College graduates are expected to acquire certain skill sets that are necessary and sought after by potential employers, as many industries in the United States continue to grow a global footprint. Employers also value good communication skills, and communication classes are a staple of most general education curricula, including those taught on…

This paper is a user-friendly manual designed to minimize the growing pains associated with college-level teaching. Specific topics include syllabus development, classroom teaching methods, proper use of the initial class session, and advice related to answering student questions. Many new and adjunct instructors are met with unexpected challenges…

Objective: To allow students an opportunity to speak publicly on the first day of class while becoming familiar with fellow students. The activity encourages students to examine the perceptions and stereotypes they have about one another by blindly guessing certain characteristics about their partner. By participating in the exercise, students…

Presents two lesson plans for a consumer education unit and the questionnaire used to survey student needs, attitudes, and concerns in consumer education. Lesson objectives were to help students determine their own needs and attitudes toward consumer education and money management and to evaluate a tentative consumer education syllabus. (MF)

Investigates the administration of courses in English as a foreign language and reaction of students and teachers to the presentation of these courses. Students described activities in terms of linguistic elements and stated the purpose as accurate production, whereas the teachers' main concern centered on the conveyance of meaningful information.…

Discusses the preparation of students of Indonesian origin for the type of thinking and writing they will have to do in graduate programs in Canada. The article argues that foreign students bound for Western English-medium universities must learn not only to produce a new language but also to display a different form of logic in the classroom.…

The ending of the academic year of second language instruction is discussed. It is suggested that vocabulary and grammar review be used in communicative activities and that the review should not be started too early in the final grading period (i.e., a week and a half may be allowed for the review and the test). Emphasis should be placed on the…

This secondary social studies unit, part one of a series of four, contains 22 classroom activities that involve students in discovering their ethnicity. Students examine their attitudes toward ethnic groups, particularly African Americans, Irish Americans, Arab Americans, and Mexican Americans. The activities can easily be integrated into U.S.…

This unit on aging was prepared for use in high school sociology, marriage and family classes. The objectives of the course, which can be taught in four classroom sessions, are to help students: (1) become aware of the fact that older people are individuals, differing widely in attitudes and abilities, who do not necessarily conform to the popular…

This paper presents a new approach designed to help students understand the concepts around which introductory social and political science courses are typically built. The social science course, "Problem Solving in Society," includes an exercise requiring the class as a whole to select, and develop proposals to alleviate, a social problem.…