Physics of the riderless bike

from http://www.sciencefriday.com

Example learning blog

As a starting point for a blog project with this year's Pre-sessional students, I've prepared the following blog as an example of an online learning journal. It's up to students to make of it what they wish, though...

And more IATEFL Videos

More IATEFL Vidoes

IATEFL Videos

Materials for practice timed-writing exercise : meat-eating

Link to Time Magazine Article

OF WHICH?

I received the following question from a student, which I'll respond to below:

 

I quoted the following sentences from Guardian, though, I could not understand what the expression "of which" means here

 

"There's the predictable slew of buzz-building reports overnight, the most unlikely of which comes from the usually infallible" and on other occasion " Apple will also add a few surprises, the most dramatic of which would be retinal display.

 

And this from comments " the only value of which is the capacity to store all my music"

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/mar/02/ipad2-apple-steve-jobs

 

MY RESPONSE: Good question.  Let's answer it in two stages:

 

Firstly, the purpose of WHICH in these examples is to join together two sentences. So:

 

I found an interesting article. I would like to ask you a question about the interesting article.

 

becomes

 

I found an interesting article WHICH I would like to ask you a question about.

 

So far so simple, but, here's the second stage of my answer.  What if one of the sentences we want to join has a preposition?

 

I saw a horrible clip on Youtube.  In the clip, an owl gets injured at a football match.

My grandfather had six brothers.  Five of my grandfather's brothers fought in the  Second World War.

 

become

 

I saw a horrible clip on Youtube in which an owl gets injured at a football match.

My grandfather had six brothers, five of whom fought in the  Second World War.

 

Note that the preposition is attached to WHICH in the relative clause.  When we attach a preposition to WHO, it becomes WHOM

 

So, in your examples:

 

"There's the predictable slew of buzz-building reports overnight, the most unlikely of which comes from the usually infallible" and on other occasion " Apple will also add a few surprises, the most dramatic of which would be retinal display.

 

= There's the predictable slew of buzz-building reports overnight. The most unlikely of the reports comes from the usually infallible…(I suspect that what comes next is the source of the report)

and: Apple will also add a few surprises. The most dramatic of the surprises would be retinal display.

 

Your second example tells me why you found it difficult to understand.  You have clipped out the important part of the sentence that WHICH refers to:

 

And this from comments " the only value of which is the capacity to store all my music"

 

I had a look by myself and found this:

 

I'd much prefer a 128GB iPhone. Then I could finally retire the iPod Classic, the only value of which is the capacity to store all my music.

= I could finally retire the iPod Classic.  The only value of the iPod Classic is the capacity to store all my music.

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

Jared Diamond : Why Societies Collapse

How and Why videos

Why is the Sky blue? (US)



Why is the Sky blue? (UK)



How do the tides work?

Exemplification : A Hot Potatoes Quiz

Click here for an ugly-looking Hot Potatoes Quiz I made as a form of feedback on student writing.

Noun phrase construction

Another email exchange to share:

STUDENT QUESTION

this sentence:

Due to the increasingly (adj) globalised (v) business (n) environment (n)....

Why? do you understand my question?

If I want to express the same meaning, I will write like this:

Due to the increasingly global business-environment...

MY RESPONSE

Actually your version is OK. The hyphen between business and environment isn't necessary, but the difference between GLOBAL and GLOBALISED is just that the latter (GLOBALISED) suggests that forces have MADE the world global.

Your analysis of the phrase from the text isn't quite right though:

Due to the increasingly (adv) globalised (adj) business (adj) environment (n)....

We could argue about whether business is an adjective or noun here and it doesn't really matter either way, but GLOBALISED is definitely not a verb. A lot of adjectives in English are formed from the active or passive form of a verb. To me, this is quite useful because it helps you understand their meaning (i.e. whether they are active or passive). Examples include bored, boring, interested, interesting, satisfied, satisfying, and I'm sure you could add hundreds more to my list!

A question about commas

I just thought I'd share this recent email exchange:

Student question

I have a question about "if" and commas.

