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.

CAL: Links for Today's Task

Some more links which you can use to help you in today's task, or just explore in your free time.

Academic Word List Links:

The AWL Highlighter and Gap-maker

Averil Coxhead's page

Academic Vocabulary Exercises

Article sources
The Essex University Libarary
Google Scholar
Magazines like The Economist and The New Scientist
Quality newspapers like The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, and The Telegraph

Other academic-related materials
Podcasts from the University of Nottingham
Key Skills

Modal Verbs of Obligation and Phrasal Verbs with Break

I've added a couple of exercises to the wiki. One is to review modal verbs of obligation, which we looked at in class on Monday, while the other is a new set of phrasal verbs, this time with BREAK. Have at them here, and please add your answers, comments, and questions to the wiki.

Writing Task : Potential Sources

You're free to choose your own articles, but in case you're short of imagination after all the tests you've done this week, here are some suggestions.

Compare two different reviews of the same film. You could take one from the Guardian (Film reviews from Film guardian.co.uk) and one from The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/ ) for example.

Using newspapers in the same way (since we might expect quite different outlooks from these two publications), you could compare the comments pages of The Guardian and The Telegraph (or any two newspapers really). On the topical issue of British MPs' living expenses, for instance, we have This mother of all expenses cock-ups is the stuff of banana republics by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, and What Parliament needs now is the spirit of Cromwell in the Telegraph.

Finally, if you want some more David Crystal, you could look at his article on textspeak, along with a debate between Will Self and Lynne Truss .

Writing : Combining Sources

Click here for the handout and and here for the powerpoint presentation from today's class, where you'll hopefully be able to see that my quotations WERE numbered correctly once upon a time. If want only the quotations, here they are:

1."A man is only as faithful as his opportunity." (Chris Rock)
2."Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences." (Isadora Duncan)
3."Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." (Oscar Wilde)
4."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)
5."It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche)
6."The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people, the hardest is with one." (Joan Baez)
7."When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one." (Helen Rowland)

More of Oscar Wilde's epigrams are on this site and if you fancy listening to something both interesting an challenging, why not have a look at (or should that be listen to) Stephen Fry's podcast on Wilde here.

Fact,Opinion, Argument

Beyond today's class handout on facts and opinion, there's plenty of material on this area of language use to explore. I found this online quiz that you might like to try, or you could just read pages like this - the comment and debate section of the Guardian.

GVD Class Wiki

I've posted the ABILITY exercise on a wiki so that you can submit and compare solutions online. We won't have enough time in classes to cover everything that we may need to, so the wiki gives you the option of looking at some extra material and working together on it in what I hope will be a useful and productive manner. I'll send you e-mails with invitations to join the wiki as a writer, so you'll be able to make any amendments you like. If you don't know what a wiki is or how it works, there's a video here that will explain it for you. If and when you're ready to start wiki-ing, click here for the GVD2 section of the wiki.

Online Learning Resources

Here are some online resources for you to explore. Let me know if you have any questions about how to use / access any of the sites, and tell me also if you have any particular requests regarding online resources.

Dictionaries
cambridge dictionaries online
longman online dictionary
macmillan online dictionary
oxford dictionary (and the less legal oxford collocations dictionary)

Corpora and Concordancers
collins concordance and collocations sampler
mark davies' british national corpus search
a huge but fairly anonymous concordancing site

Online Learning Resources

academic word list sites here, here, and here!

bbc online learning resourcesbritish council online learning resources
british council online learning resources
the english learning wiki

phonetics : an pronunciation resource

GVD Class : Homework Key

Here are the answers to Exercise 4 on page 44. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or disagreements:

1. I’ve had a headache since lunchtime.
2. The cost of living increased by 10% last year.
3. The television has gone wrong several times in the last month.
4. Cars replaced horse-drawn vehicles nearly a hundred years ago.
5. I haven’t passed my driving test yet.
6. I didn’t sleep very well last night.
7. You’re too late! The film began at least an hour ago.
8. He’s been a vegetarian for several years.
9. Did you have breakfast this morning?
10. He has become more sociable in the last few weeks.

Verbs of Reference

The powerpoint presentation from today's class is downloadable here. Don't forget to visit the wiki to compare your answers to the noun phrase homework task.

Incidentally, not sure if any of you are interested in etymology, but I looked up the phrase "buy the farm" on an online etymology dictionary and got this entry, which claims that it dates back to the second world war and has ironic associations with the idea of returning to a safe and prosperous life (which echoes Khaled's suggestion that "buy the farm" should mean the opposite of "die").

Finally, for lazy Mo's benefit, here's a link to my previous post on free access to online corpora.

More on Tense and Aspect

Consider the following pairs of sentences and answer the questions below each.

- Mark was married for nine years.
- Aziz has been married for nine years.

1. Who is still married? How do you know?

- Eman has met the Prime Minister.
- Hani has been meeting the Prime Minister.

2. Which of these two students seem more likely to be a political adviser? Why?

- Mohammed lost his keys.
- Bandar has lost his keys.

