The Daily Show is always great for giving voice to my frustrations:
Thursday, September 11, 2025
* Kahoot game for Collective Nouns
In my class, I used this game to clarify the collective nouns as we practiced them. As we worked through the Kahoot questions, I kept a table on the side of the whiteboard listing the collective nouns, and what they consisted of. As we encountered new collective nouns, I put them up on the table, and elicited from the students what the collective nouns consisted of. An example is below:
...etc,
An upbeat, funny song to help you teach collective nouns to your elementary class!
I was looking for a suitable video to introduce collective nouns to my low-level ESL students.
While searching through the Internet, I discovered that much of the material available on collective nouns seems to be based on obscure collective nouns for groups of animals (e.g. a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, etc.) rather than explaining more practical and common collective nouns. And this video falls into that as well, particularly the second half of it.
While searching through the Internet, I discovered that much of the material available on collective nouns seems to be based on obscure collective nouns for groups of animals (e.g. a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, etc.) rather than explaining more practical and common collective nouns. And this video falls into that as well, particularly the second half of it.
Nevertheless, it's short, it's upbeat, it's entertaining, and at least some of the collective nouns that it introduces are useful.
In my class I played this video for my students. They were tasked with writing down at least 6 collective nouns from the video. In my class, I needed to play it a couple times for them to accomplish this. I used this as a way to introduce the topic of collective nouns.
In my class I played this video for my students. They were tasked with writing down at least 6 collective nouns from the video. In my class, I needed to play it a couple times for them to accomplish this. I used this as a way to introduce the topic of collective nouns.
Collective Nouns
(TESOL Ideas and Worksheets Subdivisions)
* Kahoot game for Collective Nouns
* Kahoot games for singular and plural nouns (The second game has some questions which require students to understand that class, family, army are collective nouns.)
* Kahoot games for singular and plural nouns (The second game has some questions which require students to understand that class, family, army are collective nouns.)
* Bamboozle Game for Am/Is/Are (Subject Verb Agreement) (Has a couple of questions that require students to understand that "family" and "class" are collective nouns.)
If you're not already in the habit of watching Philip DeFranco, today's news program is worth watching in full:
* Speaking of the right-wing counter-reaction, Laura Loomer's statement that "more people will be murdered if the left isn't crushed with the power of the state" is particularly revealing.
It's tempting to add my own editorials to all of this, but I think the video actually speaks for itself fairly well. The only things I might add are:
* I worry a little about the performative aspect of denouncing political violence, since I feel like it's assumed (and should be assumed) that all normal people oppose political violence.
And yet, since we are living in particularly contentious times, maybe it doesn't hurt to communally remind ourselves of our values. We as a society denounce political violence.
And yet, since we are living in particularly contentious times, maybe it doesn't hurt to communally remind ourselves of our values. We as a society denounce political violence.
* That being said, I think if you look at the history of political assassinations in America, it's about a 50/50 chance whether the guy who shot Charlie Kirk is an ideologue, or whether he is just some nutcase causing random violence. As was the case with the 2024 attempt on Trump. As was the case with the attempted assassination on Reagan (W). A lot of the gun violence in America doesn't actually have a rational reason to it. The school shootings are a perfect example of this.
And in fact, any ideologue with half a brain must know that killing Charlie Kirk accomplishes nothing, since Kirk is just one of many voices in the right-wing movement. And in fact, killing him would just invite a conservative counter-reaction. (As we are currently seeing.) I mean, we'll have to wait until we eventually get more information about the shooter and we know for sure, but I'd be surprised if this was a purely political assassination.
And in fact, any ideologue with half a brain must know that killing Charlie Kirk accomplishes nothing, since Kirk is just one of many voices in the right-wing movement. And in fact, killing him would just invite a conservative counter-reaction. (As we are currently seeing.) I mean, we'll have to wait until we eventually get more information about the shooter and we know for sure, but I'd be surprised if this was a purely political assassination.
