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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
Sentences Of The Week geralt / Pixabay
I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful. Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful. And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education. I may also include my own comments or related links. This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts. Here are this week’s sentences: Be curious rather than angry when a parent, student, or staff member does or says something you don’t like. See Leading With Inquiry, Not Judgment and “Be Curious, Not Judgmental” As he observes to a fellow dog, “There’s no other place but here.” As much good work as I’ve done teaching multiple generations of students in Clarksdale, Mississippi, I think the next frontier for me, and maybe for all teachers, should be policy. The most pro-Trump counties suffered nearly 70,000 more COVID deaths than the most pro-Biden counties did. Data obtained by Chalkbeat from GoGuardian, an education software company that provides institutions tools to block and restrict certain webpages, shows that the rate of sites blocked in its gambling, betting and fantasy sports category has increased nearly 30% since the company started tracking in 2022, from a low of 13.48 blocks per 1,000 students to 17.4 this year. See The Best Resources For Using “Reactance” With Students To Help Them Learn About How Corporations Try To Manipulate Them Freedom, by their definition, appears to mean that we are all more exposed to more disease and premature death. California’s new budget clarifies which college degrees teacher candidates can use to meet credential requirements, creates a statewide system to review teacher transcripts and increases the cost to renew a teaching credential to help pay for it. Teacher candidates pursuing a single-subject credential must have a degree in a subject related to their credential. What would we do if we treated all our kids like they were all of our kids?” These papers find that even students who don’t excel in high school often stand to gain from attending college. Dennis Ross, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy who served presidents of both parties, said that “the Iranians seem to understand us better than we understand them.” And so far, what we have around here is a bunch of gelatinous blobs.
     The Best Resources For Using “Mediation Activities” With English Language Learners Reubens_Stock_Photos / Pixabay
I recently learned a new term used in English language teaching – “mediation activities.” It’s used to basically describe any activity where students have to explain something to someone else. Certainly, teaching classmates (see The Best Posts On Helping Students Teach Their Classmates — Help Me Find More ) and jigsaws(see THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE JIGSAW INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ) fit that bill, but there are lots of other activities that would, also. It’s a very interesting – to me, at least – way of looking at lessons. It’s basically challenging students to “make meaning” for someone else. It could even be just rephrasing or summarizing for someone else. Here are some resources to learn more about it: Mediation: The What, Why & How Explained is from Emily Bryson. Mediation in the ELT Classroom is from HLT Magazine. Mediation skills in the English language classroom is from Cambridge. Three ways to start encouraging mediation skills with your learners is from Cambridge. MEDIATION: What it is, how to teach it and how to assess it. is also from Cambridge. Mediating a Text: A Practical Guide to Task Creation is from MacMillan. How To Help Your English Learners Develop Mediation Skills is from Oxford.    Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL
Ten 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: Finish the picture is a nice lesson plan from On The Same Page ELT. Voices of Resistance: Multilingual Identity Formation Through Translanguaging in Dual Language Bilingual Education is a new study. Six Simple Logic Puzzles for English Class is from Six Things. ‘My grandmother never talked to me again’ is from The Future is Bilingual. I’m adding it to The Best Resources Explaining Why We Need To Support The Home Language Of ELLs,
Songs and Movements Towards Enriching English Vocabulary of Second Language Learners is a new study. I’m adding it to The Best Music Websites For Learning English. Helping every learner access the world: reading support for EAL students through adaptive teaching is from The GA Blog. If Conditionals Were People: Humanising Grammar Through Creativity Part 1 INTEGRATING PODCASTS TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN ELT CLASSROOM is actually a study of the use of dictogloss. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning How To Use The Dictogloss Strategy With English Language Learners. Bruno Mars ESL Lesson (B2): a 2026 Hit Inspired Narrative Simulation is from Song Activity Factory. ELL students can watch this video and then talk/write about what they saw:   Research Studies Of The Week Mohamed_hassan / Pixabay
I often write about research studies from various fields and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature. You can see all my “Best” lists related to education research here. Here are some new useful studies (and related resources):
Math Pathways Evidence Hub is from The Annenberg Institute. Does something crack in secondary school? A large meta-analysis on student engagement is from Experience To Meaning. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On Student Engagement. Research Bite #53: A Meta-analytic Review of the Effectiveness of Spacing and Retrieval Practice for Mathematics Learning is from Tips For Teachers.
 Excellent Series Of Reflective Questions For Students & Teachers Alike Alexandra_Koch / Pixabay
At the end of last year, The New York Times published 7 Questions to Ask Yourself for a Happier New Year. It’s worth reading the entire piece. In fact, if I was still teaching, I would pose one question a day as a “warm-up,” and also ask students to read the accompanying paragraph or two from the article. Here are the questions: What is worth remembering from 2025? [of course, you can delete “2025” and replace it with “this past semester”] When did you feel the most joyful and carefree? What gave you energy — and what drained it? What seemed impossible — but you did it anyway? What habit, if you did it more consistently, would have a positive effect on your life? What did you try to control that was actually outside your control? Is there anyone you need to forgive in 2026? [again, you can replace “2026” with whatever period of time you wanted]
As long as students were given the option of sharing or not sharing, I think these could be very useful. I’m adding this info to The Best Resources For “Do Now” Activities To Begin A Class.  More Recent Articles |
