Past Issues of English Teaching Forum | American English

Browse online English Teaching Forum issues and articles dating back to 2001. To find a particular article or issue, filter the past issues by year.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025

Search Past Issues of Forum by Year

English Teaching Forum 2024, Volume 62, Number 4

The cover of American English. The painting, titled simply Abstract, is by Carl Newman.

Among the topics in this issue: helping students make connections between the texts they read and their lives … awareness of and use of inclusive language … improving English proficiency in professional training … describing objects in a fun, interactive way … practicing speaking through collaboration and scaffolding … a vibrant teacher and school in northern Senegal … and much more.

View full resource page »

Reading Up-Close and Personal: Connection-Making and the Classic American Short Story

Spencer Salas, Bernadette Musetti

Authors Spencer Salas and Bernadette Musetti use the O. Henry story “Transients in Arcadia” (available on the American English website) to illustrate how readers can make a text more meaningful by connecting it to themselves, to other texts, and to the world.

Improving English Proficiency in Professional and Vocational Training

Donna Bain Butler

This purpose of this article, by Donna Bain Butler, is “to contribute to the professional development of teacher-trainers worldwide, with practical applications for instructors and curriculum developers who work to improve English proficiency in the professional/vocational training realm.”

Reader’s Guide

This guide is designed to enrich your reading of the articles in this issue. You may choose to read them on your own, taking notes or jotting down answers to the discussion questions below. Or you may use the guide to explore the articles with colleagues.

Matching Auditory Description with Visual Objects in an Interactive Setting

Monisha Biswas

Author Monisha Biswas presents an engaging activity that gives students practice in describing objects, listening to classmates’ descriptions, and identifying the objects being described. The article offers options for adapting the activity, which can develop learners’ overall language skills.

My Classroom: Senegal

Dawn Rogier

Author Dawn Rogier describes how Cheikh Amadou Tidiane Niang incorporates the local culture into his lessons at the remote CEM Gaoudé Boffé school and in activities by the English club he has started. The article gives insights into efforts by the school and the students to increase awareness of the value of education for both males and females.

The Collaborative Scaffolding Model of Teaching Speaking

Krishna Prasad Parajuli

This article, by Krishna Prasad Parajuli, describes a step-by-step activity in which students work in groups to begin, develop, and share stories they create. Teachers can also use the approach with debates, speeches, interviews, and other speaking genres as students enhance their speaking, listening, and collaborating skills.

The Lighter Side: Peace Puzzles

See if you can solve these short puzzles that feature quotes related to peace and different uses of the words “peace” and “piece.”

English Teaching Forum 2024, Volume 62, Number 3

Find detailed tips for successful cross-cultural collaboration … a methodological framework for using pop songs productively … suggestions for giving effective instructions in the classroom … an inside look at teaching in Zanzibar … an integrated-skills activity using pictures … and much more.

View full resource page »

Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Working Together to Achieve Shared Goals

Lộc Thị Huỳnh Nguyễn, Fredricka L. Stoller

Authors Lộc Thị Huỳnh Nguyễn and Fredricka L. Stoller share their own experiences as collaborators working together in person and on two distant continents, and they offer specific, detailed tips for others who are involved in cross-cultural collaborative projects or who may have the opportunity to collaborate in the future.

C.A.R.E.: A Methodological Framework for Using Pop Songs in the EL2 Classroom

Harald Spann

Author Harald Spann explains the C.A.R.E. framework to support “planning and teaching pop-song lessons in different learning contexts.” Using the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” as an anchor, the author provides numerous examples of how teachers can apply the framework (covering creativity, analysis, response, and English) for multiple purposes.

Reader’s Guide

This guide is designed to enrich your reading of the articles in this issue. You may choose to read them on your own, taking notes or jotting down answers to the discussion questions below. Or you may use the guide to explore the articles with colleagues.

SAD PEACH: The Steps for Giving Effective Instructions in English

Claire Lee

Author Claire Lee explains the steps in the acronym SAD PEACH, which can be used as a guide for giving instructions effectively with learners at various skill levels. The author presents a sample vocabulary game to illustrate how the steps can be applied.

My Classroom: Zanzibar

Muhaymina Omar

Learn how Muhaymina Omar and her students on Unguja, one of the two main islands in Tanzania’s Zanzibar Archipelago, have come together in regular classes and in a special Saturday class to study English, collaborate to solve problems, and learn about themselves and the world around them.

Hidden Pictures: An Integrated Speaking and Listening Activity

Heather Gaddis

Author Heather Gaddis provides a detailed, step-by-step description of an original activity in which students examine and describe pictures that are similar to one another. The author includes suggestions for adapting the activity for different purposes and for integrating themes—which teachers can choose—into the activity for targeted practice.

The Lighter Side: Scrambled Lyrics

In this puzzle, you are given the first lines to songs, but the second lines to those songs are not only scrambled—they are also out of order. Your job is to unscramble each of the second lines and then match it with the first line that it follows. If you and your students are feeling creative, after solving the puzzle you can continue the songs with your own ideas and even make up melodies and sing them.

English Teaching Forum 2024, Volume 62, Number 1

Find suggestions for incorporating board games productively in your classes, no matter what level you teach or how large your classes are—and find four new Activate games, too! Also get ideas for using QAR to promote reading engagement and comprehension … getting students to retell stories by creating texts/tweets in their own words … using the Seven Wonders for project-based learning … and stimulating learning with vertical game boards.

View full resource page »

The Line Between Questions, Responses, and Readers

Spencer Salas, Maryann Mraz, Susan Green, Brian Keith Williams

This article uses the Stephen Crane story “The Open Boat” (freely available on the American English website) as an anchor text to demonstrate how teachers can apply Raphael’s Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) technique to a text that students might be assigned to read. The article includes numerous examples and tips that teachers can use to adapt the technique to other texts as a way to enhance student engagement and interest in reading.