3. Who will find it difficult to get into his house? Why?

- Ran has read three books this month.
- Su has been reading three books.

4. Who is a more organised reader, Ran or Su? Why?

- Nada has painted her house.
- Azhar has been painting her house.

5. Whose house probably looks better? Why?

- Majed has kissed Angelina Jolie.
- Ahmed has been kissing Angelina Jolie.

6. Who do you think Angelina prefers? Why?

- Khalaf has broken his toe.
- Abdullah has been breaking his toes.

7. What type of hospital should each man go to and why?

Please leave a comment with any observations, questions, or concerns you may have.

GVD: Phrasal Verbs with Put

Here is the class handout on PHRASAL VERBS WITH PUT. Please leave a comment if you have any observations or question.

Writing Group 4 : Online Practice

I've put yesterday's homework on a wiki so that you can submit and compare solutions online. We won't have enough time in classes to cover everything that we may need to, so the wiki gives you the option of looking at some extra material and working together on it in what I hope will be a useful and productive manner. I'll send you e-mails with invitations to join the wiki as a writer, so you'll be able to make any amendments you like. If you don't know what a wiki is or how it works, there's a video here that will explain it for you. If and when you're ready to start wiki-ing, click here for the homework task on working with noun phrases.

Resources for GVD Group 2

The word file that we edited in today's class is available for you to download here. We started off with the problems in this document, so if you compare the two, you'll see all the changes we made.

To check and review your vocabulary notes, 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.

GVD : Past Continuous Homework Key

Here are my answers to the exercises on pages 34 to 35 of your book. Leave a comment if there's anything you disagree with or want to ask about:

Exercise 1

a) While I was working hard my lucky sister was enjoying herself on the beach.
b) I couldn’t answer the phone when it rang because I was having a bath.
c) When Jane’s husband left her she sold all of his records and spent the money on a holiday in the Caribbean.
d) I didn’t hear a thing because I was watching television when the burglar broke into my house. e) The bus was late as usual so when I got to work everyone else was already working.
f) Before cars were invented people had smaller carbon footprints.
g) Just as I was parking my car another driver stole the space.
h) When I finally passed my driving test I was wearing a mini-skirt. or…When I finally passed my driving test I hugged the examiner.
i) Look at the rain! It’s hard to believe that this time last week we were sunbathing in the garden.
j) While David was waiting outside one cinema, his girlfriend was awaiting outside another.

Exercise 2

One of the most embarrassing incidents in my early career as a doctor happened when I was working in the Accident Department of a large city hospital. I usually cycled to work when the weather was fine as I was trying to lose weight. That particular morning it was just beginning to rain as I left the house but I thought I could reach the hospital before the rain got too heavy. I cycled down the hill, turned in to the main road and was heading for the city centre when the bus in front of me began to slow down. As I moved out to overtake it, there was a loud bang and everything went black. When I came round, I was lying on the pavement and a crowd of people were standing around me. Then I heard an ambulance in the distance and my heart sank. Five minutes later I arrived at the hospital and was carried in the Accident Department on a stretcher.

GVD Homework Key : Comparatives & Superlatives

Here are the answers to exercise 4 on page 25 of your books:

a) In your opinion, what is the most stressful aspect of being a doctor?
b) Who is more useful to society, a policeman or a social worker?
c) I think women drive more carefully than men.
d) Please talk a bit more quietly. You’re disturbing everyone.
e) He feels much fitter since he stopped smoking.
f) There’s nothing more annoying that losing one’s door key.
g) Michael prefers to be alone. He is the least sociable person in the office.
h) He did not do very well, but at least he tried harder than last time.
i) That really is the worst food I’ve ever eaten!
j) I bought her the most expensive present I could afford.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or alternative suggestions.

Writing Workshop

The edited version of the handout we worked on in class today is available here, with some comments from me in the section on "opinion". Feel free to post any questions you have about any of the changes we made.

E-mail writing task

I will give you another student's e-mail address. Write to them and ask politely if you can borrow their notes from a class you normally attend, but which you missed this week. (You can decide the details of what you need from them). When you send the e-mail, cc it to me - mhollow@essex.ac.uk

More instructions will follow...

Tense, Aspect, and Romance

Here's the tense & aspect grid we looked at in class, along with the mini-saga handout. For extra practice, try add the grammar to the following stories and post your solutions as a comment below:

Sergeant Boxwell know he catch burglar at last. “You no have say anything at all” he tell him, “but your bootprints find scene eleven burglaries”. Then triumphantly, “you got anything say?” “Only this”, reply suspect. “Yesterday, I steal those boots”.

School he be no good maths, but outstanding writing and reading. But who need arithmetic? He enter competition with enthusiasm, and produce brilliant, witty, profound, and paradoxical story. He inspire. It be absolute masterpiece. judges sigh. Another one with 51 words.

This one is tricky...

They ARGUE bitterly the night before. He COME IN from the garage with oil on his shoes. Fed up, desperate, she STAB him. Horrified at what she DO, she DRIVE away from the house along the cliff road. Suddenly she REALISE that the brakes NO WORK.

