Principals who remember ths little touches know how to motivate this teacher

Look at the star I received from my principal.

She also underlined the importance of asking a student, "How can I help?"

She sent us an article that emphasized that our job as teacher is not "what can I teach today."... it's "How can I help you today?"   A child who is hungry doesn't need a bold new worksheet.

The article also emphasized global skills.

So it might mean more opportunities to talk to students about how they can use Skype in their homes to practice being BIB Penpals.

Students can go on www.BIBPenpals.com and learn how to become conversation assistants over Skype for Jair da Silva Filho, a teacher in Brazil.  Here's a sample video.

Let's ask seniors in Mexico to give conversation Spanish lessons to our kids in Florida who are not yet fluent in Spanish

If you have an ounce of teaching experience in your blood, don't you want to implement a similar program immediately?   Contact me for some suggestions.

LINK TO THE STORY
VisualAndActive@gmail.com

A similar program is www.BIBPenpals.com

"They light up like Christmas trees" ... Teachers: Ask students to work on another language. If the student speaks five langues, what will be that student's sixth language? Here are some comments by the owner of a Language Learning software company.

Here's what I wrote about www.BIBPenpals.com

There are four billion people on the planet who want to speak with the American accent.  They want to practice speaking English.  If you walked into a language school in France or in India, and said, “I’m here to volunteer two hours a week to help a local person with their accent,” you would be embraced by most language schools.  You could meet dozens of people who would want you to help them with their accents.   This is a program that I’ve encouraged in Fort Lauderdale to introduce U.S. teenagers to people from other countries.

Here's what the Language Expert (Wes Green) wrote to me:

Now that's interesting. I know, for example, that only British (or International) English is taught in schools in the EU for political reasons. And, if fact,

The creator of this language company
wrote these comments to me

it is widely taught worldwide. Of course, with advances in technology—social media, increased access to foreign papers, TV shows, etc.—many of the distinctions between the two "dialects" are now starting to disappear. Still, British English continues to "box above its international weight."  But ironically, I always tell people that obsession with accent can be a distraction when learning a foreign language. As adults, most people are simply incapable of mastering a foreign accent. "Learn the lexicon," I always say. "Learn the syntax and grammar fundamentals." And most importantly, "Learn to intuit." As a non-native speaker, there will always be words you don't understand. So learn to guess intelligently, based on context." You don't need to know 12,000+ words needed for 95+% comprehension. Two-three thousand will work just fine as long as they're the words people use most often—the core lexicon. You'll probably guess the correct meaning of the other 20,000+ words in a well-educated native speaker's lexicon 80% of the time." As for accent, it's usually a vanity. Like bodybuilding—meant to impress. Yes, you need to be fit. And yes, you need to be intelligible to other speakers of your foreign language. And yes, good impressions can come in handy when, say, applying for a job. But as far as being able to communicate, you don't usually need to flex linguistic quads. Still it's true: I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody has said to me, " You know, people have told me I have a native French/German/Italian accent." It's an international avatar of sophistication. For what it's worth, I always compliment non-native speakers who have good accents. They light up like Christmas trees.

Language Learning and Social Skills are important, too -- MyLanguageExchange is an important site for connecting to other cultures

http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/

If you are interested in promoting skills in students, then BIBPenpals and http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/ are places to visit.   Look at this helpful menu.

I recommend this system for finding people to interact with (in addition to Facebook and Skype).   

New City School in St. Louis is a treasure: Look at this insightful newsletter (Geography contest for all students)

ONe of the great schools in the USA is New City School.   I vivisted the school in April 2006 and interviewed the principal, Thomas Hoerr.  He writes a column for one of ASCD's journals.

Here's an item that I found in a recent newsletter that the school sends home each week.

From Laurie: For the sixth consecutive year, all 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students participated in the New City Geography Bee. The students compete in teams, first in their classrooms and then in a school-wide bee. The teams work together to answer a series of questions that progressively become more difficult. This year's winning team was from Linda's sixth grade block 2 class and included Emily Hirshman, Eyvind Hovmand-Warner, Allison Ryan, and Corbin Runge. Congratulations to all the students who competed!

I wrote the following note to the principal:

As a high school teacher, I applaud students who can tell me 

1.  the second and third cities of France, India, Germany, China and Australia.   

2.  Name five cities in Brazil.  

3.   Name four rivers in Europe

4.  What languages are spoken officially in Switzerland, Brazil and Canada?  

5.  Name a large city near Rheinfall.

6.  How many countries share Mont Blanc?

7.  Name the countries that share the largest waterfall in South America?

8.  What countries border on Afghanistan?

9.  Name at least three languages that are spoken in Kenya and India.   (That is a vaguely worded question).

How about laterai thinking puzzles?

1. Brain Food: Realistic Lateral Thinking Puzzles - RinkWorks
   www.rinkworks.com/brainfood/p/latreal1.shtml‎
2. Lateral Thinking Puzzles, unlike most puzzles, are inexact. In a sense, they are a hybrid between puzzles and storytelling. In each puzzle, some clues to a ...
3. Lateral Thinking Puzzles - Preconceptions
4. www.folj.com/lateral/
5. Lateral thinking puzzles that challenge your preconceptions. 1. You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop ..

I'm not worried about spelling -- that's what spellcheckers are for, but when my international students meet my high school students (I teach ESOL to kids form Europe in summer school and then invite my high school students to interact with the international students), my high school students shine...  "We thought that U.S. students didn't know geography!" (say the students from Italy).  

Bravo to your school for a focus on geography.

Can you send some Geography questions in your next letter home?

Steve THE EBOOK MAN McCrea

theebookman@gmail.com

Founder, BIBPenpals.com

A service connecting teens across cultures

I hope you have an opportunity to visit or at least visit virtually NewCitySchool.org

www.YourNetImpact.com can assist teenagers in using social media to "have an impact"

I posted a series of photos and someone clicked "LIKE"... so I should return the favor.  I bumped into a website of appreciation:

a blog called http://ilikephotoblog.wordpress.com/

So -- of course -- I clicked and left a comment on one of the photos that caught my eye.   Thank you, Mac (the author of the blog).

Then I wrote to the person the following note:

If you have a particular type of travel you like, let me know.   

I'm a high school teacher and I have a website called  WWW.YourNetImpact.com and I'm trying to get my students to realize that they have impact with their facebooking and tweeting,  social and political impact...   so why diminish themselves by limiting their social media time?   Some of my students say, "I have only 5 minutes to check on what my friends are doing and to upload my photos, then I have to get back to homework."  or  "Social media is a real time drain.  I don't have time to be in virtual worlds, there is so much to do in the real world."

but what about getting important videos and websites more visibility?   A click on Jennie Hinde's A-newdawn.org could highly her organization's efforts to improve the lives of orphans.    By not clicking, "LIKE", my students are denying their friends (who are on facebook) the privilege of learning about Jennie's group.  When the friends of my students hear about Jennie's work, won't they want to click LIKE , too?    and that's the cycle of "Your Net Impact."   The impact of students on the Internet can add klout to people like Jennie in addition to Justin Bieber and Ellen degeneres and Lady Gaga.    

anyway, i greatly appreciate seeing your LIKE and I hope I can return the click ...  tell me a LIKE that I should do in return.

Where can I put my next LIKE to have some net impact?

Thanks for your list of interesting photos   nice blog .. it's an example (for my students) of having "net impact" and sharing what you think is significant with others.   bravo

If you would like to see Mac's photo blog, click here

macatwp@gmail.com and write to mac.