Reader’s Guide

This guide is designed to enrich your reading of the articles in this issue. You may choose to read them on your own, taking notes or jotting down answers to the discussion questions below. Or you may use the guide to explore the articles with colleagues.

The Use of X and Other Creative Ways to Retell Events

Aljohn Francis Ruiz Flores

In this article, author Aljohn Francis Ruiz Flores presents a clever and easy-to-apply technique that helps students engage with texts they are reading in an enjoyable way: they show their comprehension by generating tweets (or posts or texts), using their own words to retell events and characters’ thoughts. The versatile technique allows students at all levels to be creative but can also be used as a check on student comprehension and even for assessment.

Seven Wonders: Bringing Student-Centered Learning into a Teacher-Centers Classroom

Adrienne Lee Seo, Tozagul Nasrullaeva

Authors Adrienne Lee Seo and Tozagul Nasrullaeva brought student-centered learning into their classes in Uzbekistan by introducing project-based learning (PBL) projects; in this article, they present a detailed example of how to use the Seven Wonders (Ancient, Natural, and Modern) of the World in a student-driven project that integrates a variety of skills. The authors offer suggestions for other topics that can be used in similarly productive ways.

Make a Vertical, Whole-Class Board Game

Kevin McCaughey

Author Kevin McCaughey takes game-boarding to another dimension by showing how teachers and students can turn part of a classroom into a board game that the entire class can play. Step-by-step instructions ensure that teachers will know exactly how to apply the idea of vertical games in their own classrooms—and will be able to let students not only play the games, but help create them, too.

The Lighter Side: Two Activate Games Puzzles

These two puzzles are based on new Activate games found in this issue of English Teaching Forum (Volume 62, Number 1), but the game boards are not necessary for solving the puzzles: (a) unscrambling a board-games conversation between two students and (b) using logic to find out which games four friends played. Can you solve both?

Insert: Four New Activate Board Games

This issue includes a unique bonus: four completely new Activate board games that you and your students can begin playing immediately. The directions may be self-explanatory, but detailed instructions and tips can be found in the article “Let Them Play: Board Games for Language Practice,” also in this issue.

Let Them Play: Board Games for Language Practice

Authors Kevin McCaughey and Rick Rosenberg demonstrate techniques for using board games to stimulate student-centered language practice that is flexible, productive, engaging, and fun. The article includes tips for efficient game play and for using games with a variety of levels and class sizes. The authors show that playing board games for language practice can be educational AND entertaining.

English Teaching Forum 2024, Volume 62, Number 2

Front cover of issue 62/2 of English Teaching Forum

Find suggestions and resources for planning and conducting a successful English Camp … using pop songs productively, for language practice and much more … turning Forum’s “The Lighter Side” puzzles into versatile teaching tools … giving students question-and-answer practice with light-hearted job interviews that provide serious benefits … and producing customized vocabulary wheels for fun, interactive language practice.

View full resource page »

Boost English Language Learning through a Camp Experience

Juanita Blackton, Alla McCaughey

Authors Juanita Blackton and Alla McCaughey provide everything you need to plan and conduct a successful English Camp. Their how-to approach offers guidance for selecting a theme and language focus, getting started, setting a positive and inclusive tone, finishing on a high note, and more. You will find plenty of examples and tips, along with QR codes that lead to additional, ready-to-go materials you can use for a camp of your own.

Using Pop Songs to Teach English to Young Adults: Principles Derived from an Outreach Project

Enrique Alejandro Basabe, Mary Beringause

Authors Enrique Alejandro Basabe and Mary Beringause present clear, practical suggestions for using pop songs—which most young adults listen to regularly—to teach English and to do much more. The authors argue that “using pop songs in the EFL classroom should follow the principles of meaningfulness, focus on language, criticality, active consumption, and personal growth, and it should encourage the creation of communities of knowledge.” Numerous examples of current and recent pop songs illustrate how teachers can achieve these goals.

Reader’s Guide

This guide is designed to enrich your reading of the articles in this issue. You may choose to read them on your own, taking notes or jotting down answers to the discussion questions below. Or you may use the guide to explore the articles with colleagues.

Going Beyond “The Lighter Side” Puzzles for English Language Practice

Tom Glass

Author Tom Glass describes multiple ways that teachers can use and adapt “The Lighter Side” puzzles, found in all issues of English Teaching Forum, to give students extended language practice by solving puzzles and creating new puzzles of their own. The article includes examples from puzzles that teachers can find and download (for free) on the American English website.

Question Practice: The Personal-Assistant Mock Job Interview

Terence McLean

Would you like to give your students practice in generating and asking questions—and finding creative ways to answer them? Author Terence McLean describes a job-interview activity that is light-hearted and fun, yet gives students serious language practice, motivates them, and requires them to think creatively and critically. The activity also helps students prepare for the real-life job interviews they will have in the future.

The Vocabulary Wheel: A Low-Resource Activity for Enhancing Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention

Anestin Lum Chi

This article, by Anestin Lum Chi, offers detailed instructions for making vocabulary wheels and using them in various ways for extended practice with targeted vocabulary. Students can make and use the wheels, and the wheels can be customized and saved for future classes. The wheels are ideal for all language levels and for all contexts, including those with limited resources. No internet connectivity is required.

The Lighter Side: A_ I_

These days, “AI” usually means “artificial intelligence,” but in this puzzle, “AI” is used as a substitute for other two-word terms and phrases. The only requirement is that the first word must begin with the letter “a,” and the second word must begin with the letter “i.” Can you find every AI in this puzzle?