Compare and Contrast Holiday Writing Activity for ESL Students

Teaching compare and contrast writing skills to ESL students is essential because it helps them develop critical thinking, organization, and language proficiency. By learning to identify similarities and differences between ideas, concepts, or experiences, students practice analytical thinking and improve their ability to express complex relationships in English. This skill also enhances their vocabulary through the use of transition words and comparative structures, promoting clearer and more cohesive writing. Ultimately, mastering compare and contrast writing empowers ESL learners to communicate their thoughts more effectively in academic, professional, and everyday contexts.

Where to start?

Always start by providing your ESL students with the relevant and necessary language forms (vocab) that they need in order to be successful. For the skill of Comparing and Contrasting, this would include words like "Similarly", "However", "similarity", "difference," and phrases like "We also do BLANK", or "Although we don't celebrate with BLANK, we...".

The next step is to apply these new words and phrases in an already-known context. Pick an easy topic that they already understand. Look at the worksheet to the right to see an example of how I did this in my upper level ESL class. We discussed dogs versus wolves and lions versus house cats. This was a simple topic so students could easily identify similarities and differences and could focus their cognitive energy on using the new language forms. I had students write down one compare sentence and one contrast sentence on whiteboards first. Then, we shared out and read our sentences aloud.

After students have a grip on the necessary vocabulary, move on to the graphic organizers, in this case, a Venn diagram.

Using the Venn Diagram to Compare and Contrast

Keep in mind that education systems around the world differ greatly; your ESL students may not have been exposed to a Venn Diagram before and that's OK. Now that you have the basic language pertaining to similarities and differences, you just need to apply those words to the graphic organizer. I highly recommend modeling usage of the Venn Diagram on the board for the whole class before you ask them to complete it independently. Again, pick an easy topic to start with. For more novice speakers, I suggest providing a scaffolded diagram with sentence frames to help them with constructing complete sentences in English.

Give Sentence Frames to Get Them Started

Even students who are very proficient in English may struggle when it comes to writing. Writing is often the hardest domain to crack on the WIDA ACCESS test because it not only requires productive language, but also academic and more formal language. I would put some sentence strips on the board with various ways to start off thier sentences. For example, something along the lines of the following:

• One major difference between Christmas in American and Christmas in (home country) is that...

• Both American and (home country) celebrate by....

• Similarly, in my country we...

• In the United States many people give (BLANK) to children. However, during (HOLIDAY), family members usually (BLANK) instead.

I recommend color coding the sentence strips (one color for similarity language and another color for differences language) so that students do not get confused.

Progress Over Perfection

Remember, it doesn't need to be perfect. Their writing doesn't need to be spotless and grammatically perfect. Language acquistion is a complex and non-linear process. They goal is to get your emerging bilinguals to use compare and contrast language in an authentic context. If you've done that, then count it a success. You can always have them do a rough draft first and give them corrections before turning them loose on the final copy.