ESL Writing STUFF

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

ESL Writing Lesson: How to Write and Format an Email

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This is the last week of new content to help ESL students learn English writing.

Email Writing Research

  1. This slideshow provides basic data about email messages.
  2. Here is an email which I sent to many hotels in Korea. Some of the answers I received are here.

Dear Sir/Madame,

I’d like to get some information about rooms and availability at your hotel.

I have two adults and one teenager traveling to Seoul. They need a room for two nights
on May 26 and May 27.

1. Do you have rooms available on those nights?
2. What are the rates and taxes?
3. Do you have wheelchair access?
4. What is the best way to travel to your hotel from the airport?

Many thanks for your help and information.

Rob

 

PROFESSIONAL EMAIL WRITING

Writing an effective email in English is not difficult. But my students need to learn a few basic writing skills.  This lesson will help them in the future, especially when they start looking for a job and need to write emails in

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Ideas to Improve Writing Style

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ESL student writing – especially narrative and descriptive pieces – can be flat, dull and homogeneous.

Overuse of simple verbs is one problem that can fix that style problem. Tired verbs like be, find, go, say and see are easy to write in proper. Sure the sentence is grammatically correct but writing is a lot more than just good grammar, ain’t it? Sure, it gots to have style.

Here are a couple of exercises which I uncovered in a terrific book, 500 Word Theme by Harry Kroitor and Lee Martin (1994).

Editing for Style: Tired Verbs

Read the paragraph. Pay attention to the tired verbs (e.g. be, can, go, etc). rewrite the paragraph.

bug-2The Volkswagen is unexcelled for dependability.

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Quick ESL Writing Warm Up Exercises

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Here are a few writing activities to help ESL students learn writing by getting their mind into the words and ideas. A creative head space, to use the parlance of the 1980s.

Writing Warm Up #1: Free Association

This is a five-minute activity to help students think about connections between words.

Explanation

  • Students add a word to each blank. Each pair of side by side words must be connected in some way.
  • They might be opposites, synonyms or rhymes. Any connection is okay as long as the student can explain the link in a reasonably logical way.
  • Add five words between the beginning and end.

It’s a free flowing game, so it’s meant to be creative and fun.

  1. UP ___   ___   ___   ___   ___   SPIDER

  2. BLACK   ___   ___   ___   ___   ___   NICE

  3. SMALL   ___   ___   ___   ___   ___   BEST

  4. DRINKING   ___   ___   ___   ___   ___   LIGHT

  5. SUNNY   ___   ___   ___   ___   ___   AIRPLANE

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