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As regular readers know, I collect many articles, and accompanying writing prompts, that I use over at The Best Posts On Writing Instruction. Of course, there are a lot other resources there, too. In fact, I think it’s one of my most useful posts.

Today, I used a new one with my Intermediate English Language Learner students.

I used a Read Aloud from our book, The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide (by the way, you can freely download the zillions of student hand-outs from that book here). It’s on the benefits of learning English and being bilingual. Then, I added this prompt:

Writing prompt:

What does the author say about learning another language and why it is helpful? Based on your own experience and what you’ve read and seen, do you agree that these three benefits are helpful/? It’s okay to say you agree with some, but not all, of them. It’s also okay to say that you might not know enough to agree with one or more of them. Is there any way you could use this information to help motivate you to learn English? Support your opinion with your experiences, your observations of others, and your readings.

You can download the whole thing here.

One change I did make from the Figure you can find in the book is that I deleted the sources — the additional words would have added unnecessary confusion for students.

Students did a good job on it.

You might also be interested in The Best Resources For Learning The Advantages To Being Bilingual.