A teacher looks at her public middle school EFL textbook and sees a "speaking activity". In this activity, the students are supposed to learn how to ask for or state opinions. They will work in pairs using the forms in the dialogue. The dialogue looks like this:

{pizza/delicious}

A: What do you think of pizza?

B: I think pizza is delicious?

One student will play the role of speaker A, the other student, B. They will substitute the words in the brackets for the words in the dialogue, in order to make new sentences.

{Soraksan/beautiful}

{our teacher/handsome}

{English class/exciting}

{Lotte World Adventure/fun}

In order to make the lesson more learner-centered and communicative, the teacher changes the activity. She gives the A student words to use but doesn’t give any response word to the B student so the B student will have to make her own original response using her own words. The teacher then encourages students to ask her questions when they need to know some word or expression to state their own opinion. The teacher thinks this will be a more effective way for the students to learn the target form as well as vocabulary instead of just teaching them directly or doing the drill.

A teacher thinks her students need to learn some strategies to become more independent language learners. For starters she teaches them how to ask her questions about vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation, such as, "How do I say ______ in English?", "Is my grammar correct?", or "How is this word pronounced?". After she teaches them these new expressions she gives them a reading text and some questions to answer working cooperatively in groups. She doesn’t interrupt their group work but instead encourages them to ask her questions when they need help. She’s hoping that her students will continue bravely asking others for help with their language learning outside of class. As homework, she requires them to go out and find some native speakers to ask some language questions to.

A teacher realizes that she must help her students overcome their fear of speaking. In order to help them, she creates many more opportunities to speak. In the dialogue from her textbook, the characters are arguing. At first, she uses a lot of choral repetition to practice the new forms and expressions in the text because the students feel safe with it. Later, she has them practice using those forms and expressions by reading the dialogue in pairs. She encourages them to act out their roles more dramatically and makes practicing the intonation more fun by having the students exaggerate it so it sounds more funny. She even encourages the students to pretend they are the person in the dialogue by changing their voices some. Finally, she has the students do a role-playing activity based on the dialogue. In the role play, the students pretend to argue with one another and are encouraged to improvise outrageous and funny interaction.

A middle school teacher realizes that her current textbook’s inauthentic and grammar-focused content is not helping her students pay attention. She decides to use a Pokemon comic book (pocket monsters) from the United States instead of her textbook. She knows that Pokemon is very popular with her students. She figures the students will want to know what the comic book is about and may be more likely to study it after class as well as ask her questions about its language content.