I’m a big proponent of getting to know you activities, not only on the first day of class, but beyond. However, you should definitely do icebreakers or warmers mindfully. Getting to know you activities are […]
Back to School but Keeping the Essence in Sight
This is the perfect time to pick up a copy of Keeping the Essence in Sight by Sharon Hartle. Why now? It’s August already. The first day of class is on the horizon. Or for some of […]

Back to School Advice from Our Authors
We’ve had a post up for a long time on classroom community builders and icebreakers full of back to school advice. We’ve even put up a post of general first day tips! And now that […]

Prosody Practice: Talk Show Activity
Alice Savage, author of the forthcoming The Drama Book, has been doing plays with her students for a while now. But she wanted to know if the prosody practice her students have been doing with […]

Improvised Role Plays of Real-World Conversations
Improvisation allows students to prepare for real world situations, but often in regular role plays, the conversation runs more smoothly than in real life. In the real world, people find themselves challenged by awkward situations. […]
Positive Psychology: More Than Just Fun and Games!
This was a nice post about from Patrice Palmer about 60 Positive Activities for Every Classroom, one of our books that promotes positive psychology in the classroom. As Patrice writes below, research suggests many benefits […]

Play on Feelings: Using Intonation to Express Emotions
Intonation is notoriously difficult for English learners, yet it is important, particularly in English, for sending emotional messages. The role of intonation in English is complicated but generally English speakers use intonation to express emotion, […]

Pragmatics is Everywhere
I got this amazing feedback from an educator about one of our drama books and how teaching pragmatics resonates with her students: I introduced the idea of using [Her Own Worst Enemy] in the classroom […]

2019 ELTons Awards Finalist: Stories Without End
We are honored to announce that Stories Without End by Taylor Sapp is a 2019 ELTons Awards Finalist in Innovation in English Language Teaching in Learner Resources. This book has been selected as a finalist […]

Technology in the ESL Classroom
I’ve just gotten back from the TESOL Convention and I learned quite a bit and met quite a few interesting people. One topic that kept coming up again and again was the question of technology […]