* Speaking of the right-wing counter-reaction, Laura Loomer's statement that "more people will be murdered if the left isn't crushed with the power of the state" is particularly revealing.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t even controversial. He was moderate. He was conservative but by no means controversial.
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 10, 2025
Imagine who else the Left is going to hunt down and murder on the right if they wanted to kill a guy who said “get married, have kids, there’s 2 genders, vote for Trump.”…
Wanting the government to "crush the left with the power of the state" is about as close to the definition of fascism as you can get, and it's particularly troubling given how much influence Laura Loomer has at the White House.
I know the right hates it when the left calls them fascists, but, come on, guys, read a history book or something. You're acting like fascists.
* In other news mentioned in the video, the blatant corruption at Trump's FBI is...well, I guess I can't say it's surprising, but it's certainly depressing.
But then, as I moaned about in an earlier post, another part of me thinks, "What's the point of even getting upset about this anymore? After all, everyone knows how awful Trump is, and he still won the 2024 election. I guess this is just what the American people want.
* In other news mentioned in the video, the blatant corruption at Trump's FBI is...well, I guess I can't say it's surprising, but it's certainly depressing.
But then, as I moaned about in an earlier post, another part of me thinks, "What's the point of even getting upset about this anymore? After all, everyone knows how awful Trump is, and he still won the 2024 election. I guess this is just what the American people want.
Further Thoughts: September 12, 2025
Having had another day to think about it, I've decided that what's so infuriating about this discourse is that the Right is simultaneously trying to convince us that Charlie Kirk's inflammatory rhetoric had no consequences at all and also that the Left's inflammatory rhetoric was directly responsible for killing Charlie Kirk.
The Right has also been trying to remake Charlie Kirk out to be some sort of reasonable political commentator. Which he never was in his lifetime, and which no one ever pretended he was during his lifetime. Charlie Kirk was an Internet troll. Charlie Kirk followed the same model that has made so many other trolls famous in this Internet era--He intentionally said outrageous things in an effort to provoke extreme reactions from people, and then he used the publicity from those reactions to get more fame and attention. His comments and statements over the years are a matter of public record, and can be easily Googled. I won't list them all here, but a couple examples will suffice to give a flavor:
The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.
or
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
This is obviously not speech aimed at healing America's divisions. This is speech designed to inflame hatred against Democrats and the LGBT community. And it's no surprise that people vocalized responses to this. This is rhetoric that's designed to evoke a response. That's how Kirk built his fame.
Now, I'm a free speech absolutist myself. I believe that you should be able to say whatever you want to say, and not get shot for it. But then if we extend that right to Charlie Kirk, we'd have to extend it to his opponents as well.
And to be fair to Kirk, I don't believe he ever directly advocated for violence. He spread plenty of hate, but he didn't advocate for people to translate that hate into physical violence.
But then, to be equally fair, nobody on the Left ever advocated for Kirk's assassination. I don't know, maybe you could find some random Twitter accounts. But certainly no one prominently. And no elected members of the Democratic party, despite Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna yelling at Democrats that "You all caused this" and "You fucking own this".
But if Democrats never advocated for Charlie Kirk's assassination, then how did they cause it? I'm assuming she means by using rhetoric that demonized the other side. But then, Charlie Kirk made a whole career of rhetoric that demonized the other side.
But if Democrats never advocated for Charlie Kirk's assassination, then how did they cause it? I'm assuming she means by using rhetoric that demonized the other side. But then, Charlie Kirk made a whole career of rhetoric that demonized the other side.
Donald Trump and other Republicans say that the Left is responsible for Charlie Kirk's death because they compared him to the Nazis. But Charlie Kirk himself regularly made Nazi comparisons against the Left--he said abortion was worse than the Holocaust, he said that we need a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor.
You can't have it both ways. If Kirk had a right to his rhetoric, then the Democrats have a right to theirs. You can't argue that Kirk's rhetoric had no implications, but that the rhetoric from the Democrats was directly responsible for causing his death.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
* Bamboozle Game for Am/Is/Are (Subject Verb Agreement)
I created a Bamboozle game to practice distinguishing between singulars and plurals, and also subject/verb agreement with am/is/are. That game is here: Subject Verb Agreement am/is/are
The game is based on sentence gapfills.
