March 15, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Teach With Movies provides lesson plans and materials on how to utilize nearly three hundred movies in the classroom. It does, however, cost $12 for a year’s subscription.
I could see how some teachers might find it useful. However, I don’t think it’s helpful enough to add to The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL, where I’ve included similar sites.
March 15, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Over the years, I have prided myself on responding to most comments with an email to the commentator.
However, this month I have fallen down on the job, and I apologize.
Several of my recent posts have garnered many, many comments, and I’ve just been a bit overwhelmed. I certainly appreciate and learn from them, as do readers of this blog. Between blog/book-manuscript/magazine article- writing; teaching; dealing with some School District issues (which I’ll be writing about Tuesday); family time, and playing basketball, things have been quite hectic.
Soon, I hope to get back to my usual practice of responding to people who are gracious enough to take the time to respond to blog posts.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Facts About Smoking is an accessible, simple infographic.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For ELL’s To Learn About The Dangers Of Smoking.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
6 Comments
Most of us “lost an hour” today, so I thought I’d quickly bring together a list of accessible resources on Daylight Savings Time. Here in the United States, we’ll be reverting to Standard Time from Daylight Savings time on the second Sunday in November.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About Daylight Savings Time (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
Here’s an interactive graphic from an ABC TV station.
Here’s an explanatory animated video.
CBS News has an interactive on Daylight Savings Time.
Richard Byrne found a nice video from CBS Fast Draw.
Here’s another video from CBS called Daylight Saving’s Downside.
Reasoning Behind Daylight Savings Time is an ABC News video.
National Geographic has an accessible explanation of daylight savings time.
Here’s a “Web Exhibit” on Daylight Savings Time.
Feedback is always welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 400 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The History and Evolution of Email is a nice infographic.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About The Internet.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Every month I make a short list highlighting my choices of the best resources I shared through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog. Now and then, in order to make it a bit easier for me, I may try to break it up into mid-month and end-of-month lists. I’m trying that for the first time now.
I’ve already shared in earlier posts this month several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in this post.
If you don’t use Twitter, you can also check-out all of my “tweets” on my Twitter profile page or subscribe to their RSS feed.
Here are my picks for March’s Best Tweets — Part One (not listed in any order):
The Big Idea — it’s bad education policy by Diane Ravitch, Los Angeles Times
Top 10 Most Famous Scientific Theories (That Turned out to be Wrong)
The 35 Best Dance Sequences in Film
Video infographic “How To Feed The World”
7 Most Incredible Sunken Forests on Earth
The problem(s) with the Common Core standards, Washington Post
Did the discovery of cooking make us human? BBC
Why a Salad Costs More Than a Big Mac — Infographic
The Man of La Mancha and the Teacher’s Heart
The Moral Ambiguity of Looting, NY Times
Schools’ Nonfiction Problem, NY Times
Famous Movie Quotes as Infographics
Jobs That No Longer Exist interactive from NPR (thanks to Terri Hart)
Wild dance performance at TED Talks
Center For History and New Media (thanks to Eric Sheninger)
Movie Monsters! slideshow from LIFE
The Saga of Pluto, NY Times slideshow
You might also be interested in seeing a list of favorite tweets at Shelly Terrell’s blog.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I just updated another “The Best…” list, and this will be the last one I update today.
Check-out The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve just updated another “The Best…” list.
This time, it’s The Best Ways To Keep-Up With Current ELL/ESL/EFL News & Research.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve just updated The Best Resource Sites For ESL/EFL Teachers.
If you teach English Language Learners, it might be the most useful “The Best…” list I’ve compiled.
March 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Time Magazine has a good slideshow on the terrible “Night of Broken Glass” in 1938 when Nazis attacked Jews in Germany.
The presentation is called Kristallnacht In Words and Photographs and is accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.
I’ve placed the link on my World History page.
March 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Community organizers and leaders in the Industrial Areas Foundation (where I spent most of my nineteen year organizing career) are given a 1933 article by John H. Randall, Jr. It’s titled “On The Importance Of Being Unprincipled.”
Granted, it’s a bit of a strange title. It’s premise is that we need to be very careful what beliefs we turn into principles, because once they become a principle, we can’t really compromise on it. And that many people turn far too many ideas into principles that they are unwilling to reconsider. Subsequently, negotiation becomes out of the question, and unnecessary conflict often ensues. We can see it in our families, our schools, our country, and in our world.
The article is not saying there are no principles worth upholding. It’s just suggesting that we very, very carefully decide which ones they are.
I was reminded of this article in a recent post I read (thanks to Chad Ratliff for the tip) titled Strong Opinions, Weakly Held by Bob Sutton. He writes:
A couple years ago, I was talking the Institute’s Bob Johansen about wisdom, and he explained that – to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward – they advise people to have “strong opinions, which are weakly held.” …. Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people aren’t inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to “see” and “hear” evidence that clashes with your opinions. This is what psychologists sometimes call the problem of “confirmation bias.”
Perhaps we all could use a little of being “unprincipled” and of “weakly holding some strong opinions.”
It’s a hard thing to remember in the classroom when it can be tempting to get into “power struggles” with a student (even though a teacher can never ultimately win one of them). It’s also a hard thing to remember when debating “school reform” strategies.
Very few positions, it seems to me, are genuinely without gray areas….
March 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of National History just unveiled a website from their Human Origins program called “What Does It Mean To Be Human?”
