Site Search

1. The Pragmatics Action Maze

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

   This lesson aims helps students navigate requests by identifying pragmatically appropriate language.

2. The Lighter Side: Lacrosse Word Puzzle

   In: English Teaching Forum 2010, Volume 48, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This is a crossword puzzle about the sport of lacrosse.

3. Using Teacher-Developed Corpora in the CBI classroom

   In: English Teaching Forum 2008, Volume 46, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This article argues for the use of teacher-generated corpora in content-based courses. Using a content course for engineering and architecture students as an example, the article explains how a corpus consisting of texts from textbooks and journal articles helped students learn grammar, vocabulary, and writing. The article explains how the corpus was compiled and presents examples of how students learned to analyze language use using corpus tools and dictionaries. The article ends by emphasizing the advantages of corpus analysis for self-directed learning.

4. Teaching English for and with Communities

   In: English Teaching Forum 2008, Volume 46, Number 3 Format(s): Text

   This article is a reflection of English teaching in Chiclayo, Peru, at a not-for-profit cultural center. It starts with a brief explanation of the authors’ desire to help transform the community through English teaching. The article then explains the concept of civic education and offers a three-tiered approach that has been designed to help the community: Chiclayo reads, summer institute for k-12 English teachers, and the advanced curriculum. The implementation and results of the projects are discussed.

5. Using Self-Assessment for Evaluation

   In: English Teaching Forum 2002 (Volume 40, Number 1) Format(s): Text

   This article explains the usefulness of self-assessment for learning purposes as well as evaluation purposes. The author emphasizes the ways that learners can conduct reliable, global self-assessment as well as three ways in which data-driven self-assessment can be done. The author discusses the purpose of self-assessment and provides specific instruments that can be used. The three data-driven self-assessments that are discussed include Portfolios, Pre- and Post-course writing, and Learner Contracts.

6. “To Build a Fire”: Creative Frames, Adolescent Readers, and New Words

   In: English Teaching Forum 2019, Volume 57, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   Using Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” as an anchor, the authors present a variety of creative ideas for introducing new words and helping students fully comprehend them.

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

   In: English Teaching Forum 2024, Volume 62, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   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.

8. Wordscapes

   Format(s): Image / Poster / Maps

   Wordscapes is a collection of ten full-color illustrations of American landscapes, including the forest, plains, desert, and more.

9. Teaching Techniques: Group Grammar

   In: English Teaching Forum 2015, Volume 53, Number 3 Format(s): Text

   Before becoming a teacher of English to speakers of other languages, I taught French, and too often I saw that impersonal grammar exercises about “Jacques” and “Nathalie” were meaningless to the students. Worse, those exercises led to apathy and stagnation. So I decided to do grammar activities in which students used each other’s names, instead of random ones, and used the grammar to express ideas about their own lives.

10. Arts and Culture

    Format(s): Text, Website

    Full lesson plans on a variety of topics related to the arts from the National Endowment of the Humanities.

Pages