Language Smörgåsblog

High tech companies squabble over who has rights to which word. Sigh.

New studies indicate that a language is lost every 3 months and that 50% of the world’s languages are in danger of extinction. V sad.

Why do we use elongations like “soooooooo” and “yessssssssssss” in email and texting? Interesting article.

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/03/dragging-it-out/309220/

How and why tribal languages have disappeared forever from the world. What that loss means to all of us—losing a unique way of understanding human experience.

I’m a sucker for fun new words. How can you not like lolz or yolo or ridic?

world-shaker:

The Top Five Essential Reads for Teachers

I’ve included one of them below. What would you add to the list?

1. Visible Learning for Teachers: John Hattie

John Hattie has developed a global wealth of research in order to provide evidence for what works in education. The findings are fascinating and thought-provoking: strategies like homework are exposed, whereas strategies like formative feedback are heralded. The motto of the book is ‘know thy impact’ and it explains there is no ‘silver bullet’ answer, but that we must approach our teaching with passion and ‘deliberate practice’, focusing in upon the evidence of what works for our students. Don’t be put off by the statistical analysis or the science of a ‘meta-analysis’ - even this English teacher got a hang of the numbers! ‘Visible Learning’ – the original Hattie text, for which he has based this sequel – was rather grandly labelled “the Bible” in one review,  but it really is a seminal work. A must read!

Give this a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sng4p3Vsu7Y

Your accent has an enormous impact on people’s perception of you.

http://mashable.com/2012/07/17/collins-crowd-sourcing-dictionary/