ESL Writing STUFF

Helping English instructors teach better, plan faster and work smarter.

Teaching Argument Writing: Capture the Idea

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Teach English Argument Writing

This one hour lesson helps ESL students improve their English writing skills by learning how to identify, articulate and judge arguments using a simple critical thinking framework.

The lesson has four parts:

  1. a quick review of the critical think framework
  2. a 5 minute TED video ideal for this type of writing exercise
  3. a ten minute pair work discussion that helps students flush out the main ideas and allows teachers time to provide personalized feedback while circulating around the class
  4.  student writing time

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Writing Judgments With Arguments

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Teach ESL Students How to Write Arguments

This critical thinking lesson teaches students how to write thoughtful and well argued ideas that involve judgments. The focus is to help students understand the role and importance of warrants. Often, these short sentences create a logical connection between claims and evidence. Knowing how to create warrants and use them in a text is one strategy that can greatly improve the clarity and persuasiveness of student writing.

This ESL writing activity is based on work by George Hillocks Jr and his lesson plan in the book, Teaching Argument Writing.

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Teach English: Correlation and Causation

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Teach English Writing Concepts

This lesson helps ESL students improve the quality of their writing, speaking and thinking by understanding the differences between correlation and causation.

Learning these vital concepts helps students write logical stories and essays by avoiding post hoc fallacies. It also helps them develop critical thinking skills and an ability to express complex ideas in writing and conversation classes.

Developing an ability to identity and evaluate cause and effect relationships is not easy for students, especially those coming from an education system that emphasizes rote memorization. Finding causality requires a degree of imagination and a willingness to inquire, to dare and explore ideas.

In that sense, imagination fosters understanding.

Lesson Purpose

By the end of this lesson, ESL students will:

  • define correlation and causation
  • explain the differences between the two concepts
  • demonstrate that knowledge in practice exercises
  • apply that knowledge in a writing assignment

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Quick ESL Class Resources and Activities

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aplomb

Every ESL teacher needs a reliable set of quick ESL class resources and activities ready to use at any moment. Classes often run into unexpected time gaps, early finishers, or energy dips that call for a simple change of pace. A flexible toolkit ensures that students stay engaged while they build real English writing and speaking skills in short, meaningful bursts.

This post shares practical ESL classroom activities that help learners strengthen vocabulary recall, improve writing accuracy, and build conversational confidence. These ideas include printable worksheets, vocabulary reviews, conversation prompts, and pair work tasks. Each activity maximizes learning opportunities without requiring long preparation time.

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