Hello friends,
I thought I would share my 10 step process behind how I make fun and engaging ESL elementary school worksheets!
I use Canva for almost everything now. Sometimes if I want to do more fine-tuning or custom designs, I still have to break out my Adobe Illustrator skills, but for most purposes, Canva works just fine.
If you’re an educator, you can verify your status and get Canva Pro for free!! Highly recommend. Once you start using it, you’ll never be able to go back.
As an EPIK teacher, I don’t have a school ID or email, but I submitted the first page of my teaching contract instead and got approved in less than day!
The Ten Step Process
1. Start with a half page
First, I always start with a A4 size page in landscape, then add a faint dotted line to split it in half.
Then I stare at the blank page for at least several minutes considering what content would fit in this smaller space….
If I can help it, I always, always try to make every worksheet a half page because I teach over 400 students and it seems a waste to be constantly printing out full size pages that they will inevitably throw away.
Sometimes an idea I have grows too big to fit the half sheet size, and then at that point, I switch to a full A4 size page.
2. Dust up on my English skills
…by which I mean review key terms and expressions from the lesson. Usually I’m making a worksheet for a specific lesson in the curriculum (though not always). Obviously, it’s helpful to double check the list of vocabulary and sentences I’m trying to focus on.
3. Secretly judge my students
I’m kidding… sort of. I always look at the lesson goals, then reflect on what my students have been struggling with. Most of the time, I can identity a few certain words or grammar points that students consistently get wrong.
ESL games are usually great at reviewing a breadth of key points and getting students to practice the target language comfortably, but I think its harder in general to use games to focus more in depth on the areas students have trouble in. That’s what I make the worksheets for.
4. Ponder puzzle possibilities
I spend a good amount of time thinking about what type of puzzle or activity would be suitable based on the topic of the lesson and my goal, whether it’s general review, spelling practice, or focus on a specific grammar point. Sometimes I’ll just whip together a simple activity the day before or same day I need it for class, but for some more complicated worksheets, I start thinking about them a few weeks before I will need to use them.
My thought process is pretty much the same every single time.
If the students need to review, word searches and crosswords are good, but I want to make something more unique… spelling and writing drills are good but also boring… maybe they can solve some kind of riddle or secret message, those are fun… but it can’t be too complicated because class time is short… let me see what the textbook supplementary materials look like… ahhhhh why are the textbook materials so boring….
I ponder all the possibilities while eating lunch, during breaks between classes, or when I’m bored on the bus ride home. Then, if I can’t think of anything I like, I look at Pinterest.
5. Consult Pinterest
I have never been big on Pinterest, but now my eyes have been opened. As a teacher, Pinterest is the best for inspiration! There are hundreds of thousands of teaching materials online and sorting through it can be a pain, but I can easily scroll through my curated algorithm and find a few good ideas. I also follow other teachers around the world to both support them and stay on top of techniques and ideas that actually work in classrooms.
6. Create the mechanism
Now the fun part. Once I’ve decided what type of activity I want to do, I can design the whole thing. If it’s a puzzle, I always start from what I want the answer to be, then create the mechanism by which to solve it.
7. Sprinkle in some storytelling
Finishing the worksheet is a little more fun if you can provide a reason for why the students are doing it, so I try to come up with a story or premise behind the whole activity. You are a spy and decoding a secret message, or the bird is lost and needs to get home, or the world is going to explode unless you know how to spell this one specific random word!!! Or something like that.
Some very, very simple storytelling goes a long way to make the whole activity feel more meaningful and less like a standard homework assignment.
8. Make it pretty (and functional)
Another fun step! I design the visual layout and make everything is readable and spaced appropriately.
But the more important part is designing the instructions. Students, and people in general, are really bad at reading instructions. How can I communicate what to do as clearly as possible while also keeping the story intact, especially with the limited space I have? I write and rewrite instructions all the time to sound as clear and simple as possible and to try to convey more meaning in fewer words (and then the students still don’t read them).
9. Lost in translation
If I’m translating instructions to Korean, how can I keep the instructions clear without losing nuance? Most of the time for worksheets, translation is very simple.
“Circle the answer.” “Fill in the blank.” These are easy.
But for some more complex puzzles with a story-based premise, the translation involves a few more human decisions to preserve clarity and my original intention.
I think when dealing with instructional material, translating contextual meaning is much more important than a literal word for word translation. I’m not translating some great work of literature where it may be important to preserve the author’s original phrasing. The students just need to understand what to do. This is the difference between source-oriented and target-oriented, where source-oriented translation preserves the source material as much as possible, and target-oriented prioritizes naturalness for the target reader. There is always this trade-off in translation.
10. User testing
User testing is essential to good design work. Luckily, I have over 400 unsuspecting test subjects at my disposal… and I don’t have to pay them! 😈
As a teacher, everything I make inevitably gets field tested with my students. Once I’m happy with the worksheet, I print it and use it in my lessons. Then I can see how students respond and make any adjustments before publishing on my website.
As they say, good design always starts with solving a problem, not just making things pretty (although I think this is a very essential last step). I hope this quick insight into my thinking process was valuable to you, or at least interesting!
Love,
B
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