Group items tagged

A film on OhioLINK. Communication is at the core of the human experience, even though effective communication takes a lifetime to learn. This program explores how we develop the arts of speech and physical expression to make ourselves understood and to understand others. Visiting a group of 25 three-year-olds, the film observes them learning as many as ten new words a day-some already grasping the first 1,500 components of the 20,000-word vocabulary collected in the average life span. The "nonverbal leakage" or body language that supplements verbal skills is also explored, demonstrating that children with verbal disadvantages can compensate through other techniques. Original BBCW broadcast title: Read My Lips. Part of the BBC series Child of Our Time 2004. (60 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for students researching bilingualism. When Massasoit hailed the Plymouth settlers in their own language, they might have taken it for a sign that English would dominate the New World. Packed with surprising etymologies and intriguing stories, this enhanced DVD traces the dynamic relationship between English and America, exploring the linguistic influence of westward expansion, cowboy culture, slave culture, and encounters with the French and Spanish languages. Key works examined include The New England Primer and Webster's The American Spelling Book. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color)\nPart of the "Adventure of English" series.

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for students researching bilingualism. "Amok," "boomerang," "bungalow," "bangle," "dumdum," "plonk," "assassin"?these are some of the many words that have entered English by way of colonial expansion. This enhanced DVD explores how the British Empire in its heyday exported its language around the globe and how different forms of speech and vocabulary, as well as different attitudes to English, developed out of that colonial expansion. Rich variations of dialect, accent, and slang are heard in many samples from India, the Caribbean, and Australia. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color)

A film on OhioLINK. Could be useful for students analyzing the rhetoric of politics. As Maya Angelou points out in The Power of Speech, "If the words and delivery are powerful, they echo down the centuries." To emphasize the point, Angelou and other writers and orators examine the moving oratory of 14th-century tax protester John Ball, 19th-century slave Sojourner Truth, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Each speaker's technique is examined within the context of why the speech is being delivered, and to whom. Examples of how great orators throughout history have used their skills for good and evil drive home the immense power of the spoken word. A BBC Production. (30 minutes)

A film available on OhioLINK. TV and radio commercials, Web sites and banner ads, magazine ads, pop songs, photos, and even news articles and textbooks: all of them are sending messages to influence the reader/viewer/listener. How do they grab the attention? What are they selling-a product or service? a lifestyle? an ideology?-and why? Would a different media consumer interpret the message differently? This program raises more questions than it answers, which is the whole point: to prompt students to question, question, question the messages they are bombarded with daily. Savvy media consumers aren't born; they're made, and this program is an excellent tool for shaping the classroom dialogue. (35 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Could be helpful for students researching bilingualism. This menu-powered DVD explores how America's rise as an economic power made it the driving force behind the spread of English in the 20th century. A world tour illustrates how English has mixed with other languages from "Franglais" in France to "Singlish" in Singapore and how the dollar's power, coupled with the lure of consumerism, has made English the international trade language. Bringing it full circle, host Melvyn Bragg returns to the British Isles to survey English as it is spoken there now, measuring the influence of American slang and vocabulary from other languages. Can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color)

A film on OhioLINK. Could be useful for students analyzing the rhetoric of politics. As Maya Angelou points out in The Power of Speech, "If the words and delivery are powerful, they echo down the centuries." To emphasize the point, Angelou and other writers and orators examine the moving oratory of 14th-century tax protester John Ball, 19th-century slave Sojourner Truth, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Each speaker's technique is examined within the context of why the speech is being delivered, and to whom. Examples of how great orators throughout history have used their skills for good and evil drive home the immense power of the spoken word. A BBC Production. (30 minutes)

A film available on OhioLINK. TV and radio commercials, Web sites and banner ads, magazine ads, pop songs, photos, and even news articles and textbooks: all of them are sending messages to influence the reader/viewer/listener. How do they grab the attention? What are they selling-a product or service? a lifestyle? an ideology?-and why? Would a different media consumer interpret the message differently? This program raises more questions than it answers, which is the whole point: to prompt students to question, question, question the messages they are bombarded with daily. Savvy media consumers aren't born; they're made, and this program is an excellent tool for shaping the classroom dialogue. (35 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Implications of such de facto linguistic hegemony in a world of high-tech haves and have-nots.

