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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
Duolingo Opens Up Premium Content For Free, But It Won’t Help Schools Since They Won’t Sign Student Data Privacy Agreements
Duolingo is great, and students love it to practice on their own. Duolingo is now giving free users access to advanced learning content. Unfortunately, most teachers still can’t incorporate using it in their classroom since the company won’t sign Student Data Privacy Agreements. That’s a deal-breaker for most districts in the United States. But it does open up greater learning possibilities for the most motivated students who’ll use it on their own time.      I Really Like This Game Called “Ripple” Where You Have To Connect Historical Events With Their Consequences
I’ve previously posted about many online games that challenge you to put historical events in the correct chronological order. Those can be a lot of fun to play in class, and reinforce memorization of events and dates. The game Ripple, though, challenges players to think. Its instructions shown in the above image tell you how it works. It seems to me it could be projected on a front whiteboard, and then students could play in teams with mini-whiteboards.  This Idea Of Beginning Lessons With A “Micro-Inquiry” Is A Good One, & I Like This Free AI Tool Designed To Create Them
I saw a post on LinkedIn by Olivia Odileke about the idea of beginning lessons with what she called “micro inquiries.” My impression is that they might be similar to interactive “Do Nows” that are assigned by experienced teachers (The Best Resources For “Do Now” Activities To Begin A Class), as opposed to just ‘one-and-out” questions students have to answer as warm-ups. Some might disagree with that characterization, though. I was especially impressed, though, with a free AI tool she created that is supposed to come up with these micro-inquiries. Spark Curiosity Coach is a good piece of work. I have generally been unimpressed with what AI tools generate as lessons, but I appreciated what this AI came up with as I experimented with it. The questions it asks teachers to answer in preparation were good ones. I wonder if part of the difference in quality might lie in the fact that it’s just generating a very short mini-lesson/do now with narrow parameters instead of being asked to create an entire lesson? If I was still teaching in the classroom, I’d definitely use it now-and-then to get ideas. And I’d recommend that any new or newer teacher try using it regularly.  Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL
Eight years ago I began this regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention. You might also be interested in all my Best lists on teaching ELLs. Also, check out A Collection Of My Best Resources On Teaching English Language Learners. In addition, look for our latest book on teaching ELLs, The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox 2.0. Here are this week’s choices: How to Teach Vocabulary, Step-by-Step is from The Barefoot TEFL Teacher. What Makes an Aural Text Challenging? – The Eight buckets of listening difficulty and their implications for listening instruction is from The Language Gym. How the ‘Science of Reading’ Can Support English Learners is from Ed Week. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Balanced Literacy & The “Reading Wars”
ELL students could watch this video and then talk/write about what they saw:
DRAWING WITH WORDS…LITERALLY is from ELTcation. Do separate language classes help refugee children succeed in school? is a blog post at From Experience To Meaning about a new German study questioning the effectiveness of separate classes for refugees. It suggests that those classes end up negatively affecting their acquisition of the target language because they miss out on opportunities to talk with native speakers. The study is focused on early elementary students. I believe some studies in the US have had similar findings for that age group though, of course, some pullout times would make sense for newcomers. I don’t think the findings are applicable to high schools, though. There, schools are under a legal obligation to have ELLs on a graduation track, and there’s a lot to catch students up in a very short period of time, especially if they are SLIFEs and have missed schooling in their home countries. From Teacher-Led to Learner-Driven: 6 Ways to Strengthen Student Voice is by Maria Theologidou. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Student Agency & How To Encourage It. Highlight Translator lets you “Turn any webpage into your personal language classroom. Highlight text for instant translations, then review as interactive flashcards.’ Investing in Teachers of Newcomer Students: Making the Optimal Possible is from The Internationals Network.  “What Drains Teachers’ Energy and How to Stop It? ‘It Was Never the Kids'”What Drains Teachers’ Energy and How to Stop It? ‘It Was Never the Kids’ is the headline of one of my recent Education Week columns. Teachers reveal what drives them from the field and what leaders can do to improve teachers’ lives. Here are some excerpts:
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