charliesensei-blog

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This is a fantastic example of how to archive helpful English learning content across different social media networks and websites. I’m inspired to try and do the same!

What is your favorite learning resource above?

A

A vs. an

A lot vs. alot

A lot vs. alot vs. allot

A whole nother

Abided vs. abode

Abjure vs. adjure

Abstruse vs. obtuse

Acknowledgment vs. acknowledgement

Acronyms and initialisms

Acronyms and initialisms (making them plural)

Active voice vs. passive voice

Ad hoc

Addicting vs. addictive

Adopted vs. adoptive

Adverse vs. averse

Affect vs. effect

Afterward vs. afterwards

Afterward vs. afterword

Aid vs. aide

Aisle vs. isle vs. I’ll

Albeit

All but

All right vs. alright

All together vs. altogether

Allude vs. elude

Allusion vs. elusion vs. illusion

Already vs. all ready

Altar vs. alter

Although, even though, though

Alumna, alumnae, alumni, alumnus

Among vs. amongst

Amoral vs. immoral

Amount vs. number

Amuse vs. bemuse

An accident vs. on accident

Antennae vs. antennas

Anxious vs. eager

Anytime vs. any time

Anyway vs. anyways

Appraise vs. apprise

Apropos

Ascent vs. assent

Assume vs. presume

Assure, ensure, insure

Attain vs. obtain

Awhile vs. a while

[charliesensei-blog]

“Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.” ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Website | Twitter |  Instagram | Medium | Pinterest | Ko-fi | eBook

[charliesensei-blog]

I got an amazing haircut from the most talented craftsmen this side of the Mississippi.

[charliesensei-blog]

Solid Sound Festivals vs Enjoyment Quotient infographic by Jason Rezvan pinned to the MASS MoCA  Interactive Wilco Timeline located in Building 8, 2nd Floor. 28 June 2015.

[charliesensei-blog]

The Coral Cave - Mizuka in Tokyo

If you are in Tokyo, you can play the Coral Cave's demo (languages avalaible: Japanese, English & French) at the Institut Français. Our game and other French indiegames are displayed during the festival Digital Choc organised in several Japanese cities by Plaine Images and the Institut Français from February 13 to March 22.

Here is the map to access the Institut Français in Tokyo.

[charliesensei-blog]

Inspiration for all kids who like high school English class. You don't have to turn into a boring professor with elbow patches on a tweed jacket.

You can grow up and become a rapper who throws down so frigging hard the venue falls into the Chicago River like k.flay did last night at the House of Blues!! :)

feeling 💪 for tonight. chicago let’s do it

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[charliesensei-blog]

We had a wonderful Publishing Clearing House release event last night at Sullivan Galleries for our newest booklet: Chiraq and Its Meaning(s) by Project NIA. Thanks to Sarah-Ji Fotógrafa for taking these great photos of the event and to Mariame Kaba and Project NIA for an excellent collaboration. Copies of the booklet are available for purchase here.

[charliesensei-blog]

Check out my latest blog post recapping the work we have done in our COC TOEFL course!

[charliesensei-blog]

COC ESL 400 Spring Trimester 2014 Block 2 Week 3 Recap

Below is a recap of what happened this week in our COC ESL 400 Evening classes at The College of Chicago.

CORE We began the listening exercises from NorthStar Listening and Speaking 4, Unit 1 and went through pages 382 - 386 of Grammar in Context 2 on Superlatives and Comparatives. Our grammar studies were supplemented with a handout from the Summit 1 Workbook on repeated comparatives and double comparatives as well as comparison resources from the Mobile ESL website. During their time in the Lab students completed listening activities from elllo.org, including this one about “Chicago”.

NEWS HOUR This week we spent a lot of time on the first news article below and used the second mainly for vocabulary words for our News Hour quiz: Number of children in Japan at record low   (7th May, 2014) http://breakingnewsenglish.com/1405/140507-children.htm World helps Nigeria look for kidnapped girls   (11th May, 2014) http://breakingnewsenglish.com/1405/140511-nigeria-schoolgirls.html

EXTENSIVE READING PROGRAM ELECTIVE Students continued working through their self-selected graded English readers this week, putting entries in their reading logs and discussing what they'd read.

PAST LESSONS THIS BLOCK

Mon 28 Apr – Lesson 1

Tue 29 Apr – Lesson 2

Wed 30 Apr – Lesson 3

28 Apr – 1 May 2014 | Week in Review (Lessons 1 – 4)

Mon 5 May – Lesson 5

Tue 6 May – Lesson 6

Wed 7 May – Lesson 7

5 - 8 May 2014 - Week in Review (Lessons 5 - 8)

[charliesensei-blog]

COC TOEFL Spring Trimester 2014 Block 2 Week 3 Recap

Below are reviews of the past week of our COC TOEFL classes at The College of Chicago.

