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1. Alphabet Dance

   In: Teacher's Corner: Using Art in the English Language Classroom Format(s): Text

   Get your students moving! This week’s Teacher’s Corner is great for beginner level young learners. Learn how to use dance to reinforce English literacy skills—in particular, the alphabet.

2. Teacher's Corner: Teaching Grammar for Communicative Competence

   Format(s): Text

   This month in Teacher’s Corner, we look at how to teach grammar in ways that help students to build their communicative competence. A communicative grammar lesson gives students the opportunity to practice the target grammar item through specific communicative tasks and activities.This month’s article is filled with ideas and resources to help students use the language they are learning.

3. The Conversation Class

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

   This article discusses conversation classes, drawing from the author’s experience teaching Persian ESL. The author offers eight guidelines for effective teaching: cultivate a relaxed atmosphere (with six suggestions for doing this), be alert and foster alertness, be enthusiastic and engender enthusiasm, be patient, be sensitive, think, listen, and make corrections. The article finishes with a number of suggested topics and activities for promoting conversation.

4. Ten Characteristics of a Good Teacher

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

   The author, an experienced English teacher, combines her professional experience with her language learner experience to identify her ideal language teacher. Her top ten characteristics focus on four areas: affective characteristics including humor and enthusiasm; skills such as the use of creative tools; classroom management styles and academic knowledge. The author claims motivation thrives on success, and by adopting these characteristics, students will react positively.

5. Real-Life Problem Solving: A Collaborative Learning Activity

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

   This article emphasizes the importance of classroom activities that promote interaction and real-life problem-solving skills. The author describes a real-life problem-solving activity that she implements within her own classroom, consisting of multiple groups of students following a seven-step process. The steps she emphasizes include: state the problem, analyze, brainstorm, decide, think though, identify, and follow up. The author suggests how the activity can be used in a variety of classrooms and age levels.

6. 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.

7. Bringing One Language to Another: Multilingualism as a Resource in the Language Classroom

   In: English Teaching Forum 2011, Volume 49, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   Many EFL students are already multilingual, but they may not realize the strengths they bring to language learning. This article calls on instructors to help students develop language awareness and guide them to find ways to apply what they know about language. The author shows how this process occurred in a sociolinguistics course and includes sample lessons for all ages and a variety of levels of proficiency. Lessons incorporate the students’ language knowledge in such skill areas as grammar and vocabulary.

8. Classroom Activities

   In: English Teaching Forum 2011, Volume 49, Number 1 Format(s): Text

   This section presents three stand-alone learning activities related to the theme of knitting. A lesson for upper beginners uses the topic of knitting to teach clothing-related vocabulary. A lesson for intermediate learners uses an essay on knitting circles for a paragraph-ordering activity. An advanced lesson helps students understand idioms related to knitting. The lesson plan includes printable idiom cards.

9. English Teaching Forum 2008, Volume 46, Number 4

   Format(s): Text

   Chicago is the focus of the feature article and the basis of a lesson plan that provides practice in writing and reading postcards. This issue also includes articles on enhancing learning with mobile phone technology, VoIM-mediated cooperative tasks, and corpus-aided discovery. Additional articles discuss critical media literacy and ideas for incorporating an intercultural approach into EFL teaching.

10. Tutorials: A Way of Building Community in the Classroom

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

    These authors from Singapore and Macao discuss the benefits of developing a sense of community in the classroom, which they say can build an environment of trust and mutual confidence with Chinese students. The authors recommend using individual and group tutorials. Although some teachers think tutorials are too much work, the authors claim it is worthwhile. These tutorials are developed with an informal structure and encourage a free flow of conversation. The article gives examples of how tutorials are used in the ESL classroom.

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