Summary Writing Follow-Up Language Work

Notes from today's class are available here. You may also be interested in this model version of the task you attempted. Let me know what you think of it:

Graduate Diploma Class Notes

As requested and promised, I've uploaded the notes we made in class today. There are three separate word files:

-Notes on prepositions

-Notes on essay organisation

-My survey and model(ish) summary

Incidentally, I have no idea why Maggie thinks that English food is greasy...

Why this man is crying, and other Wednesday wonders

The PPT from today's class is here, and I've also uploaded the notes I made on love, implying and inferring, and the use of hyphens. To find out whether this Japanese man was crying or sneezing, you can read this story from the Guardian website.

Developing Listening Skills : Podcasts

There are lots of free resources available to anyone who wants to improve their listening skills, and below I have put together a list of links which could provide you with audio material and podcasts which you can access for free and practice listening to in your free time. You'll need some software to manage subscriptions to podcasts, and iTunes is an obvious choice, with its own searchable podcast directory.

To start with some slightly less academic material, it's worth visiting the audio/visual pages of the Economist website. The BBC website also has audio and video supplements to its news stories, which allow you to read text and then listen to an oral version of the same story (not the same words though). The BBC also provide a huge bank of podcasts on a range of topics. Navigate the menus on this page to find something relevant to your field. The Guardian has a similar wealth of audio material on mostly serious subjects here. Extra software is not necessary for audio provided by the Guardian.

For more academic listening materials, openculture is a useful hub of links to universities all around the world offering free audio resources. Universities with lectures available as podcasts include Bath and Ulster.

I think that should be more than enough to keep you going. Let me know if you need any suggestions as to activities to do while listening to these recordings.

Graduate Diploma Class Materials

In case you didn't finish copying answers down from the board (or is it just a wall) this morning, I've uploaded the PPT file from today's class here. Last Thursday's class PPT is now here too.

Language Issues and Self-Study Resorces

The Word document that we looked at and edited in class is available here, and you can follow the links below to use some of the online resources I showed you:

Cambridge Dictionaries Online

Collins Corpus Concordance and Collocations Sampler

Nottingham University's Academic Word List Tools

Two other books that I mentioned in class that you can look out for are Exploring Grammar in Context and the Oxford Collocations Dictionary.

Graduate Diploma Class Notes

Click here for a Word doccument containing the notes we made in today's class. I've also uploaded PPT files for today's session (GDRW7) and last Thursday's (GDRW6).

Graduate Diploma EAP Reading Project

If you're interested in reading some of the articles selected by your classmates, you can follow the links below:

- What do you look like on the web? - from the 360abc blog

- Making Its Bookmark from The Economist

- Himalayan sherpas bugged by the sight of house flies at 5,000m from The Guardian

- When Nina Went Awol and All That Jazz from The Guardian

If yours is not listed above, it's just because it's not available online. I will give you some comments on how you have completed the first self-study task, and from now on you can keep reading and using the worksheet to help you to practise writing and to record interesting vocabulary and grammar. If you would like to keep an online record of your reading, writing an English blog would be a good way to do so. It's easy to set up a blog with blogger (the website I use), and you can simply write summaries and comments on any text you choose to read. By adding links to your source texts, you'll be able to refer back to them with ease (and it will make life easier for me too).

Second Hand Books

This afternoon I was asked if there are any second-hand bookshops near here. I've never visited Greyfriars Books on East Hill, but I have walked past it several times and it's the only second-hand bookshop I'm aware of in the area. Click here for a map of how to find it. An alternative way to get second-hand books, apart from browsing the occasional stalls that pop up in Square 3, is to check departmental notice boards for student-posted adverts, or better still join the small ads mailing list. There are actually many mailing lists you can join at the university, so it's worth looking at the mailing list web page to see if there's anything that caters for your personal interests.

Needs Analysis and Reading

This website gives you assistance in establishing what your needs are in terms of knowledge and use of grammar. The list of exercises here will help you to understand what some of the terminology used refers to.

