Tales from the Desh

TweetHere is the link to a presentation I wrote about the history and culture of Alabama, my native state. I gave it first at the Arkhangelsk American Corner in April, 2011.

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TweetEach summarizing workshop is about one hour. See below for details of each session. Download PowerPoint and handouts here. Session 1: Reading Strategies for Summarizing In this workshop, participants will explore various approaches to reading which enhance students’ skills in summarizing. The workshop will focus on basic pre- during- and post-reading strategies that improve overall [...]

TweetIn this activity, students are divided into small groups and told that they are members of the governing legislature in a hypothetical American state. They want to reduce their population of prisoners while also not adding to the state’s budget. Students must work together to devise a plan using the information provided below. To generate [...]

TweetThis is a workshop designed for teachers of English on the music of American singer-songwriter Tom Waits. The activities included are for the songs, “Hold On,” “San Diego Serenade” and “Clap Hands” and they encourage students to develop their listening and speaking skills by exploring the uniquely American themes and landscapes of Waits’ music using [...]

TweetThe attached lesson is designed for intermediate to high level learners at least 14 years of age. In a group of at least 10, it should take about 90 minutes. The focus of the lesson is a short holiday story about a young man and woman who have an argument about a Christmas gift. But [...]

TweetAttached to this post is a copy of the article I co-wrote with English Language Fellow Anna Grigoryan for English Teaching Forum magazine. It was published in 2008. Forum website Link to issue containing article Link to download article in PDF

TweetAttached below is a copy of all the materials I have used when teaching a six-week course on teaching reading in the EFL/ESL classroom. Included are outlines of workshops, handouts, worksheets and relevant articles from English Teaching Forum magazine. Download materials here.

TweetAttached below is a sample lesson plan I designed for teaching the present perfect tense. Of note is that the lesson focuses on a particular communicative task, not the target structure specifically. it is very important to provide students with a real communicative purpose for the structures they learn so that they will know when [...]

TweetReading an American newspaper is a unique skill, and your mastery of the genre can help you a great deal in your studies. Most notable when discussing newspaper literacy is your ability to locate useful and/or interesting information. This means you have an understanding of the organizational structure of the American newspaper. Just as native [...]