This material can be used independently or as part of a teacher training program. Because the material is based on teachers sharing their practices with other teachers, we feel that the best use of the material is in a professional development environment that allows groups of teachers to discuss the various samples and, in turn, reflect openly on their own classroom practices.

The material consists of several sections and edited clips of 18 lessons. Of the 18 clips, one has been selected through which to initially explore several key ELT issues. The expectation is that once the viewers are accustomed to the “pedagogy of questions” approach, they will develop questions themselves for the other lessons.

This chart is an index that shows all 18 lessons and key English language teaching (ELT) issues. These key issues are based on the modules in Shaping the Way We Teach English and are meant as reference points, or “lenses”, through which to explore the essence of a modern language teaching classroom in Russia. We have added some basic information about the teachers, students’ age level as well as the lesson themes so that you can easily navigate the Chart to find the lessons that interest you most.

We have highlighted at least two key issues for each lesson. However, it is important for the viewer to realize that in fact almost all of the lessons have elements of all of the key issues. In short, all of the issues can be found to some degree in all of the lessons. Once familiar with they key issues, we encourage teachers to look for examples of each issue in all of the lessons.

We strongly suggest that teachers initially familiarize themselves with the key issues by going through the questions in Section II. These questions are carefully designed to test the viewers’ current understanding of each issue as well as inspire a deeper look at - and debate on - what we consider to be important ingredients to a successful language teaching classroom. These questions can be covered independently. However, we feel that they will lead to a better understanding if they are discussed among a group of practitioners.

The questions include highlighted words and expressions. These terms are covered in the glossary at the back of the Guide. If you are using the electronic version, all of the terms are linked to the glossary and should be accessible through a pop-up window. Some definitions in the glossary were taken from the glossary created by the University of Oregon for the Shaping the Way We Teach English material. We would like to thank our colleagues from the University of Oregon for their permission to use the glossary.

In the Guide you will find one sample lesson that consists of the teacher’s lesson plan, pre-viewing discussion guidelines and questions for guided reflection. There is space to write down your comments and conclusions. In the electronic version, you will have access to 18 lessons (8 of them are accompanied by teacher’s lesson plan and/or other extras. Lesson plans were not edited; they are presented the way they were submitted by the teachers).