Group items tagged

History of English (Source: A History of English by Barbara A. Fennell) The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language, or in a mixture with other languages (such as pidgins and creoles.) English is the (or an) official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; however, the United States has no official language. Indo-European language and people English is classified genetically as a Low West Germanic language of the Indo-European family of languages. The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-Germanic language that evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages. In 1786, Sir William Jones discovered that Sanskrit contained many cognates to Greek and Latin. He conjectured a Proto-Indo-European language had existed many years before. Although there is no concrete proof to support this one language had existed, it is believed that many languages spoken in Europe and Western Asia are all derived from a common language. A few languages that are not included in the Indo-European branch of languages include Basque, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian; of which the last three belong to the Finno-Ugric language family. Speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Southwest Russia around 4,000 to 5,000 BCE. They had words for animals such as bear or wolf (as evidenced in the similarity of the words for these animals in the modern I-E languages.) They also had domesticated animals, and used horse-drawn wheeled carts. They drank alcohol made from grain, and not wine, indicating they did not live in a warm climate. They belonged to a patriarchal society where the lineage was determined through males only (because of a lack of words referring to the female's side of the family.) They also made use of a decimal counting system by 10's, and formed words by compounding. This PIE language was also highly infl

Lesson plan for teaching passive voice.

Great resource for teaching students how to respond to online posts

"Journal Submission Guidelines NCTE publishes twelve professional journals, including at least one for each membership section. Volunteer editors ensure that the peer-reviewed content is of the highest quality and is relevant to the lives of NCTE members and subscribers. Because these journals are all published through different volunteer editors, the submission guidelines vary for each: * Classroom Notes Plus * College Composition and Communication * English Education * College English * English Journal * English Leadership Quarterly * Language Arts * Research in the Teaching of English * School Talk * Talking Points * Teaching English in the Two-Year College * Voices from the Middle"

media educators voice their idea about the need for media literacy education

record comments about photos using cell phones

This looks a great method for artistic expressiom in the classroom. Thanks.

Proof that authors are "real people," that student voice matters, that communication is a vital skill, and that reading and words have a true influence.

A site for students to share their digital work

An Online Learning Lab with activities and texts to edit to practice using the six traits

Instead of discussion forum, talkgroups