Starting next week, I’m teaching three weeks of summer school to Beginning English Language Learners. One of the projects I’m planning to do with my students is have them create VoiceThreads.
Is anybody else out there teaching summer school to ELL’s during the same time and would like to have their students comment on mine and mine on theirs? If so, I’m very flexible on the topic of the VoiceThreads — I was going to keep it very simple and have them work in small groups and describe themselves and the books they were reading. But I’m open to hearing other ideas, too.
smart.fm is a new online platform that might be very useful for vocabulary development — sort of, but not really, like a flashcard system.
One of the things I like about it is that it should be easy to add video, images, and audio. However, the process to create these kinds of vocabulary lists doesn’t appear to be intuitive at all, and I wasn’t able to create lists that included them.
However, it might have just been me. If you get a chance, give it shot and let me know what you think and what I might have missed.
Nik Peachey has written a very helpful post describing the different online communities that ESL/EFL teachers might want to consider joining (for free) and connect with other teachers.
I periodically post “most popular” lists of websites that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites, and find it interesting to see which ones might be particularly “popular.”
Embedit.in is very helpful. Students can embed many of their Web 2.0 projects that just allow them to create links right now, such as the ones on my Examples of Student Work page. Instead, they can upload the url addresses of their creations to, for example, websites they’ve made from tools on The Best Ways For Students Or Teachers To Create A Website list.
The Discovery Channel has come-up with just about the most creative way imaginable to help students remember the names of the planets in our solar system. It’s called the Solar Symphony Game.
I really can’t explain it — you have to check it out for yourself. It also has relatively accessible nuggets of information about each planet, too.
I don’t know how long this story will be going-on, but it’s certainly a pretty amazing one now. I thought I’d put together a quick “The Best…” list that will expand, and which I hope will be useful when I start teaching summer school to a class of English Language Learners next week.
Here are my picks for The Best Sites For Learning About The Protests In Iran (and, of course, that are accessible to ELL’s):
As background, here’s a simple infographic showing Iran’s political system and here’s one from the BBC that’s more detailed. The BBC site also has a fair amount of background on Iran itself.
In my Teacher Magazine article titled The Last Day Of Class, I share that one of the things I do is tell my students about the negative effects a complete summer absence from reading can have on their academic life. I explain that I’ve arranged for them to get extra credit from their tenth-grade English teacher for reading, and let them check-out books from my extensive classroom library.
Today, The Washington Post just ran a good article discussing some of the research that I also share with students that highlights the effect of the “summer slump.” It’s titled Low-income students suffer greater summer-learning losses.
Learning Clip provides a ton of free interactive math activities. First, students listen to a brief cartoon video explaining the concept (the British accent might make things difficult for some students). Then, users play games reinforcing the idea.
You have to first register for the site. It’s worth a visit.
Here’s another “room escape game” that provides excellent English-language-learning opportunities. This one is called P Sensor, and here’s the walkthrough.
These are links to two lists of what supposedly are the most popular zoos in the world, including links to their sites. I’ve posted about online activities hosted by many of them, but there are tons that I still haven’t written about.
After you register (which is a free and easy process) you can see which topics are being covered in the news media in different parts of the world, and compare the differences.
The site seems to have a number of other features — and it’s not particularly intuitive how to navigate through them — but the site has a lot of potential. I’m still exploring.
Trulia Snapshot is a very accessible web tool to explore homes for sale throughout the United States. In addition, if you go to Trulia’s Stats and Trends section you can learn more about the the local real estate market.
This is another resource for my students to use when they do their annual project of comparing different neighborhoods.
Marvin Marshall (who is one of my favorite writers on positive classroom management strategies) has a monthly email newsletter. I’d encourage you to subscribe to it here.
His most recent newsletter included some good stories he got from Bill Page.
I can’t find a link to the newsletter or to those stories, though, so I’m going to reprint a couple of them here:
THE CLEANING LADY
During my second month of college, our professor gave us a
pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed
through the questions until I read the last one: “What is
the first name of the woman who cleans the area?”
Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning
woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired, and in her
50′s, but how would I know her name?
I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just
before class ended, one student asked if the last question
would count toward the grade.
“Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers, You will
meet, many people. All are significant. They deserve your
attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say
‘hello.’”
I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name
was Dorothy.
THE OBSTACLE IN OUR PATH
In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed in the center
of a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if
anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king’s’
wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked
around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the
roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone
out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.
Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his
burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road.
After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded.
After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he
noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had
been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from
the king indicating that the gold was for the person who
removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned
what many never understand: Every obstacle presents an
opportunity to improve our condition.
