E-Journals

The Office of English Language Programs is pleased to offer the electronic journals Language and Civil Society and Language and Life Sciences to teachers of English as a foreign language. These journals contain ready-to-use lesson plans and are suitable for students at the intermediate level. Each chapter contains background information, classroom-ready activities, and related resources and references.

Teachers are encouraged to download and use the lessons, adapting them to suit the need of their students.

We welcome your feedback on what has worked (and what has not) when you have used the journals. Let us also know about your suggestions of topics for future journals.

Language & Civil Society

A Forum Electronic Journal

The content in each volume of this electronic journal is related to an aspect of building or maintaining a Civil Society— topics that affect students' personal or professional lives on a daily basis. Each chapter has four basic parts, including a brief background on and discussion of the topic(s) presented, classroom activities designed for a lower intermediate class (but which can be adapted to a more advanced level), other resources for authentic materials (internet, books, videos, etc.), and references for what has been presented.

Paradigms, theories, and techniques have been developed to aid the instructors in their tasks. Techniques such as scaffolding help to make the content more accessible to the student. Theories such as learning strategies and multiple intelligences help instructors to appropriately design their lessons for maximum benefit to each student's own academic culture. Choices of activities such as reading, discussion, and interviews aid the instructor to focus on strengthening the students' basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in an integrated way that will foster communication and promote the students' self-reliance in the target language.

Topics Chosen for this Volume

Language & Life Sciences

A Forum Electronic Journal

Biotechnology is perhaps the most rapidly advancing area in science today. The Advances in Biotechnology volume has been created to provide language teachers with resources about breakthroughs in biotechnology. Each chapter of the volume highlights one aspect of research in the field of DNA and genetics along with its applications to and implications for society. The chapters feature relevant background information on each topic, interactive and communicative classroom activities, and a list of related print and Internet resources that will allow teachers to expand the lesson further.

For this volume, we have chosen to focus on both the promises and controversies surrounding research on DNA and genetics. In addition to explaining what DNA is and how it was discovered, the chapters in this volume examine how this knowledge is being broadly applied in fields ranging from medicine to criminal justice to agriculture. Each chapter takes a two-part approach to the topic, examining both the scientific mechanisms behind each scientific advance and the ethical dilemmas the new discovery raises.

Authors Donna M. Brinton, Christine Holten, and Jodi L. Nooyen each serve as experts in the ESL field and have a thorough knowledge of best practices in writing and content based instruction.

Topics in Biotechnology Chosen for This Volume
Introduction to the Topic and Background Information
  • Classroom Applications
  • Preliminary Lesson Planning
  • Warm Up Activity and Transition
  • Activity 1
  • Activity 2
  • Activity 3
  • Cool Down Activity
  • Possible Extensions
  • Internet Resources
  • References and Endnotes
  • Appendices (includes Glossary and Classroom Materials)