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1. The Single-Point Rubric to Simplify Student Feedback and Assessment

   In: English Teaching Forum 2025, Volume 63, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   In this article, author Melanie C. González explores single-point rubrics, a simple, adaptable assessment tool that can offer student-friendly formative and summative feedback in many ELT contexts. Single-point rubrics use one list of evaluative criteria to describe how learners can demonstrate proficiency or success; this flexible rubric style also provides space for individualized, growth-focused instructor feedback in relation to each success criterion.

2. Bridging Academia and the Real World: A Letter-Writing Journey for English Language Learners

   In: English Teaching Forum 2025, Volume 63, Number 4 Format(s): E-book

   Author Kamran Akhtar Siddiqui shares a project plan for engaging students in writing short opinion-based “letters to the editor” on current topics and for helping students submit their work to print or online news publications. The article describes key steps: analyzing model texts, selecting an issue, creating drafts, giving and receiving peer feedback, and using online editing tools to prepare texts for publication via an authentic news outlet or class e-book.

3. Conversation Continuation Support Tools for Beginner-Level Learners

   In: English Teaching Forum 2025, Volume 63, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   Author Shinya Koga introduces a set of flexible strategies and tools designed to foster learners’ ability to sustain a conversation, even in beginner-level or young-learner contexts. The author’s approach combines structured—yet adaptable—resources with engaging activities, helping students build confidence and fluency while making conversations enjoyable.

4. Human Mind Maps

   In: English Teaching Forum 2025, Volume 63, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   To celebrate the innumerable contributions of past English Teaching Forum Editor-in-Chief Tom Glass, we are pleased to reshare his creative Human Mind Maps activity. This engaging, movement-based technique requires students to think critically and creatively as they communicate and collaborate to identify and explain conceptual relationships.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Fishing—A Sport for All Seasons

   In: English Teaching Forum 2011, Volume 49, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   Fishing is the feature lesson topic for this issue. Catching fish with hooks is known as angling, which is why fishermen are typically called anglers. Americans fish in urban and rural settings and enjoy many different kinds of fishing including bass fishing, fly fishing and ice fishing. The article discusses recent trends in fishing, including high-tech tools such as GPS devices.

8. The Lighter Side: Fishy Fun

   In: English Teaching Forum 2011, Volume 49, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   There are two games. The first has five tongue twisters, each word missing a letter which the student must complete. The second game is a matching game, but the words are missing letters which the student must fill in before he/she completes the match. The games help with vocabulary and spelling.

9. Classroom Activities

   In: English Teaching Forum 2011, Volume 49, Number 3 Format(s): Text

   This section presents three stand-alone language-learning activities for different level classrooms. The interactive activities focus on skills that familiarize students with simple sentence structures, present tense, grammar review through group work and games, a vocabulary review, and an activity to help students understand the concept of metaphors and use them in their writing.

10. Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts

    In: English Teaching Forum 2010, Volume 48, Number 1 Format(s): Text

    This article discusses Haiku as a simple way to use poetry to help students develop voice and audience in their writing. The author gives an explanation and example of Haiku and gives step-by-step instructions for how Haiku may be taught, from interpretation to composition to publication.

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