Hall Houston currently teaches undergraduate students in the Department of Applied English at Kainan University. His first book, The Creative Classroom, was published in 2007. His practical articles on language teaching have been published in periodicals such as English Teaching Professional, Modern English Teacher, and It's for Teachers. He has a Master's Degree in Foreign Language Education from The University of Texas at Austin.

"I am very happy to have run across this book! After many years of teaching languages and researching language acquisition, I've finally found a single volume that integrates key principles of language development and practical classroom activities. Great work!" -- Michael Rost, author of Teaching and Researching Listening

"A useful, teacher-friendly guide that is often fun to use for teachers and students alike. Teachers wishing to stimulate and enhance their students' thinking skills will certainly find much to like in Provoking Thought: Memory and Thinking in ELT."

-- William Mooney, Hwa Kang English Journal

"A brilliant collection of out-of-the-box and totally engaging humanistic teaching gems. If you want to zap up your lessons with tons of highly inventive new ideas, I'd certainly recommend Provoking Thought to all educators in need of inspiration or simply on the lookout for offbeat new teachbites." --Sab Will, Hotchpotchenglish.com

"Stimulating and interesting... you should get hold of the excellent Provoking Thought. Highly recommended." --Alistair Dickinson, Developing Teachers

Provoking Thought is a collection of activities that emphasize using students' thoughts as a resource for language learning. The book's chapters cover five main areas: thinking, memory, creativity, critical thinking, and expressing thought in writing. Each chapter opens up numerous opportunities for language practice through role play, discussion, kinesthetic learning, guessing games, brainstorming, and project work. The activities are easy-to-use, require little or no preparation, and are highly adaptable to a communicative or task-based approach.

Provoking Thought also contains helpful tips for using thinking in the language classroom, as well as practical advice on error correction and getting students to use English more in class. Another highlight of the book is a selection of interviews with experts on memory, creativity and critical thinking, including Vincent Ryan Ruggiero (author of The Art of Thinking) and Alane Jordan Starko (author of Creativity in the Classroom).