The Best ESL Writing Prompts and Topics for Beginners

Learning a different language is hard. Writing in a different language is even harder. But the only way to improve writing is to write more! One way to make writing less frustrating for your ESL students is to provide them with interesting writing prompts and topics.

Writing Prompts for ESL Beginners

Purpose of Writing Prompts

The main purpose of writing prompts is to encourage students’ interests and also encourage them to write about the topic. This doesn’t mean that you always want to limit what your students write. It is also encouraged for students to come up with a topic of their own. However, thinking of a topic every single time can also be stressful. So, for ESL beginners, writing prompts act more like a guide to starting the writing.

If you are teaching ESL beginners how to write, try to keep the writing assignment short to about like 100 words. Once they get used to describing the topic and writing in a creative way, you can increase the word limit. Go through the list of writing prompts and find the topics that will interest your ESL students.

ESL Writing Prompts and Topics

30 Writing Prompts for ESL Beginners

1. Describe your favourite holiday.
2. Describe your best friend.
3. Talk about your best vacation memory.
4. Write about your New Year’s resolutions.
5. What would you do if you won the lottery?
6. Write about your family members.
7. Describe your favourite game.
8. Write about your favourite movie.
9. Who is your favourite celebrity, and why?
10. What do you like to do during summer vacation?
11. What is our earliest memory as a child?
12. What are your strengths?
13. What are your weaknesses?
14. What is your favourite season, and why?
15. Describe your happiest memory.
16. What kind of superpower do you want, and why?
17. Describe your favourite movie (or TV series, book) character.
18. What are the three most recent things that you bought? Where did you buy it from?
19. Describe a perfect day for you.
20. Which country do you want to visit, and why?
21. Describe what makes a good friend.
22. What do you like to do in your free time?
23. Do you prefer presents or money? Why?
24. Would you rather live in a very cold country or a very hot country? Why?
25. Describe your favourite restaurant.
26. Describe your favourite drink besides water.
27. Which superhero do you want to be friends with? Why?
28. Do you prefer a rainy day or a snowy day? Why?
29. Talk about your favourite animal.
30. Would you rather go back in time or travel in the future? Why?

Even More Writing Prompts for Beginners

When it comes to selecting writing topics for beginners, it’s important to choose subjects that are simple, relatable, and promote vocabulary and sentence structure development. Here are some ideas:

1. My Family: Ask students to write about their family members, their names, ages, and occupations. They can describe their relationships and write a few sentences about each family member.
2. My Hobbies: Have students write about their favorite hobbies or activities. They can describe why they enjoy them and how often they engage in these activities.
3. My Daily Routine: Ask students to write about their daily routine, starting from when they wake up until they go to bed. They can describe their activities, such as getting ready, going to school or work, eating meals, and doing homework.
4. My Favorite Food: Encourage students to write about their favorite food or dish. They can describe its taste, ingredients, and how it is prepared. Encourage them to use descriptive words to make their writing more interesting.
5. My Favorite Season: Have students write about their preferred season of the year. They can describe the weather, activities, and events they associate with that season.
6. A Memorable Holiday: Ask students to write about a holiday or vacation they remember. They can describe where they went, what they did, and why it was memorable.
7. My Best Friend: Encourage students to write about their best friend. They can describe their friend’s appearance, personality, and what they like to do together.
8. My Dream Job: Have students write about their dream job. They can explain what it is, why they are interested in it, and what skills or qualifications are necessary for that job.
9. My Favorite Book/Movie: Ask students to write about their favorite book or movie. They can describe the plot, characters, and why they enjoy it.
10. My Future Goals: Encourage students to write about their aspirations and goals for the future. They can write about what they want to be when they grow up or their plans for further education.

Tips for Teaching ESL Writing to Beginners

Before teaching your students an ESL writing lesson, check out these tips first.

Error Correction

Yes, you want to help students improve their writing. However, pointing out every single error in the writing can discourage students. Remember that your students are writing in a foreign language. Of course, they will make many mistakes as beginners.

However, it is still important to let them know where have made mistakes. The tip here is to praise a lot and let them know what’s good about their writing and then highlight the grammatical errors. This way, you will be able to make corrections without demotivating them.

writing prompts and topics

Student’s Interests

You want to encourage students and have them be interested in writing about the topic. To do so, you will have to choose topics related to what students are already interested in. You don’t necessarily have to use the exact writing prompts provided above. If you know what your students like, switch it up a bit to fit their interests. If there’s something your ESL students want to write about, let them do that too!

Provide Writing Structure

Teach your students how to structure the writing. Students will refer to that structure every time they are given a writing assignment. A structure to follow will lessen the stress of writing. Knowing how to begin an introduction, write the main point, and finish with a conclusion will help students worry less about how to structure and focus on being creative with their writing.

FAQs About English Writing Prompts for Beginners

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about writing prompts for ESL beginners.

What are some easy writing prompts?

List of easy writing prompts:

• Describe your best friend.
• Describe your favourite restaurant.
• What do you like to do in your free time?
• Describe your favourite holiday.
• What are your strengthes and weaknesses?

What are some fun writing prompts?

List of fun writing prompts:

• Would you rather live in a very cold country or a very hot country? Why?
• Would you rather go back in time or travel in the future? Why?
• Would you rather become 10 years younger or 10 years older? Why?
• Which one is better and why? Being too short or too small.
• If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

Writing Prompts for ESL Beginners: Join the Conversation

What are your thoughts on these writing prompts for ESL beginners? Which one is your favourite? If there are other great writing prompts for English beginners, let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.

About Jackie

Jackie Bolen has been teaching English for more than 20 years to students in South Korea and Canada. She's taught all ages, levels and kinds of TEFL classes. She holds an MA degree, along with the Celta and Delta English teaching certifications.

Jackie is the author of more than 100 books for English teachers and English learners, including Business English Vocabulary Builder, 67 ESL Conversation Topics,and 39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities for Teenagers and Adults. She loves to share her ESL games, activities, teaching tips, and more with other teachers throughout the world.