How to Teach a Perfect Writing
In an ESL classroom, the emphasis should be and often is on speaking because being able to communicate is the goal of learning another language. On the other hand, the ability to listen, read, and write in English is significant as well. Lesson plans should include all these English acquisition methods as much as possible even while focusing on one in particular.
Here is an example of how you might conduct an effective writing lesson.
How To Proceed With Teaching A Writing Lesson
- 1
Warm up
Students will be spending a significant amount of time sitting at their desks
working quietly for this lesson so, especially if you teach children, it is a
good idea to get them moving and speaking during the beginning portion of your
class. You can play Crisscross to get them out of their seats but
perhaps a short interview activity based on the lesson’s theme or as a review of the previous lesson would be
better. This way, students can maximize the amount of time they spend speaking
and moved around the classroom interacting with other students.
- 2
Introduce
Start out by asking students to say what they know about the lesson’s topic,
for example horoscopes, to get some related
vocabulary on the board. When they have run out of things they already know,
introduce any additional material and do some pronunciation practice of the new
words they will be using in the lesson. For some vocabulary ask students to give you a synonym or use it
in a sentence. This is a good way of seeing how familiar students are with
certain words or how comfortable they are using them. While it is
important to focus on the target language you prepared, be sure to include some
of the material students contributed in these exercises as well.
- 3
Practice
At this point you should introduce some key structures. A couple sample
questions and answers will give students an idea of how to use these. Before
giving an explanation, ask students to translate or explain the examples to you
in order to see if they can guess the meaning without being told. Before having
students practice this material independently, do some choral repetition for pronunciation practice.
- 4
Practice More
At this point students should think of their own answers to the questions
following the structure of the example sentences. They can do this by
interviewing one another. Allow students to interview several students as the
answers will vary from person to person. Students could also write their
answers on a worksheet and then share their answers with one another. This will
make them a little more confident when talking with their peers because their
answers have already been composed and written down. Hearing the answers that
others have come up with, students may have more ideas and want to expand on their
own answers so this kind of interaction can be quite beneficial. Before
students move on to the significant writing portion of the lesson, ask them to
share some of their responses aloud. This will give another opportunity for
students to speak and share ideas while allowing you to clear up any remaining
confusion.
- 5
Produce
After all this preparation, students are finally able to begin writing. They
have been given a topic, some useful vocabulary, and
thought of some answers to related questions which will form the framework of
their written work. Ask students to write a certain number of sentences
related to the topic you’ve chosen. If students take longer than expected,
the homework assignment can be to finish writing.
- 6
Review
After making corrections and returning the writing assignments to students,
have volunteers read their answers aloud. This way they will practice the
corrected material and not reinforce mistakes. If you notice that students
struggled with something in particular, do a short activity focused on that
point before moving on to the next topic.
There are many other ways to focus on writing in the classroom.
You may not have particular structures that students need to use or even a very specific topic. Students could do writing assignments based on readings or with prompts like "Tell a story about when you were younger.” This example just shows one of the many ways you can give students the opportunity to improve their writing skills.