What is the differet between this two sentences.

1 I would get married, if I were you.

2 I would get married if I were you.

My response:

The comma does make a slight difference. A comma tells a reader to pause, and it separates out parts of a sentence.

Sentence number 1 encourages the reader to stress IF. Stressing IF makes what follows seem less likely, or in this case, emphasises the fact that "I am not you".

There are other occasions when commas will make a much bigger difference to meaning. Can you see a difference between these two sentences:

1. I like student who email me questions about grammar.

2. I like students, who email me questions about grammar.

Sufficient evidence?

Last week I asked my class the following question about this chart (taken from The Economist's Daily Chart online feature) :

Do you think these statements are TRUE or FALSE? Do you have enough evidence to verify each statement?

1. DVDs are cheap in China because they are all illegally copied.

2. The average Polish employee has to work longer than the average Indian employee in order to be able to afford a DVD.

3. DVDs are cheaper in Germany than in India.

4. The best films are made in France.

5. The currency used in Australia is dollars.

6. People in Japan like to watch DVDs.

7. The average US worker can earn enough money in 200 minutes to buy 4 DVDs.

Together we agreed that 2 and 7 are true, 3 is false, and we do not have sufficient evidence to comment on the other 4 statements. The students then wrote statements about other charts. Please comment on whether their statements are true, false, or impossible to comment on without further information.

Big Mac Index

1) In Norway a Big Mac costs 7.02 dollars.

2) The Swiss Franc is overvalued against the US dollar by 75%.

3) In Britain a Big Mac is 9p more expensive than in the USA

4) In Japan the cost of a Big Mac is the same.

5) Chinese currency is least expensive in the chart.

6) USA citizens eat more burgers than the rest of the world .

US Border Control

1. The cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants was steady between 1992 and 2000.

2. The total cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants from 1997 to 200 was as high as in 2008.

3. There was a decline in the cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants for the two years following 2003.

4. The average cost per apprehension of illegal immigrants has been increasing since 1992.

Read-e for the masses

1. The line graph shows the sale of e-books in 2008 and forecasts growth from 2009 to 2011.

2. The sale of e-books will grow substantially from 2008 (1 million) to 2009 (5 million).

3. Between 2009 and 2010, e-book sales will experience an incredible increase from 5 to 12 million, followed by modest growth (to 15 million) in 2011.

Foreign Students in America

1. Do you think the percentage of British people who go to study in America is lower because they have English as their first language as well?

2. The percentage of Spanish students studying in America is higher than the percentage of Indian students.

3. Studying in America is cheaper than in the UK.

4. The country that sends the most students to study in America is China.

5. The American people prefer to receive Italian students than Japanese students.

6. People from Japan do not like to study in America.

Countries with most installed wind power

1. China produces more wind power than Spain because China owns a greater proportion of the world.

2. Spain produces less wind power than China because Spain owned a smaller proportion of the world.

3. The United States produced the most wind power in the world from 2008 to 2009.

4. Perhaps because it is physically larger than Spain, Germany produces more wind power.

Africa Cup of Nations

1. There are more African football players in France than in Germany.

2. There are more Africans in England than in Germany.

3. 24 players playing in the African Cup of Nations are from England.

4. Domestic leagues provide significantly more players for the African Cup of Nations than other leagues.

5. There are 345 footballers playing at the African Cup of Nations.

Graduate Diploma Reading & Writing : Spring Term 2011

It's been too long since I've posted anything meaningful to this blog, so here's a quick summary of what we've covered this week in my Graduate Diploma Reading & Writing class. I have uploaded powerpoint files from session one, two, and three to my brand new Windows Live Skydrive if you're interested in downloading and viewing them (please let me know if the links don't work).

After some work on describing data and a needs analysis exercise in our first session of the week, we reviewed important aspects of vocabulary like word form, collocation, and pattern grammar (class handout here) in the context of a "model" essay. There was an analysis of complex sentence from the essay, and this reading activity as homework, before analysing fact and opinion in the essay and looking at the difference between strong and weak evidence.