How to Teach ESL Students to Write in English
You know that teaching your ESL students to write in English is an essential part of your job as their teacher, but how exactly do you go about doing this? Here, you’ll learn 4 tips and strategies to effectively teach your middle school ESL students to write in English.
Challenges ESL Students Face When It Comes To Writing
Depending on where your ESL students come from and their native language, these challenges may differ from student to student. However, some of the main problems students face are something to the effect of grammar, vocabulary, and fluency. One thing to remember is that our students are children, just like their monolingual peers. They may have the same underlying struggles on top of the linguistic challenges.
It’s important to remember that your students will not go from non-writers to writing five-paragraph essays in one school year. Developing writing skills takes years to master for those writing in their own language. Add some extra time for those learning a new language.
Strategies for Teaching ESL Students to Write
Give your ESL Students the Opportunity to Write
From my experience, I have come to realize that allocating time for students to write freely is no longer the norm in many classrooms. With so much standardized testing practice, teachers are forced to stick to the type of writing that will be tested. In many cases, teachers will teach writing only to review for the test.
If you’re one of the teachers who feels like you are being forced to do this for lack of time, don’t fret. You still have time to fix this. Here are some ideas to get your students writing. The main point to remember is not to worry about conventions. Just let them write.
Bell Ringers: Provide your students with real-world writing prompts that they can relate to. Make them open-ended and provide ample time for them to write. Bonus points if they share their thoughts out loud!
Journaling: Encourage students to keep a journal or personal writing notebook, where they can write about whatever they want, without worrying about grammar, structure, or content.
Back and Forth Journaling: Although very time-consuming, this activity involves writing notes to your students and they write back. It’s like writing old-fashioned letters again! You can do this once a week, or as often as you like. You’ll gain so much insight from your students and you’ll understand the story behind their behaviors. Talk about trust!
Provide Graphic Organizers to Organize Thoughts and Ideas
Graphic organizers are an essential part of the writing process for everyone, but especially for ESL students. Again, depending on where your students come from and what their native language is, chances are they have an idea of what they want to write, but it’s jumbled up among stories, memories, and other thoughts in their brains and it’s our job to give them the tools they need to organize them.
They need to put it on paper in an organized way so they can see it in front of them. It’s like sorting through their thoughts and pulling out only the ones that pertain to the topic they’re writing about.
Teach Grammar and Sentence Structure Explicitly
Grammar is one of those things that many teachers push to the back burner for lack of time. However, it’s important to understand that if you don’t teach it, nobody else will. It’s one of those things that isn’t learned by osmosis.
Provide many examples and practice for your students to learn through. Remember to teach grammar in context. It makes more sense to students when you pull out a sentence from something you’re already reading than random sentences that they don’t have a connection to. Here are some ideas for you to pull from:
Novels you’re currently reading
Reading passages
Their own writing. This one is my favorite. Remove the name from the writing and go over it together one paragraph at a time. Read it as a whole and let your students tell you what needs to be revised. They absolutely love this and you will too. They get practice, feedback, and peer collaboration all at the same time.
Types of Writing for ESL Students
Although you should be providing prompts similar to your students’ monolingual peers, it’s important to note that there are some prompts that are most suitable for ESL students. It’s always best to give your students choices. As you think about what you want them to write about, think of various topics within the same genre so that they can choose what interested them the most. Below are a few examples:
Descriptive Writing: Students who are learning English need extra practice to learn new vocabulary words. This type of writing provides a great opportunity for them to look up words that will best describe what they want to say. Use pictures of familiar objects or places so that your ESL students can write about them easily.
Narrative Writing: Writing about personal experiences is the easiest way to get students to write. After all, people only write about what they already know about. Give them prompts such as their favorite memories or the best and worst days.
Persuasive Writing: This type of writing is getting all the hype right now because that is what standardized tests are testing. Make sure you’re assigning prompts that are relatable to their age and interests.
Expository Writing: Make sure the topic you’re assigning is relevant to them or that you have taught it to the point where the vocabulary is familiar to them.
Tips and Reminders
ESL students are just like any other student but with added challenges. With an extra dose of patience, persistence, and empathy, your ESL students will succeed. Hold your standards high for them and make the instruction simple and easy to follow. Don’t be afraid to give them more time and more feedback than you would any other student.
In a Nutshell
Teaching writing to ESL students is just like teaching writing to monolingual English-speaking students, except you’ll need to tweak it a bit. ESL students carry the same challenges as their peers on top of learning the English language. Simplify as much as you can and give them ample opportunities to write about familiar topics where they can learn and use new vocabulary in contexts they already know about. The first step to getting students to write is to let them write without worrying about conventions or doing it right. Just let it flow. Introduce writing techniques naturally while revising texts. Most importantly, don’t give up on your students. They just need patience, persistence, and empathy.
Need simple writing prompts for your ESL students?
Download these FREE digital journal prompts with real pictures to get your ESL students writing about familiar and relevant topics. You’ll be glad you did and so will they.
