I investigated TESOL, an online organization

TESOL, which stands for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, is an organization that caught my attention. I'm always on the lookout for programs that will help me in my quest to become an outstanding bilingual teacher. This organization caters to the teachers of ESL and those that want to help new Americans succeed in this country. I was drawn to an article which was asking for support for a new bill which is aimed at assisting K-12 and adult ESL students. The bill was called the Strengthen and Unite Communities with Civics Education and English Skills Act of 2009 (HR 3249/S 1478). I for one am in support of this bill. Anything that will help new Americans learn English in a positive manner must be supported. The House of Representatives and The Senate should really think about approving this bill. Immigrants are here regardless, so in order for them to be more productive members of society they must acquire our language in a supportive way. I support any effort to provide assistance to ESL students (child or adult). I will encourage my group members to view this online organization. It's a keeper!;+)

I visited www.fno.org

I checked out an educational technology journal called: from now on (fno). It was filled with links to interesting topics like up-to-date workshops on technology, e-books, educational activities, and my favorite subject, poetry. Under the poetry section there was an endless list of poetry by a writer named Jamie McKenzie. I read several poems, but my two favorites were "Standing Tall" and "Sweet Surrender." "Standing Tall" was about the late civil rights leader Martin L. King. It was very inspiring and heartwarming to read this poem. It would be a great poem to read to our students during Black History Month in February. The other poem, "Sweet Surrender," was a short love poem that I found fasinating. I'm a true romantic and I really enjoy poetry. Hopefully one day I will inspire my students to love it as well.;+)

I examined edutopia.org

I went to the educational website edutopia.org and reviewed some wonderful articles on education. One article was really interesting it was a special report called, The Multiple Intelligences Redefine "Smart". This article was talking about how before it was assumed that you were intelligent only if you had the ability to reason and understand complex ideas or scored off the charts on an IQ test. Howard Gardner established seven separate human capacities that essentially determined that everyone has at least one natural aptidude. This gave hope to many teachers who knew that an IQ test could not determine exact intelligence or aptidude. Even though it is still debated, we can utilize Gardner's research to use the talents of our students in the learning process. We are all good at something and learn in different ways, which is why Gardner's ideas make sense to teachers. I enjoyed the article and will let my fellow classmates know about it so they can enjoy it as well.:+)