Debating in English is a vital part of second-language acquisition. Not only does it help students with their speaking skills, but it also is an excellent way to prepare them to write opinionated essays. This article explores how educators can use "place mats" to organize a debate that gives each student the chance to speak, and then how…

Many students struggle when they are asked to write. They may feel the lack of ideas, or they believe their ideas are not good enough. Prewriting techniques (e.g., brainstorming, clustering, and freewriting) help students develop their ability to think and their confidence in generating ideas. Collaborative prewriting activities expand students'…

Twenty-first-century learners are "plugged in," fluent with technology, and motivated by social media. Why not embrace their passion and use social media to engage them in authentic and meaningful English-language learning that allows them to practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a familiar and motivating context? Author…

Second-language learners increasingly need effective writing skills in English for academic and professional purposes, as well as for personal and social purposes. To date, peace education (PE) activities in the English language classroom have mostly focused on speaking. This article presents an activity that can help fill the gap in the lack of…

This article gives detailed practical suggestions for helping nonnative English speaking students recognize and avoid plagiarism, use paraphrasing and summarizing effectively, incorporate direct quotes into their writing, and cite sources.

Özge Yol is a former composition instructor and ESL/EFL teacher. Currently a doctoral candidate in the Educational Theory and Practice program at Binghamton University, she describes a "write a letter to your friend" activity she designed using peer-feedback to facilitate student engagement through the use of guiding questions. The task…

Nonnative speakers of a language are often at a disadvantage in producing extended speech, as they have differing native (L1) phonological systems and rhetorical traditions or little experience in giving talks. Prosody in the form of stress, rhythm, and intonation is a difficult but crucial area needed to master extended speech because prosody…

The writing conference, an opportunity for composition instructors to exchange class time for individual or small-group meetings with students, is a popular tool among writing teachers. However, students who come unprepared for their scheduled meetings--or miss them altogether-- will miss as much as a week's worth of instruction and receive little…

While teaching written communication to international business school students in Korea, the author received an email from a student to lacked thoroughness and clarity. He decided to use the email as a learning opportunity for his students to rewrite it. He discovered that while the results were good, there was an inability to write in a register…

When it comes to L1 and L2 differences in second-language writing, some researchers are not fully convinced that there is a fundamental difference. However, when comparing L1 and L2 writing, many would agree that macro- and micro-level writing characteristics exist and overlap (Eckstein and Ferris 2018). This article identifies some of the…

English language teaching (ELT) textbooks, especially reading textbooks, often include biographical reading passages (Tomas, Kostka, and Mott-Smith 2013) with accompanying pre-reading questions, post-reading comprehension questions, vocabulary exercises, and prompts for writing or discussion. Teachers often begin reading lessons by providing…

This article describes the teaching experiences of Alief Noor Farida--a junior lecturer at Indonesia's "Universitas Negeri Semarang" (Semarang State University [UNNES]). Now teaching her fourth semester and an alumna of the English Education program at UNNES, Ms. Farida is an especially motivated and dedicated educator. She teaches 18…

The use of writing models with nonnative English speakers has received a certain amount of criticism--especially from teachers whose students copy models in their entirety or follow them too closely. The misuse of models has brought some teachers to the point where they believe that the best kind of pedagogy is to abandon writing models…

Major changes in technology have had an influence on education. Teachers cannot neglect the impact of new technologies and fail to incorporate them in their teaching practice because that would not cater to many students' needs. Ignoring technological advances would also entail not benefiting from an array of online teaching resources and academic…

An understanding of noun positions in sentences can correct many recurring problems in the writing of English language learners. This article outlines an approach for anticipating and preventing these sorts of errors while providing a framework to explain the errors to students. For this approach to be successful, students need to have an…