As ESL teachers, we’ve all had those students who do great on their grammar exams, speak up confidently in class, and are always first to raise their hands for activities - and yet, when it comes time for a writing assignment, they can barely squeeze out a few short sentences. This can be frustrating for the student and teacher alike - but it’s the symptom of a problem that’s well-known in every teaching community: Speaking and writing are two very different skills.
As with any new skill, practice is key - but students who have trouble writing aren’t usually keen to take on even more writing practice. After all, they might think, if their grammar and vocabulary are correct, and they don’t need to write in English for their jobs, what’s the point of drilling this skill? The answer is, of course, that the ability to write in English is key in the world and the workplace - from writing cover letters and CVs to drafting emails and client presentations. The responsibility is at least partly on you, the teacher, to provide assignments that draw your students into the writing process.
BusyTeacher.org is your number-one stop for exactly those kinds of assignments. Our 730 writing worksheets will provide your students with intriguing writing prompts, and with a variety of writing exercises that’ll help them watch their own improvement as it happens. Our worksheets even break down the writing process into its core components, so you can figure out exactly where in the process each student is struggling, and intervene with exercises to help him or her through that trouble spot.
The writing worksheets here on BusyTeacher.org will help familiarize your students with all the sub-skills involved in writing - from choosing a topic and constructing that first paragraph, all the way to writing movie reviews and short poems. Some of our worksheets even cover basics like handwriting and sentence structure - so no matter how much your students need to brush up on their fundamentals, we’ve got worksheets to meet them where they are.
You’ll find worksheets on any topic you can imagine, from daily routines and holidays to pop culture, news, and even poetry and song lyrics. Some worksheets just help you lead simple fill-in-the-blank exercises, while others present thought-provoking topics for full essays, or include plans for your students to create their own newsletters. And for students who need help with English school assignments, you’ll also find worksheets on writing essays and test responses.
You can browse all of our 730 writing worksheets in thumbnail view, so you don’t have to wait for any of them to load to get an idea of what they’re like. As you scroll down the page, just click on any worksheet that catches your eye - they’re all completely free to download, print, and share in any way you like. And they’re all created and classroom-tested by real ESL teachers all over the world - which means you can be confident they’ll work in your classroom, too. If you’ve got a worksheet of your own that you’d like to share with your fellow ESL teachers in the BusyTeacher.org community, just click the “Submit a worksheet” button at the bottom of this page.
All of these writing worksheets are here to help you - so pick out a few that look interesting, and give them a try in your classroom today. We’re sure you’ll love them as much as the other ESL teachers in our community already do.
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This worksheet was desinged after I had a student submit a film review but that unfortunately had too many mistakes. I thought why not give it to the whole class to let them see where the errors a ...
Use this worksheet after having introduced the 'Elements of Fiction'. It's a great organizer to help students write their own fairy tale in line with a Story Arc Organizer. Includes vocabulary su ...
A simple essay outline (minimum 14 sentences without relevant quotes from the novel and their explanations). This may be used to introduce students to writing essays in the English Literature clas ...
This slide show will explain the generic structure and there is a worksheet how the students make a past story by picture given. Students can make the stories by their own imagination of the pictu ...
This is a group work for 4-5 intermediate/upper intermediate students of EFL (tried out in Austria). The group work will help students revise the structure of a "typical" pro/con essay i ...
This is a text from BBC Primary history with vocabulary translated into Norwegian, but feel free to adjust to your own laguage, and comprehension tasks. Fits about one lesson (60 minutes) at inter ...
This is a basic reading comprehension about Brighton, a city in the South of England. Using there is/ are, there isn`t and there aren´t. Useful for 3º Primary School. Revision of vo ...
This is a writing task about a family's eating habits. It is divided into 4 short paragraphs which analyse what the family eats during the day. It mainly practises present simple, its time express ...
This is a creative writing activity for elementary/primary students. Creative writing exercise allow children to make up a story of a girl and a book she is reading at the moment, then write their ...
Students are given a card with the name of a country and a hobby. These cards are on the second page of the worksheet and can be laminated or just printed and cut on cardboard. They ask and answer ...
This is a worksheet to practise listening, speaking and writing skills. First, students complete the lyrics, then they analise the metaphors and finally produce a narrative text. It can be enriche ...
This is a ppt of 6 slides with acrostic poems about spring. I made them to motivate the students for creative writing. You can edit the slides and show only the beginnings and students ...
This is a PPT of 6 slides about spring and flowers. On the first slide there is a link of a song on YouTube. It´s called "I like the flowers...." . On the next slide there is a cloze text a ...
This presentation I use as a warm-up for topics 'Strange creaturers', "Strange encounters' or 'Second conditional'. You tell the story to your students using the presentation. Students try to gues ...
This is a whole lesson plan to get the students involved in an interactive and funny activity where they will develop not only listening, but also speaking. It's an alternative to traditional tex ...
A text dealing with health and five different tasks for advanced students. 1) True/ False sentences; 2) Answer questions about the text in your own words; 3) Rephrasing; 4) Find synomys; 5) A topi ...
Invisibility potion - picture prompt. This is a creative writing activity for elementary/primary students. They must look at the picture and think of a creative story to go along with it, then wri ...
Autumn Walk - Picture prompt. This is a creative writing activity for elementary/primary students. They must look at the picture and think of a creative story to go along with it, then write their ...
The exercises present scrambbled sentences to work on text unity and connection of ideas plus work on pronoun consistency and conjunctions. The activities were thought to be worked on after the pr ...
What is happiness? We all are in pursue of it. Does money bring happiness? In this presentation, which was initially designed for interactive boards, we tried to find answers with our students. We ...
This worksheet is based on the cartoon serial ‘Minuscules’. The cartoon serial ‘Minuscules’ (France, 2007) which is the collection of 3-5 minute mini-stories. The dynamic ...
You can use this twitter worksheet for many subjets. You just need to add the hashtag and write a phrase e.g #when_i_was_a_child the students need to complete the hashtag with the suitable grammar ...
An all time classic. Clever or beautiful? Both would be the answer. But deep down most people would choose beauty as it is self proven and intelligence has to be proved, as Oscar Wilde said. Can' ...
This is a simple writing prompt for children to practice present perfect. They are asked to write what Catty Noir (a charcter from this cartoon) has done and has never done in her life. Imho it's ...
I use this task to help my students practise creative writing integrating the use of 'be going to'. They need to imagine they're going on a perfect school trip, brainstorm ideas and write a ...
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