The game is based on sentence gapfills.
In my class I used this as a follow-up for a group of students who had just done exercises in distinguishing between singular and plural forms. As with those previous exercises, I also snuck in a couple of collective nouns (family, class). In feedback for this activity, I tried to explain about the collective nouns.
Tuesday, September 09, 2025
--Basic Singular and Plural Kahoot
--Singular & Plural Kahoot
--Duplicate of Singular & Plural Kahoot
I started out with a very basic kahoot game that simply tested whether or not students could identify basic plural forms. That game is here: Basic Singular and Plural
Once that basic Kahoot was mastered, I moved on to a Kahoot that I found that tested irregular plural forms: Singular & Plural. I made a copy of it so that I could make my own edits on it. These edits were mainly to make the prompts more based on pictures, but I did add in a couple questions, and also deleted a copy questions. My edited copy is here: Duplicate of Singular & Plural.
In my edited copy, I also made a move to introduce collective nouns, specifically: class, family, army
Singular and Plural Nouns Index
(TESOL Ideas and Worksheets Subdivisions)
* Bamboozle Game for Am/Is/Are (Subject Verb Agreement) (Students have to distinguish between singular and plurals in this game.)
Monday, September 08, 2025
Worksheet: Fill in the Verb from Education.com
Supplementary cards: docs, pub
Supplementary cards: docs, pub
Extension activity: docs, pub
I recently got this worksheet from another teacher: Fill in the Verb from Education.com
I recently got this worksheet from another teacher: Fill in the Verb from Education.com
You can go to the link above to download the free PDF once you create an account.
For my classes, I created some matching cards for this activity, just to make it a bit more tactile: docs, pub
In my lesson, I made two copies of the verb cards: one in which I cut the verb cards so that the picture was separated from the word, and one in which the verb and the picture were on the same card. Then I used the following sequence:
In my lesson, I made two copies of the verb cards: one in which I cut the verb cards so that the picture was separated from the word, and one in which the verb and the picture were on the same card. Then I used the following sequence:
1) First I gave the groups the cards in which the verbs and the pictures were separated, and they had to match the correct verb with the correct picture. They did this in groups.
2) Once the students had matched all the verbs with the correct picture, I took away those cards, and gave them new cards with the verbs and the picture both on the same card. (Just to make the next activity easier.) Then they had to match the verb card with the object card.
3) Once the verbs had been matched with the objects, I took away these cards, and then the students had to do the worksheet. (This was much easier after they had already matched the verbs and objects.)
4) Then, I did an extension activity, in which I brought out the noun and adjective cards from a previous activity, (docs, pub), and the students made new sentences using the format: adjective, noun, verb, noun. We then had Google Gemini make illustrations for these sentences.
4) Then, I did an extension activity, in which I brought out the noun and adjective cards from a previous activity, (docs, pub), and the students made new sentences using the format: adjective, noun, verb, noun. We then had Google Gemini make illustrations for these sentences.
The _____________________ _____________________
adjective noun
_____________________ _____________________
verb noun
Sunday, September 07, 2025
Sorting Cards for Parts of Speech
(TESOL Materials--Parts of Speech)
I was recently working with a group of 5th graders who had difficulty with the labels for parts of speech--specifically nouns, verbs and adjectives, so I made these cards to help them.
The activity works in two stages. First, the students are given the cards, and sort them into noun, verb and adjective.
Secondly, the students are given the sentence frame: The [adjective] [noun] [verb] and have to put the cards into the slots to make sentences. (e.g. The old teacher runs).
The activity works in two stages. First, the students are given the cards, and sort them into noun, verb and adjective.
Secondly, the students are given the sentence frame: The [adjective] [noun] [verb] and have to put the cards into the slots to make sentences. (e.g. The old teacher runs).
