Icebreakers are first-day activities that are meant to give students and the teacher an opportunity to get to know one another. They are helpful activities for taking a class full of strangers and turning them into friends (or at least acquaintances). However, icebreaker activities tend to be short and limited in the extent to which students can…

Most teachers who use textbooks know that they are restrictive by nature. Units jump from topic to topic without recycling much vocabulary. One effective solution to truly developing reading fluency in terms of word recognition may be Narrow Reading (NR)-- that is reading several texts about a single narrow topic. NR may involve reading five short…

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…

As a teacher of an intensive class for college-level students that focuses on learning the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) vocabulary, Kelly Keegan wanted to create and play vocabulary-review games that encourage flexibility and spontaneity in authentic contexts. This article describes how she created games that give…

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…

In cultures where there is a danger of losing face by making a mistake, students prefer activities in which their errors may not be so apparent. The speaking skill is challenging for language learners, necessitating activities that support oral interaction in the classroom. The adaptable radio drama activities presented in this article promote…

This article explores a technique that can be used for almost any kind of classroom listening practice and with all kinds of classes. It seems to work well both in exam preparation and in regular textbook listening exercises.

Khatuna Kharkheli is an English language teacher in the Faculty of Education, Exact, and Natural Sciences at Gori State Teaching University (GSTU) in Gori, Georgia. With her passion for developing innovative and creative lessons and with her commitment to professional development, Ms. Kharkheli works to inspire her students to achieve success both…

This article provides 10 reasons why it is important to do critical media analysis in the second language classroom and describes how a process-writing approach can be used for this in a university writing class. The authors explain how to prepare a lesson plan and the idea of an "Adbuster." They then describe 10 stages in the lesson…

This article argues for the use of teacher-generated corpora in content-based courses. Using a content course for engineering and architecture students as an example, the article explains how a corpus consisting of texts from textbooks and journal articles helped students learn grammar, vocabulary, and writing. The article explains how the corpus…

This article describes the author's experiences coping with the challenges of teaching English in an Indonesian university, such as classroom conditions and large numbers of students at different proficiency levels. The author suggests five activities that are designed to involve students in learning with little dependence on materials and little…

The author reviews research on the connections between attitudes and language learning, and between attitudes and motivation. The article suggests that language learners' motivation and attitudes can influence learning outcomes, and that effective teaching can change negative attitudes. It describes a classroom action research project that was…