=== 12 May / Lesson 9 === A | Students worked individually to complete the Barron's Speaking and Writing #3 Simulations B | We reviewed the vocabulary words that will be on the next quiz and identified what quizzes certain students are missing and need to make-up C | Students practiced their TOEFL Speaking Skills as we drilled independent speaking prompts D | We reviewed Lesson 4 of the Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test, iBT Edition and did some more exercises from that lesson E | Students were given time to develop the handouts they will use later this week when they lead their own TOEFL Reading Skills Review Lessons === 13 May / Lesson 10 === A | Students individually worked on Cambridge TOEFL Reading Simulation #7 B | COC TOEFL Vocab Quiz 9.2 C | Reviewed Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test Lesson 4 and went through Lesson 5 D | Developed TOEFL Speaking section skills through prompt, drill and discussion E | Students worked individually on their survey project and TOEFL Reading Skills lesson handout === 14 May / Lesson 11 === A | Students took COC TOEFL Vocabulary Quiz 9.4 and then composed example vocab sentences for the words on Quiz 10.1 B | Students worked individually to finish Cambrige TOEFL Listening Simulation #7. C | Instructor led students as we went through Lesson 6 “Refernce Questions” of The Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test, iBT Edition (CGT). D | Student led a reviews of CGT Lesson 2 “Vocabulary Questions”. E | Developed students TOEFL Speaking Section skills with independent speaking question prompts where students individually answered them to the class and then afterwards they discussed eachother's answers. === 15 May / Lesson 12 === A | Students took COC TOEFL Vocabulary Quiz 10.1; composed example vocab sentences for the words on Quiz 10.2 and we then reviewed some of the recent quizzes. B | Students worked in two teams competing for the better score on a TOEFL Reading Simulation. C | Instructor led students as we quickly reviewed Lesson 6 “Reference Questions” and then went through Lesson 7 of The Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test, iBT Edition (CGT). D | Students led reviews of CGT Lesson 3 “Inference Questions” and Lesson 4 “Purpose, Method and Opinion Questions”.

Earlier Lessons in this Block

28 Apr 2014 | Lesson 1

29 Apr 2014 | Lesson 2

30 Apr 2014 | Lesson 3

28 Apr – 1 May 2014 | Week in Review (Lessons 1 – 4)

5 May 2014 | Lesson 5

6 May 2014 | Lesson 6

5 - 8 May 2014 | Week in Review (Lessons 5 - 8)

[charliesensei-blog]

Major reader extraordinaire! I wonder what the arrows mean?

David Foster Wallace’s annotated copy of Ulysses. [via]

[charliesensei-blog]

What We Did in Our Spring Trimester 2014 Block 1 TOEFL Lessons 1 - 4

Monday, the 10th to Thursday, the 13th of March Lessons 1 - 4

Students completed all 4 parts of the (Cambridge, 2006) TOEFL iBT Simulation Practice Test 5.

We read and discussed the beginning of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

We covered Factual and Non-Factual TOEFL Reading sections in our textbook (Heinle, 2007) textbook.

We finished the second Advanced Integrative lesson on Maker culture and 3-D priting.

Quiz on textbook Vocabulary Exercise 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Textbook: The Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test, iBT Edition by Bruce Rogers. Copyright © 2007 by Heinle, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4130-2303-9.  On WorldCat < http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/758604559 >.

TOEFL Simulations:  Cambrige Preparation for the TOEFL Test, Fourth Edition, Version 1.2a by Jolene Gear & Robert Gear. Copyright © 2006 by Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-521-75588-7. On WorldCat < http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/254175432 >.

Advanced Integrative Lesson Mr. D TOEFL Advanced/Integrative Lesson | Maker Culture and 3-D Printing in Schools and Libraries (Part 2 of 2). Copyright © 2014 by Charlie Danoff. Rights available under a CC Zero 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication < http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ >. Online at < http://dalab.cc/post/78391076601/ >.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899). Project Gutenberg Edition (2009, 2012). Public Domain. Online at < http://www.gutenberg.org/files/219/219-h/219-h.htm >.

COPYRIGHT Resources by others and external links are Copyright by the Rights Holders, All rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Blog Post Text Copyright © 2014 by Charlie Danoff < http://dalab.cc >. Rights available under a CC Zero 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication < http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ >.

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What We Did in Our Winter Trimester 2013 - 2014 TOEFL Lesson 15

The class recaps below are from the TOEFL course at The College of Chicago.