To find reading materials, I recommend The Guardian and Independent websites, as well as The Economist and Financial Times (for economics students in particular), and perhaps even the New Scientist.

Graduate Diploma Class Two

Here is the PPT file that we looked at in class after your timed reading. We will look at more resources for exploring these language areas over the next couple of weeks.

E-mail etiquette

For a more detailed exploration of e-mail etiquette, you can have a look at this powerpoint presentation on e-mail etiquette. You'll need to download and open it so let me know if you have any problems doing so.

After you've gone through the PPT, you can try the e-mail etiquette quiz online here. A page you should definitely read is the University's guidelines on e-mail use.

Graduate Diploma Reading and Writing Class 1

Hello and welcome to my Graduate Diploma students. It was good to meet you all properly in class today. I'm glad that almost everybody seems interested in food. Here are the answers to the questions you asked in class. Good luck with your homework:

1. BA in English Language and Literature. MA in English Studies (Literature, Culture, and Modernity). Trinity Certificate and Diploma in TESOL.
2. I’m not fussy, but I like nice hair and smiles.
3. One well and two quite badly (French and Italian).
4. West Bromwich Albion. It’s in my blood.
5. Enough to live on, but job satisfaction and quality of life are more important to me.
6. My official job title is "Lecturer in EAP".
7. Football is the only sport I care about.
8. I tried but failed. Now I can only remember seafood vocabulary like “ebi” and “hotate”.
9. I hope (I try not to expect) that you all become independent learners and end the course with the skills required to achieve your goals, academic or otherwise.
10. Just keep your eyes (and your mind) open.
11. Maybe Robert DeNiro or Pele.
12. First a girl and then a boy.
13. I love it.
14. World peace.

Leave a comment if you can't guess (or remember) what all the questions were...

EAP Writing Feedback Quiz

Here's the PPT we used and adapted in today's class. I hope I don't see any of those mistakes again soon...

Projects : Essay Feedback

I will give you a copy of this during tutorials, but the handout that we created together in class is available to download here. Meanwhile I just wanted to give you an example of how to use a mix of quotation and summaries in one pargaraph. I started by looking at some opinions on marriage which I found in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations...

"A man is only as faithful as his opportunity." (Chris Rock)
"I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed." (Marlon Brando)
"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." (Oscar Wilde)

I then wrote a paragraph to try to draw these ideas together...this is what I came up with:

Many men make excuses for being unfaithful, but some give detailed reasons. The actor Marlon Brando accounts for male infidelity with a scientific explanation. He argues that since men are genetically ordained to spread their seed, it is against nature for them to be monogamous. For Oscar Wilde, monogamy is “one wife too many” and therefore simply a waste of time, while Chris Rock questions whether faithfulness really exists at all among men. He claims that “a man is only as faithful as his opportunity”, meaning basically that if a man has the chance to cheat, he will.

Free TV

Don't worry if you have no TV in your house or can only get a snowy picture (like me), there are plenty of programmes available free online. In class I told you about BBC iPlayer - you might like to try an episode of Dragon's Den to start with - but you can also find lots of online TV content on the ITV and Channel 4 websites.

Reading : Thursday & Friday EAP Classes

You can go to the FT website to read the article about CNPC in full, and the Word document we worked on in class is available here. In class I asked you to finish the reading exercises on pages 22 to 24. You can find the answers on this PowerPoint presentation. Meanwhile, if you would like to do some extra complex sentence writing practice you can complete the handout I gave you in class and check the key here. There is another writing exercise for you to try on page 18 of your materials booklet, with an answer key available to download here.

The Business Cycle

Thanks again to Matt, Elsa, and Am for their introduction to today's topic. If you'd like to read the Observer feature in full online you can find it here with the sector by sector guide here.

I promised you some questions...I hope you can provide me with some answers. Post your ideas as comments please...

