Group items tagged

# In Preschool, children are just beginning to learn about language and how it works. Exposure to multiple languages is advantageous for all children and can be supported by developmentally appropriate teaching practices that make use of songs, rhymes, and stories. # In programs for beginning learners that offer appropriate time and frequency of instruction, students communicate at the Novice-Mid level using memorized language to talk about familiar topics related to school, home, and the community. # After three-six years of study in programs offering the appropriate time and frequency of standards-based instruction, Novice-High through Intermediate-Mid level students communicate at the sentence level creating with language to ask and answer questions and to handle simple transactions related to everyday life and subject matter studied in other classes. # After nine-twelve years of well articulated standards-based instruction, Intermediate-High through Advanced-Low level students communicate at the paragraph level and are able to handle complicated situations on a wide-range of topics.

This section aims to support teachers in using assessment to enhance learning in Years 7-8. It builds on the principles of assessment for learning in the Board's Years 7-10 syllabuses and the advice in subsequent support materials on implementing these principles. For each course listed below there are samples of student work aligned to the common grade scale, illustrating standards at the end of Stage 4. Samples of student work are also provided in English and Mathematics to illustrate standards mid-stage (end of Year 7). The common grade scale can be used to report student achievement in both primary and junior secondary years in all NSW schools.

"The ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) is unlike any other assessment. AAPPL Measure addresses the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning and uses today's communication media in which test takers perform tasks such as participating in a virtual video chat, creating wikis, e-mailing, and using apps to demonstrate language ability."

The Free Online ePub Converter 2EPUB allows you to convert PDF, doc and other types of documents & books to ePub format, the standard format for ebooks, supported by almost every reading device including iPad, iPhone, iPod, Sony Reader, BeBook, Nook, Kobo (for Kindle use .mobi). Input formats: doc, docx, epub, fb2, html, lit, lrf, mobi, odt, pdb, pdf, prc, rtf, txt. Output formats: epub, fb2, lit, lrf, mobi

"You have all heard about the more popular open source content management systems such as Joomla and Drupal. However, there are many more open source content management systems out there that are more than capable of accommodating the needs of your website. In fact, some of the less popular CMSs actually provide features that cannot be found in the standard CMS. Not all CMS live up to their developer's hype though, so we've compiled a comprehensive list of the top 20 open source content management systems."

Teaching Japan through Children's Literature online curriculum is a collection of teacher-developed, standards-based, cross-curricular K-6 lessons. The collection is designed to promote the teaching of cultural studies of Japan while developing students' knowledge and skills in literacy and communication. Each of the six lessons features an authentic children's literature book on an aspect of Japanese culture.

My postings seem to be all about my S2 class at the moment, but they are doing such good and interesting work, with such gusto I mentioned in recent tweet how happy I have been with them, particularly the standard...

The systems works a lot like close captioning does for television. The company will piggy-back a data stream on the standard audio signal. The text can then be read on radio fitted with a display. The system will only work with digital broadcasts, but the company says an Internet-based solution is possible. Currently more than 1,500 radio stations are currently broadcasting in HD Radio in the United States.

Thanks to Marielle Palombo for reminding me of this site

Lessons, Standards, Web Resources, Student Materials, and more, for language arts education, learners, and teachers

Nice article on the ELA standard and close reading

"A strategy to support pupils improve their spelling strategies, by circling words which they think require attention. The Standards & Testing Agency have in some ways made the marking of spellings more problematic than it's ever been. They state quite clearly, that individual spellings should no longer be pointed out to children if you wish to mark it as an independent piece. This, coupled with Ofsted's move away from heavy amounts of marking needing to be seen in books, could make the marking of spelling seem tricky."

Advice for language learners General warning: what follows may or may not apply to you. It's based on what linguistics knows about people in general (but any general advice will be ludicrously inappropriate for some people) and on my own experience (but you're not the same as me). If you have another way of learning that works, more power to you. Given the discussion so far, the prospects for language learning may seem pretty bleak. It seems that you'll only learn a language if you really need to; but the fact that you haven't done so already is a pretty good indication that you don't really need to. How to break out of this paradox? At the least, try to make the facts of language learning work for you, not against you. Exposure to the language, for instance, works in your favor. So create exposure. * Read books in the target language. * Better yet, read comics and magazines. (They're easier, more colloquial, and easier to incorporate into your weekly routine.) * Buy music that's sung in it; play it while you're doing other things. * Read websites and participate in newsgroups that use it. * Play language tapes in your car. If you have none, make some for yourself. * Hang out in the neighborhood where they speak it. * Try it out with anyone you know who speaks it. If necessary, go make new friends. * Seek out opportunities to work using the language. * Babysit a child, or hire a sitter, who speaks the language. * Take notes in your classes or at meetings in the language. * Marry a speaker of the language. (Warning: marry someone patient: some people want you to know their language-- they don't want to teach it. Also, this strategy is tricky for multiple languages.) Taking a class can be effective, partly for the instruction, but also because you can meet others who are learning the language, and because, psychologically, classes may be needed to make us give the subject matter time and attention. Self-study is too eas