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1. Promoting Solidarity in Short Interactions

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

   This lesson in Teaching Pragmatics aims to raise awareness of and give practice in using strategies of relexicalisation for descriptive accounts and for promoting solidarity in short interactions. A sub-goal is to provide students with interesting and natural vehicles for vocabulary development, recycling and revision.

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. The Children's Response: TPR and Beyond

   In: English Teaching Forum 2005, Volume 43, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   This article describes a technique called The Children’s Response, which can be used to teach young EFL learners. The technique is based on Total Physical Response (TPR), which actively involves children from kindergarten to beyond third grade. The article offers three lessons that provide practice with the form and function of the present and past tense as well as prepositions and imperative commands.

4. Plays for Reading

   Format(s): Text

   Plays for Reading uses drama as a vehicle for students to practice reading, listening, and speaking. Students become actors interpreting the written text, and the English classroom becomes a rehearsal hall with the focus placed upon putting on a play.

5. Lesson Plan: Taking a Look at Schools

   In: English Teaching Forum 2005, Volume 43, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This lesson plan, based on a short reading of a student’s description of a one-room schoolhouse, has a variety of activities, including group discussions, vocabulary practice, a spelling bee, research topics, interviews, and a task that has students exploring their own school.

6. Teacher Resources

   In: English Teaching Forum 2005, Volume 43, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   This section offers brief reviews of two commercial publications. The first is Academic Success for English Language Learners: Strategies for K-12 Mainstream Teachers, a collection of suggestions appropriate for ESL, EFL and mainstream teachers edited by Patricia A. Richard-Amato and Marguerite Ann Snow. The other publication is Making It Happen: From Interactive to Participatory Language Teaching, a book by Patricia A. Richard-Amato with practical ideas for getting students to participate more in the classroom.

7. Classroom Techniques: Some Communicative Activities Based on Overhead Projectors

   In: English Teaching Forum 2005, Volume 43, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   This article offers sample activities that use an overhead projector. These activities encourage students to use the target language while recalling information they have already learned. Activities include making shapes on the projector for discussion, manipulating objects to practice prepositions, and creating dialogues.

8. Rules and Laws

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   This article presents a lesson that gives students the opportunity to explore aspects of rules and laws. The goal of the lesson is to help students learn vocabulary and concepts associated with the topic, practice their English language skills, and develop an understanding of the role of rules and laws in civil societies. The article shares three activities for a fifty-minute lesson plan, but the authors state that teachers may modify the lesson for their own contexts and student needs.

9. Chapter 3: Biotechnology and Crop Engineering

   In: Language and Life Sciences E-Journal Format(s): Text

   This chapter in the Advances of Biotechnology volume of the Language and Science e-journal focuses on crop engineering and the issues surrounding the practice.

10. Purposeful Language Assessment: Selecting the Right Alternative Test

    In: English Teaching Forum 2012, Volume 50, Number 3 Format(s): Text

    This article, originally published in 2000, looks at various instruments, procedures, and practices for language testing and offers strategies for determining which assessment options are most appropriate in various contexts.

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