Some of the nouns are inanimate objects (e.g. chair, pencil, hotdog) and so the idea is that the students will have fun imagining anthropomorphized versions of these objects performing the action verb (e.g. The angry hotdog runs.) These sentences can then be illustrated for the students using AI.
While running the activity, I found that for some groups it is useful to have them use the cards to make sentences first, and then this helps them learn the categories, so then I do sorting at the end.
While running the activity, I found that for some groups it is useful to have them use the cards to make sentences first, and then this helps them learn the categories, so then I do sorting at the end.
The _____________________ _____________________
adjective noun
__________________
verb
American Mass Deportation 1: The First Crackdown | US History | Extra History
I'm a big fan of the Extra History Youtube channel (as I've - mentioned - on - this blog several times before). So whenever a new video pops up, it usually catches my interest.
This one is obviously connected to current political events (as they acknowledge), and so it's got more of a political charge to it than usual. But it's also just interesting for its own sake, as some history I didn't know about before.
I look forward to the next part in two weeks.
Friday, September 05, 2025
Bart Ehrman is fascinating to listen to as always, so like all of his stuff, this video is worth checking out.
Personally, I've known about the Q Source since my freshman year at Calvin College, where I learned about it in religion 101. But, after watching this video, I've realized that I was actually mistaken in some of my conceptions about Q.
For example, in a 2014 post, I wrote:
For example, in a 2014 post, I wrote:
There are sections of Matthew and Luke which are word for word the same, but do not appear in Mark. More specifically, there are a number of sayings of Jesus which are word for word the same, and which furthermore appear in the same order in both Matthew and Luke, but not Mark.... So since the authors of the Gospels Matthew and Luke either didn’t know each other, or mistrusted each other, it is hypothesized by scholars that there must have been some collections of sayings of Jesus (so named as the “Q” source) which both Matthew and Luke were copying from, and which has since been lost to history.
But after watching this Bart Ehrman video, I realize that actually the sayings from the Q source are not in the same order in Matthew and Luke.
I guess this is yet another reminder for me to be careful every time I think I know everything.
But regardless, the video is really interesting, and worth watching
But regardless, the video is really interesting, and worth watching
Using AI to Illustrate Student Generated Sentences
(TESOL Ideas--Useful Websites, Writing)
I've got a lot of mixed feelings about AI but, it is a thing that exists, and I suppose we might as well take advantage of it when it's useful.
One use of AI that I've recently realized is that it's very useful for creating pictures to show students the meaning of their sentences.
In the past, whenever my students messed up the syntax of a sentence, I used to spend a lot of time trying to explain to my students that their sentence meant something completely different than what they thought it did.
For example, I remember back in Cambodia I taught an advanced level writing class for many terms, and the students had to write an essay on the topic of deforestation. For whatever reason, every term several students would write something like "the trees are cutting down." And I would always go around to the students and say, "No, no, the trees aren't the ones who are doing the cutting. What you've written looks like this..." and then I would try to draw a picture of a tree with arms cutting something down with a saw. I'm not much of an artist, though, so I'm not sure my students go the point.
For example, I remember back in Cambodia I taught an advanced level writing class for many terms, and the students had to write an essay on the topic of deforestation. For whatever reason, every term several students would write something like "the trees are cutting down." And I would always go around to the students and say, "No, no, the trees aren't the ones who are doing the cutting. What you've written looks like this..." and then I would try to draw a picture of a tree with arms cutting something down with a saw. I'm not much of an artist, though, so I'm not sure my students go the point.
But if I was teaching that class now, I could simply put the sentence into Google Gemini and ask Gemini to create a picture for that sentence.
The idea of trees cutting down people is of course nonsense, but I've discovered that Google Gemini is actually pretty good about illustrating nonsensical sentences. For example if you give it a sentence like: "The hotdog is writing a book" or "The chair is riding a bike" then it will create images with an anthropomophic hotdog or chair doing those things.
