| Return to Worksheets for Learning Languages Resources for the Personalized Business Class (and other EFL classes) Make some suggestions! Newspapers Nytimes.com Sun-sentinel.com Miamiherald.com Others: _______________ Radio WLRN 91.3 FM Morning Edition (7-10 a.m.) Diane Rehm WAMU radio 10-noon Slate (12-1 p.m.) Talk of the Nation (2-3 p.m.) BBC “The World” (3-4 p.m.) All Things Considered (4-6 p.m.) Marketplace Radio News and Notes Fresh Air, Interviews with Terri Gross (after 8 pm) These times might change. See www.WLRN.org TV Channel 2, public TV, News at 5:30 p.m. Lou Dobbs on CNN CNBC for business news Web sites for business www.Slate.com Magazines Psychology Today Discover magazine National Geographic Fortune Business Week Forbes Others: _______________ Books about Idioms Books about Phrasal Verbs Others: _______________ Grammar Web Sites Esl.about.com Others: _______________ Ipods (podcasts) Health tips Nutritional supplements Yoga and stretching Metabolism (Doyou have suggestions?) Others: _______________ How to make a web page on Geocities.com Follow the steps shown on www.oocities.org/countries2001/instruction Or listen to a student who knows how to use oocities.com What should I put on my web page? It’s fun to put photos. You can also put your opinions on www.world66.com (a place to describe different places) or at www.virtualtourist.com The Power of One Person If you want to use English to reduce misunderstanding and to increase the amount of pride in the world, please visit www.BuildingInternationalBridges.com You can write an email message to A student from Iran: Maysam Maysam_s@yahoo.com He lives in Miami and visits his country each year. Do you have questions about Teheran? Saudi Arabia Sammy Sshnifi2001@yahoo.com He lives in Riyadh and he is one of my former students. Return to Worksheets for Language Learning Other activities Pens Glue Why do we use color and photos in a language class? : www.afriendofmalawi.com/ jw03.htm http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/English/images/class/nantan-class_language02b.jpg To capture the attention of the right brain. To encourage students to walk around the room. To create the atmosphere of a marketing office. Tell us about your fabulous city. Jokes Sell us your city. Puzzles (how did that woman survive the fire on the island?) Make the class interesting for the right side of the brain. Spontaneous, Unexpected. F O O D Yummy Grammar and Vocabulary can be connected to peace and sustainability. Let’s discuss traditions in other countries Rigor, Relationships, Relevance, Perspective (classmates, people, planet), Responsibility, Interconnections. … Tell me about a beautiful place in your city. You can interrupt any session to ask a question. Interesting books. Hmm… read a few pages and then perform your understanding about the pages that you read. ---------------- Students can download mp3 recordings (for iPods). Here is an example of one possible collection of topics: Science Friday Making Science Radioactive -- With Host Ira Flatow Science Friday Home Page from National Public Radio with host Ira Flatow Science Friday Kids' Connectiontm -- in association with Kidsnet June 11, 2004, Hour One: The Sleepy Brain -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Program Summary You’re getting sleepy. Your eyes close and your brain closes up shop for another night—to catch up and rest, right? Maybe not. There may be a lot more going on in your brain while you’re sleeping than you ever dreamed. From elephants to frogs to flies, every animal needs sleep to survive. But why? New research shows that sleep seems to play an important role in learning. You can actually get better at certain tasks--not necessarily by simply practicing--but by getting a good night's sleep after you learn them. That’s something to sleep on since we, on average, spend about one-third of our lives being asleep. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Guests Guilio Tononi, professor of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Links and Resources National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Brain Basics Understanding Sleep National Sleep Foundation Society for Neuroscience’s Sleep and Learning -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Discussion: Why do we sleep? What happens if we don’t sleep? How does a bad night's sleep affect you? How is sleep important to learning? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Activities Wake up!. Pfizer’s Brain—The World Inside Your Head is brimming with lesson plans on the brain, from general information to the senses, reflexes and memory; Spying on Sleep where students keep a sleep journal and analyze the outcome; and Deciphering Dreams where they keep a dream journal and correlate their findings with events in their lives. Zzzzzzzz. What Is Sleep and Why Do We Do It? from Neuroscience for Kids is a good general overview of sleep, covering such topics as the stages of sleep, REM and the restorative process of sleep. Sleep and Dreaming Experiments are activities that students can do on their own to discover their own sleep patterns as well as observing sleep patterns in others. Up all night. In Getting Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed Every Day? from the NY Times Learning Archives, students explore the very real problem of sleep deprivation in teenagers and how it affects their behavior during the day. They analyze their own sleep patterns, evaluate the impact of being better rested and brainstorm ways to create more time in their schedules to sleep. