hobby/passion related topics and offer them to your students as potential choices.
4. Keeping a Journal
Journaling is a perfect way to ensure that students maintain consistency in writing. In addition, it can help both them and you to keep track of their progress.
In the beginning, their journal entries can be as simple as “I watch TV” or “I visit my friend in New York.” You can allow them to write in the present tense until they learn the past tense. With time, they’ll be able to write more elaborate sentences.
It would be best if students write in their journals every day. However, if that is too big of a commitment, they can make a journal entry 3-times a week or summarize their weekend on Mondays.
5. Association Chain Game
Who says that writing only has to be an individual activity? Group activities can further inspire students’ desire for writing. The association chain game can help you with that mission.
The way in which the association chain game works is that every student says one word that is associated with the previous one. For example, book – learn – fun – game – win – gold – mystery. Then, the students have the assignment to write a story using all those words.
Once they are done, everyone can read their story out loud. Seeing how people can make up completely different stories based on the same words can be very entertaining.
The association chain game is also an opportunity to craft an incredible gift for your students. You can collect their stories, edit them with the help of a writing service (if needed), and give them the collection of their short stories after they finish the beginners’ course. Make sure to read the reviews such as the review of TopEssayWriting to find a suitable writing service that can professionally edit the stories. Having such a personal memory of their peers in the class and their beginning in ESL writing can be an amazing present for your students.
6. Writing a Postcard
Postcards intertwine a simple writing format with a fun writing activity. They give beginner learners a motivation for further improving their knowledge – traveling.
Tell your students to imagine they are in an exotic country or dreamy mountain resort. Let them picture their dream holiday to draw them into the activity. Assign them to write a postcard to their family member or their best friend.
To help them out, provide your students with the basic elements of a postcard:
- The greeting
- A sentence that explains where you are
- One to three sentences about what you’ve been doing or what you like about that place
- Sending your regards
- A signature
If you want to help them some more, write on the board a postcard template they can use. It can go something like this:
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Dear _____,
I am in _________. This place is _______. Yesterday I __________. Tomorrow I will ___________.
Love, _________
7. Sending Emails
Email is one of the most common sources of communication nowadays. To illustrate the importance of writing practice, teach your students to write emails.
Start by explaining the difference between informal and formal emails. Show them the email formats for both. Then, encourage them through different writing activities to practice writing both formal and informal emails.
For the formal email practice, they can imagine that you are their employer. They can write an email that informs you (“their employer”) that they won’t come to work. For the informal email, they can write an email to their friends about a party they’ll be organizing. The topic choices are endless, and this practice will be not only useful for your students in the academic sense but also in everyday life.
Final Thoughts
Experimenting with different writing activities can show your students the importance of writing practice.
Through these activities, they’ll be able to engage in writing for various purposes. They’ll also get to see that there is a fun side to writing.
Keep in mind that activities should be adapted to the age and interests of students.
Author’s bio. Jessica Fender is a professional writer and educational blogger at Alltopreviews, an aggregator for useful college resources and websites. Jessica enjoys sharing her ideas to make writing and learning fun.
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