Goals

• To make you aware of the kinds of information about culture, teaching, ESOL and related topics available to you on the WWW and to give you access to specific useful sites.
• To help you locate useful resources for your culture profile project.
• To help you locate useful resources to help make your teaching more culturally relevant.

• Complete the "hunt" in any order. (If several people are hunting, be sure to start in different places.)
• The highlighted, underlined text indicates a link. Click on the link and then use the information you find to answer the questions listed below.
• Questions relate to the website listed directly above them but you may need to do additional looking within the site.
• Find the answers and write them in the blanks. (The answer is not so important as the fact that you could find source and the answer.)
• Occasional short meanderings are encouraged.
• "Bookmark" (or write down, or e-mail to yourself) important web discoveries to return to and to share with the colleagues.
• If you get "stuck," either go to another question and come back later or ask for help.
• Feel free to return to the Scavenger Hunt for more discoveries at other times. Don't expect to finish the hunt in one run.

The Web of Culture:  http://www.webofculture.com
• How many "hits" do you get when you search for Puerto Rico? _________
• What is a cultural "no-no" regarding one's feet in Costa Rica?__________
• What does it mean when people wiggle their noses in Puerto Rico? __________
• What is the unit of currency in Croatia, and its abbreviation? __________

Kid's Window: http://www.jinjapan.org/kidsweb/
• What is a traditional Japanese breakfast? __________
• Listen to a child read Momotaro in Japanese and in English. ____

Lords of the Earth: http://www.mayalords.org/mayafldr/index.html
• What does the Mayan Weaver Woman use for a belt?  __________

 

 
 
 
 
 

KidLink Multicultural Calendar:  http://www.kidlink.org/KIDPROJ/MCC/

• What is Quema del Diablo, celebrated in Guatemala? ___________
• How could your students submit celebrations to go on the calendar?  __________

 

 
 
 
 
 

Sounds of the World's Animals:  http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/animals/animals.html

• What does a horse say in Thai? ___________
• What does a crow say in Afrikaans? ____________

 

 
 
 
 
 

Life in Ancient Egypt http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/exhibits/egypt/index.htm

• What is a Shabti? _________
• Why were cosmetics important in Ancient Egypt? __________

 

 
 
 
 
 

Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC)  http://lanic.utexas.edu/

• What language is spoken around Puerto Limon in Costa Rica? (hint: try "background notes, Department of State") ____________
• What is the literacy rate among adults in El Salvador? (hint: try "background notes, Department of State")  ______________
• What happened to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo when she was six? _________
• Who are the three sisters in the Iroquois legend of the "No-Face Doll?" _____________

 

 
 
 
 
 

The Abyssinia Cyberspace Gateway http://www.abyssiniacybergateway.net/

• Where is Abyssinia?  _____________

A Few Useful Government Resources Start at the US Census Bureau:  http://www.census.gov/
• What is the population of the US today? __________
• Of the world? __________   Of Georgia? _________
• What is the population of your congressional district?* ___________
• Of your school?  _______
• What is the median income of your district? _________
• Of Jimmy Carter's disctrict in Plains, Georgia? _________

*Find your district with this Vote Smart Site:  http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml

Searching and Bookmarking

Search Engines:
Google http://www.google.com
Alta Vista http://www.altavista.com/
HotBot http://www.mindspring.net/search/hotbot/
Excite http://www.excite.com/?1-a-g
Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com/
Lycos http://www.lycos.com/

• Choose a target country/culture you would like to learn more about.
• Find an interesting fact or two about your target country/culture. __________
• Search for sites on your target culture.

Print 3 interesting pages you found about your target country. (If printer is available) ___
• Bookmark (or e-mail to yourself, or write the URL here) at least one website of interest that you want to go back to later _______________________________________________________
• Search a topic that is too broad (more than 1000 "hits") Topic: ___________
• Search a topic that is too narrow (0 hits) Topic: ____________
• Search a topic that is about right (maybe 1-50 hits) Topic: _____________
• Search your "just right" topic 4 times using 4 different search engines. How do the results compare? Hints: Use quotes " " to ask for exact phrase. Use + between words to include both.

 

 
 








On-line Bookstores

http://www.amazon.com/ or http://barnesandnoble.com
• Look for books on your target country in an on-line bookstore. __________
• What's the latest pick for Oprah's book club? http://barnesandnoble.com  ________________
• What book won the 1998 Booker Prize?  http://www.amazon.com/ ____________
• At least how many more on-line bookstores are there? http://stc.net/books.htm  ____________

 

 
 


Kidsweb

http://www.npac.syr.edu/textbook/kidsweb/index.html (Kidsweb)
• What is Kidsweb?  ______________

 

 
 



E-Lective Language Learning

http://pr.tennessee.edu/ut2kids/maps/map.html
http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/elective.html
• This is an example of a text written for students with e-lective features. Do you think it is like those described by Cummins? ________________
• (For thinking about now and discussing later) How might this site be altered to make it more accessible to learners of English?  ________________
• Other samples:  Granddaughter's Sled,   Chief Joseph, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 

 
 








An On-Line Dictionary for Learners of English

Newbury House Dictionary of the American Language  http://nhd.heinle.com/
• Your student came across the word "beaver" in her reading book. Find a picture of a beaver in the online Newbury House Dictionary of the American Language.  _____________
• Use the right click button on your mouse (dos) or left click (mac) to copy and save the beaver picture.  ____________

 

 
 








Professional Resources

TESOL  http://www.tesol.edu
• What does TESOL stand for?  _________
• Where can you find a copy of the TESOL ESL K-12 Standards?  ____________
• Who is giving the opening plenary at the annual convention in Vancouver  in March? _____________

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CAL  http://www.cal.org/

• What does CAL stand for? __________
• Does Carolyn Temple Adger, of CAL, believe that AAVE is "Bad English"?  _________

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

NCTE  http://www.ncte.org/

• What does NCTE stand for?  ____________
• What is the title of Mary Lou Mccloskey's session at the NCTE conference in Nashville (session B-11)  ___________
• What is unique about the journal Primary Voices K-6?  ______________

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

NCBE  http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/

• What does NCBE stand for?  ______________
• Can you find Muriel Saville-Troike's "Questions to ask about Culture?" (Hint: look under "language and culture" in the Online Library.)  ______________

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Basic Spanish for the Virtual Student http://www.studyspanish.com/pronunciation/index.htm

• How do you pronounce the vowels in Spanish?  _______________

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Japanese Arts Resources  http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/nso/asian/welcome/resource_japan.html

• Visit the Floating World.  Comments: __________________

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

U.S. Department of Education, The Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students (OELA) http://www.ed.gov/offices/OBEMLA/index.html
Locate English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Link to:

NCELA - National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition A Guide for Writing Research Papers  http://webster.commnet.edu/apa/apa_index.htm
• How do you write a reference  in  APA style? __________

Discovery Channel School  http://discoveryschool.com/schoolhome.html

Teaching Tolerance  http://www.splcenter.org/teachingtolerance.html

 The Human Languages Page  http://www.june29.com/HLP/
 Try out a universal translator.

American Association of Libraries 5000 Best Sites  http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/

 Georgia TESOL  http://www.gatesol.org/
 Print yourself a membership form.