1. Is now a good time to sell my flat?

2. Is unemployment likely to fall soon?

3. How easy should it be for me to borrow money from a British bank now?

4. Are any countries showing signs of a faster recovery than the UK?

5. What can or should the government be doing to speed up the recovery?

Plagiarism

The PowerPoint file from today's class on plagiarism is available here but it would be much more interesting for you to explore the subject in further detail on the university's authorship and plagiarism page.

EAP: Argumentative Essays

Probably the less said about this the better, but the PPT from today's class is available to download here. Meanwhile, what do you think of these Wordle clouds?

Introductions & Conclusions : Key to Tasks in Materials Booklet

Writing introductions

WHAT YOU SHOULD INCLUDE IN AN INTRODUCTION

2. explaining the aims of the essay
6. giving a plan of how your essay will develop

WHAT YOU MAY DECIDE TO INCLUDE IN AN INTRODUCTION

1. relating the topic to your own experience and / or current events
3. stating your own opinion on the topic
4. explaining why the topic is important / interesting / relevant
7. giving your personal interpretation of the title
9. providing some background research on the topic
10. defining terms that are used in the essay title


WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT INCLUDE IN AN INTRODUCTION

5. providing a summary of your main points
8. giving reasons and examples to support your main idea

Other things you can or should try to do in an introduction:

- limitation of the scope of the essay, i.e. what you are NOT covering
- mention of differing viewpoints on the subject
- the seriousness of the problem, why attention has to be paid to it
- mentioning previous work on the subject (or lack of it)


Writing conclusions

WHAT YOU SHOULD INCLUDE IN A CONCLUSION

4. summarising your main points, but in a different way
9. re-stating your personal opinion or evaluation of the topic

WHAT YOU MAY DECIDE TO INCLUDE IN A CONCLUSION

3. repeating your main points
5. providing a solution to any issue or question raised at the beginning
7. suggesting further investigations into the topic / issue
8. reconciling two opposing points of view


WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT INCLUDE IN A CONCLUSION

1. presenting your main idea
2. providing some additional examples in support of your main points
6. present the opposite point of view to the one covered in your main points


Additional things that can go in a conclusion:

- a deduction made on the basis of what has been discussed
- comment about the future – a predication or projection on the basis of the main conclusion
- statement of dissatisfaction with gaps and limitation of the essay


Features of introductions and conclusions

The following two paragraphs are extracts from the same paper, entitled 'Innovation in Materials' by George F. Ray (from Forester, Tom ed. 1988 The Materials Revolution Oxford, Blackwell). Skim through the texts quickly in order to answer these points:

1 Which comes from the introduction and which from the conclusion?
2 What exactly does the writer do for the benefit of the reader in each paragraph?
3 Make a list of the words and phrases that helped you differentiate between the introduction and conclusion.

A : Conclusion

- starts with a quotation which the writer relates to the overall content of his article. (This is as good a way of starting a conclusion as it is at the beginning of the introduction).
- restates the purpose of the article
- indicates the limitations of his argument in relation to the future
- but hopes that his ideas will be of benefit for future work

In one of his many publications concerning the role of science, Freeman wrote: "Much scientific research is concerned with the exploration of the unknown. By definition we cannot know the outcome of such explorations and still less can we know its future impact on technology." This general statement can be applied with some force to materials. This brief survey is intended to show how science and technology have contributed to the supply of industrial and other materials in the past and that progress has been a continuing one. History does not necessarily repeat itself; nor do the examples given in this paper of scientific and technological achievements solving materials problems provide any guarantee for the future. They do, however, provide a basis for the hope that progress will go on and future advance continue to secure a link between the demand for and the supply of materials that industry and other sectors of the economy will require.

B : Introduction

- explains the structure of the paper and the content of the two parts
- gives further explanation of the ways in which the two parts are different
- states the reason for limiting the content area of the paper

This study is in two main parts. The first surveys the history of some thirty materials which are relatively new or were 'new' at the time of their introduction into general use. The dissemination of any innovation takes time; that of new materials often takes an unusually long time; hence this first part concerns materials that already have a history. The second, shorter, part deals with the present, that is, the progress of the area of materials. For both the past and the present the choice is very wide and therefore it was necessary to be selective.

