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When I was not sure which path my career would go, I very seriously considered teaching English in Japan. The salary seemed fine, but I was more interested in getting some exposure to a completely new world. Because of extenuating circumstances that aren’t worth getting into here, I opted to remain a patriot for the time being. Nonetheless, I scoured the Web and found plenty of resources available to answer my questions about where to begin planning my travels abroad to share my English skills.

First, here is a great series of posts by blogger NomadicMatt. He’s broken his knowledge and expertise of teaching abroad into five parts, which covers everything from job types to specific places to teach and what to expect in various countries. There is also plenty of information on what is required of teachers planning to go overseas to teach:

All countries require that you be a native speaker. This means from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. While some countries will hire Filipinos, they typically prefer Western employees.You will also need a bachelor’s degree from a 4 year accredited university. It doesn’t matter what your degree is in. Whether you have a degree in biochemistry to English to yoga doesn’t matter so long as you have a university degree. A four year degree is a MUST in the higher end countries like Korea and Japan.

These posts have lots of great information if you’ve already talked yourself into going, but it might be helpful to hear another side of the story, too. Read this post, about “The Ugly” side of teaching in Japan. It sheds a little bit of light on some of the aspects of over-the-pond tutelage that they won’t tell you about in the brochure. Also, Mottekaero jDonuts begs the question Is English Teaching Worth It? - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Teaching English Abroad pt 1
Teaching English Abroad pt 2
Teaching English Abroad pt 3
Teaching English Abroad pt 4
Teaching English Abroad pt 5
Teaching English in Japan: The Ugly
Is English Teaching Worth It?

Photo credit: jmurawski on Flickr)

Students with special needs or disabilities present a bevy of challenges for teachers. In the age of the interweb, though, you can find all sorts of resources for special needs education. The nice folks at Teaching Tips.com have assembled a big list of them in The Ultimate Guide to Special Needs Teaching. Here you’ll find more than a hundred sites and resources for students who are blind, deaf, autistic, physically handicapped, terminally ill, and most other afflictions imaginable. They also list ESL resources, as teaching special needs students who also don’t speak English can create a whole new set of challenges, but these can probably be used by anyone teaching students learning English as a second language. However special your students’ needs are, you can probably find a way to meet them on this list. -BILL FERRIS

The Ultimate Guide to Special Needs Teaching: 100+ Resources and Links

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Free Stuff: Resources for SEN Teachers

Do your students need help pronouncing a tricky or unfamiliar word while doing research? Or are you an ESL teacher helping kids with their English pronunciation. If you use Firefox (and you definitely should), you should add the Pronounce extension. Just highlight the word that’s giving your kids trouble, right click and choose “Pronounce” from the menu. Firefox will then speak the word out loud with correct English pronunciation.

We’ve covered pronunciation tools before, such as howjsay. The Pronounce extension has a slight edge for two reasons: since it’s integrated into your browser, you don’t have to go to another website to look up the word, thereby saving you time. And second, the pronunciations come from Merriam-Webster OnLine, so you get the the definitive American pronunciation, as opposed to howjsay’s British pronunciation of words like “aluminum” or “blueberry.” -BILL FERRIS

Pronounce
Pronounce Tells You How to Say It via Lifehacker

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Potato, Potahto? Before you call the whole thing off, consult Chuala

There has been a lot of talk about the lack of opportunities for kids to go outside and interact with nature. I once had a class at a school in Oakland that was less than 2 miles from the San Francisco Bay, that could not answer in the affirmative when asked if they lived by the ocean.

Who would’ve thought computers could help get kids outdoors? A Walk in the Woods is a great site from the University of Illinois Extension that can help give background on the woods and how to commune with nature to kids who may not have had that experience. You start with a self-guided slideshow. It gives guidance on what to look for on a sojourn in the woods (the slide show is also available in Spanish). Next is Nature Notes, which provides vocabulary with picture clues. After that, check out the Getting Ready slide show which shows you how to prepare for the trip. And when you’re done, Fun Place lets your kids write about their experience. There’s even a Teacher’s Guide and Resources page. Get ready for your next walk in the woods with this informative and useful Website. -ALICE MERCER

A Walk in the Woods

Tired of kids doing the same games from your list of activities? Would you like to add the element of random chance into your curriculum, but still have solid academic (yet fun) online activities for kids to do? Let Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com change up your mix. This site generates new content and activities suitable for independent work at the lab.

