Digital storytelling can motivate and engage students and create a community in the classroom. This article lays out a 12-week digital storytelling project, describing the process in detail, including assessment, and pinpointing issues and challenges as well as benefits the project affords English language students.

The teaching of writing, and the teaching of developmental and ESL/EFL writing in particular, has historically given priority to the sentence, often in theory and almost always in practice. The writing approach modeled here simply argues that the paragraph should be given primacy of place in ESL/EFL academic writing instruction. The…

This article discusses the role of culture in language teaching and provides activities for introducing culture in the classroom, focusing on teaching context and methodology to integrate culture. The authors outline five activities that can be adapted to the language level and interests of students. Instructions for each activity include language…

Recognizing the relevance of English for Specific Purposes, this article outlines an approach for using authentic readings in a course in Engineering English. The article describes the importance of needs analysis, rhetorical focus, and reading for content; it suggests content for 15 lessons and provides a sample worksheet and other suggestions…

This article presents a theoretical framework to support the use of children's picture storybooks in teaching EFL to adults and adolescents. The author presents ways to use these books, addresses the twin goals of teaching mechanics and culture, and includes a list of books and a wide variety of activities that EFL teachers can use to…

Test-preparation classes that focus on skills will benefit students beyond the test by developing skills they can use at university. This article discusses the purposes of various tests and outlines how to design effective test-prep classes. Several practical activities are included, and an appendix provides information on common standardized…

Students at many universities often fail to reach their full potential as English language learners due to low motivation. Some of the factors that affect their motivation relate to the country's education system in general. Others reflect institutional and cultural views of language learning in particular. Using a problem-solution format, this…

This piece, a preface to a reprinted 1971 article on communication practice, focuses on the need for real communication in the language classroom. In this article, the author drifts back to inspiring times in the 1960s and reflects on some events that prompted him to write the article in the first place.

Of all the resources and techniques available to the classroom teacher of English as a second or foreign language, none are more neglected than audiovisual aids. Properly planned, constructed, and employed, such aids can help not only to improve the overall language program but also to enhance the classroom atmosphere and to ensure greater student…

Pre-service teachers around the world face a unique challenge: bridging the gap between traditional teaching focused on grammar translation and receptive skills, and communicative teaching aimed at well-rounded communication skills. Many new EFL teachers learned English in a traditional context that emphasized memorization and grammar, but after…

For the 25th anniversary issue of "English Teaching Forum," published in 1987, the author wrote about the diversification of the language teaching field. Her point then was that during the preceding years from 1962 to 1987, the language teaching field had diversified: Where earlier there had been a unified approach to language teaching, by 1987,…

This article was written for the 25th anniversary of "English Teaching Forum" and published in 1987. In this article, the author describes methodological developments in the field of English language teaching over the past 25 years. The author has found it helpful to think of methodology being depicted as a triangle, with each angle of the…

Most people have an innate curiosity about things and ideas, people and events. When they read stories, especially those concerning crime, love, or adventure, they not only want to find out what is happening or has happened, but they generally make some kind of guess as to what is likely to happen next. Where there is no such curiosity on the part…

In contrast to the product approach to writing, which is based on studying and replicating textual models, the process approach involves multiple and repeated steps that compel the writer to closely consider the topic, language, purpose for writing, and social reality of an audience. In addition to discussing the benefits of the process approach…

Content-based instruction (CBI) is not a new term for foreign language teachers. By some accounts, CBI has been employed since the ancient Akkadians adopted Sumerian as the medium of instruction to educate their young in science and religion (Mehisto, Frigols, and Marsh 2008, 9). In the modern era, content-based approaches to language instruction…