Resource Description: While a great deal of theorizing of intercultural approaches to language teaching has emerged in recent decades, there remains limited understanding and examples of how it may be realized in practice. The aim of this seminar is to examine approaches and examples from practice, considering how teachers of languages attend to an intercultural perspective, and how they enact their role as mediators, a role that presents a number of challenges.

Resource Type: Virtual Seminars

Resource Description: A grammar lesson on when and how to use "going to" versus "will" to describe future plans.

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: The purpose of this activity is to introduce the APA referencing system.

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description: This video talks about when and why we use the Present Perfect Simple tense, complete with timelines as visual aids.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: Teaching across academic disciplines reinforces cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP).  Incorporating delivering a speech using presentation software like PowerPoint or Prezi facilitates preparing learners for college-level for-credit courses taught in English.  This activity guides learners through the research process using primary and secondary sources—print and digital—and connects their research to writing a persuasive or information (biographical) piece to be delivered as an oral speech with presentation software.  Adding the use of technology—PowerPoint and/or Prezi—engages learners in multiple contemporary literacies which are necessary for academic and professional success in the twenty-first-century global environment.

This assignment will take four to five class periods.  Some instructors might be in a situation where they can invite guest speakers like educational technology trainers to provide training on PowerPoint and Prezi or information services librarians to introduce print and electronic resources available to learners for this specific assignment.  Inviting guest speakers allows learners to interact with other education professionals finding new venues for using English.

Other teachers might be able to invite historians to discuss historical figures relevant to the learners’ project.  A field trip to a historical society or museum might be possible as well; such an activity will introduce learners to museum education as a complement to the traditional classroom experience.  Museum educators are also available to make classroom visits or give talks at secondary schools, community, and four-year college as well as universities. 

The final project is an oral speech using presentation software and dressing in the period attire whenever possible.  The assignment can be modified for learners whose linguistic skills are limited but can allow those with advanced language skills to explore new ways to use English. Several options are suggested under “Caveats and Options.”

In summary, the activity prepares learners for university and professional success, providing practice among the four language learning skills as well as increasing speaking opportunities with peers, instructors, and non-traditional educators.

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: As teachers, our attitudes, emotions, and motivations define how we approach our professional roles. As Palmer (2007, p. 1) states, “we teach who we are’. In this webinar, we will focus on our professional well-being and specific steps we can take to ensure we are in the best possible frame of mind to teach to the best of our abilities in a sustainable way. 

Resource Type: Virtual Seminars

Resource Description: This video talks about non-defining relative clauses and why we use them.  It features creating a relative clause and adding it to another sentence in 4 steps.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description:

This is a brief introduction to two general library databases that bilinguals (Spanish/English) in their early experiences with the research process. 

The database, Opposing Viewpoints in Context, provides overview articles, pro/con on social issues, reports, images, streamed videos, and other resources.  This database is especially useful to English learners because the concepts are presented in simplified language.  It can be used as a scaffold to more complex research where academic and professional terms are used in more sophisticated sentence structures.  

The second database, Proquest Newspapers, introduces English learners to digitized news items.  Vocabulary is not highly academic and professional so students can understand the concepts. 

Both databases can be used in conjunction with Google Scholar, Wikipedia, Twitter Feeds, Blogs, etc. Learners will learn to compare and contrast types of information found in library databases and internet websites.

The presentation also explains how to introduce English learners to citation creators, email apps, creating folders, organizing materials, etc.  These are important skills needed in the twenty-first-century global environment for academic, professional, and personal research.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description:

This is the first lesson of the Unit.  Students will read [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. Cummings. Students will learn about metaphors and how to create their own so that they will be able to write their own poem at the end of the unit.

The final poem can be accompanied by an art project depicting the poem's meaning.  Emphasis is on reading, writing, and creativity.

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: This video talks about Passive Voice and how it's used.  It features 4 steps to go from Active Voice to Passive Voice.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: As teachers, we usually need games for testing how much our students have progressed as well as motivating students or filling in the remaining time of a class in a meaningful way. You can use these two games with any class level as they will be competing against each others.

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description:

This ​handout with worksheet introduces four ways to introduce a direct quotation using a simple signal phrase with a reporting verb and an in-text citation. It includes a memorable template and chart for students to follow.  The selected passage also allows an instructor to address the important first step of actually deciding which sentence in a passage is worthy of quoting. 

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description:

In this unit, international students explore the concept of academic honesty in the USA and then practice paraphrasing in order to avoid plagiarism. The unit can be divided into separate lessons. The notes under each slide describe the focus and activity. Students start by describing their experience and feelings about using expert sources in academic writing. Then students analyze examples of effective and ineffective paraphrases using a checklist. The handout provides ​two kinds of practice.  Part 1 helps ​students recognize effective and ineffective paraphrases. Part 2 provides three advanced passages for students to practice creating original paraphrases.  

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: Typely is a free online proofreading application. Typely is precise. Existing tools for proofreading raise so many false alarms that their advice cannot be trusted. Instead, the writer must carefully consider whether to accept or reject each change.

We aim for a tool so precise that it becomes possible to unquestioningly adopt its recommendations and still come out ahead — with stronger, tighter prose. Better to be quiet and authoritative than loud and unreliable.

Resource Type: Assessments

Resource Description: A song activity by Adelle that provides practice of verbs in simple past

Resource Type: Activities