Talk to the Clouds

Talk to the Clouds archive (to be removed soon)

  • Get Together with International Conferences and Groups

    Dear Korean teachers, Japanese teachers, Thai teachers, etc., Do you remember how much fun you had when you were a MATESOL or PhD student in the US going to your local conference, or in the UK or Australia, or going to the international TESOL conference? I remember going with my international student classmates. The conferences…

  • Use Your Benefits

    I need to read my TESOL e-mails more carefully! Somehow I’d been missing out on this member benefit for a while. (I pay a lot for TESOL and rarely get to attend the conference, so I hate to miss out on a benefit…) Apparently, all TESOL members can attend an upcoming online seminar about using…

  • Temporary Free Journal Access

    I received this message on the AAAL mailing list, and as it says “free free to forward to colleagues,” I believe it should be okay to post it here. (If not, I’ll be happy to take it down.) Here’s the message: “Get acquainted with SAGE’s journals in Languages and Linguistics now during our free online…

  • A Silly Joke

    Here’s a silly old language-related joke, which I suppose many younger students wouldn’t even get (not that I’ve ever sent a telegram): A dog goes to a telegraph office and dictates the following message to the clerk: “Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof.” “That’s seven words,” says the clerk. “You get eight for the…

  • More White House Support for Community Colleges

    If you’re in the USA, you’ve probably heard about the various disasters befalling the California college and university systems. In light of that, it’s particularly nice to hear about more support for the community college system coming from the White House. Previously, I wrote that Dr. Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, is a…

  • Interdisciplinary Cross-pollination

    My husband is a math teacher, and I like to think he’s learned some things from talking to me about topics like intensive reading–he’s actually started a kind of reading database/blog for his community college students, because he’s come to the conclusion that improving their reading skills through pleasure reading would make doing both real-world…

  • I Before E, Except in the UK?

    veil their weigh neighbor sufficient Something called “Support for Spelling,” described as “official guidance distributed to schools” in this article from the Telegraph, now contains the recommendation that UK schools not teach the familiar rule “I before E, except after C.” The reasoning is that there are just so many exceptions that the rule ceases…

  • Typing IPA

    /É”sÉ™m/ Here’s an easy way to type those International Phonetic Alphabet symbols that aren’t included on a standard keyboard: IPA.typeit.org, which lets you just click to enter the symbols in a text box. You can even format what you type. This is particularly useful if you can’t install an IPA palette/virtual keyboard on a work…

  • Redefining the Dictionary (Again)

    I really want Wordnik, a new web-based “dictionary,” to work. Although I love an old-fashioned, unabridged, doorstop of a dictionary, traditional dictionaries are not that great for my students. Their examples are archaic and stilted, their definitions use words that are just as difficult as the word being looked up, they include too many almost-never-used…

  • Oh, The Places You’ll Go

    You never know where a one-on-one lesson will wind up. Last week, an attempt to help my youngest student (who’s in high school) get started on a paper wound up with an excursion into the world of open source and alternative software. N-chan’s laptop runs a Japanese operating system and a Japanese word processor, and…

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