Vocabulary Matters

There's more depth to the stupid doodles we started today's class with - click here to read an interesting discussion of them. To explore Forbes lists in more detail, the Forbes Lists website has, unsurprisingly, a wide array of interesting lists for you to look at. The Academic World List resources we looked at in class are just a click away, and you can also download the PowerPoint file from today's class here. That should keep you occupied for the weekend, and you can save your money for Lakeside on Monday.

Referencing

For more information on referencing, including practice tasks and further links to information about plagiarism, follow this link. The PowerPoint file from today's class is available to download here and remember to buy and eat as much Cocon mango pudding as you posssibly can.

EAP : Unity & Coherence and Paragraphs Revisited

Here are two PowerPoint files from the first and second half of today's class along with the handout I gave you. Check your e-mail for homework!

Project Criteria

Two things for you here...the powerpoint presentation from class, and an extra language exercise on a Word document for you to try...if you need some extra work to do...

Marketing

Apologies for the audio disaster in today's class. If you want to listen to Steve Moody properly you can download the audio file here. Meanwhile, here's the powerpoint presentation from MY part of the lesson. Perhaps if Saki, Steve, and Aiko send me theirs I can make that available too. Or we could just cheat (like they did) and do "their" marketing quiz online here.

EAP: Argumentation

You can download the powerpoint presentation from today's class here, but if you can't be bothered, the questions for the paragraphs I asked you to write are as follows:

Is it OK to hit children?
Is love more important than money?
Is it possible to learn a language from a book?
Is it ever right to tell lies?
Is it better to be beautiful or intelligent?
Is it best to get married before or after the age of 30?
Should entry to museums be free?
Was the Beijing Olympics worth the money that the Chinese government invested in it?

EBS: Venture Capital and Entrepreneurs

The powerpoint presentation from today's class is available to download here. In class we listened to these two audio files - 1C and 1D - and I've uploaded a third for you here.

If you follow this link you can watch the whole of the episode of Dragon's Den that we looked at in class. From this page you can also view every episode of the current series.

Finally, if you want to think ahead to the pitches you're going to hear on Friday, you can view pictures of your innovative products here and download the preparation worksheet here.

EAP Class Materials

In class we looked at this article from the Economist. The Economist website is a wonderful free resource for any students interested in reading more and developing their vocabulary, so please bookmark it and visit when you can. The powerpoint presentation from today's class is available to download here.

Project 2 Class 1

The powerpoint presentation from today's class is available to download here.

Englightenment Lecture MP3

As promised, an mp3 file of of the lecture on the Englightenment is available here, along with the Powerpoint Presentation from today's class. If you're interested in looking at some bad use of English, this website has some amusing real-life examples.

International Trade

You can download the powerpoint presentation from today's class here, along with audio files of the listening task which can be found at the end of unit 27 (parts one and two).

A selection of articles on International Trade can be found here on the Financial Times website.

Buckingham Palace

Not really my cup of tea, to be honest, but if the trip to Buckingham Palace inspired you to find out more about the British monarchy, you can visit their website. You could also benefit from some listening practice by exploring their broadcasts, like this lecture by Prince Charles (the one with the big ears):

Newspapers

As a follow-up to today's class, it might be a good idea to bookmark this very useful website which basically provides links to online versions of lots of national and local newspapers from the UK. Many of these websites contain much more than what you would find in the daily publication of the paper, and contain searchable archives of articles.

EAP Classes : Week 3 Round-up

A selection of materials for you from week 3 EAP classes.

EAP 10 : Trends and Migration powerpoint file.

