I spend a lot of time working with my IB Theory of Knowledge students on the importance of illustrating each point they make, both in essays and in presentations, with stories. In fact, many highlight that fact in their end-of-year class evaluations as one of the most important things they have learned. You can see many of the resources I use to back-up my hammering on that concept at The Best Digital (& Non-Digital) Storytelling Resources (especially in the bottom-half). Adam Grant shared an article this morning on Twitter that is a nice addition to that collection. It’s titled People Remember What You Say When You Paint a Picture. Here’s an excerpt:

© 2013 Gonzalo Díaz Fornaro, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio I’ve written a lot about positive classroom management writer/thinker Marvin Marshall. He’s just written a post sharing a long list of questions teachers can keep in their back pocket to ask students who could be making better choices in class. Here are a few, but you want to go to his blog to read all of them: • Is this going to get you what you want? • Is this going to move you forward or backward? • What can I do to help you? • Are you going to let this (situation, person, problem, setback, disappointment etc.) hold you back? • Are you going to be able to rise above this _______ (situation, disappointment, etc.)? • Look at _______’s face. How is he/she feeling right now as a result of (what you have done/said)? I’m adding this post to The Best Posts On Classroom Management.

Arika Okrent is the language columnist for The Week. Here’s a useful video she created:

© 2004 Mai Le, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio I haven’t really explored the concept of positive self-talk though, after watching Stephen Curry in the video below using it ("Control Your Destiny!"), I thought it might be work learning more about it. I did find this NPR piece, Why Saying Is Believing — The Science Of Self-Talk, which had a lot of information, including suggesting that research says we shouldn’t use "I." Instead, use either "you" or your own name. Have you had experience working with students on the idea of positive self-talk?

© 2012 Sue Waters, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio The Statue of Liberty arrived in the United States 130 years ago today. You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About The Statue Of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor 130 years ago today, on June 17, 1885. Here she is in 2015. pic.twitter.com/seZDpFoaaB — The New York Times (@nytimes) June 17, 2015

© 2013 Takver, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio Here are new additions to The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day: Violence Has Forced 50 Million People From Their Homes is from The Atlantic. The UN Refugee Agency has an amazing interactive. Fifty Most Populous Refugee Camps is an interactive map. A Bangladeshi photographer has spent six years documenting Rohingya refugees from Myanmar http://t.co/OEgIiOS4xV pic.twitter.com/RccvBhpXdi — NYT Photo (@nytimesphoto) June 4, 2015

Several times each year, Jimmy Fallon plays a game on The Tonight Show that can easily be modified as a language-learning activity for the classroom. I’ve written about many of them. Last week, he played a new one called Random Picture Association. As the video below shows, it’s exactly what the name implies — they show photos and players share what comes to mind. It seems to me that this could be a fun exercise for students to practice speaking — either give groups of two or three a pack of picture cards or show funny images from the web on an overheard. Then one student in each group - taking turns - tells the others in English what comes to their mind. Has anyone tried something like this in your classroom? I’m adding this post to The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons.

The upcoming movie "The Secret Life of Pets" looks like it’s a winner, if this new trailer for it is an accurate picture of what it will be like. The trailer itself would be great to show English Language Learners and have them describe in writing and verbally what happens in it (also see The Best Fun Videos For English Language Learners In 2015 - So Far). In addition, the segment in the trailer showing how the cat is trying to demonstrate self-control would be a great example to demonstrate an unsuccessful strategy to use….

I’ve written a lot in my books and on this blog about the concept of deliberate practice and how I use it in the classroom (see The Best Resources For Learning About The 10,000 Hour Rule & Deliberate Practice). Yesterday, in a post-game press conference, NBA Finals MVP Andre Iguodala said something that will be a perfect introduction to a lesson on deliberate practice if your students are basketball fans - and don’t live in Cleveland:

© 2012 Jai Kapoor, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio Muslims will celebrate Ramadan on the sunset tonight and will continue for 30 days until Friday, July 17th. You might be interested in The Best Sites To Teach & Learn About Ramadan.