TOEFL WINTER TRIMESTER 2013 - 2014 BLOCK 4 WHAT WE DID IN LESSON 15 ON 6 MAR. 2014 RECAP a | 08:30 – 12:30 | Vocabulary Exercise #3 Quiz, Peer editing of student's essays, Student-teacher conferences on the prior day's full TOEFL simulation, Cuisine presentations b | 13:00 - 14:00 | Tour of the Chicago Public Library Innovation Lab seeing a maker lab and 3-D printers we read about the prior week in action; you can see pictures of the visit on our school blog here http://blog.thecollegeofchicago.com/2014/03/10/field-trip-to-harold-washington-library-about-3d-printing/ PREVIOUS LESSONS IN THIS BLOCK a | Winter Trimester 2013 - 2014 Block 4 Lesson 1 Recap & Homework http://dalab.cc/post/76249048633/ b | Lessons 2 - 5 http://dalab.cc/post/77102158510/ c | Lesson 6 http://dalab.cc/post/77217751839/ d | Lessons 7 & 8 http://dalab.cc/post/77726426824/ e | Lesson 9 http://dalab.cc/post/77847904036/ f | Lesson 10 http://dalab.cc/post/77928734726/ g | Lessons 11 – 14 http://dalab.cc/post/78697316114/

COPYRIGHT Resource by others and external links are Copyright by the Rights Holders, All rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Text Copyright © 2014 by Charlie Danoff (contact@mr.danoff.org)/Mr. Danoff’s Teaching Laboratory (http://dalab.cc). Rights available under a CC Zero 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

[charliesensei-blog]

What We Did in Our Winter Trimester 2013 - 2014 TOEFL Lessons 11 - 14

The class recaps below are from the TOEFL course at The College of Chicago.

TOEFL WINTER TRIMESTER 2013 - 2014 BLOCK 4 WHAT WE DID IN LESSON 11 ON 27 FEB. 2014 RECAP a | 08:30 - 09:45 | Quiz on Vocabulary Exercise #2, TOEFL Advanced Integrative “Lesson: 01 | Introduction to StoryCorps” b | 09:55 - 11:20 | Cambridge Practice Test 3 Writing simulation c | 11:30 - 12:15 | Continued working on “Lesson: 01 | Introduction to StoryCorps” d | 12:50 - 13:50 | Elective EXTRA STORYCORPS RESOURCES StoryCorps Lesson PDF http://cdn.storycorps.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Introduction-to-StoryCorps-1.pdf StoryCorps Website http://storycorps.org/ StoryCorps in Chicago http://www.wbez.org/series/storycorps Wikipedia Article About StoryCorps https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=StoryCorps&oldid=587702363 Podcast #1 from Class Animation of the Interview http://storycorps.org/animation/q-and-a/ Podcast of the Interview http://storycorps.org/listen/stories/sarah-and-joshua-littman/ Wikipedia Article About Asperger's https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Asperger_syndrome&oldid=593891805 Podcast #2 from Class Podcast of the Interview http://storycorps.org/listen/stories/blanca-and-connie-alvarez/ Podcast #3 from Class Podcast of the Interview http://storycorps.org/listen/stories/lourdes-and-roger-villanueva/ Podcast #4 from Class Podcast of the Interview http://storycorps.org/listen/stories/julio-diaz/ HOMEWORK 1 | Finish the final draft of your cuisine essay 2 | Write an independent essay[1] on students in a new school 3 | Read the TOEFL writing and speaking rubrics, then write a 1 paragraph summary of each (4 total) and upload it to your Drive folder 4 | Study for the Exercise 3 Quiz next Thursday 5 | Review the Exercise 2 Quiz you took today NOTE 1 | The prompt was taken from ETS https://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL/pdf/989563wt.pdf TOEFL WINTER TRIMESTER 2013 - 2014 BLOCK 4 WHAT WE DID IN LESSON 12 ON 3 MAR. 2014 RECAP a | 08:30 - 09:45 | Peer editing of students' writing they did over the weekend b | 09:55 - 11:20 | Advanced Integrative Lesson: Maker Culture & 3-D Printers c | 11:30 - 12:15 | Maker Culture & 3-D Printers continued d | 12:50 - 13:50 | Elective HOMEWORK (all due on Wednesday) 1 | Finish the Integrated Essay for the Maker Culture & 3-D Printer Lesson http://dalab.cc/post/78390732900/ 2 | Revise your cuisine essay and upload it to your Google Drive folder 3 | Finish your TOEFL Reading and Writing rubrics summary paragraphs and upload it to your Google Drive folder 4 | Revise the "Reading Tips" section of the "The College of Chicago Student Tips for the TOEFL Test" document we are going to finish it on Thursday to be published on the school website 5 | Study Vocab Exercise 3 in your textbook for the quiz on Thursday TOEFL WINTER TRIMESTER 2013 - 2014 BLOCK 4 WHAT WE DID IN LESSON 13 ON 4 MAR. 2014 RECAP a | 08:30 - 13:50 | Whole School Test (done bi-monthly to assess student progress) TOEFL WINTER TRIMESTER 2013 - 2014 BLOCK 4 WHAT WE DID IN LESSON 14 ON 5 MAR. 2014 RECAP a | 08:30 - 12:15 | Full TOEFL Simulation: Cambridge Practice Test 4 b | 12:50 - 13:50 | Elective HOMEWORK 1 | Finish the Integrated Essay for the Maker Culture & 3-D Printer Lesson http://dalab.cc/post/78390732900/ 2 | Revise your cuisine essay and upload it to your Google Drive folder 3 | Finish your TOEFL Reading and Writing rubrics summary paragraphs and upload it to your Google Drive folder 4 | Revise the "Reading Tips" section of the "The College of Chicago Student Tips for the TOEFL Test" document we are going to finish it on Thursday to be published on the school website 5 | Study Vocab Exercise 3 in your textbook for the quiz on Thursday PREVIOUS LESSONS IN THIS BLOCK a | Winter Trimester 2013 - 2014 Block 4 Lesson 1 Recap & Homework http://dalab.cc/post/76249048633/ b | Lessons 2 - 5 http://dalab.cc/post/77102158510/ c | Lesson 6 http://dalab.cc/post/77217751839/ d | Lessons 7 & 8 http://dalab.cc/post/77726426824/ e | Lesson 9 http://dalab.cc/post/77847904036/ f | Lesson 10 http://dalab.cc/post/77928734726/