The activities are presented on a wheel, which features four color-coded subjects (English, Math, Social Studies, and Spanish). It comes in two levels K-2 and 3-5, and a “spin it” button to let you do a random selection, adding the element of chance to your session. Activities include phonemic awareness and reading games from Clifford, science from Magic School Bus, writing activities from “Dog’s Life” and other “Flashlight Readers, and the poetry machine.

This is a great resource for high interest, easy-to-use independent activities on your classroom computers, and a rendezvous with Madame La Chance. -ALICE MERCER

Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com

Welcome to the Carnival of Education Career Fair! We’ve retracted the bleachers and set up the booths on the gymnasium floor so these brave teachers can see what they might be doing if they weren’t teaching (perish the thought).

Motivational Speaker
Mr. D at I Want to Teach Forever agreed to sport a freaking mohawk as long as his students worked hard, which was about three weeks. Sadly, his motivational experiment has concluded. Long live the mohawk.

Camp Counselor
As a kid, my wife got to go to Space Camp and Marine Science Camp. Had Tisha Kulak and American Consumer News been around back then to point out how to save money on tuition to summer research camps, I might’ve been able to go, too.

Productivity Consultant
Instructify-favorite studenthacks.org has some great tips for students who want to learn how to write a research paper.

Pro Athletes
The Jose Vilson uses Derek Jeter as an example of how nurturing students’ talent and leadership ability early on can reap great results.

And over at Jay P. Greene’s Blog, the author talks about the importance of identifying students’ talents, whether they’re a left tackle or potential honor student.

Economist
ESL teacher Larry Ferlazzo knows that money is the international language.

Translator
Melissa B. at The Scholastic Scribe provides a handy-dandy English-to-Eduspeak dictionary.

Director
Mathew Needleman at Creating Lifelong Learners takes a proactive approach to managing disruptive students during a class movie project.

Advice Columnist
Let’s Play Math! has some advice on teaching math to a struggling student.

Detective
OverwhelmedMom gets to the bottom of problems that gifted students face.

Investigative Reporters
The proprietor of a voice from the middle knows the means to discovery is asking the right questions.

In addition, eduwonkette responds to a Wall Street Journal article about the criteria used to evaluate teachers.

Game Developer
Alvaro at SharpBrains shares a few games to stimulate your temporal lobe.

Diplomat
Coach Brown tries to reach an understanding with hostile parents.

Nutritionists
At Homework. Dinner. Life. Angela points out that good nutrition habits ought to be maintained year-round, not just a few days before the test.

Meanwhile, Chanman at Buckhorn Road says all that caffeine students drink can’t be good for them.

Cartographer
Dan Callahan, a.k.a. geek.teacher, harnesses Google Maps for a lesson in community mapping.

Librarian
@EDU takes the work out of student research by pointing them toward Google Alerts.

Politician
Jane Artabasy at Golden Apple Teaching Excellence Network unloads the loaded word of the day, “elitism,” showing it’s nothing to be frightened of - especially in schools.

The folks at Golden Apple also mull over the differences in races and learning styles.

Astronaut
HowDoWhy asks, what is a solar system, anyway? Furthermore, just how big is ours?

Human Resources Specialist
Over at Right on the Left Coast, Darren discusses the sticky situation of a teacher dating an 18-year-old student at a different school.

Mentors
Allison Jones at Entry Level Living wants to revamp the way young people think about leadership.

The folks at the Efficient Leadership Files have some ideas on that as well.

Statistician
Lead from the Start crunches the numbers about the disconnect between teachers and EdSector.

Strategist
Seth Pearce at NYC Students Blog has an intriguing idea on how to overcome schools’ non-stop test preparation.

Lobbyist
PZ Meyers at Pharyngula has some news about a disturbing bill in the Oklahoma legislature regarding religion in schools.

