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Content Type: 1
Title: TED-Ed Lesson about the Poetry of Pablo Neruda
Body:
Your InterCom editor loves the poetry of Pablo Neruda. Here is a TED-Ed video, shorter than five minutes, about the poet, along with lesson resources: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/romance-and-revolution-the-poetry-of-pablo-neruda-ilan-stavans
Source: TED-Ed
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Title: Name Games
Body:
From https://srtadepping.blogspot.com
Here are three games that you can play with your Spanish students at the beginning of the year so that you can all learn each others' names: https://srtadepping.blogspot.com/2019/07/name-games-for-first-day-in-spanish.html
Source: Señorita Depping
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Content Type: 1
Title: New English Course on USA Learns
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We highlighted the USA Learns website a few years ago (https://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/content/22843); the site is an excellent resource for adults learning English. As Larry Ferlazzo recently pointed out (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2019/07/16/usa-learns-one-the-best-online-tools-for-learning-english-gets-even-better/), the site has expanded with a new course for beginning high / intermediate low learners, English 1 Plus. Learn more about this and other free online English courses at https://www.usalearns.org/free-online-english-courses.
Explore the entire USA Learns website at https://www.usalearns.org/
Source: USA Learns
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Content Type: 1
Title: Exploring Personal Philosophies with “This I Believe”
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From https://www.compellingconversations.com
Eric H. Roth writes, "What are your core beliefs? More importantly, what are your students’ core beliefs? How can you help English language learners improve their listening skills while exploring their own personal philosophy?
"Using radio podcasts and personal essays as tools in the English classroom often suit this purpose. However, finding authentic and compelling listening materials may prove challenging for many English teachers. This I Believe remains a favorite resource and speaking skills activity.
"...A radio program originally hosted by legendary American journalist Edward R. Murrow and resurrected in the mid-2000s by National Public Radio, This I Believe features a variety of brief, personal essays – in both audio and writing – from a diverse range of contributors. Each essay deals with the author’s 'core beliefs that guide their daily lives,' according to the podcast’s website."
Read the full blog post for more information about the podcast and a worksheet that students can use to respond to This I Believe segments: https://www.compellingconversations.com/this-i-believe-class-activity
Source: Compelling Conversations
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Content Type: 1
Title: New Website: The English Channel
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From https://theenglishchannel.britishcouncil.org/
The English Channel is a new website from the British Council which presents interactive videos aimed at improving English and career skills. Explore the site at https://theenglishchannel.britishcouncil.org/
Source: British Council
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Title: Amikumi App Lets Users Find People to Speak Languages With
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The Amikumi app allows users to find others in their area who are using or want to practice the same language. In addition to facilitating meet-ups, it also has a public social feed function in different languages. Originally developed for Esperanto speakers, the app still has more participation in this language than in many others, but it supports a wide variety of languages.
Learn more about this app on the Amikumi website: https://amikumu.com/
Read a review of this resource at https://www.fluentin3months.com/amikumu-review/
Source: Amikumi
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Title: Spaced Repetition Apps
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A year and a half ago (https://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/content/24104), CASLS Research Director Linda Forrest summarized three strategies for deep learning and memory: spaced or distributed learning, retrieval practice, and elaborative semantic processing.
She describes spaced learning (or spaced repetition) as follows: "Study sessions are distributed across time instead of being crammed into a single session. Students can do this on their own by using brief, but frequent, study sessions. Teachers can encourage this type of study by recycling vocabulary and giving frequent cumulative low-stakes quizzes or practice exercises that focus on the most recent materials but include items from all materials studied so far. Research has shown that re-studying material after about one week produces superior long-term retention as compared to cramming."
Spaced repetition is an area where technology has stepped in in really helpful ways. For example, online flashcard apps use spaced repetition, quizzing people more frequently on the items they struggle with and bringing old words back into play from time to time. Here are some resources for spaced repetition:
Here's an article from Quartz summarizing the value of spaced repetition and overviewing several online apps, including Anki, Tinycards, Memrise, iKnow, and Pleco: https://qz.com/1211561/how-to-learn-a-language-use-spaced-repetition/. Here's another article about spaced repetition from Fluent in 3 Months: https://www.fluentin3months.com/spaced-repetition/.