This can be good for teaching parts of speech with madlib style sentence games in which you are encouraging students to put together nouns and verbs in creative or humerous ways, and then show them the results, and I've recently used it successfully with 5th grade students. Gemini is also pretty good with illustrating adjectives, so you can encourage students to add in extra adjectives like "The old smelly angry chair is riding a bike", and then you and the students can have fun viewing the result.
In my experience, it sometimes takes Gemini 30 seconds to a minute to generate an image, but I will use this time to get the students to tell me what kind of image they think Gemini will produce. Then when the image does generate, we check our predictiosn agains the result.
I've also been using word cards to aid low-level students in creating these sentences, but more on that in a future post.
More Thoughts on the State of Oldies Radio Stations
This is a continuation from a previous post a couple months ago. In that previous post, I mused about the state of oldies radio stations and classic rock radio stations. I had been a fan of both in my youth (in the 1980s and 1990s), but had also left touch with both after having been abroad for the past 24 years. Now that I'm back, I'm pleasantly surprised to find they are both still around, but a bit frustrated to find that the range of oldies songs on the radio has drastically decreased. I feel like I keep hearing the same 10 songs over and over again now.
The other week, I was meeting up with some of my old friends, and I mentioned this. "That's not new," one of my friends said. "Radio has always been like that."
The other week, I was meeting up with some of my old friends, and I mentioned this. "That's not new," one of my friends said. "Radio has always been like that."
Well, maybe the top billboard radio stations were always like that. But oldies stations use to play a wide range of songs.
I had it in mind to put together a blog post describing some of the songs I used to hear on oldies radio stations back in the day, but I never hear anymore. And then, quite by chance, I came across this Youtube video, which is a perfect list of songs, most of which have disappeared from the radio.
Now, not all of these seem to have disappeared from oldies radio. I still hear Born to be Wild and I'm a Believer on the radio a lot. But when was the last time you heard Ode to Billy Joe or Incense and Peppermints playing on the radio? Those songs are gone, right?
[Right? It's not just me, right? Let me know what the oldies stations are like in your area, if you're reading this.]
At one time I thought that oldies songs were gradually dying off in a temporal order. As the baby boomers aged, and stopped listeing to the radio, first songs from the 1950s would be the first to go. Then songs from the early 1960s would be next. Then the mid-1960s. Et cetera.
But, based on my own listening experience, that doesn't seem to be what has happened. There are some songs from the 1950s and early 1960s still on the radio. I still hear Shout and Stand By Me frequently on the radio, for example.
So what's going on?
In the previous post, I had written:
In the previous post, I had written:
Radio in America has of course changed since I've been gone. Although not as much as I thought it had. I had been under the impression that oldies radio stations were permanently gone from the cultural landscape, but oldies and classic rock stations are actually still around.
...but actually, I now think I was right the first time. Oldies radio stations are dead--at least as we knew them in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, oldies radio stations were catering to people who actually remembered when all those songs had first been big hits.
Now, oldies radio stations are no longer catering to people who could remember the 1950s and 1960s. They're catering to people of my generation (and younger) who know some of these songs from movies and pop culture. So a song like the aforementioned Ode to Billy Joe (which would never get included on a modern movie soundtrack) is obvious out, while a song like Born to be Wild is still playable.
Now, oldies radio stations are no longer catering to people who could remember the 1950s and 1960s. They're catering to people of my generation (and younger) who know some of these songs from movies and pop culture. So a song like the aforementioned Ode to Billy Joe (which would never get included on a modern movie soundtrack) is obvious out, while a song like Born to be Wild is still playable.
That's my current theory, anyway.
Well, if these songs are becoming forgotten, I suppose that's all the more reason to discuss them on this blog. So, in my Music Reviews project, I may be discussing a lot of these old songs on this blog.
No promises, of course. But if I can find the time, there are a lot of old songs that I never hear on the radio anymore which I would love to talk about.
No promises, of course. But if I can find the time, there are a lot of old songs that I never hear on the radio anymore which I would love to talk about.