Writing grammar is an important part of ESL learning, says Patty Middleton, who has a degree in ESL from Hamline University and who currently teaches ESL in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is important to employ several different ESL exercises in order to improve the writing grammar of the students in your classroom.

Fiction Writing
Explore grammar in fiction writing. Middleton suggests fiction writing because many ESL students are different ages and from different backgrounds and don't react well to regular writing exercises. If you allow your ESL students to write stories and other pieces of fiction to complete assignments, you give them a chance to use the grammar that they already know and to explore new types of grammar they might not understand yet. Stories can also explore past tense, future tense and using tenses together to create meaning for the story. Teachers who use fiction writing, like Middleton, say that it helps students learn grammar faster and easier than other types of writing exercises.

Letter Writing
The most important writing ESL students have to do might be letter writing. Many will try to get jobs, apply to schools, and inquire in writing about various things such as housing, insurance, doctor's appointments, and applications for government funds. ESL students have a greater chance of needing these types of correspondence, says Middleton, because of their living situations, which may include poor areas of town, lower income and lower social status.

Teach students to write letters by having them write letters to members of the class. Their classmates can read the letters and edit them for any grammatical mistakes. Students will both write and grade letters, which will give them a chance to explore grammar on both levels, and to do so more completely than they would if they handed in completed letters for grading.

Reading and Writing Grammar
Teach ESL students to explore grammar in both reading and writing together, says Middleton, because this is how grammar exists for these students in real life. Give students several passages to read and have them analyze the grammar within those passages. Make sure students can relate to the passages, and ask them to find illustrations of past tenses, participles and future verbs. Finding and circling these instances will help students learn more about those aspects of grammar.