Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
LARRY FERLAZZO’S WEBSITES OF THE DAY
The Best Sites For Learning About Brazil
As regular readers know, in addition to teaching English to ELLs, I always teach a Social Studies class to them, too. This year, I’m teaching Geography to a multi-level class, and am using many of the resources at The Best Geography Sites For Beginning & Intermediate English Language Learners. One of those resources links is to another list, The Best Sites For Learning About Mexico, Central &a
Two Videos On Mount Everest
I’m adding these videos to The Best Sites For Learning About Mount Everest:
New Resources On The World’s Different Cultures
One of my most popular posts is The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures. Here are several new additions to that list: 7 Diverse Children’s Cartoons (where the main character isn’t the standard white one) is from In Culture Parent. Kids these days: A portrait of childhood around the world is from The Telegraph. Hungry Planet: What The World Eats is a photo gallery from TIME
The Best Interactives Showing How Obamacare Works
The federal marketplace for health care insurance opens up on October 1st. I have a very extensive The Best Online Resources For Learning About Health Care Reform list (which covers how the new law works, the history of health care reform, and medical costs around the world), but thought readers might find it useful to have a list that just shares new interactives on how the law will work. I’ll b
This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Good Articles & Posts On Education Policy
Don’t miss the first link in this post Here are some recent useful articles on education policy issues: Reliability and Validity of Inferences About Teachers Based on Student Test Scores by Edward H. Haertel from Stanford University was published by The Education Testing Service (ETS). Though I’ve only had a chance to skim it, it appears to be an extraordinary critique of the use of Value Added M
Republican Strategy On Debt Ceiling Is Ridiculous Strategy, But Provides Perfect Classroom Lesson On “Compromise”
I learned about the importance of compromise in my nineteen year community organizing career prior to becoming a teacher, and I’ve shared a fair amount about it at The Best Posts & Articles About Compromise. In fact, Republicans in the House could probably learn something from reading the articles collected there. Ezra Klein writes a great blog at The Washington Post (except, however, when he’
YESTERDAY
Jimmy Fallon Comes Up With A Great Game For English Language Learners
Earlier this year, I learned about a game developed by Ellen DeGeneres that I’m applying in my ELL classroom and, now, today, I’ve learned one from another television star — Jimmy Fallon. He played a game with Tina Fey that he called “Box Of Lies.” Several items are put in boxes, a player chooses one of them and the other player can’t see what’s inside. Then the player who picked the box has to d
September’s Infographics & Interactives Galore — Part Two
There are just so many good infographics and interactives out there that I’ve begun a new semi-regular feature called “Infographics & Interactives Galore.” You can see others at A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists On Infographics and by searching “infographics” on this blog. I’ll still be publishing separate posts to individually highlight especially useful infographics and interactives, but you
Free Monthly Email Newsletter Just Sent-Out
I’ve just sent out my free monthly email newsletter to about 2,000 subscribers. You can easily subscribe to it here if you’re interested…..
SEP 26
September’s Best Posts From This Blog
I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see older Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month (more recent lists can be found here). Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this pas
September’s “The Best…” Lists — There Are Now 1,176 Of Them
Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted this month (you can see all 1,176 of them categorized here): The Best Three Sites On The Web For ESL/EFL/ELL/ELT Teachers The Best Infographics About Teaching & Learning English As A Second (or Third!) Language The Best Resources For Learning About The Birmingham Church Bombing The Best Questions To Use For Class Closing Activities
Delightful Video: Jimmy Fallon, Sesame Street & The Roots Sing “Sesame Street”
You just have to watch this delightful video:
NY Times Begins Very Helpful Regular Feature — “Text To Text”
The New York Times Learning Network has just begun a regular feature that I suspect is going to be very helpful to teachers — it’s called “Text To Text.” Here’s how they describe it: it is just what it sounds like: we’ll be pairing two written texts that we think “speak” to each other in interesting ways, and supplying a few questions and ideas for working with the two together. One of the excerp
Two New Ways To Create Geography Games
Here are two new additions to The Best Online Geography Games: At Quiz Geo, you can easily create your own geography game as well as play ones created by others. It didn’t seem to work for me on Firefox, though, and I could only play it on the Google Chrome Browser. Class Tools lets you easily create a Map “treasure hunt” with no registration necessary. Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the tip.
