Teachers at Work

"Teachers at Work" is a column about teaching the language arts and incorporating technology in the classroom. We interview educators across the country to hear their real-life experiences and learn from their wisdom. This feature appears regularly in the Visual Thesaurus subscriber-only magazine – and right here on this web page.

Ducking Under the Caution Tape: Approachable Poems
January 30, 2012 - 3 Comments
Before I began teaching, I had assumed that the many stories I had heard about how students don't like poetry were just myths. After all, I liked (some) poetry, so why wouldn't my students like (some) poetry? But unlike nearly every other myth I've dismissed in my time as a teacher, the one about poetry proved to be true: Nothing makes my students whine more than being handed a poem.
Nouns on the Loose
January 20, 2012 - 5 Comments
What happens when nouns turn into verbs, and how can language arts educators use these "verbings" as teachable moments? Fitch O'Connell, a longtime teacher of English as a foreign language, takes a look at this "trending" topic.
The Art of the Interview
January 17, 2012 - 1 Comment
Michelle Dunaway, who teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, writes that interviewing is an integral part of teaching students about public speaking. She encourages English teachers to think of interviewing as "a way for students to start small in building up their public speaking repertoire."
The Compliment Game
December 28, 2011 - 5 Comments

Our words matter.

Of course, you know that — you're choosing to read words about words here at the Visual Thesaurus, so the chances are very good that you love words, love learning about them, love using them. You may even love correcting people who've misused words.
Refined Swearing: Taboo Words in the English Language Classroom
December 26, 2011 - 2 Comments
In his best-selling grammar book for teachers of English as a foreign language, Basic English Usage (1984), Michael Swan famously used the term "taboo words" to discuss words that we tend to skirt around in the classroom, and this term entered the EFL teachers lexicon from that point on.

These are just a few samples of the "Teachers at Work" articles published recently. To view them all, click here.