Tales from the Desh

TweetThis is a little video I prepared for my students, but it is relevant to anyone interested in structuring academic paragraphs.

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 [...]

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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 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.

TweetOn Oct. 21, 2009, Senior English Language Fellow John Mark King gave a workshop entitled, “Judging a Book by Its Cover: The First Step in Becoming an Effective Reader” to a group of 29 current teachers at the Academy of Pedagogical Mastery in St. Petersburg, Russia. Most of the teachers work at secondary schools and [...]

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 [...]

TweetFormat: Workshop Time: 60-90 minutes Title: “Judging a Book by Its Cover: An Unorthodox Reading Lesson” Target Students: Beginner to advanced, any age group When teaching reading, teachers need to keep in mind that our goal is to help students develop the skills of an effective reader. But, what are these skills? Primarily, effective readers [...]

TweetAttached to this post is a packet of materials I helped create for students at the community college I worked at before I moved to Russia. It is designed primarily as a series of reading lessons with additional activities for summarizing and it utilizes the rhetorical structure of American newspaper articles as its basis for [...]