The Learning Network: What Words or Phrases Were Overused This Year?

The Learning Network: What Words or Phrases Were Overused This Year?: "Student Opinion | Tell us what words and phrases you heard too much in 2010, whether buzzwords, catchphrases from television, advertising, movies or songs, or just words that were used too often as conversational filler.

Sending ‘That’s so gay’ on Vacation – Permanently

Sending ‘That’s so gay’ on Vacation – Permanently:
The Ad Council of America and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) launched an ad campaign, “Think Before You Speak.” The ads challenges people to consider how hurtful their language can be when the identity of someone is used as an insult.

The Learning Network: 12 Ways to Learn Vocabulary With The New York Times

The Learning Network: 12 Ways to Learn Vocabulary With The New York Times

via NYT > Education by By KATHERINE SCHULTEN on 11/18/10

Twelve quick, easy and engaging ways to learn and practice new words by reading, viewing or listening to NYTimes.com.

NYTimes: A Dictionary of the Near Future

From The New York Times:

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: A Dictionary of the Near Future

A few new terms to encapsulate our present moment.

http://nyti.ms/cm3U0k

Could be a springboard to vocabulary work or literary analysis

Middleweb: VisuWords

VisuWords: "

If you're familiar with Visual Thesaurus, you'll have some idea of how the VisuWords online graphical dictionary displays information about a word or phrase you enter into the database. VisuWords uses color-coded connections to indicate relationships such as "is a part of" or "opposes" and parts of speech, such as "nouns", "verbs", or "adverbs". Mouse over synonyms to see pop-up definitions and an example of the word in a sentence. The no-membership-required website uses Princeton's WordNet dictionary and provides simple tips on how to get the most out of the display.

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Language and Thought (NYTimes / Radiolab)

Two very interesting pieces to consider about how language shapes and affects the way we live and who we are. Well, these pieces make it REALLY interesting. I think there are implications here for how we think about teaching, as well as a potentially good text during a language study.

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

BY GUY DEUTSCHER

The idea that your mother tongue shapes your experience of the world may be true after all.

RADIOLAB

Words

By Radiolab

August 9, 2010

It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without words. But in this hour of Radiolab, we try to do just that. We speak to a woman who taught a 27-year-old man the first words of his life, and we hear a firsthand account of what it feels like to have the language center of your brain wiped out by a stroke. Plus: a group of children invent an entirely new language in Nicaragua in the 1970s.

Read more. And watch the episode’s companion film from Will Hoffman and Daniel Mercadante.

Download MP3

"Words" Video from WNYC's Radiolab

This is a very cool three minute video that is called Words. Watch it. How might you use it?


WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.