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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Writing a description may be difficult for some students, what I've seen in my experience is that they get lost. So I've found useful to give them the steps they have to follow aswell as the order ...
This worksheet is based on a photo article on http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/nyregion/27belongings.html. Students look at the pictures some immigrants have taken with them to NYC and try to gu ...
The activity combines different activities. I start with having the students watch a part of the film (00.20-00.45) and ask them to tell me what they have learnt about Max. Then I distribute the w ...
In the lesson, students watch a video of Justin Bieber and write a diary about his day. The students first read a profile of Justin Bieber and gain some background information about him. Then, the ...
Newspaper headlines, in authentic newspapers especially, have their own language. Journalists use a variety of techniques in order to attract and keep the reader’s attention. Some of them ar ...
Single page giving subject formulaic language learners could use in speaking exams/everyday English (a bit formal tho) as well as a word cloud highlighting some key topic vocab with synonyms. IELT ...
A student started this as a summary of relative clauses. I corrected her few mistakes and spruced it up a bit, but I find it to be a pretty good cheat sheet of relative clauses. Please note this i ...
A short reading and writing activity where the kids will first read some clues and then use their own imagination to write about their own New Year resolutions. It can be then followed by a speaki ...
There you can find some examples of the postcards on different topics. The students have to fill in the postcards and write their own ones. There is also a useful link where you can try to write ...
The 3rd ws of this series about signs & punctuation marks. The students have to choose the right name of the sign or punctuation mark that they have learnt and revised in ws 1 & 2. The key ...
This is the 2nd ws of a series about signs & punctuation marks. After doing the 1st one, her the students have to find out the 30 words in a word search. The signs are given, but no names, so ...
This ws consists of 30 symbols (signs & punctuation marks) and 30 names. The students have to match the names and the symbols and write down the names under the crrect symbol. As a follow-up a ...
This reading comprehension worksheet is for pre-intermediate or at least high elementary students. The topic the text is related to is family. There is some information about Sally's Granny. Afte ...
This PP is aimed at intermediate students. The first activity is to predict the definition of the opinion essay. Then students are given the plan and some useful information on writing opinion ess ...
Using Lily Allen's "Who'd have known," students find specific details from the lyrics (or the music video) which suppoer the topic sentence (of the relationship being good or bad). Great practice ...
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