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Academic Content Standards, Grades 6–8 The following standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 3rd Edition produced by the Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning in Aurora, Colorado. McREL is a nationally recognized, private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving education for all through applied research, product development, and service. Science Standard 5: Understands the structure and function of cells and organisms Benchmark: Knows how an organism's ability to regulate its internal environment enables the organism to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment Benchmark: Knows that organisms can react to internal and environmental stimuli through behavioral response (e.g., plants have tissues and organs that react to light, water, and other stimuli; animals have nervous systems that process and store information from the environment), which may be determined by heredity or from past experience Science Standard 11: Understands the nature of scientific knowledge Benchmark: Understands the nature of scientific explanations (e.g., use of logically consistent arguments; emphasis on evidence; use of scientific principles, models, and theories; acceptance or displacement of explanations based on new scientific evidence) Benchmark: Knows that all scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change and improvement in principle, but for most core ideas in science, there is much experimental and observational confirmation Science Standard 12: Understands the nature of scientific inquiry Benchmark: Knows that there is no fixed procedure called "the scientific method," but that investigations involve systematic observations, carefully collected, relevant evidence, logical reasoning, and some imagination in developing hypotheses and explanations Benchmark: Understands that questioning, response to criticism, and open communication are integral to the process of science (e.g., scientists often differ with one another about the interpretation of evidence or theory in areas where there is not a great deal of understanding; scientists acknowledge conflicting interpretations and work towards finding evidence that will resolve the disagreement) Benchmark: Knows that scientific inquiry includes evaluating results of scientific investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical and mathematical models, and explanations proposed by other scientists (e.g., reviewing experimental procedures, examining evidence, identifying faulty reasoning, identifying statements that go beyond the evidence, suggesting alternative explanations) Benchmark: Knows possible outcomes of scientific investigations (e.g., some may result in new ideas and phenomena for study; some may generate new methods or procedures for an investigation; some may result in the development of new technologies to improve the collection of data; some may lead to new investigations) Benchmark: Designs and conducts a scientific investigation (e.g., formulates hypotheses, designs and executes investigations, interprets data, synthesizes evidence into explanations, proposes alternative explanations for observations, critiques explanations and procedures) Behavioral Studies Standard 3: Understands that interactions among learning, inheritance, and physical development affect human behavior Benchmark: Understands that all behavior is affected by both inheritance and experience Technology Standard 3: Understands the relationships among science, technology, society, and the individual Benchmark: Knows that science cannot answer all questions and technology cannot solve all human problems or meet all human needs Benchmark: Knows ways in which technology has influenced the course of history (e.g., revolutions in agriculture, manufacturing, sanitation, medicine, warfare, transportation, information processing, communication) Benchmark: Knows that technology and science have a reciprocal relationship (e.g., technology drives science, as it provides the means to access outer space and remote locations, collect and treat samples, collect, measure, store, and compute data, and communicate information; science drives technology, as it provides principles for better instrumentation and techniques, and the means to address questions that demand more sophisticated instruments) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About the Science Friday Kids Connection Each Friday afternoon, National Public Radio program host Ira Flatow brings newsworthy reporting and special guests together during two hour-long segments, broadcast live from 2-4 pm ET. A listing of stations carrying the program can be found here. If you cannot tune in live, you may listen online to programs found here at no cost. Beginning in October 2002, the Kids Connection debuted as a teacher-friendly educational component. It offers discussion ideas, activities, selected resources, and related science standards. These link programming to the classroom curriculum and are designed to help teachers freshen and energize the required curricula in middle schools. Used together, educators can make Talk of the Nation: Science Friday their weekly backgrounder, and the Kids Connection a springboard to curriculum enhancements, extra credit projects, or an accelerated learning program. Choose the ideas that best suit your students. Curriculum correlations in the Kids Connection are posted approximately one week following the original broadcast. Links in the Kids