Most of the time, ESL classes focus more on speaking since the objective is to learn how to speak another language. Besides, it is important too to learn how to listen, read, and write in English as well. Therefore, lesson plans for teaching writing skills should be part of the English learning process and methods as much as it is possible.
However, it becomes difficult for a tutor to keep their lessons interesting to their students as they learn writing skills. With so many lesson plans for teaching skills you can use, I have compiled the best lesson plan you can rely on to teach diverse writing techniques and styles to students below. Take a look.
What is the Best Lesson Plan for Teaching Writing Skills? The Plan
- Story writing lesson. Use news stories as you teach your students the writing skills, as it is vital for them to learn the different styles of writing that exist. Use examples such as newspapers that have different tones and structures to elaborate on them that their writing format differs from a narrative one. It is a great way you can facilitate your writing skills teaching.
- Writing fictional narratives. Call all the characters together with the students; for instance, break the characters in a narrative down based on their traits, behaviors, and actions. It may be difficult at first for them, but as time passes, they will get acclimatized to the entire idea. Let all students feel free to share their ideas and let them know that all ideas are acceptable.
- Essay writing. Drafting essays together with the students is so ideal to find the various ways you can engage the students and instill their learning of essay writing. Use essays written by other authors and let the students deconstruct them as they learn about the essay structure. By doing so, they are in a good position to understand essay writing faster. Just like Lauren Bradshaw, a professional essay writer from CustomWritings, once said, “anyone just needs to start writing, no matter what they write”, thus the students can only learn essay writing if they start practicing.
- Description of objects. Objective creative learning involves describing objects by the students to enable them to think creatively in response to a stimulus. This will help them nurture their descriptive writing skills. Besides describing characters, let your students start with object creative writing and write narratives on the objectives you present to them. It helps them to think independently and acquire skills that develop their creative ideas for the future.
- Use of letters of complaint. Most students are aware of letters as the common text types they are familiar with, thus, use this lesson plan to motivate the students to learn how to use phrases. The phrases they use in the letters of complaint teach them to express their attitude and emotions, which is mostly found in such letters.
- Through advertising. Teaching how to advertise as part of your lesson plan for teaching writing skills helps the students understand various ways to use persuasive language. Moreover, the students learn ways they can form arguments in their essays and debates they part in. Similarly, learning persuasion boosts the student’s confidence levels.
- Editing the writing of their peers. Peer editing entails students editing what their friends have already written, for instance, by marking the classwork of others. This helps them develop a good grasp of their writing skills by analyzing what they can do differently. The response the students get from each other motivates them to develop a positive attitude towards criticism and learning.
- Personal reflection. Self-reflection involves the students eliminating the errors that occur in their writing, as they have to re-read their work and identify the key errors. If any of the errors recur, then they need to re-do the work without the identified errors. By doing so students learn how to correct their work and deal with habits that are not appropriate to minimize them in the future.
- Writing for hypothetical purposes. Also called writing for a real purpose may leave some of the students feeling unmotivated to give out their work for marking. Thus, this lesson plan requires the students to respond to actual life events that they have a personal interest in. Hence, this way they adopt authentic voices that are based on the actual life’s experiences and it makes their work more engaging.
- The Words-Challenge. The students should be able to write clearly and succinctly, and they can achieve this by having words-challenges in the class. The challenge involves writing a certain number of words, for instance, 100 words about themselves to teach them how to explain themselves precisely. It teaches them how to get to the point in a few words.
- Use A Pseudonym Project. Some students may not like the idea of sharing their work with others, and they often feel shy about the idea. Then start a pseudonym class project that involves the students doing every task anonymously. Also, it allows the students to go by any pseudonym they choose as they hand in their work. This helps them to feel less self-conscious and personal and more passionate in their work, which results in high-quality work.
- Copywriting. Let your students become copy cats as they learn some types of writing such as poetry and creative writing that may be difficult compared to essays and short answers. Thus, to help them get used to creative tones in their writing, let them write a piece of writing such as a novel or poetry and write theirs using the same style and tone as the piece they brought.
You need to get creative in your lesson plan for teaching writing skills for different text types to have that easy time engaging with your students. Use methods that encourage their imagination and instill lifetime skills in them through writing.
If you use the above points, your students will learn fast and also acquire ideas that enable them to handle all types of writing.
