Memory and Imagination is a collection of valuable information for ESL teachers with a focus on memory, imagination, and creativity. The main sections include:
Curiosity and Creativity
Collocations and idioms worksheets
Memory and Imagination
Eliciting information from students
Lessons in practical knowledge
Stories – retell and rewrite
The author lays claim that there is a bridge between memory and imagination. In other words, we accomplish our goals in the classroom if we empower our students to go from Remember to Create and use the astonishing powers of curiosity and creativity to unlock the secrets of memory and imagination. The key to success in an ESL environment lies in the knowledge and preparation of every detail, and which can be presented in worksheets and lesson plans that can be easily adapted as needed. Recommendations are suggested based on the student’s Proficiency Level as well as Bloom’s Taxonomy Level.
The book is a sampler of ideas and practical examples of material accumulated over decades of teaching experience coming from educators from Australia, Bangladesh, Honolulu/Hawaii, Hungary, Italy, New Jersey, New York, and Omaha/Nebraska.
Research was done using well over 180 references, and reading passages are supplemented with recommendations for close to 40 further readings.
Starting from the premise that language is a means of communication among people, the author argues that teachers gather lifetime observations and share their knowledge and experience with each other and with students because everything we learn has a meaning eventually if it is shared. In the author’s view, communication with students should be done as a process of discovery. When we create new learning situations, our students are invited to question themselves, and in turn, to be inspired and empowered. New information will satisfy their thirst for knowledge, practical hints will stimulate their curiosity, and in time new skills will make them better thinkers, better speakers, and better writers.