Road Grader
As the great homework debate rages on, Shabam School makes a good case for grading homework.

Kindergarten Teacher (sorry, I couldn’t come up with anything else)
Kiri at Elbows, Knees, Dreams shares her thoughts (and asks for others’ opinions) about early entrance to Kindergarten.

Photo credit: ou_ags on flickr

If you’re teaching Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and you get the feeling that some of your students would rather be stranded on the island than reading about it, steer them toward the Chasing Crusoe Multimedia Project. This is a beautifully done site where you can check out facts about the marooned men who were the inspiration for Defoe’s character, watch visualizations of the construction of Crusoe’s residences on the island, play the “Marooned” trivia game, and much more.

You don’t have to be reading the book to make good use of this site. It’s completely bilingual, with text and audio, so it would be a great resource for a Spanish class (and it’s a whole lot more interesting than “Destinos”). Or, if you teach Social Studies, you might want to draw on the “Isla Mas a Tierra” section, which gives a vivid description of life on the impoverished Robinson Crusoe Island.

I know teachers are crafty as castaways, so if you think of another cool use for this site, let us know in the comments! -MARIELLE PRINCE

Chasing Crusoe

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Check out this nice little Flash web app that is simply a scroll over sign language learning tool. With little other information on the page other than the title - Dr. Bill Vicars’ ABC Slideshow - this is a no frills tool. There’s really not much more to it than that, but it provides a great visual reference if you are trying to learn the sign language alphabet.  If you encourage your students to check this one out, you should probably learn it too. Otherwise, they might be talking in class without you being any the wiser.  -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

 Dr. Bill Vicars’ ABC Slideshow

If you’ve never read Sun Tzu’s Art of War, do yourself a favor and read it now, online, for free. Art of War isn’t just about ancient Chinese battle strategies — the reason this book has maintained its intrigue and republish-ability is because of its ability to be applied to business and social interaction. It’s more of a philosophical guide than a blueprint for combat in our day and age, but you and your students can certainly learn a thing or two from ‘Ol Sun Tzu. The guide at this website allows readers to get insight and further description of passages that may seem a bit archaic. Furthermore, you can use the site for quick searches or even link an easy-to-read, self-page-turning e-book.

If reading isn’t your thing, or if you are my Dad — who has to drive over an hour and a half each way to and from work — you might need an audio version. Luckily, this site — AudiobookTreasury.com — will let you get it just as freely and cheaply as the one aforementioned. Just download the mp3s and you can probably figure out the rest. Either way, you’ll be able to easily realize what has made this literature last as long as it has. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Sun Tzu’s Art of War on SunTzuSaid.com

Art of War - Audio Book on AudioBookTreasury.com

Give your foreign language students some extra ammunition. No, I don’t mean teach them obscure French curse words. I’m talking about powerful lessons and practice that can supplement the great stuff you’re already teaching in class. They can get it with LingQ.

LingQ lets students sign up for free lessons in the language of their choice (language include Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish). If you’re teaching ESL, they can also study English (or any other language) in their native tongue. In the assignments, if they see a word they don’t know, they can highlight it and hit the LingQ button. LingQ will define it and create a flashcard for later review.

Students will also get a progress snapshot, which keeps track of benchmarks like how many words they’ve learned, the number of hours spent listening to lessons or speaking, etc. They’ll also get a list of Priority LingQs, which are the 25 most important words they should learn at whatever skill level they’re at. Students can review Priority LingQs by clicking on the the word to view the definition, or display them as flash cards.The free account lets students have five active assignments at any given time.

You can pay extra for more active assignments at once, plus points you can use for personal tutoring, though if they heard about LingQ from you, they’ve already got a live-and-in-person language guru. Still, students can get an awful lot of LingQ for free. The only place with more free knowledge is in your classroom -BILL FERRIS

LingQ

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8 Firefox Extensions Towards Safer Browsing - Personally, I HATE pop-up ads, (and most banner ads) so I do whatever I can to avoid them. Firefox already does a nice job of keeping pop-ups from occurring, but there is a lot of things that slip by Firefox by itself. Luckily, ts/sci Security (a nice, clean, ad-free blog) presents this list of some helpful add-ons that can help give you some peace-of-mind when it comes to web browsing.

