Well, this isn't really an ESL issue, but it's very interesting and could be useful in a TESL or Linguistics class...or just for anyone interested in word origins.  

this is really wild! Gloves for hearing impaired people that "speak" the signs! Not TESL related, but so interesting, I thought I'd pass it on. There are a couple of demo You Tube videos included.

This is not too surprising, but it's worrisome. You'll see that ELLs who have only been here 1 year are included in the results, but also those who have been here longer. It just emphasizes how challenging it is to write in these timed test situations. There is also a technology component as students used word-processing programs to do the writing. A much longer article about the NAEP results was also in this edition of Ed Week, but I don't have an actual paid subscription, so I couldn't access/share that.

I found this link by becoming a member of one of the other open groups on Diigo - TechnoLanguages. You are probably familiar with the very prolific David Crystal. He about to release a new book on the history of English spelling (and where we are going with the advent of technology). This is a excerpt from the book

There are so many worthwhile webinars out there. I discovered this one on the Nik Peachey Scoop it! site I subscribe to - Global Conversations in Literacy Research. The first webinar features James Gee...he's a big name in literacy...so you might be interested.

This was written by Larry Ferlazzo and has some interesting points.

You may have already heard about this response by Rep John Conyers from Michigan...There was a hearing today (8/2) on English-Only legislation. To demonstrate his strong opposition to the proposed law, Conyers presented his response in Spanish. There's also a video of him speaking.

Very interesting article with active links, even recordings of endangered languages. From National Geographic.

Interesting article discussing the challenges of learning another language on line, and why it's more challenging than regular classes. These are things we know, but still important that in the push for e-learning, others see the limitations and barriers to this kind of delivery system.

With Common Core coming, it's worrisome to think about how ELLs will fare in this push towards standardization. Albuquerque (my old stomping grounds) is participating in this study supported by a number of groups. It might be useful to follow thiis over the next year...

I discovered this site that has tons of visuals to use for teaching ELLs (or foreign language)...some are multi-frame images which would be great for activities and assessment. Take look if you have a chance.

Here's an interesting list of topics for writing or discussion based on student opinions...so high interest. The word cloud is nice too...you can create that at the tagxedo.com website.

Lots of you probably already know about the Colorin Colorado website.  I received the newsletter today and it included an updated version of their resources for pre-K ELLs.  A great resource for those of you who work with that age group. 

You might know about this tool already "Just-the-Word" which, as it says above, is a collocation thesauras concordancer and it creates word clouds. If you haven't seen it, it is certainly worth checking out.

"This I Believe" is site I learned about from one of my grad students at Hamline. She uses it a source for writing, but in this particular case, she was integrating in some prosodics, so versatile. You might want to check it out...not especially created for ELLs, but can work for older learners who are not beginner.

This looks like an excellent resource with MANY web tools...I see that it is an aware winner, so worth keeping track of this one.

Interesting view on phonics...there are several other links here with more info about this method of teaching reading.

Always useful to get a list of resources - this one on Ed Tech blogs. Some of these I already know about, but not all. Worth checking these. Kathy Schrock is an active blogger who knows what going on out there.

Here's some very useful information - website that will convert text to speech. Some of these are free sites. I have used Zamzar many times to convert text formats, and it works great. I've never tried the speech option. Anyway, these might be worth checking out

This site looks like a real find! You can see a range of topics, and from here, you have various options. I clicked on the text example, which has a recording of the reading. There is some kind of animation that flashes on each word as it is being read. Definitely worth further investigation.