SEP 25
September’s (2013) Best Tweets — Part Four
Every month I make a few short lists highlighting my choices of the best resources I shared through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog. I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in this post. If you don’t use Twit
“Lyrics Videos” On YouTube & English Language Learners
An article in today’s New York Times titled On YouTube, ‘Lyrics Videos’ Mark a New Genre highlights an excellent resource for English Language Learners and their teachers — creative music videos that emphasize displaying the lyrics as they are sung. Of course, there are many karaoke sites that ELL teachers use, as well as other tools specifically designed for ELLs (you can see lots of them at The
New Study On Cash Rewards For Students Tries Really, Really, Really Hard To Make It Look Good
Researcher Roland Fryer has been trying for years — unsuccessfully — that cash incentives will result in more student academic achievement. You can see my previous blog posts all his failures to show that this kind of strategy works. You might also want to read my Washington Post column Bribing students: Another ‘magical solution’ that doesn’t work. Now, one of his and New York City Mayor Bloombe
“How Can We Teach Common Core Writing Skills?”
How Can We Teach Common Core Writing Skills? is the new question of the week at my Education Week Teacher column. Feel free to leave your comment there or here…
“American History Handbook” Is A Useful Resource
The right way to teach history i the title of a new post at Valerie Strauss’ post at The Washington Post. It’s by Marion Brady, and I plan on using the post itself in my IB Theory of Knowledge class — he shares an insightful perspective on the purposes of studying history. Here’s an excerpt: In addition, at the end of his post, he shares a link to his American History Handbook, which is a free bo
SEP 24
Great Video: “Why we need teacherpreneurs (in less than 3 minutes)!”
I’m adding this great video from The Center For Teaching Quality to The Best Resources On Being A Teacherpreneur:
The Best Three Sites On The Web For ESL/EFL/ELL/ELT Teachers
The Web is sure a big place, and it’s easy to miss most of the great stuff out there for English Language Learners and their teachers. And, since most people actually have lives, they don’t necessarily want to be spending hours online separating the wheat from the chaff. Taking all that into consideration, here are my recommendations for the Best Three Sites On The Web For ESL/EFL/ELL/ELT Teacher
New Site: “What We Watch: a geographic exploration of popular YouTube videos”
What We Watch:a geographic exploration of popular YouTube videos is from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and lets you use a map to see and compare which YouTube videos are most popular in countries around the world. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures. Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the tip.
“Constitute” Is A New “Must-Use” Site For Any Social Studies Teacher
Richard Byrne has discovered yet another gem is his long list of exceptional online finds (which is why you should subscribe to his blog if you haven’t already done so)– Constitute. It’s been created by the University of Texas at Austin and funded by Google, and provides an easily searchable database of the constitutions from 160 countries. The really extraordinary feature is the ability to search
SEP 23
New York Times Begins Producing One Minute Science Videos
The New York Times has just begun producing one minute “Science Takes” videos on its website. You can see them all here. I’ve embedded one below, though you may have to click through to see it if you’re reading this post in an RSS Reader:
An Extremely Important “Take” On “Wait Time” — One That I Hadn’t Thought About Before….
“Wait time” is commonly referred to as the time between a teacher asking a question and calling on a student to answer it. It’s an important, and often overlooked, element of classroom interaction. Here’s what I wrote about it in one of my books (minus the footnotes): The average time between a teacher posing a question and a student giving the answer in a typical classroom is about one second.. M
Video: “42 Amazing Maps”
This 42 Amazing Maps video is pretty interesting, but the narrator speaks far too fast for English Language Learners. You might also be interested in This May Be The Best Geography Site Of The Year: “40 maps that explain the world”
Using Magic To Teach Academic Language
Use magic to teach and learn academic language in my new NY Times post that includes a student interactive and teaching ideas. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Developing Academic English Skills & Vocabulary. You can see all my previous NY Times posts here.