30 Tips to Rejuvenate Your Creativity - Lifehack does it again with this list of 30 ways to chop your creative block right in twain. As it turns out “start somewhere” isn’t really as hard as you might think. Also one of my favorites, “Don’t judge your ideas until you have plenty to judge.”

10 Extraordinarily Different Uses for Potatoes - Sorry folks, those delicious tubers aren’t just for mashing and au gratin-ing anymore. Gomestic offers this list of some unorthodox ways of using potatoes other than just eating them. I don’t know if any of the tips could be qualified as being “extraordinarily different” per-se, but they sure are neat. Surprisingly not on the list: make a battery.

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English - I’m expecially critical when it comes to people misusing grammar. Whether I’m enjoying an expresso or just reading in the libary, there is always an abundance of people mispronouncing words, mispellling them, excetera. Here’s a list from YourDictionary.com of words people all-too-often mispronounce. I’d love to see a list of phrases people misuse in context, but that would be a whole nother post.

When Wikipedia Won’t Cut It: 25 Online Sources for Reliable, Researched Facts - I blogged about some other alternative-to-Wikipedia resources not too long ago, but here are some more. Students are going to use the internet to do their research, so they might as well have an abundance of reliable places to find information, right? Check out this list of 25 from CollegeDegree.com. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

(photo credit: jaycoxfilm on Flickr.)

Pop quiz: would your students in third period Spanish rather do a vocabulary worksheet, or play games to review what they’ve learned? If you said worksheets, then what the heck is wrong with you? They’d totally prefer games! And you can find dozens of games for whatever language you teach at Digital Dialects.

Digital Dialects has animated games and activities for 50+ languages - they’ve even got Esperanto, which is handy for students who want to know a language not spoken in any country they may travel to. The games focus mostly on vocabulary and numbers, which require a lot of this kind of review anyway. And they’re way more fun than just another worksheet. -BILL FERRIS

Digital Dialects

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I took three years of Spanish in high school plus two semesters in college, and I don’t remember much more than “jugar boliche.” But having a small vocabulary doesn’t mean you can’t communicate big ideas. Some guy named Mike from Runawaybox.com expresses his feelings for his sexy señorita with nothing but a guitar and rudimentary verb conjugations in his hit song, One Semester of Spanish Love Song. (Tip: if your school blocks YouTube, you can still watch the video with KeepVid.)

This song illustrates both the difficulties inherent in learning a new language, as well as what you can accomplish with a little creativity. If you teach an intro foreign language course, let your students watch this to get their minds working for the next time they have to do a skit or class presentation. Maybe it’ll inspire them to retain more than how to say “bowling” in español. -BILL FERRIS

One Semester of Spanish Love Song via Education Week

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Whether you’re an ESL teacher looking for a new way to teach English or a student of the language, ESL Pod is a user friendly way to hone your skills.

Podcasting has taken the world by storm, and in doing so, has created a new way of teaching. ESL Pod is a database of ESL and TOEFL podcasts including everything from medical and health terms to travel and dining. You can find different episodes for each subject, and the content is updated regularly. The audio files are easy to search and download, and the readers are well spoken and educated.

Perhaps best of all, you can easily preview the files, so you don’t have to dedicate yourself to downloading a file if it’s not what you’re looking for. All the audio files are free to download in mp3 format, but with a $10 monthly membership, you can get supplemental material in the form of learning guides. These include transcripts, definitions and other helpful learning tools. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

ESL Pod

If you have never really analyzed the process of language and how it works, you are probably not alone. From the “why didn’t I know this already?” drawer comes How Language Works: The Cognitive Science of Linguistics. The site is broken up like a text book, complete with chapters, subheadings and diagrams.

The material is laid out pretty clearly, and the chapters range in topic from word meanings to word forms. The text explores function and use in sentences and events. Authored by Mike Gasser, a cognitive science and computer science teacher from Indiana University, How Language Works is a great resource for teachers and students alike. You might just start to understand why we say the things we say, and why we don’t say the things we should. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

How Language Works