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Title: Young Writers Program for National Novel Writing Month
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From https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/pages/our-program
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. The challenge: draft an entire novel during the month of November. Participants begin writing November 1 and must finish by 11:59 PM on November 30.
This year there is a new website for the Young Writers Program. The word-count goal for the adult program is 50,000 words, but the Young Writers Program (YWP) allows 17-and-under participants to set reasonable-but-challenging individual word-count goals. The program helps K–12 educators facilitate NaNoWriMo in schools, libraries, and community centers around the world. They provide virtual classroom spaces on the site, as well as student workbooks, Common Core-aligned curricula, and free motivational materials.
Access the youth website at https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/.
Learn more about the program at https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/pages/our-program and at http://d1lj9l30x2igqs.cloudfront.net/nano-2013/files/2016/10/PressRelease2016v5.pdf, and read reviews of this resource at http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2016/10/resource_watch_nanowrimo.html and at http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2016/10/31/young-writers-program-looks-like-an-excellent-online-site-to-assist-student-writing/
Source: NaNoWriMo
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Title: Websites to Learn about Veterans Day
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Here is the latest updated version of Larry Ferlazzo’s curated list of resources dealing with Veterans Day, which is this Friday, November 11: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/11/11/the-best-websites-to-learn-about-veterans-day/
Source: Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
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Title: Backgrounder: Refugees from Syria
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From http://www.cal.org/enews/cal-news-october-2016.html
This Refugee Backgrounder provides resettlement communities with basic information about Syrian refugees. It includes a brief guide to Syria’s history, people, and cultures and looks at the current crisis in Syria and conditions faced by refugees.
Download this free publication at http://www.cal.org/resource-center/publications/refugees-from-syria
Source: CAL
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Title: Four Ways ESSA Will Change How Schools Serve ELL Students
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4 ways ESSA will change how schools serve ELL students
The Every Student Succeeds Act creates several new requirements for English learner equity
by Tara García Mathewson
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, first passed in 1965, is at its heart a piece of civil rights legislation. Its whole purpose is to provide federal funds to states and districts to overcome disadvantages faced by students who have traditionally fallen through the cracks or been intentionally ignored.
In the latest rewrite of the law, which turned No Child Left Behind into Every Student Succeeds, there are some key provisions that shift the way schools will have to identify, serve, test and report information about students who do not speak English.
In four categories in particular, schools will have to make significant changes.
Read the full article here: http://www.educationdive.com/news/4-ways-essa-will-change-how-schools-serve-ell-students/428266/#.WAvBltfz7HA.twitter
Source: Education DIVE
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Title: Beyond Gap Fills: Variety of Ideas for Using Songs
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Here is a nice collection of ideas for using songs in class that goes well beyond gap fills and songs for particular grammatical structures: https://myeltbrewery.wordpress.com/2016/10/17/beyond-gap-fills-using-songs-to-learn-a-language-why-how-and-which/
Source: ELT Brewery
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Title: Resources for Learning Geography
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From http://cristinaskybox.blogspot.com
Here is an annotated collection of resources for learning about geography: http://cristinaskybox.blogspot.com/2016/11/where-in-world-awakening-geography.html
Source: ChristinaSkyBox
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Title: Activity Idea: Information Gap Picture Card Game
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From www.spanishplayground.net
Here is a game that stresses interpersonal communication, requires very little prep, and can be used with students of nearly any age: http://www.spanishplayground.net/spanish-information-gap-game/
Source: Spanish Playground
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Title: Activity Idea: Post-It Votes
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Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell describes a favorite activity that she does with post-it notes - students vote on their favorite answer to a particular question. This activity can be adapted in all sorts of ways to all different levels.
Read the blog post at http://musicuentos.com/2016/10/post-it-votes/
Source: Musicuentos
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Title: Blog Post: In Defense of the “Flashcard”
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From http://leesensei.edublogs.org
Colleen Lee writes, “I notice flashcards talking some ‘heat’ on #langchat these days. ‘Not communicative’, ‘no real purpose for learning’ etc. say the tweets. Mention the word in a tweet and watch your feed light up. Well…I like ’em. Yup I do. I use them a lot in my classes. I have flashcards sets for almost every unit in my Year 1 and 2 classes. However it is how and when I choose to use them that makes me okay with that…”
Your InterCom editor happens to carry a set of small flashcards with her in her wallet wherever she goes. Read Ms. Lee’s full post to see how she and her students use paper flashcards: http://leesensei.edublogs.org/2016/10/28/in-defense-of-the-flashcard-or-yes-i-use-them/#.WBovFdzHs5Q
Source: Language Sensei
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Title: Leading the Charge for Equitable Access for Marginalized Learners: Language Educators and New Approaches to Learning
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by Stephanie Knight, CASLS Language Technology Specialist
World language educators have the distinct honor of preparing all students, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds, for participation in an increasingly globalized world. Ideally, learners develop a creative skill set, a problem solving skill set, and a communication skill set as they participate in this preparation. While all of these skill sets are cultivated across subject areas, world language educators are credited with providing learners with an incredibly tangible skill-the ability to communicate in more than one language. This skill not only requires lexical and grammatical competencies, but also emphasizes the development of intercultural and pragmatic competencies as critical. In a world in which computer-mediated communication erases the barriers of distance and time, the development of language proficiency is important for the active participation of all people within the global society.
Still, the potential of world language education is limited by the issue of access. This most obvious presentation of this issue is the lacking variety of languages that are available to student learners. Educative institutions in the United States generally valorize European languages over other more widely-spoken languages. For example, in 2013, only 64 post-secondary students were enrolled in Bengali courses in the United States, though almost 193 million people speak the language globally (Friedman, 2015). When this systemic preference is coupled with other issues such as the fact that less than one percent of American adults indicate proficiency in the world language or world languages that were studied in school (Friedman, 2015), the issue of access becomes self-perpetuating. Quantities of proficient world language teachers are insufficient to meet learner needs, and fewer learners are likely to become teachers than is necessary given the relative lack of access to education. In educational institutions with insufficient funding to fill in the gaps created by the aforementioned issues, the effect of limited access is palpable.
Nevertheless, language educators have the power to alleviate some of the strains put on schooling through the systemic issues already outlined. Jones (2016) cites the work of Colclough (2012) writing, “From the Chicago Public School system to the slums of Jakarta, locations of predominately minority groups get the runt of educational quality” (p. 861). This reality presents a hurdle indeed, but the hurdle is not insurmountable. Instead it emphasizes the critical nature of cultivating new approaches to language learning that are more relevant to learners’ cultural contexts. By extension, educators must value and utilize the informal learning experiences that their learners engage in when cultivating classroom tasks. The specific classroom strategies employed to utilize these experiences should not be overly westernized. Instead, Jones (2016) makes the call that practitioners and researchers document learning strategies employed by marginalized communities so that educators may appropriate them in the educative context. This appropriation should be collaborative in order to be authentic, and then educators may succeed in recontextualizing the backgrounds of learners, no matter their socioeconomic levels, as valuable springboards into the attainment of new knowledge and skill sets. The relatively high levels of intercultural competence that many world language educators enjoy make world language educators well-positioned to lead this charge.
References
Friedman, A. (2015). America’s lacking language skills. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/05/filling-americas-language-education-potholes/392876/.
Jones, A. H. (2016). The discourse of language learning strategies: Towards an inclusive approach. International Journal of Inclusive Education. 20 (8). 855-870.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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