SEP 22
A Collection Of New Learning Games
I’ve been accumulating links to new learning games (well, new to me, at least), and here they are: World Geography Games has quite a few games about…world geography. I’m adding it to The Best Geography Sites For Beginning & Intermediate English Language Learners. Inca Investigation is from The American Museum of Natural History. Students can play to learn about the…Incas. The China Game is ab
Study: The Benefits Of Saying “I Don’t” vs. “I Can’t”
Thanks to Elena Aguilar, I’ve learned about an important study that could have important classroom management implications. The study, titled “I Don’t” versus “I Can’t”: When Empowered Refusal Motivates Goal-Directed Behavior, found that having people say “I Don’t” had a major positive effect on fortifying their self-control. LifeHacker has an excellent summary of the study (most of the research i
Infographic: “Concept and Logic Behind Typical Interview Questions”
I’m adding this infographic to The Best Websites For Students Exploring Jobs & Careers: Sample Questionnaire
Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL
I’ve started a somewhat regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention: David Deubelbeiss has created an excellent slideshow sharing modifications teachers can make for English Language Learners in the classroom. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning Strategies To Teach ELL’s In Conten
Where I Post What In Social Media
I share a lot of resources and commentaries in various social media, and I thought readers might find it helpful if I share my strategies about where I post what. I had included a similar summary in Eight Ways To Build An Audience For Your Blog, and this is an update. Apart from sharing links to most of my blog posts (from this blog and from my weekly columns in The New York Times and Education
This Week In Web 2.0
In yet another attempt to get at the enormous backlog I have of sites worth sharing, I’ve recently begin a regular feature called “The Week In Web 2.0.” It’ll be a short compilation of new decent sites that are worth noting, but maybe not necessarily worth a separate post and generally — though not always — not worthy of being on a “The Best…” list (let me know if you think I’m wrong in my assess
SEP 21
“Advice For Aspiring Principals: ‘Shadow, Connect & Dream’”
Advice For Aspiring Principals: “Shadow, Connect & Dream” is the final post in my three-part Education Week Teacher series offering advice to aspiring principals. Scott McLeod, Kelly Young (who I consider a mentor and from whom I’ve learned more about teaching than anyone else), John Gabriel and Paul Farmer all offer their advice. In addition, I’ve included comments from readers.
Infographic: The Cost Of Natural Disasters
I’m adding this infographic to The Best Websites For Learning About Natural Disasters: Image source: www.emergency-management-degree.org
Wonderful Illustrations Of Logicial Fallacies
An Illustrated Book Of Bad Arguments is a freely available online book that has wonderful illustrations of logical fallacies. It’s perfect for IB Theory of Knowledge classes, and I’m adding it to The Best Multimedia Resources For Learning About Fallacies. Here are some examples from it: Slippery Slope: Straw Man: Appeal To Bandwagon:
TIME’s “50 Best iPhone Apps, 2013 Edition”
TIME recently published the new edition of their annual list: 50 Best iPhone Apps, 2013 Edition. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me.
Quote Of The Day: “The problem with philanthropy”
I’ve often been critical of the role of private foundations (see The Best Resources For Learning About The Role Of Private Foundations In Education Policy). A short piece at Al Jazeera is worth reading. It’s titled The problem with philanthropy. Here’s an excerpt:
Many More Questions For Class-Closing Activities….
I’ve turned my popular post from earlier this week sharing and inviting questions to use as class-closing activities into The Best Questions To Use For Class Closing Activities — What Are Yours? Many suggestions from readers are now included, and more are welcome!
Reviews Of Diane Ravitch’s New Book
As you probably know, Diane Ravitch’s new book, Reign Of Error, has just been published. I have it on my nightstand, and am looking forward to reading it (and looking forward to hearing her speak in Sacramento this week). In the meantime, though, here are some links to what I think are a few thought-provoking reviews of it: Education Week has a nice round-up, including many links to a variety of
Guest Post: Teaching Fifth Graders About A “Growth Mindset” & “The Brain As A Muscle”
Matthew Becker is a fifth grade teacher in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He taught two of the lessons in my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves, and has written this short guest post about his experience. You can also find more information about those topics at The Best Resources For Showing Students That They Make Their Brain Stronger By Learning and at The Best Resources On Helping Our Student
This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Good Articles & Posts On Education Policy
Here are some relatively recent good posts and article about education policy issues: Forever young: the new teaching career is by Mike Rose. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles Raising Concerns About Teach For America. There Joel Klein goes again… is by Richard Rothstein, and is an excerpt from his commentary on a recent NY Times article on computer tablets (see Two Important Quotes F