Being an English Language Learner

Check out this short film, Immersion, which gives us a great view into what our students’ worlds might be like.  Definite food for thought about what some of our students are going through.

 

Deciphering Dying Languages

Here’s another story from this morning’s NPR.  Here’s the gist; creating computer programs to run linguistic analysis on unknown languages to determine commonalities, and possibly using this software to categorize some of the world’s dying languages.  Really interesting stuff!

http://www.npr.org/2014/09/30/352661301/certain-english-errors-may-decipher-clues-to-dying-languages

Kids and Screen Time

Heard this on NPR this morning; very interesting stuff about the impact of switching screen time for face time… couldn’t embed the audio, but follow the link.  It’s well worth it!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/09/30/351521488/kids-and-screen-time-cutting-through-the-static

Palestinian Dabke

The “Dabke” is a traditional dance found throughout the Middle East.  It’s often performed during a time of celebration, such as a wedding or the celebration of a birth.  Here we see the dabke performed at a Palestinian wedding…

 

Language, Meaning, and Connotation

This podcast, from PRI’s “The World,” discusses how different languages talk about pregnancy and the possible implications of word choice to talk about pregnancy.  Extremely interesting stuff….

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-04-14/language-pregnancy-seems-pregnant-meaning-it

Non-native Language Teachers

Here’s a video from Steve Kaufmann, via our Georgetown class discussion.  Brings up some great points about non-native English speaking teachers.

Myths About Bilingual Children

Thanks to Sarah Carey!

 

Mapping Cultural Differences

From Harvard Business Review…

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/a-tool-that-maps-out-cultural-differences/

and here…

http://hbr.org/infographic/2014/04/comparing-management-cultures

 

Cross-Culture Communication

This is a bit more business focused, but some of the main ideas remain the same…

http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/Cross-Cultural-communication.htm

 

Lunar Eclipse Myths From Around the World Many cultures view the disappearance of the moon as a time of danger and chaos

From Dr. Broady’s ESL blog…

Lunar Eclipse Myths From Around the World Many cultures view the disappearance of the moon as a time of danger and chaos.