EAP 11: The Passive Voice

EAP 12: Cause and effect part one and two

EAP 13: Describing a Process

EAP 14: Linkers - as a powerpoint file along with the word file featuring language we looked at from your writing, with corrections

Extra reading and listening

As a follow-up to this afternoon's lecture, I thought I'd post links to the online versions of the publications that were mentioned -The Financial Times and The Economist. I know most of you already know how to listen to Radio 4 online, but at this stage of your language learning, it may be better for you to download podcasts than to try to listen live. Podcasts are portable and allow you to listen to short segments of radio over and over, thus giving you more chance to understand what you here. Click here to visit a page full of links to Radio 4 podcasts. You may be particularly intrested in Newspod, Peter Day's World of Business, and the Weekly Political Review.

Project Class 5

So that Tim doesn't need to get his photos developed, there's a link to the powerpoint presentation on assessment criteria here. The exercises we did on reporting verbs are also available - just click here.

English for Business Studies

A couple of powerpoint files for you from the last two EBS classes:
EBS 5 on Production and EBS 4 on Recruitment

Academic Listening Resources

There are lots of free listening resources online. iTunes is an indespensible route into the world of podcasts. From the iTunes podcast directory, follow links for education podcasts, or just type the word "lecture", and you will have a wide-ranging audio library to choose from. For business students, the Harvard Business Ideacast provides free short broadcasts of around ten minutes each. The University of Bath produces a podcast of a variety of lectures which you can subscribe to via iTunes, but recordings are also available on their website here.

You can read a previous post on free listening resources here.

EAP Tutorial Notes

At least one of you asked me to e-mail the notes that made on the laptop during this morning's tutorials. Instead of e-mailing each of you a small document, I thought I'd put everything together in one blog post so you can read some of the things that came up in other students' tutorials. Let me know if you have questions about anything you find below:



WORD FORM : NOUNS vs ADJECTIVES
I live in the centre of Beijing. (centre = noun)
I live in central Beijing. (central = adjective)
North, East, South, West (nouns) – Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western (adjectives)
The UK, the USA, the People’s Republic of China (nouns)
UK education, US dollars, Chinese people (like Chinese, the words UK and US can be used as adjectives, when they don't require THE)

WORD FORM : NOUNS vs VERBS
- Where is Gisela?
- She is swimming. (verb)

Erin was swimming when a shark attacked her. (verb)
I don’t like swimming. (noun)
Swimming is my least favourite form of exercise. (noun)

PARTICIPLE CLAUSES
Comparing Erin and Mark, Mark is more beautiful.

NEW VOCABULARY
Hanging out (informal) = socializing (Vb. Socialize)
My studies
As a new arrival in the UK
As a newcomer to the UK

BECAUSE
The hotpot was good because Mason didn’t cook it.
Because Mason didn’t cook it, the hotpot was good
The hotpot was good. This is because Mason didn’t cook it.

WHILE, AND, BY
They help me and make me feel warm.
They make me feel comfortable by helping me.
Gisela stays in the office while Mark and Fiona teach.

EAP 6 & 7

Here are the cause and effect sentences you created at the end of today's class. The English is OK but I'm not quite sure about the science behind them:

1. Reviewing your notes is a key factor in doing well at university.

2. Rainbows are caused by the sunshine and rain.

3. Economic development has led to movement of people from rural to urban areas.

4. Poverty has contributed to crime in China.

5. Light from the sun reflecting dust in the air means that the sky is blue.

6. A factor contributing to happiness is smiling all the time.

Class materials now available online are powerpoint presentations from Yesterday and Today (EAP 6.1, EAP 6.2, and EAP 7) and the feedback key that we looked at in this morning's class.

M&S Management and other issues

There are sound files from Monday's English for Business Studies lesson available (parts one, two, and three) but they contain less nudity than this video clip:

Project Class 3 : Notes and Summaries

The powerpoint presentation from Monday's class is available to download here.

Tutorial Feedback

Just a few links for you that came out of this afternoon's tutorials. One completely unacademic link is to the 3 website, where you can get a mobile phone which allows you to make free Skype-to-Skype calls. On a more English-language-related theme, you can follow this link to a previous blog posting about resources for exploring collocations. While you make notes on your report, you might find this online version of the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary useful. Also useful, but perhaps not particularly legal is this site featuring entries from the Oxford Collocations Dictionary.

