Postcards: A Fun ESL Writing Activity

If you’re looking for a fun writing activity for beginners to advanced, kids to adults, then you’ll want to check out postcards. If you have old postcards laying around or can find a large package for cheap, then consider trying it out. Of course, it’s a natural fit the the travel and holiday unit that you can find in many ESL textbooks.

Postcards: A Fun ESL Writing Activity

Skills: Writing/reading
Time: 15+ minutes
Level: Beginner-advanced
Materials Required: Postcards

If you can get your hands on some cheap postcards or have some laying around your house or teacher’s office, try out this simple ESL writing activity. It may just be the novelty factor, but students seem to love it. This activity is ideal for working on common greetings, the past tense (more ideas here: ESL past tense activities), using descriptive words, as well as using synonyms to avoid repetition.

Distribute the postcards to the students. You can do one per student, or put the students into pairs. They have to look at the picture on the front of the postcard and imagine that they went on this vacation. Then, they can write about their trip to a friend or family member. Students can include things like travel and transportation, foods, things they saw, etc.

Post Postcard  Writing Activities

Next, the students trade postcards with another student or group. After reading them, they can write a response back of at least a few sentences. Finally, you may want to display them around the class as they’re colorful and fun and other students may enjoy reading them!

Procedure for this Postcards English Writing Activity:

1. Give each student or pair a postcard. They look at the picture and imagine what they did on that vacation, and then pretend that they’re writing to a friend or family member.
2. Exchange postcards and another student or group has to write a response to what they read.
3. Display the postcards around your classroom (optional).

Did you like this Postcard English Writing Activity?

Yes? Thought so! It’s one of our favourite writing activities that works with almost any level or age of student. It’s fun, engaging and student-centred too. If you like this ESL writing activity, then you’re going to love this book over on Amazon: ESL Writing Activities, Games and Teaching Tips.

The key to better English writing classes is a wide variety of interesting activities and games and this book will help you do just that, in style. Plus, there are a ton of teaching tips that’ll help you whether you teach writing to beginners or advanced students, kids or adults.

You can easily find the book in both digital and print formats. Consider keeping a copy on the bookshelf in your office and using it as a handy reference guide. Or, take the digital version with you on your phone or tablet with the Kindle reading app for a serious lesson planning session.

Yes, it really is that easy to have better English classes. Check out the book for yourself on Amazon, but only if you want a serious dose of ESL teaching awesome in your life:

Have your Say about Postcards, a Simple ESL Writing Activity

What do you think about your students writing postcards in English as a fun activity? Is it a winner or do you have another activity that you’d like to recommend to us for ESL writing? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

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Last update on 2022-07-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API