A reaction essay is an essay that is written in response to something else. The initial topic that the writer is responding to could be anything from a speech that was heard to another essay to the latest breaking news event.
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.
Language in humans has evolved culturally rather than genetically, according to a study by UCL (University College London) and US researchers. By modelling the ways in which genes for language might have evolved alongside language itself, the study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly unlikely, as cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. Thus, the biological machinery upon which human language is built appears to predate the emergence of language.
According to a phenomenon known as the Baldwin effect, characteristics that are learned or developed over a lifespan may become gradually encoded in the genome over many generations, because organisms with a stronger predisposition to acquire a trait have a selective advantage. Over generations, the amount of environmental exposure required to develop the trait decreases, and eventually no environmental exposure may be needed - the trait is genetically encoded. An example of the Baldwin effect is the development of calluses on the keels and sterna of ostriches. The calluses may initially have developed in response to abrasion where the keel and sterna touch the ground during sitting. Natural selection then favored individuals that could develop calluses more rapidly, until callus development became triggered within the embryo and could occur without environmental stimulation. The PNAS paper explored circumstances under which a similar evolutionary mechanism could genetically assimilate properties of language - a theory that has been widely favoured by those arguing for the existence of 'language genes'.
The study modelled ways in which genes encoding language-specific properties could have coevolved with language itself. The key finding was that genes for language could have coevolved only in a highly stable linguistic environment; a rapidly changing linguistic environment would not provide a stable target for natural selection. Thus, a biological endowment could not coevolve with p
"With this interactive tool, teens can create printed social networking or magazine/newspaper profiles for themselves, peers or family members whom they have interviewed, or fictional characters from books they have read. Featuring components of popular online social networking applications, this tool engages teens and provides a means for adults to talk about safe, responsible online behavior, such as having an awareness of who could be seeing online profiles and limiting highly personal information."
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.
For language teachers, this accepted presumption of incapacity is a huge hurdle, because it keeps many children and adults from even dipping a toe into the language
pool!
TPR was and is a wonderful way to turn that presumption on its head and show the learner
that, not only can we learn, but under the right circumstances, it's fun!
When we are infants our exposure to language is virtually inseparable
from physical activities. People talk to us while tickling us, feeding
us, changing our diapers... We are immersed in a language we don't
speak, in an environment that we explore with every part of our body.
Our parents and caregivers literally walk and talk us through
activities - for example, we learn lots of vocabulary while someone
stands behind us at the bathroom sink, soaping our hands until they're
slippery, holding them under warm water, rubbing or scrubbing, all the
while talking about what we're doing and what it feels like. In this
way, movement and feeling are intimately tied to the process of
internalizing the language.
Classes are active - you are not in your seat all period. The focus
for the first weeks is on listening and moving in response to what the
teacher says.
There is heavy emphasis on listening comprehension,
because the larger your listening comprehension vocabulary is, the
larger your speaking vocabulary will become.
Lots of
language is learned in happy circumstances, especially while you're
having fun.
In a TPR class,
grammar and syntax are not taught directly. Rather, the teacher
designs activities that expose the student to language in context,
especially in the context of some kind of movement.
I'm asked with some regularity about appropriate foreign language instruction for students with a dyslexic learning or thinking style. I'm quick to recommend finding a school or program that includes - or even better - relies on TPR as its principal instructional strategy.
Typically, the initial TPR lessons are commands involving the whole
body - stand up, sit down, turn around, walk, stop.
Fairly soon, the teacher
quietly stops demonstrating, and the students realize that they
somehow just know what to do in response to the words.
You're
also encouraged to trust your body, because sometimes it knows what to
do before your brain does!
As class proceeds, nouns, adverbs,
prepositions are added until before you know it, students are
performing commands like, 'Stand up, walk to the door, open it, stick
your tongue out, close the door, turn around, hop to Jessica's desk,
kiss your right knee four times, and lie down on Jessica's desk."
It's just that
the instruction is designed to facilitate language acquisition, not
learning a language through analysis, memorization and application of
rules.
But
consider your native language: you did not need to learn the grammar
and syntax of your native language in order to learn to
speak it. You learned those structures, unconsciously as
you learned to speak.
The
first is that in a TPR classroom, the focus is not on analysis of
linguistic structures, but on internalizing those structures for
unconscious use.
When we use TPR
strategies to teach, our goal is truly to be able to understand,
speak, read and write the language, not "about" the language.
I think this creativity, the synthetic rather than analytic experience,
the low stress, and generally accepting environment engineered by the
teacher, are a large part of the reason so many students, including
students with learning challenges, find TPR classes so effective and
enjoyable.
Within these real experiences, students are free to
generate all kinds of expressions using the language they're studying,
and to lead instruction in unique directions.
"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."
I just tried this (without creating an account or anything) ... it let me put a phone number in, and type out a message for it to send by a VOICE message, along with choices. It called instantly, and the moment my wife made her choice (by pressing 3 on her phone), the answer showed up on the website.
Wordle is a Java applet, and Java applets are not permitted to write anything
to your disk. So, while the applet could generate a jpeg, it wouldn't be able to
give it to you!
You can certainly take a screenshot
of the Wordle applet.
There's a "Print..." button below the Wordle area, on the left-hand side. Press
it. You will be prompted to allow the Wordle "Java applet" to access your
printer. Please check the checkbox that says "Always permit", and accept the
dialog.
Windows users will need to use third-party software to generate a PDF from
the print dialog. Adobe Acrobat is fine, but I happen to use the free-as-in-beer CutePDF Writer. I
have no relationship to the folks who make CutePDF, nor do I take any
responsibility for anything that might happen as a result of your using it. If
you do use CutePDF, you'll also need to install Ghostscript, a free-as-in-speech
PostScript interpreter.
The PDFs you make in this way are fully scalable, and suitable for making
posters, T-Shirts, what have you. Please tell
me about anything interesting you've done with Wordle.
Voki is a Web 2.0 tool that enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using an avatar, a talking character (Voki 2008) which they can customise to their liking. I decided that Voki would be the ideal tool on which to base the three lessons that I chose to describe and evaluate in this paper because:
it can be accessed both at home and at school;
it necessitates computer-pupil interaction, which, as described above, is a motivating factor;
it facilitates the transition from teacher-centred, class-based learning to one in which the pupil begins to acquire individual responsibility;
it makes it possible for the quieter pupils to make their presence felt and be heard; and
it allows the pupils to role-play and hide behind a mask (an avatar).