I fell in love with our Hymn of the Week when we sang it at Saints Peter and Paul, in the old mill village of Phenix, Rhode Island. One of the night school students at the college where we taught gave us an old upright piano as a gift, and on it I would play hymns out of an old hymnal or two that we’d collected. We have a whole bookcase full of hym…

It’s Memorial Day today in the United States, what used to be called Decoration Day, because that’s when everybody went to the graves of their kin to tend them and set down some flowers — at least, that’s what we did in Pennsylvania. Of course, the day was more specifically in honor of soldiers who had passed away, especially if they had died in ba…

For almost my whole career as a professor, going back to 1988, it’s been my privilege to introduce students to works of great wisdom, art, and beauty, coming to us from a good two dozen cultures and spanning more than 3,000 years. I had to do this often against opposition from within Providence College, where I taught for 27 years, opposition by pe…

If you ask me when I have felt most powerfully the presence of God, I can’t say that it was a result of my trying hard to do so. I remember one night when I was riding my sled down the hill next to my grandfather’s house, and the memory of a hymn was ringing in my mind. It was cold and crisp, dark everywhere but under the streetlights and near the …

In 1835, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow observed that “music is the universal language of mankind.” Does this ring true in your experience? I’m sure that Longfellow, a very wise and learned man, understood that his was not an original thought so much as a simple statement of fact which could then and can now readily be observed in every part of the wor…

According to Orson Welles, who was himself a phenomenal director and quite an authority about the art, the three greatest American directors were, “John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.” At our house, we agree with that assessment. Even so, we don’t agree with what many people say, that our Film of the Week is his most magnificent achievement. That …

“Seek,” says Jesus, “and you shall find.” The kingdom of God, he says, may be likened to a man who was seeking fine pearls, who when he found one pearl of great price, sold all that he had to obtain that pearl. Here’s the thing about the seeking that Jesus enjoins upon us: we can be confident of finding, not because we’re lucky, but because God is …

Sometimes a song just fills the bill at Word & Song. And don’t fear! I’m not going to venture into children’s songs such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” which I’m guessing many of our readers fondly remember from their earliest school days. (If you have forgotten to sing such sweet little songs with the sweet little childre…

Chapters 17-19, Teaching english & Chapter 6, Unlocking

Let's begin from the very beginning. There are so many acronyms related to ESOL. You have probably heard such words as ESL, ESOL, ELL, EL, L1, L2, and LEP. What do they all mean?