What Is Intercultural Communicative Competence?, by Yilin Sun, TESOL President

In recent years, several researchers in the ELT field have raised a series of conceptual issues around how we should express our cultures in English (Honna,2005; Byram,2009; Wen, 2013,). As a speaker, should you stick to your own way of thinking? Or should you adapt to the listener’s way of thinking? As a listener, should you impose your own way of thinking on the speaker? Or should you be sensitive to and tolerant of the speaker’s different way of thinking and speaking?  Read More.

eduCanon: For Making Videos Interactive, by Tara Arntsen

Videos can really be a good addition to any class, especially for students who may be struggling readers or those who are visual learners. Additionally, there are so many to choose from online that you can find videos for every imaginable topic. In the past, I have made traditional paper worksheets for students to complete when watching videos in class or at home, but with eduCanon I can now make videos more interactive by embedding my questions directly into a video (called a bulb on eduCanon).

eduCanon is a great resource for instructors wanting to engage students more fully with videos. Read More.

Teaching ELs to Summarize and Synthesize Texts, by Judie Haynes

Good readers need to learn to summarize text in order to highlight the important information that they read. In my last blog, I talked about teaching ELs how to determine what is relevant in nonfiction texts. They also need to learn how to pick out what is important in a text when summarizing. Many times children will want to recall every small detail.

Here are some hints for teaching ELs how to summarize a story: Read More.

A Roomful of Quotes: A Communicative Activity, by Alexandra Lowe

I often find that changing what’s on the walls of my classroom changes the energy in the class. Recently, I decided to challenge my intermediate-level adult students to a new speaking activity by posting 24 quotes about taking risks around my classroom. I asked my students to walk around the room, looking at all the quotes. I then asked them to choose three quotes that resonated with them and to write them in their notebooks.

Here are some of the quotes that proved to be especially popular: Read More.