Reimagining the School Day

Reimagining the School Day

This article posted on the US Department of Education site was very interesting news to read. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke about the fact that a few schools in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee are going to add 300 hours of instructional time to the academic calendar. I would love to see what they classify as "instruction and enrichment". I think that the addition of these hours would only be valuable if planned the right way. 300 additional hours of seat time may not be something that will truly help the students. I hope that by the description of "enrichment activities" that it will include more opportunities for field trips and hands-on activities where students get to interact with what they are learning. These are things that get cut in the traditional school year and are sometimes some of the most memorable and meaningful activities students participate in throughout their academic careers. I hope to read more about this in the future.

Ideas for ELL's Celebrate the Holidays

Ideas for ELLs in Celebrating the Holidays

This article was posted at just the right time. Even though the ideas are for English Language Learners they can definitely be applied to the world language classroom as well. It has ideas on how to get students to share their own personal traditions and cultures. It even gives the idea of having the students use technology, like Fotobabble, to share their stories and pictures with their peers. I could have students each pick a country and create a presentation based on their traditions and beliefs. There are links to other NY Times articles to supplement the lessons. This can be used in any class that has ELL students as a way to help them share with the other students in the class as well as develop language proficiency.