The first set of tips I want to mention come from Evan Simpson's blog post: Learning to write like a reader: teaching students how to edit and do peer-review, and are all about getting students to think more carefully and logically about what they write. They will be particularly useful if you are teaching higher-level, advanced+ students, although they could also be adapted for lower-level students.I like particularly Evan's suggestion to get students to do systematic peer reviews by creating a checklist for them to work through, something I'll definitely try out with my students.
In
Micro Writing: Writing to learn in ESL Cheryl Malanek takes a fresh look at the role that writing can play in the classroom.She argues convincingly about the value of setting students short, informal writing tasks: "A few sentences, a definition, a facebook status update... Short but formulated and thought-out sentences that help students think more deeply about language or ideas presented in class."
Here's a link to the webinar with Ceri Jones that she refers to in her blog, if you'd like to delve more deeply into the topic.
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Rachael Roberts' post, Motivating students to write includes a useful reminder of the basic questions we should ask ourselves when we design a writing task:- Is the activity intrinsically engaging?
- Does the activity have a clear outcome?
- Is the activity related in some way to real-life language use?
- Does the activity encourage students to interact with each other?
And very much in line with Rachael's advice, is this useful and complete Film review lesson plan from Kath Bilsborough aimed at teenage/young adult students at A2 - B2 level.
You might like to follow up Kath's lesson plan by taking a look at the LearnEnglish Teens Film UK section which is full of great short films made by young people in the UK. The films are produced by Into Film, who have lots of great learning resources for primary and secondary students. You can find out more here:
Behind the Scenes with Shaun the Sheep
