Real-World Writing: 5 Authentic L2 Writing Activities for Kids

Writing without a direction is like playing a game without knowing the rules. In the classroom, students can lose sight of what writing is truly about: expressing ideas with voice and intention. Writing can actually be fun and not a chore — just like games — when you know the rules and skills involved. Through this process, the final writing product becomes more authentic, because students know how to express their thoughts clearly in the target language at any language level.

To help students make stronger connections with the real world, we can introduce authentic writing tasks that are interesting, relatable, or relevant at an earlier age. These tasks encourage students to write for real audiences and specific purposes, showing them how writing can be applied outside of the classroom. 

In this blog, I share five authentic writing tasks designed for A2-level students in an English language primary classroom. These activities aim to promote meaningful communication while developing language skills. Based on the CEFR online descriptors (searchable) for written production, each activity can be easily adapted to meet the needs of your classroom.

1. Sending Cards to Friends and Family

Writing cards or letters for specific people in the classroom can help students to focus on their target reader, such as an assigned writing partner. By shifting the goal from simply submitting work to the teacher to ensuring that their writing partner understands the message, students are encouraged to pay more attention to detail. Greetings can get lost on social media, so there’s extra value added to the physical card or letter. Students can also ask themselves: Is the handwriting legible? Is the message clear? If drafts are involved, students can better visualize the final product as they work on the card and more easily edit, knowing it's meant for a specific person. 

Try this: Ask students if they’ve recently celebrated any festivals, birthdays, or special events. Alternatively, you could preplan the task around upcoming holidays or celebrations. Have students design cards based on a particular theme as part of an integrated task.

2. Posters to Showcase in the School Community

Designing posters for a specific event can foster a sense of belonging within a school community. By creating posters for events like sports day, a school fair, exam week, holidays, or even specific books, students can connect with real-world contexts and express their creativity. Whether they work individually or in groups, this activity allows for various forms of interactions and collaboration.

To focus on their language skills, provide students with a list of key information they should emphasize in their poster. Encourage them to experiment with colors and different writing styles to highlight their word choices. Here are two examples for inspiration: 

3. Presentations to Share Their Writing

Creating a class presentation day can encourage students to share their writing. The time limit and delivery can be adjusted to suit your classroom dynamic — some students may prefer presenting in smaller groups, while others may enjoy recording their presentation. These alternatives allow students to experiment with different formats, enhancing their ability to communicate their message effectively. Topics can vary widely, from sharing poems, lyrics to music, or stories they have written; teaching the class to play their favorite game; summarizing their summer plans; and much more.

Try This: To encourage more active engagement, assign different roles to all students during presentations. These roles can include:

• • Timekeeper: monitors the time.
  • Question-former: writes one to two questions to ask the presenter.
  • Feedback provider: writes one to two highlights or positive aspects of the presentation.

In larger classes, you can assign multiple students to the same role, ensuring everyone stays involved and actively participates.

4. Newsletter Entries to Update Friends and Family

Compiling different text types into a class or student newsletter is a creative way to encourage both reading and writing in an authentic context. Text types can include short news reports, book summaries, short stories, weather updates, comics, and much more. This project can be a regular or an occasional class activity, and, once completed, the newsletter can be shared with other classes, families, and friends.

The writing activity can be adapted to various levels of participation, such as: 

• • Individual: Students can select different texts from their own writing portfolio and design their own newsletter.
  • Group: Students work in smaller groups to collaborate on each text type. The teacher then selects one piece from each group to include in the class newsletter.

This activity fosters creativity, teamwork, and a sense of accomplishment as students see their work completed in a final project. As a bonus, it can help to build confidence.

5. Writing Project to Develop Personal Interests

Allowing students to choose their own writing project can help foster autonomy. It gives them the opportunity to explore a topic of personal interest and share their findings with both the teacher and their peers. This shift from a “have-to” to a “want-to” makes the writing activity more engaging, as students can see the relevance and importance of their work.

Try this: Create a table, either as a handout or on the wall, listing all the text types that students have studied or will be studying through the school year. To add an element of fun and motivation, consider utilizing an interactive online picker or bingo board to create the table, allowing students to track their progress visually as they complete various writing tasks based on their own interests over the year.

Ultimately, the goal is to help students understand the purpose of their writing, ensuring they convey a meaningful message to their intended audience. The ability to express oneself confidently is extremely valuable. These five activities are designed to inspire you to create new classroom activities and adapt old ones, to provide multilingual students with authentic writing opportunities.

Happy Teaching and Learning!