It’s an amazing multimedia site on human evolution.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Human Evolution.
March 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
I’ve certainly pushed my students to learn various reading strategies to improve comprehension, including asking questions.
I’ve explained that asking ourselves questions forces us to pay more attention to what we’re reading since it stimulates us to find the answers. It’s just another way for us to bring meaning to the text — without engaging in that way the words are just a bunch of ink on paper. In addition, by encouraging students to gain more understanding of Bloom’s Taxonomy, they can ask even more complex questions that allow them to dig even deeper into the text.
Now a study just came out reinforcing the importance of asking questions as a reading strategy.
Asking questions enhances remembering the information we gain in response to them.
You can read more at Does Asking Questions Improve Your Memory?
March 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
DocsPal is a new web application that lets you easily convert documents and images from one format to another, including PDF to Word and in the reverse.
I’m adding the link to Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Ways To Convert PDF & Word Documents.
March 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The New York Times Learning Network has some good Census-related lesson plans, and links to a useful article titled Counting America.
I’m adding the links to The Best Resources To Learn About The U.S. Census.
March 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a nice interactive Geography Quiz that’s adapted from National Geographic.
It’s accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.
I’ve placed the link on my Geography page.
March 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Karenne Sylvester has come-up with a great and creative idea for the next ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival on April 1st. It’s going to have a theme focused on teachers sharing lesson ideas.
You can read all about it at her post, The Carnival of English Language Lessons.
She’s encouraging bloggers and non-bloggers alike to participate, and has created a special submission form to use, which you can access at her post. So please don’t use the regular system at the blogcarnival site. Submissions are due by March 21st.
It should be a fun and useful Carnival.
In case you missed it, Shelly Terrell posted the most recent Carnival last week. You can see all previous editions here.
The June 1st edition will be hosted by Mary Ann Zehr at Learning the Language; August 1st will be at David Deubelbeiss’ EFL Classroom 2.0; and October 1st will be at Ms. Flecha’s My Life Untranslated: Adventures of a New ESL Teacher in New York City (by the way, I just added her blog to The Best ESL/EFL Blogs list.
Let me know in the comments if you’d like to host a future edition.
March 12, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Part Two Of The MetLife Survey Of The American Teacher has just been released.
I posted earlier this month about Part One of the survey — see The Saddest School-Related Statistic I’ve Heard In Awhile….
I’m just going to share a couple of items from Part that stand-out for me. For further thoughts on the report, I’d encourage you to read Today’s Education News: Rife with Contradictions by Barnett Berry of the Center for Teaching Quality.
The first statistic that stood out for me was this one on connecting with parents:
Teachers and principals believe that the most important factors for improving student achievement are having adequate public funding and support, and involving parents. Nine in ten teachers and principals believe that having adequate public funding and support for education (92% of teachers and 96% of principals) and that strengthening ties among schools and parents (88% of teachers and 89% ofprincipals) are very important for improving student achievement.
It’s great to hear that there is that high of a belief in the power of connecting better with parents. One question, though, is do teachers and principals see parent engagement or parent involvement as the way to strengthen those ties (see Expert Advice about Parent Engagement: An Interview with Larry Ferlazzo to learn more about the difference between the two.
Here’s another potentially more disturbing part of the report:
A majority of teachers (58%) and principals (61%) strongly agree that their school does a good job of teaching students who are English Language Learners, particularly schools with at least two-thirds ELL students (75% of teachers and 77% of principals in higher ELL schools). However, from students’ point of view, schools are not doing as well. Only one-quarter of students (25%) strongly agree that their school does a good job of helping students who are learning to speak English.
That’s certainly a disconcerting difference between the teacher/principal view and the student view. However, the key to its importance — for me at least — is if that 25% is from all the students surveyed or just from those who are English Language Learners. If it’s from all the students, it’s not surprising that they, like many people, might share misconceptions about how quickly ELL’s are supposed to be able to develop proficiency in the language and might question what kind of teaching is going on.
However, if the answers to that question only come from ELL’s, then it’s an entirely different story, and I’d be just as concerned about that statistic as I was about the one I blogged about earlier this month.
I’ll try to get the answer to that question and post the response.
In the meantime, please feel free to leave your thoughts about the report in the comments section.
March 12, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve just updated The Best Websites For Developing Academic English Skills & Vocabulary.
Please check it out, and feel free to suggest additional resources.
March 12, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
I thought readers might find it interesting to hear about some things I’ll be doing (or will be happening in my professional life) during the rest of 2010…
* My second book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, will be published in April by Linworth Publishing.
* I’ll be finishing the manuscript for my third book — geared to all teachers and focusing on classroom management and instructional strategies — by the end of the summer. It will be published by Eye On Education in early 2011. I might reduce the number of posts I write here during a short amount of time while I concentrate on meeting that deadline during the summer months.
* In an act of insanity, I’ll be starting to write my fourth book — on teaching writing to English Language Learners — this fall.
* I’ll be teaching Beginning English Language Learners during summer school.
* It looks like in the fall, instead of my usual Intermediate English class, I might go back to teaching Beginning ELL’s again. In addition, I’ll have my usual mainstream ninth-grade English class and my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class. And I thought I had quite a mix this school year!
* Our school district is going through some major changes, and I might have some relatively minor role in a few of them. I’ll let readers know when all the dust settles in this area.
I’ll keep people posted on all these developments….
