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1. Talking on a Second Channel Using Parentheticals in English Discourse

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

   This lesson in Teaching Pragmatics aims to help students learn to pronounce a range of parentheticals appropriately.

2. Are You Listening? (Backchannel Behaviors)

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

   This lesson aims to promote awareness of short responses during conversations such as uh-huh and yeah known as backchannel behaviors; to increase awareness of cultural differences in backchannel behaviors; to allow students to practice behaviors that indicate active listening.

3. Requesting the Main Point in the Classroom

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

   This lesson in Teaching Pragmatics aims to help students learn how to request the main point.

4. Comment-Response Mingle

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

   This lesson aims to help students become more aware of and have practice in using appropriate formulaic responses to common situations.

5. Improving the Friendly Discussions of Controversial Issues

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

   This lesson aims to introduce students to a variety of pragmatic routines and lexical phrases employed in disagreements between peers.

6. Complaining Successfully: Negotiating Redress in Service Encounters

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

   This lesson in Teaching Pragmatics aims to help students learn how to make complaints during service encounters.

7. The Texas Airport Cookies: Pragmatic Variation from an Urban Legend

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

   This aims to enhance awareness of pragmatic variation with respect to setting and participant characteristics in an airport scenario.

8. Working with CCBI: Volunteer Workbook (Peace Corps)

   Format(s): Text, Website

   Workbook on Community Content-Based Instruction (CCBI) to assist volunteers in their communities (PDF).

9. Destroying the Teacher: The Need for Learner-Centered Teaching

   In: English Teaching Forum 2012, Volume 50, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   This article advocates using English to teach content, addressing this through five areas: Reduction of Coercion (not eliciting correct answers, but engaging students in thinking); Active Learner Involvement (less teacher talk and more material chosen to engage learners), Experience Before Interpretation (handling material before interpreting it), Avoidance of Simplification (choosing materials challenging enough to learn skills for tackling new ideas), and Value of Silence (allowing students to think without forcing them to talk).

10. The Communicative Approach: Addressing Frequent Failure

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

    The author found that student and teacher beliefs about error correction support a teacher-centered classroom environment. However, the notion of interlanguage suggests that language is acquired through trial and error in communicative settings. Too much correction means decreased confidence and less time for students to use the language. The author proposes that teachers reduce the amount of time they talk. Teachers need to learn more about the benefits and techniques of a communicative approach and ways to adapt material.

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