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Learn 60 New Vocabulary Words With These Imaginative Student Videos

Learn 60 New Vocabulary Words With These Imaginative Student Videos

Over the past eight years of our Vocabulary Video Contest, students have produced thousands of lively, original videos in which they define a Word of the Day in under 15 seconds.Sixty of the winning videos, organized into three compilations by part of speech, are rounded up in this post. We hope that this repository of…
Lesson of the Day: ‘How Language Classes Are Moving Past the Gender Binary’

Lesson of the Day: ‘How Language Classes Are Moving Past the Gender Binary’

Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “How Language Classes Are Moving Past the Gender Binary” by Molly LipsonMany languages, including Hebrew, French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic, use binary pronouns, such as he/she and male/female, which means that other gender identities are not formally acknowledged in those languages.In this lesson, you will learn about teachers who are finding ways…
February Vocabulary Challenge: Invent a Word

February Vocabulary Challenge: Invent a Word

“Of all the factors that transform how we communicate, none are so powerful as young people, who have always steered language,” writes book critic Parul Sehgal.Our February Vocabulary Challenge invites middle and high school students to suggest a new word of their own. In the comments, tell us what your word means and why you…
Experts on Deaf Culture Help Times Explain Name Signing

Experts on Deaf Culture Help Times Explain Name Signing

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.How does a person get a name sign — the series of unique gestures used to identify someone in American Sign Language? For a team of Times journalists, the process of answering that question underscored the…
Endangered Languages Are Worth Saving

Endangered Languages Are Worth Saving

This essay, by Zoe Yu, age 17, from The Woodlands College Park High School in The Woodlands, Texas, is one of the Top 11 winners of The Learning Network’s Ninth Annual Student Editorial Contest, for which we received 16,664 entries.We are publishing the work of all the winners and runners-up over the next week, and…
Expectations of ‘Perfect’ English Are Elitist and Unrealistic

Expectations of ‘Perfect’ English Are Elitist and Unrealistic

This essay, by Megan Luong, age 17, from Notre Dame High School in San Jose, Calif., is one of the Top 11 winners of The Learning Network’s 10th Annual Student Editorial Contest, for which we received 12,592 entries.We are publishing the work of all the winners and runners-up over the next week, and you can…

Saul Kripke, Philosopher Who Found Truths in Semantics, Dies at 81

He published a landmark work at 32. Known for lecturing extemporaneously for hours without notes, he dazzled colleagues with the breadth of his ruminations.