Second language learners face countless obstacles in the classroom, including communication and comprehension limitations and difficulty building relationships with peers. Many teachers struggle to build an inclusive classroom environment and ensure all students, especially those with linguistic and other learning disadvantages, are learning. This…

Using communicative activities with learners from diverse cultures can create excitement and empathy while promoting the acquisition of English. This article offers ESL/EFL activities that foster interpersonal tolerance among students who have experienced intergroup conflict. The activities are based on the idea that there are four levels of…

Describes how using a flashlight to read language experience chart stories can provide a concrete way to build a foundation for many emergent reader concepts, such as directionality. (SR)

Describes a spur-of-the-moment curriculum development activity involving primary-school students researching the "real" Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo behind the names of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Notes that the products of the research were shared during a classroom pizza party. (RS)

Describes how to use word processing with first graders in lessons exploring oral and written language via the computer. Suggests ways to use the language experience approach in whole-class as well as small-group instruction. (SR)

Presents the ideas of four elementary school classroom teachers with regard to reading instruction. Includes "An Invitation to Reading Fluency,""Reading Chapter Books for Fun,""Easing the K-1 Transition through Language Experiences," and "A Meeting of Minds: Teaching Using Biographies." (PRA)

Discusses ways teachers can create a supportive literacy environment in the classroom for young children. Considers activities that encourage children's language use, and recommends creating an unhurried atmosphere, responding to cultural differences, and including a mix of planned and child-initiated activities. (JPB)

Describes the steps in a Language Experience Approach (LEA) to teaching English-as-a-Second-Language lesson, suggests different starters and followup activities for LEA lessons, and indicates ways of handling some problems. (seven references) (Author)

Pacey, a likable and literate eighth-grader, saw school as "a place that kills your reading." With this alarming condemnation in mind, the author uses literacy narrative--a short, concise, digital video in which students meld still images, motion, print text, and soundtrack (both narration and music) in communicating ideas/insights/discoveries…

Suggests using daily journals to fuse language experience techniques with opportunities for independent writing more characteristic of an emergent literacy perspective. Explains that journals combine group dictation with independent writing to involve children in purposeful literacy activities. (MG)

The adult English literacy program at the Phanat Nikhom Refugee Camp has developed techniques for actively engaging the sometimes reluctant students in the skill development process leading to literacy. A literacy warm-up chart used daily for five minutes develops the prereading skills of sequencing and left-to-right eye coordination; a variety of…

Describes the following teaching ideas: note writing; books supplementing a unit on measuring; parents' activities calendars; quick phonics inventory; map reading; language experience chart stories; predicting activities with titles; summer mail for learning disabled students; role playing; teaching guides for novels; sentence transformation; and…