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Monday, February 3, 2014

2-3-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL:








School Sets Dance For Straight-A Students – Some Others Can Come Later & Hundreds Not At All
A Maryland high school is planning a dance for students with high grades — students with lower grade get to come later, 300 students with the lowest grades don’t get to come at all. Read all about it in The Washington Post story, Straight A’s = dancing: Grade celebration questioned by some (see the excerpt from it below). I’m not an absolute strict believer in not having public recognition of acad

Newsmart Looks Like A Great Site For High-Intermediate & Advanced ELLs
Newsmart uses articles from the Wall Street Journal to promote learning English as a second language. It’s a slick site, and it’s free. Users pick an article, and then there are color-coded portions in it for vocabulary and grammar. Click on it, and you are given a question about the in-context grammar or vocabulary issue. You then accumulate points and badges. I’m adding it to The Best Websites
Video: “Coke’s Wild Assertion That Other Languages Exist Stirs Controversy” Says Borowitz Report
Check out the tweet (and column) from the always funny Borowitz Report, along with a video of the ad: Coke's Wild Assertion That Other Languages Exist Stirs Controversy http://t.co/GrMYYhi6Qf — Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport) February 3, 2014
Video: “Sophie’s Choice”
I’m sure most IB Theory of Knowledge teachers use this famous and terrible scene from Sophie’s Choice when discussing ethics and moral dilemmas. However, I realized I never posted it on this blog, and thought it might be useful to others (and to me) to have it here:


A Collection Of #EvaluateThat Tweets
The BATS have started a great campaign — #EvaluateThat. Check out a few of them below and tweet out your own! [View the story "A Collection Of #EvaluateThat Tweets" on Storify]
My Latest NY Times Post For ELLs Is On The Olympics
My latest New York Times post for English Language Learners is on the Winter Olympics and using picture dictation in the classroom. It includes a student interactive and teaching ideas. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games. You can see all my weekly NY Times posts here.

YESTERDAY

Quote Of The Day: “The Dangers of Certainty”
The Dangers of Certainty: A Lesson From Auschwitz is an excellent (though somewhat meandering) column in today’s New York Times, written by Simon Critchley. I think it relates a lot to what I’ve written about teaching and “school reform” in a Washington Post piece titled The importance of being unprincipled. I’ll also be using in my IB Theory of Knowledge class — I always begin the course by shari


Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Week… 2-2-14 …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EF
Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: From The Archives: “Developing Teacher Leadership for the Long Haul”I’ve recently re-started an effort I’ve tried to do previously by regularly highlighting previous posts and articles I’ve shared in previous years that I think might be worth a second look. I gave a keynote to last year’s K-12 Online Conference on developin