Group items tagged

This is one of a long series of "pocket culture" snapshots of peoples of the world. This site would be great for students, both for learning about other cultures, and for participating in a project about their own region. Places and topics are listed, as well as blogs about culture.

Got to Time.com, select the pull-down menu for Videos, and use the Search engine to find "10 Questions." There are hundreds of these--questions for famous people, newsmakers, politicians, etc. Great way to examine cultural assumptions, explore current events, etc. Teachers will have to develop the lessons, but you see and hear the interlocutors in natural language. Recommended by Russell Stannard.

This blog has great links to citizenship-related exercises and teacher resources, such as the US Constitution in simple English. Should be an important resource for US teachers of adult ed, as well as teachers of American culture overseas.

"Many people don't realize that The New York Times can be quite accessible for English Language Learners. Due to its focus on current events and news, using The Times to learn vocabulary and practice reading can be much more inviting and rewarding than a textbook. And NYTimes.com has some extra tools and features that are particularly useful for language learning. Here are 10 ideas for using The Times to teach and learn the English language." Includes lookup dictionary, multimedia archive, K/W/L Chart, short activities, culture experiences, lesson plans, this day in history, etc.

This is a great set of podcast questions by students to be used as the basis of a cross-cultural exchange. Nice examples to get your students going. These examples are from 16-17-yr-olds. Students get some writing practice, too, by inputting the questions they read aloud.

A fabulous tool for socio-cultural studies of any country. Click on a country to look at a wide variety of factors: population, social indicators, economy, technical networks, environment, and millenium goals. Fascinating place for students to do comparisons and get info for reports. Or for teachers to learn more about their country of residence.

"Knowitall.org is ETV's educational Web portal, a collection of fun, interactive websites for K-12 students, teachers and parents." Has culture snapshots (eg, Gullah Net), how-tos, history-related features (Road Trip through Civil Rights History). jobs, health, career development resources, etc. K-12 with an emphasis on younger kids.

"What you see here are candid submissions from people who have engaged in a little exercise. Here's how it works. Think about the word Race. How would you distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words?" This National Public Radio blog makes the perfect starting point for a multicultural lesson for ESL/EFL students. The entries are sheer poetry and give a great deal of content to think about the issue of race and one's place in society, for better or worse. Each 6-word "poem" makes us, as one contributor said, "Look past race to underlying humanity."

"iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is the world's largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the world."

"On May 25th 2010 Argentina will celebrate the 200 years of the revolution "

interesting

Collaborative storytelling beginning with excellent pictures from which children can develop stories. Share, read, and print.

"Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can: * Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go, * Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer, * View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen, * Print out the stories and poems to make your own book." You can save to desktop and so free your class of Internet requirements or read and listen on the Web. You can browse alphabetically by author, title, subject matter, or by Reading Level.