Class 4 Writing Task

Here's a link to the David Crystal article we looked at in class, along with the writing task itself. If you want to find out more about David Crystal and his work you can visit his website here. From his blog it looks like it's perfectly possible to e-mail him, so why not try making friends with him. After all, it's not what you know, it's who you know...

More Relative Clauses

The powerpoint presentation from today's class is here, but I'd also like some answers to the following questions:

• What's the name of the student who does not like dogs?
• What's the name of the student who has good ethics?What's the name of the student who is honest, shy, and wear a black scarf?
• What's the name of the student who is a super football fan?
• What's the name of the student who has taken IELTS more than twenty times?
• What's the name of the student who always comes to class late?
• What's the name of the student who has got a nice bag?

Folktales

We'll look at these in more depth in class when we analyse YOUR writing, but here are a few links to versions of the stories you wrote in class. First we have the intriguingly-titled Billy Goat's Gruff, a variation of which Khalid told Mo. The Fox and the Crow can be found in Aesop's Fables, which you can find free and in full online. The day's most popular story was The Boy Who Cried Wolf, although Sondos' version had a sheep doing the crying. Finally, there's a nice version of The Three Little Pigs here, with lovely pictures. I don't know the story of the farmer and the widow with her box of money, so I'm looking forward to finding out how that one ends...

The class handout is available here.

Online TV and Radio Resources

While you're in the UK you can take advantage of quite a lot of free online content provided by the major terrestrial channels in this country. The BBC iPlayer site has TV and radio shows that can be streamed or downloaded (with a fast enough internet connection). You'll need to download some simple software to download programmes, but it's easy to do and instructions are on the site. 4OD is Channel 4's TV and film on-deman website, and contains a range of programmes and movies, some of which you have to pay for. Most Channel 4 programmes from the past week are available for free, though, and so too are previous episodes of these shows (something the BBC don't offer). Unfortunately (or fortunately for me maybe), I don't watch much on ITV, so I've never used the imaginatively named ITV Player, but it appears to work in much the same way as the other major channels' websites. Just don't try to talk to me about Britain's Got Talent. Finally, if you're after some more academic audio to listen to, you can read a post I wrote last summer here...when I get the time I'll have a look for more of this kind of thing. Happy viewing...

Monday's GVD Class Materials

You can visit some online collocations resources via the links in this old post. E-mail me for a link to the secret site someone mentioned in class. You can also download the powerpoint files from today's class here for collocations work and here for the stuff on relative clauses.

GVD Class : Collocations Exercise

In class you generated lots of phrases, some of which were great and some of which were not so great. REPAIR A COMPUTER, for example, is a good collocation, wheras EAT A TABLE is not. We can say RIDE A BICYCLE and DRIVE A CAR, but not RIDE A CAR or DRIVE A BICYCLE. I've been experimenting with some software to produce online tasks for you to do as homework, and I've created a simple quiz for you based on the phrases you produced. All you have to do is decide whether each of the twenty phrases are acceptable or not. At the moment my skills are quite limited, so the quiz is ugly and perhaps unexciting, but I will try hard to improve and create more attractive online tasks in the future.

To access the quiz, click here, or e-mail me if you really don't understand!

After you have discovered which phrases do not collocation, try to provide a correct alternative and post it as a comment on this website. Good luck!

One last thing...if you'd like to take a look at the powerpoint version of our lesson on future forms and e-mails, you can download it here.

Writing Class Materials

Short and sweet...the powerpoint file from today's lesson is available here.

George Lucas, Semicolons, and Collocations

Just in case you're interested, you can download the powerpoint presentation from today's class here andlearn more about George Lucas here.

If you'dlike some links to other language items that arose today, there's a nice page on the use of semicolons here on the University of Sussex website. I'd also like to draw your attention to some of my previous posts on collocations. I recommend the Oxford Collocations Dictionary to everyone involved in learning or teaching English. If you buy one, you can look up words like heresy, astronomer, astrology, admire, slavery, poverty, and prosperity, all of which were mentioned in class at some point today.

Present Tense Review

Here are the powerpoint presentations from today's class. The first is comparison of the simple and continuous aspect, and the second focuses on differences between state and dynamic verbs.

The BBC World Service website has an explanation of the difference between state and dynamic verbs here, which you can also download as an mp3. Eclectic English also features some online practice activities here.

Introducing Myself or Minding the Gap

In class we looked at this de-grammared text about me, which we then reconstructed and compared with my original text (which can find here). The idea is to find differences between your language and mine and establishing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. By exploring these differences, we aim to close the gap. Or at least narrow it a little.

Pre-Sessional Course at the University of Essex

Hello and welcome to my new students at the International Academy in Essex. I'll be using this blog to post lesson materials, supplementary activities, and links to relevant texts and online resources. Please post any comments or questions that you may have, and if you want to do some extra writing practice, why not start your own blog. Blogger.com allows you to set up and maintain a blog for free, and it's very easy to use.

School Report : The University of Essex

Read the article in full here.