Two Activities to Improve English Writing Proficiency

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Improve English writing proficiency

How can EFL teachers help students learn English writing by improving proficiency?

Balance, imagination and specificity 

  • Balance means a good mix of activities and techniques that touch upon essential writing skills and maintain class interest.
  • Imagination means new and interesting ways to teach essential stuff.
  • Specificity means a clear purpose. Every activity needs a measurable objective that focuses on improving the accuracy of one writing element.

Here are two activities which I have used to help my EFL students learn English writing and improve accuracy.

1. Definite and Indefinite Articles

Using articles correctly in a long passage just might be one of the most difficult aspects of proficiency for English students. Internalizing the rules takes years of practice. So, every writing class needs a lesson or two focusing on this essential writing skill.

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Teach EFL Students Critical Thinking

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Teach Reasoning in the EFL Writing Class?

Teachers sometimes lament the fact that EFL students can’t seem to write well-reasoned, logical arguments in English.

The underlying socio-linguistic factors thought to influence higher order cognition of that kind are plentiful. For example, some people suggest the way we talk affects our thinking, or the way we write script gives people from some cultures an analytical advantage. Or, it might simply be that people from different cultures see the world differently, as suggested by the Michigan Fish test, and therefore cannot write about experience in the same way.

Here’s another idea.

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#4 Teaching Writing: Words and Categories

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Teaching Writing – Thinking in Categories

This ESL activity helps students learn English writing by imaging and creating abstract categories as a tool for organizing information. Known as the Picture Word Inductive Model, this technique is used to help young learners with language development. I have adapted the process to make it suitable as an inquiry based writing exercise for ESL university students.

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