Good Essay Topics

Good Essay Topics

English teachers tasked with teaching writing skills to learners who study English as their second language might find themselves searching for appropriate essay topics.  Is it possible to find a good topic that students can write about even with lower than usual vocabulary and grammar skills without sounding banal? How can teachers effectively use class time to discuss and give background information on a topic without using the entire class?

One huge thing to keep in mind is that as the teacher, you are teaching writing as part of teaching English as a second language.  As such, everything you do should be aimed at that end.  This will affect many different decisions a teacher will make that others may not understand.  The phrase "method to the madness" was clearly invented for English teachers.

Why make learners play cards?  
                 Duh, it helps them remember vocabulary.

Why make learners play monopoly (or other board game)?  
                 It lets them practice grammar structures.

It may seem unfortunate but learning a second language is as much about quantity as it is about quality.  Even more so than quantity is frequency.  Back in the day teachers used drills, lots and lots of endless, mindless drills.  Today, we still do but we have to address motivation so we dress up the drills to look like something else and call it a game.

So how does this apply to writing skills?  Writing being one of the harder (last in the hierarchy to be acquired) things to teach, we still have to remember that we are still teaching them a second language.  That means we need to actually tell students that the topic sentence goes at the beginning of a paragraph because they won't know to automatically do that.  We have to tell them that the thesis goes near the end of the opening paragraph because the grammar in their head from their L1 may not work that way and will be fighting against them.

Besides these considerations,  teachers must remember frequency.  One essay is never enough.  Get them to write another, and another, and another.  The amount of work they produce is as important as what they produce.  The more they produce, the better they will get.  It is like a hard stone that has to be slowly chipped away at until it yields the masterpiece underneath.

How can we get them to produce essentially the same essay over and over again until they internalize the process enough to have acquired it?

Most people think/believe  X  however  (I think)  Y is actually true.  

With this strategy, the learner can take a simple piece of information, such as any commonly held belief and then criticize that belief and offer an opposing proposition.  It could be a matter of offering a different opinion or correcting a factual mistake.  Lets look as some examples.

Most people believe Kennedy was assassinated by the US government but I think Lee Harvey Oswald really did it.

Most Americans even to this day believe that Oswald was innocent and that some shadowy secret organization like the CIA or the FBI or some other menacing group of letters like the IRS killed Kennedy.  This is very sad since we know almost with 100% certainty that Kennedy was killed by LHO, Lee Harvey Oswald.

If asked, most people will say that the Earth is a small planet but I think it is really big.

Here we have a difference of opinion.  A general poll of people might come back with the answer that the Earth is small but keep in mind, it represents nearly half of the solid matter in the solar system.  Jupiter may be big but it's just air.

Many people believe Edison invented the light bulb but I think he stole the idea from Tesla.  

This is an example of speculation.  It probably isn't true but that isn't the point of the essay.  The point of the essay is to get the student to write and write and write.  I even tell them to lie to me since I'll never know if they lied or not.  I'm just looking for good English usage not if they agree with me or not.

Now obviously these examples were meant for teachers to see and think about but not to be presented to students.  However, the simple disagree/controversy formula is a good one to use and students might just be able to run with it to come up with their own ideas.  Let them write about something important to them in their culture.  As long as it is good English, we don't care.

Sony vs Apple for best phone maker
PRC vs Taiwan for "real" China
J-pop vs K-pop
real pencils vs lead pens
blue vs sky blue
Home town vs nearby city

Where ever there can be a commonly held misconception or two opposing opinions then this formula for essays will enable your students to think about the topic, pick a side and get to the business of writing, which is why they came to your class to begin with.