Group items tagged

A nice alternative to Voicethread and a great option for starting a discussion. Discussions can start with text and/or a link to a video or other media. Then students can add their oral responses.

Does French still matter? If so, why? This roundtable discussion is a response to recent concerns about the status of the study of French and other foreign languages and cultures in U.S. higher and secondary education at a time of increasing globalization. Five leading voices in different fields bring a variety of perspectives to bear in a lively discussion about why French matters today. *Adam Gopnik, writer and essayist for The New Yorker magazine*Charles Kolb, President of the Committee for Economic Development*Rosemary Feal, Executive Director of the Modern Language Association and Professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance Languages, University at Buffalo, SUNY (on leave)*Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Professor of French and Philosophy at Columbia University*Antonin Baudry, Cultural Counselor, French Embassy in the U.S.This event is fully sponsored by the Florence Gould Foundation.

more on the discussion of copyright; Jenny Luca explains how she works with students as they develop their own videos on a related educational topic...trailers for good books in this case; links to her complete blog posting are available

Two important areas for EFL students to learn about are discussed here: making video trailers as book reviews and copyright issues.

This is one of my favorite sites to find out what's new in tech for our use.  The April 11th blog post discusses typing accents in other languages.  It also presents 2 virtual keyboards for WL students. Also presented are links to learning languages, activities, and image-based language lessons.  The Pictolang games could help students study languages on their own. The CAPL galleries could be helpful in locating images to use in developing your own language learning activities. You could also have students use CAPL to create language learning games to use to study

This is a temporary webpage for gathering information on strategies and methods for supporting the International Year of Languages (IYL). It is intended as a location to collect and display information relating to discussions leading up to, among other things, a more permanent web presence.

Great up-to-the minutes good quality photos to discuss anything topical in your class or keep them thinking...

intro to holidays: would give the names of the countries/ places in the TL, ask to re-order them, or play bingo (10 first countries-in TL, chosen from a sheet, wins!) freeze/ frame-what is on the picture discuss feelings: match feelings (in TL) to parts of te video...

As part of a language arts or reading program, students read novels throughout the school year. Some of the novels are assigned, read, and discussed "all class." Others are chosen by the students individually, and they keep individual reading lists. Students may be required to read a certain number per marking period, per school year, and over the summer. Some may be classics; other trade novels, but all contribute to the overall reading and comprehension abilities of the students. This unit can be done as a culminating activity for the school year. Students are asked to choose their two favorite novels from the ones they have read. They write reviews and post them online for students in their own school, in other schools, across the United States, and in other countries to read. The student reviews not only help student readers clarify their own understanding of literature, they also provide a "student-to-student" resource. Other students can choose novels based on opinions of their peers. The students review the novels, write descriptions that will appeal to other readers, and indicate the level of reading difficulty. They do this to help others choose novels suitable for their reading levels.

to discuss personaities in French/ Spanish?

"On November 13 the Digital October Center hosted a web meeting with Eli Bildner, one of the Coursera team members. Bildner is responsible for looking for educational partners and translating selected videos into the native languages of the projects's multicultural audience, and shared the results of the first few months of work he has put into localizing the content of the most popular platform for free online education. He discussed: which translation approaches have been tried and how well they have worked from country to country why Coursera settled on working with local partners the statistics on what has already brought about growth in the number of users who do now know English well enough or even at all. Lecture guests also were the first to see how the crowdsourcing platform ABBYY Language Services and the Knowledge Stream team built to translate Coursera content works. This solution at some point in the future may become a universal tool for localizing courses around the entire world. At this point, however, the development is in beta testing."

"The teaching of grammar has changed completely in a generation. While formal teaching of spelling and punctuation have been a mainstay of the classroom, just a few decades ago there was very little teaching of grammar. Many pupils formally encountered grammar through the study of other languages. Now SPaG takes up a large part of the primary curriculum, but have secondary colleagues noticed a difference? In this session we are discussion how to improve SPaG skills and usage at all levels of schooling and beyond."

In this webinar, expert in eBooks Meredith Wemhoff discusses ways to engage and support learners with special needs using eBooks and audio. Using the case-study of an independent all-boys school located in Surrey, the school provides special needs students an opportunity to succeed and thrive. Many arrive to the 80-year-old institution with low self-confidence, often due to struggles they faced in traditional educational institutions caused by learning and language difficulties. This means providing a collection that meets the individual learning needs of the school's 470 students, who range in age from 8-18. ​​​​​​​ During this eye-opening webinar, Meredith will share the story of selecting, launching and promoting a digital library service that helps address learning challenges. Attendees will come away with best practices for bringing ebooks and audiobooks to their school and real-life examples of these practices in action. Don't miss out, register today!

This is a wonderful article about the consumption of chocolate in Europe. It is a great resource to use with your students when discussing nutrition, holidays, or conversions.