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The commencement ceremony affirms each student's search for knowledge. It often includes a graduation speech which seeks to put their recent hard (or not so hard)  work into the context of their future. Many of us hear one or two commencement addresses as graduates or listen to a handful as spectators. Yet -- as we graduate from one year to another, one relationship to another, one experience to another -- we always are learning. Though these myriad departures and arrivals of everyday existence are seldom met with ceremony, words traditionally reserved for momentous occasions may ring true and inspirational at any hour. That's why we created this unique archive of commencement addresses, selecting an eclectic menu of twenty nine extraordinary speeches from the thousands that we have reviewed since beginning work on this initiative in 1989. Though some of these wonderful remarks were given decades ago, we believe they are as relevant and important, perhaps increasingly so, as the more current speeches. Thus we encourage you to read them all, recognizing and celebrating your own constant commencement into tomorrow, finding ways to place it firmly within the context of progress for all humankind. Minnesota Public Radio show on commencement speeches, June 2011   - Tony Balis

Printable and interactive Grammar Exercises for teachers and students are available free. Use these grammar exercises to practice and teach English grammar- parts of speech. Refer students to the interactive exercises for self-study.

This archive contains links to all of our free grammar lessons and quizzes.  Daily Grammar consists of 440 lessons and 88 quizzes.  Lessons 1-90 cover the eight parts of speech, which are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.  Lessons 91-300 cover the parts of the sentence, such as appositives, predicate nominatives, direct objects, prepositional phrases, clauses, and verbals.  Lessons 301-440 cover the mechanics of grammar, which is also known as capitalization and punctuation.  You can use this archive to study Daily Grammar at your own pace.  Our lessons have been organized by lesson number and by subject.

ED is an offline Japanese Dictionary. FAQ: - The new design, the new icon, the fix for the tags bug, the improved search results, the edict data update, the fix for FC on ICS, the removal of permissions and the hand writing recognition based kanji search mentioned in the posts were all due for the next release, but the development is currently on hold. - The server that hosts the dictionaries also hosts projects of higher priority, so I might take off them from time to time. Please retry and be patient. - Some users reported the their data got corrupted, please try to delete the jed folder on your sd card and reinstall the app from scratch. - This application works offline once the dictionary files are downloaded, BUT does send analytics data (Google Analytics) if wifi is available! - User data ( especially tags!!! ) gets deleted when updated! - Only use the current version; data files of older versions gets deleted! - Feel free to contact me or comment if something does no work, but please provide as much information as you can (device, version number, etc). Current features: - Works offline - Search and view results as you type! - Multiple dictionaries ( English-Japanese, French-Japanese, Spanish-Japanese ) - Search in readings (romaji), meanings (english) and japanese (kanji, hiragana and katakana) - Search results can contain words, expressions, kanji (both onyomi and kunyomi) and inflected form for adjectives and verbs. - Filters results based on content type (meaning, reading, character type, parts of speech, common words, common kanji) - Radicals lookup - tags (vocabulary list) with possibility to search and export to Google Docs and Anki. - Animated Stroke Order Diagrams for kanji - Copy-Paste for most of the field and a notepad to gather information - Move to SD card (above 2.2) Acknowledgements: - Electronic Dictionaries Research Groups - KanjiVG - Tatoeba - KanjiCafe

When it comes to teaching vocabulary, one challenge is knowing which words and phrases to teach. There are several areas that should always be included in vocabulary instruction. In addition to single words, idioms: (time on my hands, getting cold feet) and phrasal verbs (get in, go out).  It's especially important for students to learn idioms, phrasal verbs, because there's no logical way to figure out their meaning from the individual words. Also keep in mind that reading is a channel for new vocabulary growth, so always include vocabulary exercises whenever you assign new reading material. It's also a good idea to have students keep a vocabulary notebook. The notebook could be organized into sections for words from novels, selected readings, or news articles, as well as vocabulary they've encountered at random. However the vocabulary books are organized, make sure everyone has the same plan. In this section there are several good strategies you can use for teaching vocabulary. There are also activities you can try with your students to increase their knowledge of English vocabulary.

"Kids at school often bullied Danny - they didn't understand why he wore a dress shirt or fedora each day, and they didn't understand why he couldn't talk. Danny has apraxia of speech, a motor disorder that makes it difficult for him to communicate. Kids would go up to him and ask, "Why can't you talk? Just talk." He'd come home from school distraught."

Lesson Planning with ProCon.org

Abstract Over the last decade, inclusion has become a world trend in special education. In response to that trend, the Indonesian government has adopted a progressive policy to implement inclusive education. The aim of this research is to describe the implementation process by focusing on the institutional management, student admission/identification/assessment, curriculum, instruction, evaluation, and external supports. The sample consisted of 186 schools with a total student body of 24,412, 12 percent of which (3,419) were students with special needs. In those schools, there were also 34 gifted students (0.1 percent). Of all the students with special education needs (SEN) students, 56 percent were males and 44 percent were females. The results showed, in terms of institutional management, that the majority of inclusive schools had developed strategic plans (for inclusion), legally appointed coordinators, involved related and relevant parties, and conducted regular coordination meetings. However, there were still many schools that had not restructured their school organizations. In terms of student admission/identification/assessment, 54 percent of schools set a quota for SEN students. Only 19 percent applied a selection process in student admission, half of which used different procedures for SEN candidates. Approximately 50 percent of inclusive schools had modified their curriculum, including a variety of standards. In terms of instruction, 68 percent of inclusive schools reported that they modified their instructional process. Only a few schools, however, provided special equipment for students with visual impairment, physical impairment, speech and hearing problems, and autism and gifted and talented students. In a student evaluation, more than 50 percent reported that test items, administration, time allocations, and students' reports were modified. For the national exam, this number decreased dramatically. Finally, external supports in the for

Links to other debating resources have been added below. Drop me a line with links if you know of other good resources out there!

Why would any sane parent teach his kids to talk back? Because, this father found, it actually increased family harmony.   By Jay Heinrichs

The etymology of a word refers to its origin and historical development: that is, its earliest known use, its transmission from one language to another, and its changes in form and meaning. Etymology is also the term for the branch of linguistics that studies word histories.

A collection of memorable quotes to think about and/or live by.