Partnership Blends Science and English Proficiency
“Science can be a nexus for learning English for ELLs because it provides a natural setting to learn a language,” said Okhee Lee, a professor of childhood education at New York University and a researcher on English-learners and science. “Engaging ELLs in these practices merits special attention, because such engagement can support both science learning and language learning, but unfortunately, instruction in U.S. classrooms has not tended to bridge the two.”
photo via flickr:CC | MIKI Yoshihito (´･ω･)
Global demand for English-speakers grows
The number of English-speaking teachers working in international schools has topped 300,000 for the first time, with that number expected to grow to more than half a million in the next 10 years, new figures have revealed.
According to ISC Research, the demand for English-speaking schools abroad will cause the number to nearly double again to an estimated 11,300 by 2022, employing a predicted 529,000 teachers and teaching around 6 million students. Based on annual fee income, the international school market is bringing in £20.8 billion every year, with that figure expected to rise to £30 billion in 10 years’ time.
photo via flickr:CC | UK in Italy
Grammarians in Hoodies
Grammar instruction has been mocked and marginalized for decades, partly because the rules were too cold and unfeeling. Lately, the rules have been making a bit of a comeback. Educators are starting to believe that English grammar, even with its quirky rules, is far better than nothing, after they’ve seen the results of nothing. The SAT added grammar questions to its format in 2005 in response to pressure from college administrators. Parents have begun to push for more English language instruction. The NCTE has softened its position, and now we see a growing number of teachers bringing grammar, the forgotten spinster of school subjects, back to the party.
“In the work force, grammar will be as important as this training of analyzing literature,” says Ms. Bassett. “[These students] are not going to be paid in 20 years for analyzing literature. They’re going to be paid to present something to their company.”
photo via flickr:CC | the_munificent_sasquatch
Using John Hunter’s World Peace Game as a model, one teacher reflects on her challenges with student learning groups and details how appointing team CEOs worked in language arts.
world-shaker:
hisnamewasbeanni:
kate-literally:
UQ Arts has a new thing that they’re starting next year called Essays Exposed, which will be an online resource to help students write better. An entire dedicated Blackboard for more coherent writing: I DIE.
This was one resource that I really liked on my quick look through- I was given a similar resource in high school and I still write essays on this formula.
Thought the teaching/students (read: 90% of tumblr) might be able to use this.
Please excuse the font.
Graphic exerpt from: ‘A visual guide to essay writing’, (2007), by Valli Rao, Kate Chanock & Lakshmi Krishnan. Association for Academic Language & Learning (AALL), Sydney. The full guide is available online at - http://www.aall.org.au/sites/default/files/documents/essayWritingVisualGuide.pdf
Well, this is just excellent.
That’s pretty cool (not just the graphic—the fact that they’ve built an entire Blackboard course for everyone).
(via adventuresofastudentteacher)
Guide: Tying Common Core and English-Proficiency
As school districts forge ahead in putting the common academic standards into practice, many states are still revising or creating new English-language-proficiency standards to spell out for teachers the sophisticated language skills that their English-learner students will need to succeed with the rigorous new academic expectations.
To help states with that task, the Washington-based Council of Chief State School Officers late last month released a detailed set of guidelines created by English-language-learner experts and some of the lead writers of the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and mathematics, as well as the Next Generation Science Standards.
Identifying persuasive language, teaching pupils to identify spam scams
I gave a class of twelve year olds a selection of genuine spam emails and asked them to write down what their replies to these would be. It mostly purported to be from a distressed Nigerian monarch living in exile looking for a friendly Briton to share a fortune with. Some of the kids quickly twigged and wrote sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek responses. But a few of them seemed genuinely intrigued and happy to enter into correspondence; others tried to negotiate the terms to make more money. It was this naivety and innocence that I wanted to address in the pupils. They had to become aware of dastardly tricks.
photo via flickr:CC | Vince_Lamb
New Study Uncovers If Texting Actually Affects Grammar
If you’re worried that your students or children are eroding their vocabulary due to texting, you may want to sit down. Thanks to a new study in New Media & Society, it appears that students who text on a frequent basis perform worse on grammar tests.
The study examined sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in Pennsylvania. S. Shyam Sundar, who supervised the study, says the reason students perform worse on grammar tests is because texting is not actually a different language. It therefore works its way into the classroom, homework, and all facets of language.
In other words, texting too much can cause students to think this shorthand is a proper way to write.
photo via flickr:CC | Stitch
Ready by Design: A College and Career Agenda for California
California’s public schools have some of the strongest content standards in the country. Yet many students who have come through the state’s school system are failing placement examinations when they get to California colleges. Instead of taking college-level English courses, they are shunted off into remedial classes.
When a group of high school educators met with their local universities to address the problem, they found a surprising explanation. The students had excelled at what they were taught. But what they were taught had very little to do with what those students would need when they entered college.
“Students weren’t prepared for college because their high school English classes were teaching them something entirely different from what the college expected them to learn,” say Bill Tucker and Anne Hyslop in a new Education Sector report.
High-res
![Grammarians in Hoodies
Grammar instruction has been mocked and marginalized for decades, partly because the rules were too cold and unfeeling. Lately, the rules have been making a bit of a comeback. Educators are starting to believe that English grammar, even with its quirky rules, is far better than nothing, after they’ve seen the results of nothing. The SAT added grammar questions to its format in 2005 in response to pressure from college administrators. Parents have begun to push for more English language instruction. The NCTE has softened its position, and now we see a growing number of teachers bringing grammar, the forgotten spinster of school subjects, back to the party.
“In the work force, grammar will be as important as this training of analyzing literature,” says Ms. Bassett. “[These students] are not going to be paid in 20 years for analyzing literature. They’re going to be paid to present something to their company.”
photo via flickr:CC | the_munificent_sasquatch](http://24.media.tumblr.com/5fb3508135b1db636f048a079f4f1723/tumblr_mizvvlswtV1qc17oko1_500.jpg)