Finally, I just thought I'd say that it's good to see you all working hard and thinking intelligently about your projects. I hope it continues...

EAP Class 4

Today's Powerpoint Presentation should be available here. I think I've fixed the problem with downloading previous class files....it was something to do with my version of MS Office.

EAP Class 3

Some of you may need more practice playing noughts and crosses, so I recommend this website. When you're ready for more studying, you can download the Powerpoint Presentation from today's class, including my ugly scribbles, and the handout on symbols and abbreviations, just in case you lose it.

Projects

You can download Powerpoint Presentations from session one and two here and here respectively. Meanwhile, here are the twelve-word summaries you wrote in today's class:

SOUTHEND

Southend is a lovely extremely small village for having a retired life.

Southend is located at the East of the UK near the sea.

They have beautiful seagulls and many shops in the Southend.

TITANIC

Rose keeps an expensive jewel as her memory when she met Jack.

Jack said “Oh no! You jump, I jump”.

Titanic is a film which describes a love story in a cruise.

Titanic is a story of a couple. Jack dies and doesn’t “come back”.

Jack and Rose fall in love aboard Titanic which sank in the ocean.

Jack and Rose fall in love in Titanic.

A STRANGE BUT ALLURING RUSSIAN RESTAURANT

“Handsome and pretty” dancers perform in a Russian restaurant which supplies delicious meat via special methods.

EAP Classes : The First Two Days

The Powerpoint presentation from our first day's class is available to download here. You can also access the Word document which we edited in today's class here. E-mail if you have any questions or requestions, or just speak to me in class.

English for Business Studies : Syllabus Planning

Here is the Powerpoint presentation we used in class with your choice of topics that we'll study in this course.

Moodle

Today we'll be looking at moodle, which you can access here. You'll need to visit my flickr site to find the photo that was taken of you yesterday. Don't worry - if you don't like this picture, you can always replace it with a photo of your own at a later date. If you get lost or confused or want to revise how moodle works in your own time, you can do an online course within moodle itself, or just watch the following instructional videos from Youtube:

A man walked into a bar in Texas didn't he...

We looked at the difference between these QUESTIONS (to get some information) and INVITATION TAGS (to initiate conversation) before trying to finish a long list of statements with appropriate tags:

- Is it cold today?
- Ooh it’s cold today isn’t it.

- Are these chips delicious?
- These chips are delicious aren’t they.

- It’s typical isn’t it. The trains are always late when you’re in a hurry.
- Is it typical that the trains are always late when you’re in a hurry?

- The reading test was difficult wasn’t it.
- Was the reading test difficult?

- Is Bandar lovely?
- Bandar’s lovely isn’t he.

- Is Ran strange?
- Ran’s a bit strange isn’t she.

· You can swim
· You didn’t go to Colchester last Thursday night
· You’re not a dog
· You ate breakfast this morning
· You mustn’t complain
· You’re not afraid of spiders
· You should get more sleep
· You need money
· She looks great
· You’ve been to London before
· Let’s go shopping
· He’s so fat
· Sit down
· You love me
· You will call me when you get home
· You won’t forget me
· You mustn’t smoke
· Let’s have a party
· Open the window
· It’s not your birthday today
· They shouldn’t have gone to Germany
· England are going to win the next World Cup
· You can’t speak French
· It might rain today
· You can’t drive
· You’re bored of this exercise

If you're interested in trying some more lateral thinking puzzles, there's a website full of them if you follow this link. Hopefully the results won't tell you that you're some kind of murderer.

Modal verbs and the past

These are the sentences we created in class. Why did we spend so long talking about why Majed didn't kiss Ran?

