What Are You Doing to Help Your Adult ESL Learners Feel Confident About Writing Skills?

Writing is often viewed as an important skill by teachers that has to be catered for and developed in teaching. Engaging students in written communications in a variety of forms connects learners to the international world of information in every field via electronic communication such as Internet and personal correspondence across the border.

Many ESL adult learners do not like to write nor do they enjoy the writing process. As teachers, the question ultimately becomes, how can we provide more engaging writing opportunities for English language learning students so they can ultimately feel confident in their writing abilities? Teachers are sensitive to the diverse backgrounds that define their students, but because students often do not feel comfortable expressing themselves in writing and especially in a second language, this often complicates the teaching process. To solve this problem, teachers can provide meaningful activities to activate help connect them to the classroom experience.

Why Meaningful Activities?
English language learners especially need to adjust to the cultural, linguistic, social and emotional newness of a classroom environment. Writing can give students that sense of belonging they need to feel connected with their classroom, teachers and school. Additionally, meaningful writing tasks not only help solve the problem of cultural, social and emotional isolation but are connected to real world tasks - a concept known as authenticity. As students complete these tasks they can immediately see how what they are learning applies to their real lives - both inside and outside the classroom.

Writing Tasks Connect the Cultural, Social and Emotional Experience
Many English language learners lack the cultural, linguistic, social and emotional connection of a classroom environment. To solve this problem, teachers can offer a much needed safe uninhabited space for developing their "voices" that may otherwise go ignored. This also helps to develop a personal bond with students and ceases teachers from seeing their students as the other. (Zeichner, Melnick, Gomez, 1996) As students respond to these prompts, they can immediately see how what they are currently experiencing is connected to their own writing experience.

By using visuals, teachers can jump-start ideas as illustrated in the prompt below:
Write a paragraph about a situation where you've felt like an outsider - or about a situation where you feel the most comfortable. Try freewriting about these feelings - of belonging, or of feeling out of place - to brainstorm ideas.

Meaningful writing activities tie both motivation and ability and encourage a variety of expressions that do not limit a student's language ability. The student's ability to write about topics that are close to a student's culture, experiences, and other topics of interest increase when one also feels more connected with learning the target language.

Works Cited
Zeichner, K., Melnick, S., & Gomez, M. L. (Eds.). (1996). Currents of reform in preservice teacher education. New York: Teachers College Press.