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 is a worsheet to use with intermediate to upper intermediate students to help them listen to a radio programme about the life of an American who traveled around the world on his motorbike. Th ...
The students are required to write an e-mail to a penpal in 50 words. The e-mail is to explain why their long-awaited trip to Europe is cancelled. The student needs to choose one of the three choi ...
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This is a very simple writing activity for elementary students who are asked to describe their house in about 80 words (real or imaginary) anwering the given questions.
Use the picture from the worksheet to make your ss think creatively and write a short essay or discuss orally “Who’s the leader in the picture?” If they find it hard to understan ...
It's a graphic organizer helping students with narrative and creative writing. Especially for the students who don't have a strong literary background, those can't describe the main parts like plo ...
This is a guide for intermediate or upper-intermediate students with particular instructions on how to write a film review. I made up this document using several pages on the topic from the web . ...
This worksheet corresponds to a video about 'how our world is changing through technology'. The video presents a large number of facts about our changing world. This worksheet could be used as a w ...
This is a very simple worksheet for teaching the use of apostrophe at elementary level. There's a brief explanation at the top of the page followed by an activity in which students are asked ...
Students read the story "Fish Cheeks," which is included, and analyze the text based on meaning, language, and writing style. Students also do writing extension activities to make connections wit ...
An alternative way to check vocabulary and derivatives through exercises. It is divided into different types of tasks. A derivatives chart, a fill in the blanks exercise and an exercise where they ...
This is a colourful classroom poster which can also be used as a picture dictionary or a study sheet for teaching or revising punctuation related vocabulary at elementary level.
This is a simple activity for pre-intermediate and intermediate students to develop their writing skills. It is required from the teachers to pre teach students how to write a letter, what a lette ...
This informal letter presents a gap-fill exercise where the task is to complete spaces with the correct form of the simple past or present perfect. As a follow-up assignment students might be sugg ...
This is a simple and easy writing activity for elementary and pre-intermediate students who are asked to write a small composition saying how many brothers or sisters they have got, how old their ...
This is a cut and paste activity, children have to write a short dialogue in the bubbles on the food topic with the structure I like /I don´t like and paste the characters on the comic strip ...
Hong Kong Secondary 1 Worksheet . Look at the picture below. You are going to write a passage in not less than 300 words ,describing what you saw one day in a MacDuck’s Fast Food shop. Remem ...
This worksheet was originally used as part of an enrichment activity to supplement a unit on animals in the New Parade 2 (elementary school) ESL textbook. At this stage, the students had already a ...
This is an essay that is about causes and effects of smoking among students. It is composed of four paragraphs. The main ones in the body are about causes of smoking among students and its bad con ...
What students have to do is create a superhero and his adversary. It works quite well with students on a Friday when they're really tired and they just want to relax. It really brings out their cr ...
This is a writing task (I personally used it for a test) that deals with news reports. This worksheet introduces the situation when a picture by Renoir was stolen, some details of the theft and gi ...
Writing in a good handwriting is a hard task for both the teacher and the child. First step with good handwriting starts with the basic handwriting rules that can be taught to the little kids . As ...
How can your kid hold the pencil to write if he's right handed or left handed ? You can easily get the answer from this worksheet . Training a little kid to have full pencil control is a hard task ...
This is a simple worksheet with single comic strips for students to use their imagination and fill the speaking bubbles freely. There are no conditions except that they have to write at least 2 se ...
My summer: this is a rebus story, that is to say, a story which combines words and pictures. Here, pictures represent entire words. There is a colour version, a B&W one and the key. This type ...
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