8 Strategies for Teaching Academic Language "Change your language and you change your thoughts." -- Karl Albrecht Understanding Academic Language Academic language is a meta-language that helps learners acquire the 50,000 words that they are expected to have internalized by the end of high school and includes everything from illustration and chart literacy to speaking, grammar and genres within fields. Think of academic language as the verbal clothing that we don in classrooms and other formal contexts to demonstrate cognition within cultures and to signal college readiness. Where to Start It would be a mistake to think that academic language is a garbage pail category involving any word, depending on the context. If you are new to incorporating academic language into your lessons, a good place to begin is with Tier 2, high-frequency, general instruction words (such as paraphrase, summarize, predict and justify) that learners need to know for completing an activity, but that are not a lesson's primary learning objective. 1. 2. 3.
Teachers: How Slowing Down Can Lead to Great Change Sometimes, in order to gain perspective on a situation, I imagine myself zooming into outer space and looking down on whatever is going on. From a distance of thousands of feet above whatever craziness is happening I can see more clearly and determine the actions that are available for me to take. Over the last few years, I find myself frequently zooming out of education world I'm in attempting to gain perspective. From my vantage point somewhere in the stratosphere, here's the image that often comes to mind: I see whirling, spinning educators crashing into each other, spinning off the map, and creating all kinds of unintended destruction. The craziness has got to stop. What's at Stake? I'll cite data, because the clamoring for data never ceases: We, in public schools, are unable to retain effective teachers or those who show signs of becoming effective teachers. It's time to slow down. A Paradigm Shift Needed
8 Idioms to tell someone to “shhh” or be quiet Do you ever have the need to tell someone to be quiet? In some situations, you might have to tell people to quieten down and stop talking just before someone is about to speak (in a presentation, a meeting or conference) or a play is about to start in the theatre. In those instances, you would politely ask people to stop talking. However, there are many more situations when you don’t want to politely ask the person or people to stop talking, especially if they have really annoyed you or you are fed up with the noise they’re making or the things they are saying. In which case, the idioms below would come in extremely useful! It’s a lot easier to be polite than impolite in a foreign language no matter how proficient you are in that language. So, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to use these idioms naturally especially when angry, impatient or irritated. And what better way to do this than to share this fabulous infographic prepared by Kaplan International. Kaplan International English 2.
Schwa Fire 50 "Best Practices" for language teachers 50 “Best Practices” For Language Teachers “It’s a funny thing. The more I practice, the luckier I get.” - Arnold Palmer Through practice and experience teachers get better. Here are my 50 suggestions for being the best teacher one can be. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. More ….. 9. 10. More ….. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. More ….. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. More …. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Here are a few other posts related to “being a great teacher”. What makes great teachers great? It’s the small things that count. The 7 deadly sins of new teachers Read more with these articles and resources. Join the conversation at
Académie française : Dany Laferrière, vu de France Photo : Georges Seguin / CC2.0 «Voilà une décision qui fera plaisir à la Belle Province.» Dany Laferrière est maintenant immortel. L’écrivain québécois né en Haïti a été élu à l’Académie française dès le premier tour du vote, avec 13 voix sur 23. Il prendra place au fauteuil numéro 2, siège autrefois occupé par Alexandre Dumas fils et Montesquieu. Nul n’est prophète en son pays, dit-on, mais depuis l’annonce, les éloges pleuvent — de la part de la première ministre du Québec, Pauline Marois («C’est un grand honneur pour nous»), du ministre québécois de la Culture, Maka Kotto («J’éprouve un mélange de fierté, d’admiration et de reconnaissance pour ce que vient d’accomplir Dany Laferrière») ou encore du président haïtien, Michel Joseph Martelly («Dany, Haïti est fière de vous !»). En France, l’auteur de Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer est connu et apprécié. Cet écrivain-là n’est pas le premier germanopratin venu.
How to Start a Great Writing Center As a high school student at Brimmer and May, an independent school in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, I spent many helpful hours in the writing center. Rather than line edit my work with the all-intimidating "red pen" (a badge of honor for many teachers), talented staff members posed deep, prodding questions to help me realize how I could improve my prose, structure, and analysis. I'm excited about returning to my alma mater next year to teach history and serve as the school’s writing center director. To gain better insight into how to do my job well, I recently reached out to Prof. Richard Kent, director of the Maine Writing Project (a site of the National Writing Project), and author of A Guide to Student-Staff Writing Centers: Grades 6-12. In assuming my new position, I'm keeping the following points in mind. 1. A writing center is a place for all writers of all abilities, and writing center tutors are often writers of all abilities themselves. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Engaging today's learners Hello Edutopia community friends! I have thought a lot about student engagement in the 31 years I have been teaching teens. How about you? In fact, I would say this is one of the most intriguing questions for inquiry I have investigated, while at the same time never thinking that I have arrived at an ultimate conclusion beyond this: I still have work to do to engage my students! There are a bunch of resources right here on Edutopia to consider. One of my other favorite resources is ASCD. Today's teens are not so very different from the past. Let's not stop there, however. We'd love to hear from you! Cheers, Don ______________________________________ Don Doehla.
Authentic video in the classroom: Ireland II | Elisabeth Horn My second example of utilising authentic video in the EFL classroom is based on the same 50-minute travel video as my first. Of course, one can apply this to any video, but this time I will stick with Ireland. How I do it now will, however, differ from my last post because now I’ll concentrate on the language and vocabulary awareness in detail (but I wouldn’t use both methods on the same video in the same class, though). This approach is, however, associated with a lot of painstaking preparatory work for the teacher, because transcription of the video material needs to be done, at least for some of the clips. It takes about 1 hour to take down 5 minutes of video material, so one needs plenty of time to get a complete transcript. I rather enjoy transcribing videos and sound; oddly enough I experience the process as relaxing, especially if there is no deadline approaching. The “game board” that the students start out with looks like this: 1. 2. 3. 4A Road bowling 4B Janus the fertility god
courrier_oif Togo. Abdou Diouf a reçu le Président Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, Président du Togo, le 15 novembre au siège de l'OIF à Paris. Le Président togolais a exprimé sa reconnaissance pour l'accompagnement par l'OIF du processus de consolidation de la démocratie, notamment lors des élections législatives de juillet 2013. Il a également évoqué la question sécuritaire préoccupante dans la sous-région de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Le Secrétaire général a, pour sa part, encouragé les autorités et acteurs politiques togolais à intensifier leurs efforts pour privilégier le dialogue en vue de la consolidation de l'État de droit. Costa Rica. CIO. CPI. Conseil de l’Europe. AIMF. APF.