1. If you weren’t able to see the board, you should have tried borrowing Mohammed’s glasses. (ABILITY)

2. Eman can’t have been 30 years old when that picture was taken! She looks so young! (LIKELIHOOD)

3. I was allowed to borrow Nada’s money because she didn’t need it. (PERMISSION)

4. – Who was that outside the room yesterday?
- It won’t have been Chris or Liz. They were both on holiday. (LIKELIHOOD)

5. Hani asked Bandar if he would help him because he couldn’t lift the table by himself. (VOLITION and ABILITY)

6. Su was so shy that she simply wouldn’t sing in class. (VOLITION)

7. – What was that strange noise last night?
- Don’t worry. It will have been Ahmed snoring. (LIKELIHOOD)

8. I think that Mark would have been 24 last year. (LIKELIHOOD)

9. Majed wasn’t allowed to kiss Ran = permission.

Majed couldn’t have kissed Ran because she was having dinner with Su last night. = likelihood
Majed wasn’t able to kiss Ran last night because he has just had lip surgery. = ability
Majed shouldn’t have kissed Ran because she’s got swine flu. = obligation
Majed wouldn’t kiss Ran yesterday because he wasn’t in the mood. = volition
Majed refused to kiss Ran yesterday because he wasn’t in the mood. = volition

10. Majed thought that West Brom might have won the FA Cup last year. (LIKELIHOOD)

11. Azhar might have given you money if you had smiled and asked nicely. (LIKELIHOOD)

12. You shouldn’t have spoken to Abdullah yesterday. He’s a bad influence.
(OBLIGATION)

13. Ahmed and Majed were both so stylish and handsome when they were younger. They must have had lots of girlfriends. (LIKELIHOOD)

14. Eman should have driven more slowly last night. She’s a very dangerous driver. (OBLIGATION)

15. English grammar could be difficult when I was at high school. / English grammar sometimes used to be difficult… (LIKELIHOOD)

16. The class should have had no trouble getting all these questions right. (LIKELIHOOD)

Project Class : Language Issues

Some documents and links for you from today's class. First we looked at linkers, and the document we created together - including those oh-so-cute examples - is available to dowload here. Answers to the question "Is it an English sentence?" can be found on this worksheet, also completed in class, and finally you can read all about the very cute Socks here on the BBC website, or through this exercise on the passive. Finally, you can, if you wish, follow this link to the Collins Concordancer Sampler...which most students don't actually tend to like. Never mind...

GVD Class : Error Correction and Modal Verbs of Likelihood

The word file we edited in class to correct mistakes from your written work is now available to download here not that my server is working again. You can also access the powerpoint presentation on SPORKS here.

Reported Questions

The powerpoint presentation from today's class are now available to download here. There's more on pages 171 and 172 of your textbook if you want more practice.

Reported Speech and Reporting Verbs

The first handout we looked at on reported statements is available to download here while the more difficult stuff on verbs of reference is available as a handout or powerpoint presentation. For more practice you can also look at pages 156 and 157 of your textbook and talk to me about any problems you encounter in working through the exercises.

Complexity

Because I'd hate to disappoint Ahmed, the Word file we produced together in class is available to download here. If you want to learn more about China's green ambitions and our friend John / Zhang, you can read the Guardian article in full here.

GVD Self-Study Worksheet

Those of you who have already given me completed worksheets on an article you read have picked up on some interesting vocabulary and grammar points, and I think it would be useful to do this kind of activity again and again. I've therefore uploaded the worksheet as a Word document and as a pdf for you to download, print, and use in your own time.

Project Class 7

The powerpoint presentation from today's class is available to download here.

All of the charts and graphs we looked at in class came from the UK National Statistics website.

GVD Class : Universal Grammar Exercise

Can you add the grammar to the following text? You will need to change the form of verbs, add prepositions, articles, and relative pronouns, and think about the form of adjectives and adverbs. Good luck!

“What be point worry too much future?” say Francine Beudet. Francine, her husband Hervé, and daughter, Marine, live 100 miles south Paris. “We no save much. We prefer spend our money now have good life”.

England, Gordon and Fiona Robinson take same approach money. Fiona decide stay home look after their daughter, Chloe, who be near 3. “I consider take part-time job, but as it be impossible Gordon be home set time each evening, it be too difficult arrange moment”.

