101 EFL Activities for Teaching University Students is a new book by Hall Houston, published by iTDi Publishing.

It’s a book for teachers of EFL classes at universities, containing a variety of language learning activities that can be used throughout the semester. However, teachers of other subjects (not to mention high school and language school teachers) could also use most of the activities in their classrooms.

The activities in this book relate to three major themes: 1) the context of the university environment (students learn by talking about their lives as university students), 2) group dynamics – the stages of a group (the stages all students go through during a semester), and 3) active learning (learning through actively using the course material, instead of listening to a professor deliver a lecture).

The book is structured around the three main time periods of the semester: the beginning, the mid-period and the end. Activities in the first chapter are ideal for the first few weeks of class. The aims of these activities include learning names, learning about the teacher, learning about other students, and understanding the syllabus. Activities in the second chapter are suitable for the middle of the semester. The aims in this chapter include adding variety to lessons, reviewing material from previous weeks, talking about university life and giving feedback to the teacher. Activities in the third chapter are for the last week of the semester. Aims here include reviewing the entire course, talking about future plans, and ending the semester with a positive feeling.

This book also contains teacher development tips, short exercises designed to help teachers reflect on their own teaching and professional development in a university setting. In addition, the book has a list of recommended readings and web resources for university teachers.

About the author

Hall Houston teaches at National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences in Taipei, Taiwan. He has a Master’s degree in Foreign Language Education from The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of several books about language teaching, including The Creative Classroom, Provoking Thought, and Creative Output (co-authored with Gerard Erasmus).