The Alphabet Publishing Blog

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Basic Minecraft for Kids
The Editors

Using Minecraft as a Teaching Tool

This post is part of my work in the 2022 Minecraft EVO MOOC, some reflections on using Minecraft as a teaching tool. My own journey with Minecraft has always been tied to my students, if not teaching. I started playing with it in 2012 because I kept hearing my students

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History's Mysteries
The Editors

Teaching the Osage Indian Murders

This post describes one of the real historical mysteries discussed in our latest book, History’s Mysteries. This book includes 40 unsolved mysteries from history. Students read a text, discuss and analyze, do research on their own, and then complete a serious of projects designed to help them figure out what they

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Article
The Editors

Logical Fallacies and Critical Thinking

The History’s Mysteries project is about more than just giving students topics to write about. It also teaches students the critical thinking tools they need to evaluate information and find good sources. That includes distinguishing between fact and opinion, recognizing bias, finding authoritative sources and citing those sources correctly. Critical

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Article
The Editors

Direct Instruction Works

There’s an ongoing debate about whether direct instruction or discovery learning works best in ELT. Direct learning also known as explicit learning is when you give students new information explicitly. For example, you tell them that we form the plural in English by adding -s to the end of words.

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Drama for Language Learning
The Editors

Using Videos in Class: A Framework

I know, I know. We’ve all done it: pressed play on a movie so we don’t have to do a real lesson! But using videos in class can be very productive for teaching spoken language! But students actually can get a lot out of videos and films. When students are

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Activity
The Editors

Thanksgiving Activities for ESL students

Thanksgiving Activities for ESL students are always a fun way to teach American culture. But Thanksgiving lessons also raise timeless themes such as gratitude, types of food, and how we celebrate holidays in general. Plus, it’s nice to pop in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving sometimes and have some fun! So

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A banner image showing our halloween activities for english class on Teachers Pay Teachers
Activity
The Editors

Halloween Activities for English Class

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. And it’s a great holiday to share with students. Some say it’s too scary or macabre to do Halloween activities in English class. But you can always find an aspect of the holiday that isn’t too gruesome. You can talk about trick-or-treating, costumes,

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Four women sitting in a circle and clapping as a fifth woman stands and shares some achievement
Article
The Editors

Support Our Teacher Colleagues

We get so much from our colleagues! Sometimes we need to support our teacher colleagues and tell them what they admire in them. Here’s my list of what I’ve learned from fellow teachers over the years. How about you?

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