COPYRIGHT Resource by others and external links are Copyright by the Rights Holders, All rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Text Copyright © 2014 by Charlie Danoff (contact@mr.danoff.org)/Mr. Danoff’s Teaching Laboratory (http://dalab.cc). Rights available under a CC Zero 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

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Wonderful song from "Shall We Dance" for ESL/EFL students to learn some of the odd pronunciation options for: either, neither, potato, tomato and more! You can read more about the movie on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shall_We_Dance_%281937_film%29

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02 | Mr. D TOEFL Advanced/Integrative Lesson | Maker Culture and 3-D Printing in Schools and Libraries (Part 2 of 2)

02 | Mr. D TOEFL Advanced/Integrative Lesson | Maker Culture and 3-D Printing in Schools and Libraries (Part 2 of 2)

See Part 1 http://dalab.cc/post/78390732900/

This lesson was prepared for the TOEFL course at The College of Chicago http://thecollegeofchicago.com/

LESSON OBJECTIVES

* Use contextual clues, dictionaries and the American English corpus to learn new vocabulary words * Read and take notes on an authentic American English article * Practice speaking skills, focusing on fluency and sustained speech for independent TOEFL Speaking questions * Practice note taking skills watching an authentic media video * Develop integrative writing skills connecting ideas from the reading passage and the video

SPEAKING WARM-UP

Directions | For all questions, prepare your response for 15 seconds and then speak for 45 seconds. Use reason and details in your response. 1 | 3-D printers will change the world. Do you agree or disagree? Why? 2 | Some people prefer to make things themselves, other people prefer to buy things. What do you prefer and why? 3 | What is more important skill for kids to learn today: how to memorize dates and facts from history textbooks or how to use computers to find the information they need. Why? READING 2 Hunt, Ryan A. "An Introduction to Maker Culture for Historians." Web log post. IVRYTWR. N.p., 27 Nov. 2013. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. http://ivrytwr.com/2013/11/27/an-introduction-to-maker-culture-for-historians/ Text released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ LECTURE 2 Public Libraries, 3D Printing, FabLabs and Hackerspaces | 25 Apr 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXlJ36x-q0 Copyright (C) 2012 by the mybluheaven YouTube Channel Video released the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ INTEGRATED ESSAY 2 Summarize the main points from the lecture, explaining how they illustrate the points made in the reading.

MORE READING

http://makerspace.com/ which has a free book on starting a makerspace available if you give them your e-mail you can download the companion document outlining costs of starting an in-school makerspace without giving your e-mail http://makerspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hsmakerspacetoolsmaterials-201204.pdf

COPYRIGHT Resource by others and external links are Copyright by the Rights Holders, All rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Text Copyright © 2014 by Charlie Danoff <contact@mr.danoff.org>/Mr. Danoff’s Teaching Laboratory <http://dalab.cc>. Rights available under a CC Zero 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>.