I first saw the cartoon (scroll down to find it) in Larry Ferlazzo's blog and then discovered this article. It seems to be right up our alley. Let me know what you think...could be a good choice for your discussion groups.

New Scott Thornbury blog entry - "S is for Soaps" focuses on the authentic nature of soap operas and tv dramas. Some recent research studies on this subject are included.

116 pages on ELLs in city schools..."The Council of the Great City Schools conducted a comprehensive survey of its 65 district members about the English Language Learners that were enrolled and the instructional services provided to them The survey collected information on (1) district demographics and languages spoken, (2) instructional staff, (3) achievement data, and (4) financial information . The findings from this survey make up the bulk of this report. In addition, the report drew on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD) and from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Newest entry from Scott Thornbury's An A-Z of ELT blog...P is for Phoneme. Very interesting points here...this might/will challenge your thinking.

California's credentialing board plans to expedite new rules governing intern teachers-those who came into the profession on alternative routes-in what will likely require them to take more upfront training on how to teach English-language learners.

"Infusing Technology into the Classroom:A Beginner's Guide " That's what this is...a two page pdf that gives some good basics and some useful links to help you get started.

Newest entry from Scott Thornbury's blog - G for genre.

BIG list of "Interesting Ways to..." to do various ed tech things...with Google Tools, Devices, Audio/Visual, Subject support, Gaming, and Online Tools. Each of these categories has many more links with ideas from teachers. I'm sure there are some great things here, but be selective. There isn't anything TESL specific here, but these are the most popular ed tech things going on right now and many are very suitable for ELLs.

Newest entry from Scott Thornbury's blog - S is for Student-Centredness. This entry is a 4 minute video of Scott speaking on the topic

This is is great graphic...each branch is a link to more info. Definitely worth sharing

You Tube video of David Crystal on a talk show called "It's Only a Theory"...he's defending the proposition that texting is good for the English language.

Very interesting website...this is just one of the pages with the top 10 teaching methods that work based on evidence. Not an ESL focus but it could be

Another entry in Scott Thornbury's blog - An A-Z of ELT. Interesting comparison of language policy in Cataluna, Spain and the English Only group in the U.S. (I recommend subscribing to his blog if you haven't already).

If you aren't already subscribing to Scott Thornbury's A-Z of ELT blog, I recommend that you do. This entry is a nice summary of the key points behind Contrastive Analysis.

Enjoy this "college syllabus" as seen in Salon.com. I think we wish we could say some of these things sometimes...

This video is so adorable...I think these must be 4th or 5th grades with great advice on writing comments. This happens to be regarding a blog, but it could certainly relate to Discussion Boards too. I wish I could share this with my adult students...

Nice 7+ minute video presents the history and most recent developments of SLA theory alphabetically. This is from Scott Thornbury's and his A-Z approach (book and blog). He actually made this video to demonstrate a video editing technique called Pecha Kucha which allows 20 second for 20 slides. You'll see them interjected into the video.

On line book...you can download this, too I think. The title tells you what's in this book. It covers the theories of some of the big thinkers of the 20th century, and then takes theory to practice. It seems to be well written and the whole book is only about 50 pages.

I saw this in a newsletter I subscribe to and thought it was an interesting connection to our project

Interesting reflection on using the Discussion Board in really meaningful ways.