Most ESL students consider writing difficult and boring. Difficult because it’s hard for students to express their ideas with a limited knowledge of the language and boring because they have to write about uninteresting topics only to please the teacher and get a grade.
Have you ever thought why you write in your regular life? You write to answer emails, chat, take notes and make reports. So you always write with a purpose and have an audience in mind. Besides, you don’t concentrate on language but on the message you want to convey. Those are the things the class exercise is generally deprived of.
One way to motivate your students to write is to give them opportunities to write and be read; to express their thoughts and ideas in any way they want and not to focus on language every time. Create some activities for fun and correct only some aspects of writing because too much correction frustrate and block students.
Young people love technology so it’s a good idea to use it. Create a website where students can publish their writing projects and if you don’t feel comfortable doing so, some of your students will be happy to design the website for you.
Here’s a list of activities you can use to motivate your students to write. They can be used to introduce the unit theme, make a revision, reinforce knowledge, or whenever you think it’s suitable.
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Ask your students to write a survey about how people come to school. Students should present a graph and actually write very little. This activity can be used to practice the comparative and superlative form of adjectives. But please don’t tell them. The graphics can be presented in excel or power point.
- Ask your students to read different short stories and write a review to be posted on the class wall or on your website. Ask everybody to vote for the best one and the winning story has to be read by the whole class.
- After the class has watched a short movie, read a lesson or looked at pictures they can write a dialog between the student and one of the characters in the movie. They can act the dialog in the classroom , use voice chat or record it and upload it to the website.
- Write words they have just learnt on the board. Divide the class in groups and ask them to take turns to write down a sentence with one of the words. Then, he or she has to pass it over to the next student who has to read the previous sentence and add his. After all the members have written one sentence the different groups have to read the stories aloud.
This task can be done using paper and pencil or with the cell phones. Imagine the fun and excitement!
- Ask your students to write their own bio without including their actual names. You can put all the strips of papers in a bag and students should take out one and read it aloud. Everyone has to guess who the bio refers to. You can also post the bios on a website with a link to the answer and do the same activity.
- Use textual chat with beginners. Send them an “emoticon” as a prompt and ask them to write a message connected with the drawing. You can also teach them chat slang ( LOL, AAS, etc.) They’ll love it.
- Use yahoo groups to discuss different topics, send information on regular basis and even to teach some of your classes.
- Blog with your students about current news, movies, celebrities, trends and much more.
Give learners opportunities to write with a purpose in a relaxed and positive atmosphere, using the Internet devices they love and they will feel not only motivated to write but will improve their writing skill and their self-esteem.
© Monica Haydee Di Santi
Monica Haydee Di Santi is an ESL teacher and has a master degree in Linguistics.
She has been a teacher and speaker in Chile, Argentina and USA. She’s also a published translator and writer. Her work has been published in Mexico, USA, Hong Kong and India.
She’s the author of www.e1-network.com