Connection were live at the time of posting. We regret that some links may not remain active. Science Friday Kids Connection curricula are produced by KIDSNET, a national resource for children's electronic media. Science Friday Kids Connection Staff: Lynn Brunelle Arna Cohen Peg Kolm, Editor To contact us about the Science Friday Kids Connection, please write scifrikids@sciencefriday.com. Most of us need a little humor • What exactly is an "unfunded mandate?" A night on the town with a guy who has no money. • Some Steven Wright one-liners: o I know a frustrated photographer who is trying to get a closeup of the horizon. o I know a frustrated inventor who is trying to figure out how to make dehydrated water. o Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone. When I came back the entire area was missing. o I had to stop driving my car for a while. The tires got dizzy. o The other day I saw a man with a wooden leg, ... and a real foot. o When I woke up this morning my wife asked "did you sleep well?" § I said, "no, I made a few mistakes." o I was walking down the street when all of a sudden the prescription for my eye-glasses expired. o I just bought a microwave fireplace. § You can spend all evening in front of it in only eight minutes. o I finally managed to get some powdered water, but I do not know what to add. o I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking: if they left earlier, they wouldn't have to go so fast. o I went to the General Store, but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific. o I was born by Caesarean Section, but you really can't tell, ... except that when I leave my house, I always go out the window. o Do you think that when they asked George Washington for his ID that he ever just whipped out a quarter? o Ever notice how irons have a setting for PERMANENT press? ... I don't get it. o What is another word for Thesaurus? o Why to ballerinas always stand on their tip-toes? § Why don't the producers just hire taller dancers? o I was hitch-hiking and a hearse stopped. I said, "no thanks, I'm not going that far." o I had a friend who was a small claims court jester. o [Of a glass of water]: I mixed this myself ... two glasses of H, one glass of O. o I hated a friend's dog, so I put little contact lenses on him with pictures of cats. He chases crazily everywhere now. Then I took one out, and he ran in constant circles. I threw him a boomerang to catch. o I met an older woman the other day wearing pierced hearing aids. o I know a guy who has one of those circular driveways. He can't get out. o I bought a blank tape the other day. Then I went home and put it on my stereo and turned up the volume to full blast. § Soon there was a knock at the door. § My obnoxious neighbor was there to complain. § ... He's a mime. § ... So I used a silencer. o I went to a toy store and asked to see the toy train schedules. o While driving the other day I saw a sign: "next rest area 25 miles." § Wow, that's pretty big, I thought. A lot of people must get tired around here. o Tinsel is really snake mirrors. o Snakes have no arms. That is why they do not wear vests. My grandfather told me that. He also made me stand in a little room, face the door and be absolutely silent for three minutes. We had to do it every day. He called it elevator practice. o The only reason I exist is because my shadow needs something to do. § I fired my last shadow: it wasn't doing what I was. o I was walking in the woods and saw a rabbit by a candle making shadows of people on a nearby tree. o My friend has a big chest full of all the erasers from all the world's golf pencils. o My other friend was arrested for counterfeiting pennies. § He got the heads and tails on the wrong side. § He's in a minimum security prison. § He wears a whiffle ball and chain. o Hermits have it easy; they have no peer pressure. o There is a fine line between fishing and standing in cold water up to your hips looking like a jerk. o My friend has an answering machine on his car phone. § It says. "I'm at home just now. I'll call you back when I'm out." o I live on a one-way, dead-end street. I don't know how I got there. o I made some wine the other day from raisons ... so it would be automatically aged. o I stopped at a tourist information booth and said, "so, tell me about somebody who visited here last year." o I bought an ant farm. I don't know where I am going to get a tractor that small! o I bought a decaffeinated coffee table last week. You can't tell by smelling it or looking at it. o This kills me: sponges grow in the ocean. Can you imagine how much water would be there if that was not so. o It is hard for me to buy clothes: I am not my size. I am extra medium. o I was driving down the street the other day at 100 miles an hour. § The cop asked "why?" § So I told him. § I had my foot to the floor. It causes more gas to flow through the carburettor. That makes the engine go fast, which makes the wheels really go. o It doesn't matter what temperature a room is. It is always room temperature. o What if birds were tickled by feathers. o On an application form where they ask who to notify in case of an emergency, I always put "the doctor." What is my Mother going to do? o I wanted to get a whole-body tattoo. ... of me. ... only taller. o I bought a second-hand diary the other day. o My girlfriend asked me if I could know how and when I would die would I want to know? I said "no." § She said, "well, forget it, then." o I stepped out for a walk. My girlfriend asked how long I would be out. I said, "the whole time." |