Punctuation ESL Worksheets and Games

ESL Ending Punctuation Worksheet - Reading and Writing Exercises: Sentence Completion, Gap-fill, Categorising In this useful ending punctuation worksheet, students learn and practice how to use full stops (periods), exclamation marks and question marks. Students begin by completing definitions with words and punctuation marks from a box. Next, students complete each item with the correct punctuation mark at the end. After that, students punctuate a short dialogue with full stops, exclamation marks and question marks. Students then categorize phrases, according to which punctuation is needed. In the last exercise, students complete sentences with the phrases and correct punctuation. show less

ESL Pausing Points Worksheet - Reading and Writing Exercises: Matching, Ordering, Gap-fill, Sentence Completion This insightful pausing points worksheet helps students learn and practice how to indicate a pause or break in a sentence using periods, commas, semicolons, dashes and ellipses. Students start by choosing the name and symbol of the punctuation mark that matches each description. Next, students order sentences by different characteristics. After that, students add appropriate punctuation to a story. In the final exercise, students complete sentences with their own ideas. show less

ESL Apostrophes and Quotation Marks Worksheet - Reading and Writing Exercises: Matching, Error Correction, Rewriting Sentences, Adding Punctuation Here is a free quotation marks and apostrophes worksheet for intermediate students. First, students match situations in which quotation marks and apostrophes are used. After that, students match British and American quotation mark usage. Next, students move on to rewrite phrases, adding apostrophes where needed. Lastly, students read a passage and rewrite sentences containing direct quotations, titles or terminology, adding quotation marks and apostrophes as necessary in the American or British style. show less

ESL Dashes and Hyphens Worksheet - Reading and Writing Exercises: Matching, Gap-fill, Sentence Completion, Rewriting Sentences This comprehensive dashes and hyphens worksheet helps students learn and practice how to use hyphens and dashes. To begin, students match usage rules for short hyphens (-), medium en dashes (–) and long em dashes (—) with examples. After that, students complete sentences with hyphens and dashes. Next, students complete sentences that use em dashes with sentence fragments from a box. Finally, students rewrite sentences using em dashes to add additional information. show less

Academic Citations Worksheet - Reading and Writing Exercises: Matching, Writing References and Quotations In this informative academic citations worksheet, students learn and practice how to cite sources in academic writing, including using square brackets to modify quotations, in-text citations and references lists. Students start by matching original texts with quotations containing alterations indicated by square brackets. After that, students match uses of square brackets with examples. Next, students write a references list in their institution's style. Finally, students write sentences incorporating quotations from the given texts, showing any changes to the original text with square brackets. Students also include in-text citations referring to the references list in Exercise C, using the style preferred by their institution. show less

Academic Punctuation Worksheet - Reading and Writing Exercises: Gap-fill, Matching, Error Correction, Rewriting Sentences In this handy parentheses worksheet, students learn how to use parentheses in academic writing. First, students complete a text that explains the use of parentheses in academic writing using words from a box. Next, students match guidelines for using parentheses in academic writing to examples. Lastly, students rewrite sentences so that they correctly integrate parentheses according to the guidelines. show less

ESL Ellipses Worksheet - Writing Exercise: Rewriting Sentences - Speaking Activity: Guided Discussion, Categorising - Pair Work This detailed ellipses worksheet helps to teach students how to use ellipses to remove unnecessary words from quotations in an intellectually honest way. To start, students rewrite shortened quotes, replacing each ellipsis with the removed words given in the choices. In pairs, students then discuss the shortened quotes, comparing them with the originals and deciding if they have been shortened honestly. Students write 'yes' under 'Honest?' if they think the meaning is the same, or 'no' if they think it has been changed. Finally, students examine the reasons why each shortened quote is or is not intellectually honest. show less

ESL Parentheses Game - Writing: Adding Punctuation - Pair Work In this engaging punctuation game, students race to add parentheses (round brackets) to sentences. One student from each pair comes to your desk and picks up sentence card 1. The student then goes back to their partner with the card and the two students race to add parentheses to the sentence or sentences on the card. When the students have finished, they come back to your desk and show you their card. If students have correctly placed parentheses everywhere needed, they move on to the second card. If not, students take the card back and try again. The first pair of students to complete all 15 sentences correctly wins. show less