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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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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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Resource
The Editors

My Favorite Scary Stories for English Students

I love Halloween as a teacher and also in general! So I’m really excited to share some of my go-to scary stories for English students. I love scary stories and students love them too! They’re especially fun to share around Halloween as a way to build atmosphere. I find the

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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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Article
The Editors

TESOL 2015: Corpus Tools in Action

This year at TESOL, I didn’t get to go to a lot of sessions because I was busy exhibiting. However, I did run across this summary of some corpus tools I discovered at TESOL 2015 in Toronto. Since corpus tools never go out of style, I thought I’d share what

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Article
The Editors

My Teacher Manifesto

Why am I sharing my teacher manifesto? I discovered some old blogposts from my now-defunct personal blog recently on professional development that I think stand up and are worth reposting. The best ones were inspired by the 30 Goals Challenge by Shelly Terrell. This was a brilliant professional development idea

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