This is the third installment of ESL classroom activities that English teachers can implement for their language courses. In the first article, we focused on how teachers can improve English language learners’ listening and reading skills. If you haven’t read them already, go to the bottom of this hub to access the links. In this final part of the article of how to teach English as a second language to adults, we will focus primarily on effective ESL writing activities that you can use in the classroom. For writing-based ESL classes, it is important to find a course textbook that covers essential elements of writing, such as proper grammar usage, sentence structure, punctuation, paragraph structure, and academic essay writing. With a reputable textbook that focuses on all of these areas of writing, it will provide English language learners with all of the important skills to elevate their writing. In addition to the textbook, supplemental activities can reinforce what they learn from the textbook and can provide an interactive way to improve their writing skills even further in the classroom.

Outlined below are some of these useful activities that you can use with your own students. Teaching essay structure to foreign language learners can be an essential tool for students who are entering university if they haven’t learned it during their high school years of education. Outlining basic essay structure can help students build proper form to their writing and can help them understand an important fundamental of academic writing. When explaining essay structure, you can start by drawing a blueprint / birds-eye view of what a traditional 5-paragraph essay looks like on the board. First, draw large boxes for the introduction, three body paragraphs and concluding paragraph. Elicit what should be featured in the introduction, such as a hook, background information on the topic and the thesis statement. Next, focus on what content to writing in the body paragraphs, including the topic sentences and supporting details which could include examples, quotations, and other supporting sentences. Content has been created by Essay Freelance Writers.

Finally, for the concluding paragraph inform the students to add a restatement of their thesis, summarize the main points of the essay and finish up with a concluding sentence which could be a suggestion or opinion about the topic they have written about. After showing and explaining the main components of an essay, you could give them printouts and examples of different essays that follow the structure that you outlined. The next writing activity will explain how to use comic strips as a way to improve students' writing skills. If thesis statement examples for research papers want to know how to teach English as a second language to adults more effectively, it helps to add some fun elements to your lessons. Try to capture their attention and use writing activities that are not always so serious. An engaging writing activity for all ages and levels involves creating dialog for comic strips. There are two ways in which you can do the activity.

The first method is the easiest to prepare. Simply hand out some paper to the students and have them create 3 columns and 3 rows. In each box, they must draw a simple comic graphic. They can make a complete story using all 9 boxes or three shorter comic stories across each row. After they have finished their drawings in the boxes, have them hand their papers to a partner. The partner must then create dialog (or description) based on what they see from the drawings. Encourage them to be as creative or witty as possible emphasizing a particular grammar point or vocabulary from the course curriculum. When they are finished writing the dialog, have them present it to the class or in smaller groups. It’s an entertaining and engaging method for getting students to write more creatively. The second method of the Comic Strips Writing Activity is done in a similar way, but the only difference is that you print out an actual comic that you find online. After printing out the comic, white out the dialog from all the speech bubbles and make copies. The students then create their own dialog using the original comic book story.

The final writing activity will explore how you can use chocolate or snacks as a way of elevating students' descriptive writing skills. Another activity you can try to improve your students' descriptive writing skills involves creating sentences emphasizing the five human senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. To start the activity, give each student a small piece of chocolate or some form of snack. You could even buy a bag of potato chips and give them each a chip or “crisp.” Tell them NOT to eat it or it will spoil the activity. Tell them that the aim of the game is to have them write one sentence describing the chocolate (or chip) using one of the human senses. For instance, first, tell them to smell it. Next, get them to write a descriptive sentence emphasizing how the chocolate smells. Everyone writes a sentence and highlight a few examples from a number of students.