Academic language instruction, exposure, and proficiency are increasingly the focus of research, curricula, and pedagogy within the field of English language teaching. Yet, academic language is more than lexicon, encompassing context-specific and content-driven spoken and written discourse in a large range of registers, each with its own quirks, features, and discourse patterns. We must, then, engage students in developing and practicing academic language in authentic communicative experiences—experiences we may have limited time to add to the curriculum. Thus, innovative approaches to these experiences are needed. Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to present one such innovative approach: incorporating making, tinkering, and collaborating into the classroom. Direct connections between communicative language teaching and the theoretical grounding of making in the classroom are highlighted, in addition to specific pedagogical advice and examples that empower language teachers to purposefully teach with a maker's mind.
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