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1. Learn English Activity: Numbers, Months, Days, and Years

   In: VOA Classroom Activities Format(s): Website

   Learn your numbers, days, months and years with this activity. Level: beginner.

2. Giving and Responding to Compliments

   In: Teaching Pragmatics Format(s): Text, Video, Website

   This lesson in Teaching Pragmatics aims to raise learners' awareness of pragmatic rules and to increase input to learners and opportunities to observe native English speakers' pragmatic behavior.

3. New Ideas for Teaching English Using Music and Song

   In: English Teaching Forum 2018, Volume 56, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   Find three innovative project ideas that help your students learn English while exploring aspects of music and songs.

4. A Tale of Two Animals

   In: English Teaching Forum 2007, Volume 45, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   An Indonesian fable is the theme of this three-part lesson for young learners. Students practice with the past-tense verbs used in the fable. By listening, reading and ordering the sentences, and copying a paragraph of the story, students become very familiar with the fable. The lessons finish with homework to write a play based on the fable. Students may select and perform the best play from their group.

5. Lessons in Life

   In: American Rhythms Format(s): MP3, Text

   "Lessons in Life" by Bridgette Bryant and Daniel Ho is a song from the American Rhythms album. Download or listen online.

6. Encouraging Student Voices in a Chinese Classroom

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   The author shares two activities she developed to promote student participation and encourage candid feedback. The first strategy involved having a student "facilitator" play the role of the teacher in small group discussions, providing an alternative to teacher-centered classrooms. To receive candid feedback from students, the author developed a system called no-fuss feedback. Students drew a large circle on a piece of paper and, as they listened to a list of class activities, they wrote the name of the activity in the circle if it helped them, and outside the circle if it did not.

7. Information Gap in Communicative Classrooms

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   The author argues that exchanges in the classroom must go beyond display questions and should be based on the information gap that occurs when one speaker does not know in advance what the other is going to say. The author provides examples of information gap activities to promote a communicative classroom. Activity types include practical situations, guessing games, role plays, opinion gap activities, and reasoning gap activities. The author argues that these activities have real communicative value.

8. Creating Cartoons: A Learner-Centered Approach to Comprehending Texts

   In: English Teaching Forum 2017, Volume 55, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This article carefully describes the technique of having learners create cartoons based on a reading passage to explore their understanding of the passage and to help teachers reflect on what the learners comprehended.

9. From Passive Learners to Critical Thinkers: Preparing EFL Students for University Success

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

   This article explains how the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC) revised their curriculum to best prepare EFL students for English-speaking universities. After completing a needs analysis on how to best serve their students, the committee decided to make a more interactive classroom environment in which teachers integrated the four skills, used critical thinking activities, taught grammar in context, and used various methods of assessment. Feedback showed that both the students and the teachers responded positively to the changes.

10. An Integrated Skills Lesson Plan for "A Postcard from America" by Robert Olen Butler

    In: English Teaching Forum 2004, Volume 42, Issue 1 Format(s): Text

    This lesson plan is based on the feature article, “Postcards from America” by Robert Olen Butler. It is appropriate for high intermediate to advanced students. The lesson integrates the four skills and has five parts: Preparing to Read, Reading the Text, Understanding the Text, Making Connections Beyond the Text, and Integrating Language Skills. The lesson includes group discussion of comprehension questions, scanning for vocabulary, and using the dictionary.

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