A film on OhioLINK. From the beginning of time, women have had the same thirst for knowledge as men, but were denied access to education. This program looks at the religious attitudes that support these age-old convictions, and examines what the world has lost by excluding women from the intellectual loop. Scriptural scholar Elaine Pagels tells about newly discovered documents suggesting that women were equal to men in early Christianity. Historian Ginette Paris looks at the powerful goddesses of the past who were shunted aside in favor of the submissive image of the Virgin Mary. A Bangladeshi writer faces a death decree for writing about Islam's oppression of women. At Wellesley College and the University of Norway, we visit programs devoted exclusively to women's studies. (47 minutes, color) (cc)

A film on OhioLINK. Researchers debate whether differences in the brain architecture lead to a division of talents and aptitudes between the sexes. A bit dated, but could be helpful for those researching gender and literacy.\n

A film on OhioLINK. "The world is a mosaic of visions, and each vision is encapsulated by a language." Yet every two weeks, one of the world's approximately 6,500 languages dies out. What is the significance of this loss to those who speak the language as well as for the rest of humankind? Why do some languages become global while others disappear? And how are language and identity connected? In this program, linguists David Crystal, Peter Austin, and Jørgen Rischel search for the answers to those and other pressing questions as they investigate the state-and fate-of Livonian, in Latvia; Dogon, in Mali; Mlabri, in Thailand; Changsha Hua and Naqxi, in China; Pitjantjatjara and Pintupi, in Australia; and Tutunaku, in Mexico. Portions are in other languages with English subtitles. (60 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. How could a child be a top math student yet not be able to read? Why can another child read well but not be able to write a paragraph that makes sense? While watching children being taught new ways to learn, this program offers expert insight into the nature of learning disabilities, why learning disabilities may also be accompanied by ADHD or social disorders, and what can be done to help children learn to compensate and succeed. A Meridian Production. (16 minutes, color)

A film on OhioLINK. Eager for knowledge, a child is by nature curious about everything. Why, then, is school such an unpleasant place for some children? In this program, teachers, researchers, a psychoanalyst, a neurologist, a neurobiologist, a psychomotor specialist, and others examine the process of learning and the classroom as a learning center. Mastery of reading and writing, the key to unlocking all forms of communication and the entry point to many other exciting domains, is emphasized. In addition, the concept of multiple intelligences is explored. (52 minutes, color)

A film on OhioLINK. Helping children to grow and bloom properly also means taking into account their biological rhythms. This program seeks out holistic approaches to education that more scientifically organize the school day and strike a better balance between intellectual and physical development. Educators, psychologists, a geneticist, a philosopher, and others consider topics such as the times of day when students are most ready to learn and the role of play in the developing child. They also question the effectiveness of lectures and take a penetrating look at the video game phenomenon. (53 minutes, color)

A film on OhioLINK. The development of language in babies and young children.

An OhioLINK film from the series "Childhood Development: A Cognitive Approach to Developmental Psychology." Starting right from infancy, this program charts the development of language during childhood. Basic language acquisition, learned from rudimentary and higher-level child/caregiver interactions, is described. Aspects of competence that go beyond the purpose of simple communication are also considered, including the skill of using conversation for establishing and furthering social relationships, the ability to employ language as a part of games, the capacity to understand jokes, and the awareness of what other people know and understand at various stages of maturation. (25 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Why do girls demonstrate greater reading and writing ability than boys? Is the female brain hardwired for faster verbal development? Should men let women do the talking? This program studies language differences between the sexes and explores the possibility that many communication skills are gender-specific. Following two teams of well-educated adults as they undergo a crash course in broadcast journalism, the program documents wide variations between male and female abilities to verbally multitask, and examines distinctions in physical interaction, eye contact, and other behavioral factors. Clinical evidence regarding the significance of testosterone levels is also explored. (45 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. For decades, IQ tests have been the gold standard for measuring intelligence. But is one standardized test really adequate for every taker? This program advocates a different approach, creating an array of unusual challenges to assess brainpower and positing an argument for the interplay of multiple intelligences. Assisted by the insights of Harvard's Howard Gardner and experts using brain scanning technology at UC Davis' M.I.N.D. Institute, the program brings together a group of obviously bright and talented people and presents them with trials of all shapes and sizes. The results establish the validity of measuring not just what people know but also the equally important ways in which they exercise their practical, creative, emotional, and kinesthetic IQs. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

A film on OhioLINK. Could be useful background information for those researching bilingualism. Melvyn Bragg begins the story of English in Holland, finding ancestral echoes in the Frisian dialect. What follows is a chapter on survival as the English language weathers Viking and Norman invasions, vying with and eventually absorbing rival tongues. Lively settings such as village pubs and markets bring home the lasting influence of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Old French. The connection between Christianity, Latin, and an alphabet is explored, as well as the role of the language's first champion, King Alfred the Great. Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney reads from and discusses the first epic in English, Beowulf. This menu-driven disc can be viewed using a DVD player or computer DVD-ROM drive. (50 minutes, color) Part of the "Adventures in English" series.