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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
How To Teach About The Evil Acts Of Cesar Chavez?
I’m sure that many students, particularly Latino students, are having – and are going to have – questions and concerns as they learn today’s news about Cesar Chavez’s multiple acts of child and sexual abuse. You’ll find links to resources about today’s news, along with posts I shared about it on BlueSky. I’m not in the classroom anymore (outside of my volunteer tutoring). However, if I was, I think I’d try to make this a lesson about two things. One, the issue of abuse and what society did and does to pressure people (women, in this case) to remain silent. Here are some classroom lessons and materials that might be useful. Two, the dangers of putting anyone on a pedestal, and how any movement for social change depended on and depends on thousands of people to be successful and not any one person. Some of my previous posts on this topic might be helpful. One is “History does not move on the machinations of a select group of great people”. Another is “Idolizing Just One Person Undermines The Struggle.” A quote from that second post stands out:
Here are some resources about today’s news:
      SEL Weekly Update
I’ve begun this weekly post where I’ll be sharing resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources or other related “Best” lists. Also, check out “Best” Lists Of The Week: Social Emotional Learning Resources. Here are this week’s picks: Anxiety Toolkit has a lot of helpful tools. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Teens & Stress. It can be hard to shift out of negative thoughts, but there are ways to stop spiraling is from The Associated Press. I’m adding it to the same list.  SEL by Another Name? Political Pushback Prompts Rebranding is from Ed Week. A Smarter Way to Disagree is from The Harvard Business Review, and is much longer than it needs to be. The “meat” is in the final section, which highlights this guidance for disagreement: Signal a desire to learn. Acknowledge the other side. Find common ground. Hedge your claims. Share your story. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change.  NBA Coach Echoes Rita Person’s Famous Line About Teaching
The late Rita Person said a famous line in her TED Talk, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” And research backs that up (see According To New Research, Rita Pierson Was More Right Than Not When She Said, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.”). I was reminded of it when reading The NY Times piece, The 3 leadership lessons an NBA coach learned from billion-dollar CEOs. I highlighted a quote from it in the textbox that seemed to echo what Person said. I know some people are critical of those perspectives. I just wouldn’t want to take a class with, or coached by, them……  Here Are My Google Slides Sharing Each Day’s Plan For My ELL Newcomer Class geralt / Pixabay
In our book, The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide, we pretty much lay-out a full year’s plan for both Beginners and Intermediates classes. I was thinking today that readers might of might not find it useful if I shared revised versions of how that looked in my Newcomers class last year. I made a slide each day – not to show students, but to help guide me and to let peer tutors know what we’d be doing. The first slideshow is from last year. The second slideshow is from the previous year. I’m sharing this one because I might have stopped being very detailed in the last few months of last year’s slideshow because I knew I was retiring and wouldn’t be using it again. The third slideshow shows the last month of the school year when we would do a unit on stories. You can access all the handouts for it at Here’s My Entire ELL Beginners Seven-Week Unit On Writing A Story (Including Hand-outs & Links).
 In Many Ways, I Think “ESLvideo” May Now Be One Of The Best Examples For AI Education Use On The Web
I’ve been a longtime fan of the ESLvideo site (see A Forgotten (By Me!) Gem That Has Been Rediscovered (By Me & My Students): ESL Video). Prior to AI, students could watch videos and answer questions about them. Then, with the advent of AI, it really seemed to pioneer ways to use it with English Language Learners in its use of what they called “Chattybots,” AI features that allowed students to interact with them. As regular readers know, I’ve been out of the classroom since last June. I recently visited ESLvideo for the first time since then and was blown away by the advances they’ve made in the use of AI. Here’s what teachers can create (or use what other educators have made):
The image at the top of this post shows an image, and my interactive with the chatbot describing it. I never used tech much in my ELL classroom (see The Role Of Tech IN My ELL Classroom? Not Much, But That’s Not The Whole Story). However, tools like ESLvideo are great for students to use as practice at home, where few – if any – other people speak English. I’m adding this info to THE BEST POSTS ABOUT USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH ELLS.  More Recent Articles
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