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1. An American Poetry Project for Low Intermediate ESL Adults

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   This article discusses the author’s poetry unit, developed to expose her ESL students to American literature. Students wrote journals about poems they read and were assigned a poem about which to write a composition. The author required her students to memorize and perform one poem. While teaching the unit, the author and a colleague kept a dialog journal of their experience and insights. Both the student reactions and their dialog journals yielded positive results, allowing the author to make several recommendations for using poetry in the ESL classroom.

2. Nurturing Emotional Intelligence through Literature

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

   This article discusses the use of literature in a language class as a way to develop emotional intelligence in children. The author suggests that literature can be motivating and can provide a low-anxiety context for children to learn English. Several response activities are suggested to develop language skills and nurture emotional intelligence. These activities include scripting, detecting feelings in text, a feeling hunt, creating a positive language dictionary, diary entries, and letters to characters.

3. Women in Sports

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

   This article outlines the history of women in sports. It includes a discussion of important female athletes, female participation in the modern Olympics, and Title IX in the United States. The piece concludes by giving sketches of the accomplishments of several important female athletes-- "Babe" Didrickson Zaharias, Wilma Rudolph, Joan Benoit Samuelson, and Jackie Joyner-Kersey.

4. A Judicious Lesson: A Whole-learning Reading Activity

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This article discusses the use of whole-reading activities in a university level reading and speaking course. The author used a magazine article about a murder and a trial to develop a four-week unit in which students investigated ideas about crime, punishment, rhetorical strategies, idiomatic language, and the United States' judicial system. Through the use of this unit, the author advocates for readings and activities that challenge students to move beyond comprehension of a text.

5. Information Gap in Communicative Classrooms

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   The author argues that exchanges in the classroom must go beyond display questions and should be based on the information gap that occurs when one speaker does not know in advance what the other is going to say. The author provides examples of information gap activities to promote a communicative classroom. Activity types include practical situations, guessing games, role plays, opinion gap activities, and reasoning gap activities. The author argues that these activities have real communicative value.

6. Texas: The Lone Star State

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 4 Format(s): Text

   This article gives an introduction to the state of Texas. It begins by outlining the history of Texas, from colonization through statehood. Present geography and a description of east, west, south, and north Texas are also described. Additional websites for further reading are provided. The article is appropriate for intermediate English learners with an interest in various regions of the United States.

7. Weaving the Web into an EAP Reading Program

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   The authors share their experiences developing Internet reading activities for their students in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program. The authors chose reading material found on the Internet that was authentic, up-to-date, and would increase student interest and motivation to learn English. The authors share practical considerations as well as their experience adapting laboratory activities to increase student autonomy along with other lessons learned in the process of using Internet reading materials.

8. Integrating Authentic Materials and Language Skills in English for Science and Technology Instruction

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This article describes how a unit in an English for Science and Technology (EST) course integrated three learning materials: a research article from a scientific journal, an article from a magazine that reports on the scientific journal article, and an instructional video with its script. Instruction was focused on both content and rhetorical functions. The author shows how the language skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening were used for each of the three materials.

9. International Business Ethics: Why Discuss International Business Ethics?

   In: English Teaching Forum 2001, Volume 39, Number 2 Format(s): Text

   This lesson introduces business ethics and what society may expect from corporations. The goals of the lesson are to introduce new vocabulary to discus ethics, provide a basic understanding of international business ethics, and create an atmosphere of trust in discussing the culturally sensitive topic. The lesson asks students to complete and discuss a questionnaire on international business ethics, work in groups to propose a solution to an ethical dilemma at work, and consider a case study in the ethics of gift giving. Online resources are also provided.

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