"Long Division Style," a parody of PSY's "Gangnam Style" made by a Brooklyn teacher and her students. Go to related SchoolBook post  Each month we post a list of ideas for English Language Learners written by teacher and "edublogger" Larry Ferlazzo. Sometimes, like last month's on the presidential election, they focus on a timely theme, while others, like this edition, pull from a variety of Times content. The goal of all of our E.L.L. posts, however, is to suggest ways to make The Times accessible for a range of learners. Let us know if you have ideas, too. Times Videos Using Video Clips The Times's video page has a very useful search engine, and searching the word "clip" brings up many short clips from movies and television shows that can be effective with this simple strategy, adapted from the book "Zero Prep": Divide into pairs with one student facing the screen and the other with his or her back to it. Begin playing the movie without sound. The person viewing the screen tells their partner - in English - what he or she is seeing. After a short time, students switch their positions. When the video is over, students write and share a description of what they saw, and then everyone sees the entire video with sound For example, there's this segment from a Nickelodeon show called "Yo Gabba Gabba." Even better, The Times periodically has special video features that show multiple versions of similar scenes. "The Cinematic Chase" is a collection of famous chase scenes from the movies. Or, take a pop-culture phenomenon and do the activity "Gangnam Style..." Going 'Gangnam Style' At this point, most students will be familiar with the viral PSY video. The Times's "Gangnam Style, Original and in Imitation" brings together the original video version and many others, and you can also show the student-created "Gangnam Style" parody, "Long Division Style," we've embedded at the top of this post. Besides doing the paired activity suggested above, students could create Venn Diagrams to compare the videos. When introducing the Venn Diagram concept, teachers could also ask students why, as The Times reports, use of the diagrams in schools were banned by the Argentinian military dictatorship in the 1970's as being "subversive." And speaking of being "subversive," teachers could also show the version that Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei recently released. After giving some brief background on his life, students could be asked to think about what message they think he is trying to send with it and share ideas with their classmates. Finally, after watching the "Gangnam Style" videos, students who speak different home languages could be placed in small groups to discuss them, in English, and prepare their own imitation videos. In my class, students only agreed to do this activity if I was also willing to dance. But since even I have limits to the amount of public humiliation I'm willing to endure, no reader of this column will ever see the videos we produced. Learning English Through Music: Show students a video clip from the new movie about the musician known as Rodriguez. After showing the clip the first time, print out and give students the lyrics. to the song being played. Note: only distribute the portion of the lyrics that are sung in the clip. Play the video again and ask students to think silently for a moment about what the song is about, then have them share their thoughts with a partner before discussing it in class. Review any words that may be new to students. Then, tell students to put away the lyrics and give them another copy with some words "blanked-out." This turns the reading into a "cloze" exercise where they need to fill in the gaps. In a music cloze, however, you can just play the video again and have students try to accurately write the words they hear but are missing on the sheet. Students could also get into small groups and sing parts of the song to class, or maybe event invent their own lyrics. Note: The Learning Network publishes a weekly cloze-style exercise called a Fill-In which may be appropriate for some E.L.L. students, especially if the teacher reads the original piece aloud first, then allows them to chose for the words in the word bank at the bottom of each exercise. Times Interactives Representing a Book, Place, Famous Figure or Era as a List of Objects The Times has created a "History Of New York In 50 Objects" and invited readers to contribute even more. It is based upon the BBC's "History of the World In 100 Objects" project. This project was also the subject of a popular Learning Network lesson plan in 2011. Using these as a model, students could create similar lists of five, ten or twenty objects online to demonstrate understanding of a book, a place, an historical figure or concept. Along with each image, they could briefly justify each object's importance. Students could create their project with a Web-based slide show tool like Bookr, or an online virtual bulletin board like Wallwisher. There are many other similar slide show and bulletin board sites available if those two are blocked by school content filters. I've also used a low-tech version of this idea that I borrowed from journalist Robert Krulwich, where students make a list of words that accurately represent eras or people, along with having to provide their justifications for each. Teachers might even want to consider introducing a lesson of students making these kinds of lists by preparing a short "Read Aloud" excerpt from The Times's article "Our Longing for Lists" and show a few examples from the accompanying slideshow. Students could be asked, "What are the different purposes of lists, and why do people make them?" Times Photos Learning 'Emotion' Words Even though it is several months old by now, these photos of Olympic athletes receiving their medals are excellent for teaching, or reinforcing, emotion and feeling words. More photos can be found here. After students identify the words that accurately describe those feelings, have them solidify that vocabulary by describing times in their lives, or in other texts they've read or pictures they've seen, when those same emotions came into play. Research shows that we are much more likely to remember new things if we can connect them to previous knowledge. New Feature: 'What's Going On in This Picture?' The Learning Network has just introduced a new feature that might be uniquely useful to E.L.L. students. Each Monday morning, the blog posts an interesting and ambiguous photograph without a caption or other identifying details. Called "What's Going On in This Picture?," the feature then invites students to write in and comment on what they see, why and how. For several hours each Monday, there is also live comment moderation in which facilitators from a collaborating organization, Visual Thinking Strategies, help students go further with their observations. On Tuesday mornings, details about the photo are added, but at the bottom of the post so that the exercise can be used by classrooms anytime. Bring your students to comment on the two photos that have been posted so far. Times Articles Discussing the School Year's Length Introduce this lesson by asking students to think for a minute about when the school year typically began in their country of origin and when it ended, along with how long the school day lasted. After students share what they wrote, introduce The Times's article "To Increase Learning Time, Some Schools Add Days to Academic Year." Depending on the English proficiency level of your students, either prepare short "Read Alouds," or give students copies to read in pairs after introducing key words at the beginning of the lesson. If students are going to read the entire article, use the opportunity to have them practice reading strategies, like writing a one-sentence summary for every several practices; drawing an image to "visualize" a paragraph or two; or writing a question about something that they want to learn more about. After asking some students to share how they used those strategies, students could be asked to write a one-paragraph response to the question, "Do you think the school year should be extended?" Students can use the "A.B.C." outline share in last month's post: Answer the question; Back It Up with evidence (in this case, quotations); and make a Comment or Connection. Students might also be interested in the American tradition of celebrating the 100th Day of School. The Learning Network has 100 ideas for how to do this. Reflecting on Malala Yousafzai Write the word "risk" on the board and ask students to take a minute and think about what that word means. After students share their response with a partner, ask them to make a list of things they believe they would risk their lives for. You might give one or more examples of your own, or share examples students posted when The Learning Network asked this question in 2010. Your students would be welcome to share their own thoughts by posting comments there, too; all Student Opinion questions are left open to comment indefinitely. Students can share their ideas while the teacher makes a class list. Then, show an excerpt from this New York Times 2009 video about Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenage girl who risked her life to go to school after the Taliban forbade girls from attending, and who went on to organize for the right of girls to get an education after the video was completed. Be aware there are some graphic images on the video. Next, pre-teach potentially unfamiliar vocabulary like "militant" and "ideology," then either prepare a short excerpt for a read-aloud or have students read this article about the recent assassination attempt on her life by the Taliban on their own. Additional information can be found on the Times Topics page about Malala Yousafzai. Finally, ask students if they would have fought the way Ms. Yousafzai did for the girls' rights. Preface that question (and, in fact, most questions) by telling students you are going to give them several seconds to think about it prior to having them respond. Research has found that this "wait time" for student processing is a critical instructional strategy for all students, and especially for E.L.L.'s. Then, ask them to write an "A.B.C." paragraph responding to the question. What, if anything, would you risk your life for and why?