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Walton Burns

Time Management as a form of Self-Care

A recent post on Patrice’s blog about time management made me stop and think. Like many in the education business, I never feel like I have enough time to do all my work. And then there’s everything else that needs to be done outside of work: paying bills, keeping the

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Classroom Management
The Editors

The Art of Exams

There’s a lot of takeaways in Sharon Hartle’s new blog post, THE ART OF GATHERING… EVEN FOR EXAMS. I think assessment and examinations are a neglected topic in TESOL/EFL circles. Particularly in a world where examinations are necessary, there’s rarely much reflection on what exams mean and their purpose. As Sharon

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Activity
The Editors

Activities for Thanksgiving

There are a lot of reasons to teach about Thanksgiving and do some activities for Thanksgiving in the classroom. First, Thanksgiving is a major American holiday* and students living in the US should know about it. Second, it’s a great excuse to talk about important themes such as gratitude and

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Activity
The Editors

Stories Without End in the Classroom

I was recently uploading more individual stories without end (from Taylor’s wonderful book) to Teachers Pay Teachers. One of the pieces of information you need to fill out there is how long the material will take to use. Well, the stories are designed to be adaptable so they can be

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Fun
The Editors

Readers Theatre or reader’s theater or Something Else?

One of the challenges of writing about and publishing lots of books about drama in language education is trying to decide what to call the thing where students read plays or dramatized texts out loud. Is it readers theatre, readers theater, reader’s theater, or reader’s theatre? You’d think it would

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Article
The Editors

Why a Teacher Shared Her Burnout Story

Patrice Palmer had been teaching English for 20 years when she left teaching in 2015. She felt no desire to continue teaching even though she loved ESL. But she didn’t realize that she had burned out, unaware that teacher burnout was a thing. Ironically, not teaching every day may have

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Drama for Language Learning
The Editors

Storytelling for EFL Students

Storytelling is an important skill for EFL students to learn. In fact, being able to tell a story is a helpful human skill as we are constantly constructing narratives to explain what we are doing, to persuade others, to ask for help, to offer advice. Many EFL students have trouble

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Four women sitting in a circle and clapping as a fifth woman stands and shares some achievement
Drama for Language Learning
Alice Savage

Public Speaking in English is Scary. Drama Can Help

Poor Emilio! He seemed like such a confident student, but when he had to give a talk in front of the class, he ran to the bathroom and was sick. Emilio’s case might be extreme, but according to the psychologist, Michelle Lynsky, public speaking is one of the most terrifying

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Ed You Fest 2019 Certificate issued to Walton Burns for delivering the presentation Playing with Language
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The Editors

EdYOUfest Takeaways

EdYOUfest, where I presented on using drama to teach speaking skills, was a lot of fun. The most striking feature of the conference is that it’s small (under 100 people) and that you are all sleeping, eating, and going to workshops in the same space. So there’s a lot of

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Classroom Management
Walton Burns

First Day of Class Advice for Teachers

The first day of class is always a mixed blessing. Going back to school is very exciting and meeting new students for the first time is always a pleasure. But it’s hard to plan for the unknown: What moods and personalities will your new students have? How will the class

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