These articles discuss teaching techniques and classroom issues.
What happens in a FOCAL SKILLS classroom?
Movies and listening comprehension in FOCAL SKILLS programs explains how to use movies to teach beginning students.
Learn more about the movie technique, and how well it works, in this journal article by Dr. Hastings and Dr. Brenda Murphy on Making movies more comprehensible: the narrative/paraphrase approach.
A day in the life of a FOCAL SKILLS reading teacher describes some ways to teach reading using authentic materials.
The focused rewrite technique is a powerful teaching method used in FOCAL SKILLS Writing classes.
Thoughts on the use of authentic materials explores the advantages and the best ways to use authentic materials.
Hear directly from some of the teachers in FOCAL SKILLS as the teachers see it.
Why is there no Grammar class?
Some fundamental problems with traditional grammar instruction are explored in Implicit standards for explicit grammar teaching.
Read the journal article by Drs. Hastings and Murphy on The utter hopelessness of explicit grammar teaching. The title says it all.
Can FOCAL SKILLS be used in K-12 education?
FOCAL SKILLS has been used primarily at the college level but can be adapted for other environments. Research and Adaptation of the Focal Skills Approach proposes an adaptation of FOCAL SKILLS for a high school ESOL program.