The Leitner system is a spaced repetition system that uses paper flashcards and different boxes or stacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system
Anki is free, popular (so there are a lot of existing decks of cards that you can use), and simple to use. It's available at https://apps.ankiweb.net/, and you can read a recent review at https://www.fluentin3months.com/anki-cards/
Tinycards is a Duolingo product that uses spaced repetition: https://tinycards.duolingo.com/
Memrise, like Anki, is very popular (so there are lots of existing decks that you may find useful), and it's easy to use: https://www.memrise.com/
Source: Various
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Title: Global Projects at Teachers' Guide to Global Collaboration
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From https://www.globaledguide.org/about
With the support of the Longview Foundation, iEARN-USA has compiled an online Teachers’ Guide to Global, Collaborative Teaching and Learning. This guide, an update to the Exchange 2.0 guide, is an unbranded, user-driven resource for teachers looking for projects and resources to collaborate with other classes around the world.
Projects include global art exchanges, a set of 55 multimedia Mandarin Chinese lessons, interviews with kids, and more.
Explore projects that are especially applicable to world language classes at https://www.globaledguide.org/subject/world-languages
Source: Teachers' Guide to Global Collaboration
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Content Type: 5
Title: New Publication On Hashtags and Digital Games in an L2 Context
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The Annual Review of Applied Linguistics recently published CASLS Director Dr. Julie M. Sykes’ article “Emergent Digital Discourses: What Can We Learn from Hashtags and Digital Games to Expand Leaners’ Second Language Repertoire?”
In the article, Sykes synthesizes work related to hashtags and digital games in a second language context and examines digital discourses as both the content and context as part of learners’ multilingual experiences. She begins by situating the discussion on digital discourses, reviewing relevant work addressing interactional patterns in each context, and then applying findings to second language teaching and learning. Sykes describes a framework, giving concrete examples, for learner exploration of digital discourses as part of their language learning experiences.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Content Type: 4
Title: Gameplay to Empower Spontaneous Language Use
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For learners to engage with language in the wild, they need to develop a series of critical skills and dispositions - noticing, sorting, analysis, subjectivity, and awareness (see this week's Topic of the Week). This activity is designed to use gameplay to help learners engage in said skill development.
Objectives
Learners will be able to:
- Identify and evaluate communication strategies that they employ during gameplay.
- Connect the communication strategies used during gameplay to spontaneous language use in the wild.
Mode(s): Interpersonal
Procedure
- Discuss communication with the class. Ask that they answer the following questions:
- How do you know communication has been successful?
- How do you know when communication has been unsuccesful?
- What strategies (e.g. mitigation) do you use to ensure communication has been successful? Repair when it has been unsuccessful?
- Explain to learners that they will put their communication skills to the test in a game, One Night Ultimate Werewolf (https://www.fgbradleys.com/rules/rules2/OneNightUltimateWerewolf-rules.pdf). In this game, everyone has a secret identity, one or two players are werewolves, and the other players try to figure out who they are.
- Go over the rules with learners briefly.
- Let the learners play through once so that they get comfortable with the mechanics. (Note: You will need to download the free app or read from the script.)
- Have the learners play again. Ask them to pay attention to the communication strategies they used during the discussion.
- Debrief the experience by having learners note:
- How they analyzed language and used that information to make choices in what to say/how to say information.
- Their reasoning for choosing to communicate in the way that they did.
- The impact of what their language choices had on their fellow interlocutors.
- Then, discuss how their notes relate to in the wild, spontaneous communication. Have learners make a list of the skills and communication strategies they noticed and used on the board. This list will be their “In the Wild” tool kit.
Notes: Learners may find the practice of updating their “In the Wild” tool kit at regular intervals throughout their language study.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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