Other side Channel, Francine find ideal solution problem combine work with run home and bring up children. She be nurse and she work part-time old-people’s home. Although hospital close Francine’s home, she need car get there quick.

Hervé expect buy his own car but he do receive hotel and petrol expenses for his work, involve drive enormous distance each year. He organise his work so that when Francine be night duty, he can get home every evening take care Marine.

Gordon’s car be provide his employer and he be lucky enough get new one every two years. He also spend each working day travel around his area, but instead stay overnight in hotels, he manage get home.

You can download the key here.

Online Etymology Dictionary

Not sure how many people will be interested in this, but I've been using this Online Etymology Dictionary and thought it might be useful to someone. To quote the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictonary definition, etymology is "the study of the origin and history of words, or a study of this type relating to one particular word". It may help you to become more aware of the relationship between spelling and meaning and how particular parts of a word may carry a meaning which can be recognised in other words. In class, for example, we noticed that the word "mortgage" starts with the same four letters are "mortal", and so may therefore be related to death. The Online Etymology Dictionary confirms that this is the case:


mortgage (n.)
1390, from O.Fr. morgage (13c.), mort gaige, lit. "dead pledge" (replaced in modern Fr. by hypothèque), from mort "dead" + gage "pledge;" so called because the deal dies either when the debt is paid or when payment fails. O.Fr. mort is from V.L. *mortus "dead," from L. mortuus, pp. of mori "to die" (see mortal). The verb is first attested 1467.

Perhaps this is only of interest to sad word geeks like myself, but if it's helpful to just one person then that's fine by me.

Vocabulary Exercises : Good Game?

These wordle clouds were created from vocabulary found in this article from The Economist.





Everything else I gave you in class is available here.

Project Class : Questionnaires

The sample questionnaire I showed you in class is available for you here as requested, along with the handout from today's session and the adjustments I made to the same handout while you were giving presentations. If you've got a spare few minutes and want to see a Likert scale in action, you could discover fascinating things you never knew about your own personality (maybe) via this questionnaire on the BBC Science & Nature website.

Monday's Class Materials

The four-in-a-row question grid we looked at in class is available here. If you want the answers the completed version of the grid is here for you too. Today I also gave you this handout on word parts, and this selection of extracts which contain examples of the type of vocabulary we looked at. Good luck finding three more examples in the article you're going to bring to class on Wednesday.

Do you speak English?

Project Class 2

As promised, the powerpoint presentation from today's class is available to download here. You can also get the gapped text we completed in class here and a template for planning your project here.

Articles

If you need some help with articles, I've created a checklist / rule sheet for article usage, which is available here. You can also go here to read the original version of the Guardian piece on swine flu.

Bored of prepositions?

Just in case you lost it or didn't quite catch all of the answers, the full list of questions with prepositions we looked at in class is available to download here.

Participles in Action

This is the simple, boring text:

I woke up. I felt ill. I called the doctor. I visited the doctor. The doctor told me to open my mouth. I opened my mouth. The doctor told me to say “aah”. I said “aah”. The doctor said “oh!”. The doctor saw something green. The green thing was in my mouth. The green thing was alive. The doctor was frightened. The doctor called the police. The doctor shot me in the head.

...which became:

I woke up feeling ill. Having called the doctor to make an appointment, I visited him and he told me to open my mouth, which I did. The doctor told me to say “aah”. While I was saying “aah”, the doctor saw something green living in my mouth. Terrified, the doctor called the police. Having done so, the doctor shot me in the head.

I'm still not happy with that ending, but thanks to Abdullah for raising the question of how participles can help us in our writing.

The handout on participles that we used in class is available here (including answers). The powerpoint presentation from today's class on conditionals can also be downloaded here.

Dragons and Participles

The powerpoint file from today's class is here. You can also click here for the original article about Peter Jones and his business academy. Have a look through it and note uses of participle adjectives and participle clauses that you find.

I'm also in the process of posting and commenting on your summaries on the wiki, so please do visit and have a look.