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1. Mind Mirror Projects: A Tool for Integrating Critical Thinking into the English Language Classroom

   In: English Teaching Forum 2009, Volume 47, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   Students often have difficulty 'reading between the lines.' This article suggests the use of mind mirror activities as a tool to improve students' critical thinking and learning skills (e.g., analysis, categorization, clarification, inferencing). The author describes a successful five-day group project from his own classroom that ended in students sharing their work through poster presentations.

2. Communicative Grammar with Games for the Young Learne

   In: American English Webinars Format(s): Video

   This session, "Communicative Grammar with Games for the Young Learner," examines three lively, communicative grammar games that help build grammar competence and speaking confidence in children without them evening knowing it! In addition, we look at developmentally appropriate ways to focus on grammar. These grammar games can be adapted for all ages.

3. The Trans-Cultural Comparative Literature Method: Using Grammar Translation Techniques Effectively

   In: English Teaching Forum 2010, Volume 48, Number 3 Format(s): Text

   This article explains the trans-cultural comparative literature method, which uses elements of communicative language teaching (CLT) and grammar-translation (GT) while comparing two culturally different texts. This method focuses on grammar and vocabulary, but also gives students a chance to analyze different cultures. An overview of CLT and GT is followed by guidelines for the trans-cultural comparative literature method and sample lesson plans for its use.

4. Mastering the Multilevel Classroom

   In: American English Webinars Format(s): Text, Video

   This session, "Mastering the Multilevel Classroom," Dieter Bruhn shares innovative strategies that engage students and inspire them to learn and improve their language skills, regardless of class size or challenges inherent in multilevel settings.

5. The Lighter Side: "Traffic Jam"

   In: English Teaching Forum 2013, Volume 51, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This activity sheet requires unscrambling a factual statement about cars and a follow-up question that can be used for classroom discussion.

6. Adventures in Grammar: The Power of Stories

   In: American English Webinars Format(s): Text, Video

   This session, "Adventures in Grammar: The Power of Stories," shares ways to dramatize grammar rules to make them memorable and techniques for helping students discover grammar as they explore popular stories.

7. The Lighter Side

   In: English Teaching Forum 2008, Volume 46, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   This is a word game that asks the reader to fill letters in spaces to create words. Cues are provided.

8. The Lighter Side: Train of Thought

   In: English Teaching Forum 2013, Volume 51, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   This activity sheet focuses on phrasal verbs in a context of train rides.

9. “What would happen if…?” Chain Stories

   In: Teacher's Corner: Conditionals Format(s): Text

   Students use oral or written conditionals to develop a series of related “cause and effect” events. The chain of events will create a short, often funny, story!

10. Alternatives to Current Pedagogy for Teaching the Present Perfect Progressive

    In: English Teaching Forum 2003, Volume 41, Number 1 Format(s): Text

    These researchers collected 250 samples of spoken and written American English from high-level communicators and analyzed the use of the present perfect progressive tense. They compared these samples to five leading ESL and EFL grammar textbooks. This article reviews the research and findings. The five leading textbooks provided good overall structure for teaching the present perfect progressive tense, but the use of the tense was critically influenced by broad context, adverbs, temporal context and the uses of other tenses including the present and present perfect tense.

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