No class on November 15th

Sorry, but there will be no lesson on Monday, November 15th. We will make up the lesson at the end of the course.

Welcome back!

It was great to see all of you again!
For those of you who couldn't come, we did a complete review of the first three units (progress test) and watched a short video called,

"Keep Your Goals to Yourself".

Enjoy it, and see you next week!

Do you like telling stories, or hearing stories? This week, you were asked to write a story, and I am looking forward to reading them....in the meantime, click here to watch a video of Isabella Allende telling some stories of her own.

I haven't finished watching this video yet, but I can't wait to see what happens! It is the story told by a photographer about a special girl in Korea...I hope it has a happy ending!

Finally, another video of a beautiful Nigerian woman (with a beautiful accent) who will tell us about the danger of a single story -
Please let me know which video you liked best, and why. Thanks! See you on Monday!

Great new American site

click here to take a look at a site I discovered just recently. Be sure to listen to and read some stories, and just explore the site. Let me know what you think of it!

Open assignment

This week, you are going to explore a site that you may already be familiar with...The BBC English Language learning site.
You should click on the link and explore the various activities on the site. Then, come back here and tell me what you read, listened to, or watched. Did you find it helpful? Let me know - I look forward to hearing from you!

4th and 5th lessons

We did a lot of speaking activities today, especially focusing on question forms such as embedded questions. (Click here for an overview of embedded questions.) This corresponds to Unit 1A of the textbook (New English File Upper-intermediate).
We also used those questions to simulate a 'speed dating' situation, which is the topic of the reading section of your book on pp. 6 and 7.
(Click here to see the short parody we watched of speed dating).

Apart from all of this reading, I would like you to write some embedded questions that you might honestly ask if you were in a situation like 'speed dating'. What are some questions you would like to be asked? You can post them all on this blog(anonymously, if you are embarrassed!)

In Unit 1B, there is a reading about handwriting. after reading page 8, click here to see a video about one woman's view of what receiving and writing handwritten letters means to her.

The reading exercise in unit 1C is about psychics, and whether they can actually see the future or not...we will talk about that in class, but in the meantime, I have found two videos with something to say about the future: click here to see which news we are hearing today will be important in the future, and here to see how the news is perceived by various people.

Finally, just for fun, watch this silly story that was written entirely using emoticons...do you think it is an effective way to 'write' a story?

See you next week - I am looking forward to reading your 'comments'!

Lesson Three - Consumer Society

This week we read about a girl who was a 'shopaholic'. She spent so much money on extravagant clothes that she ended up owing $20,000 in credit card debt. To save herself, she had a brilliant idea...she created a website and asked for money from perfect strangers!

We also turned the problem around and talked about poverty. We watched a couple of videos and discussed the vocabulary used to describe the conditions in the slums and shanty towns of Kenya.
Here are the links to the videos we watched (turn on the subtitles in English):
The Girl Effect

Jacqueline Novogratz on an escape from poverty

Students should always try to organize the new vocabulary into spider graphs, and this week's topic is MONEY. Look at your notes and put the new words in relation to other words in order to learn them.

Here are two more videos I think you will find interesting - watch one (or both!) of them and write a comment please!

Jacqueline Novogratz on patient capitalism

Hans Rosling's insights on poverty

Lesson 2 - Memory

Today we talked about memory and memories, and made a spider graph of all of the words that are connected to this topic. We also skimmed and scanned three short articles about memory enhancement. One of the articles was called "facts and figures" so as an introduction we watched a video of Arthur Benjamin performing "mathemagic". Below you will find a link to that video as well as to other pages and videos that are related to the topic.

The homework assignment is to write an autobiography after doing some exercises from the photocopies I gave to the class. Even if you weren't at the lesson, you should come to class next week with a written autobiography. It does not have to be long, but it should be well-organized and give details about significant events and periods.

Here are the links: (let me know if you have read this post and tell me what you think about the links!)

http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html
15 min. video about “mathemagic” by Arthur Benjamin
(don't forget to turn on the subtitles!)

http://www.subply.com/en/Video/Improve+your+memory+with+the+POPCORN+method/1bf52548-b753-4b85-bcd1-e89da4dc8738/eng
5 minute video on a method to improve your memory

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-602962800234523793#
Excellent BBC Video on memory (50 min.)

http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html
A whole page of memory improvement techniques and links to similar articles.

Lesson 1 - Laughter + textbooks to buy

What makes you laugh? What TV sitcoms do you like, and why? Do you know any funny jokes that are translatable into English?
The lesson this week focuses on laughter, happiness and smiling, and the benefits that these things can bring to our lives.

Here are some links to articles you may find interesting:
http:/laughlab.co.uk

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200504/laughter-the-best-medicine
http://www.oldfashinedamericanhumor.com/index.html

also, here is the link to the video we watched on ted.com:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
(don't forget to turn on the English subtitles!)

I hope you enjoyed the lesson; I would love to read your comments on the reading material, or jokes and ideas - so click on 'comments' below, and let me know what's on your mind!

By the way, the textbooks I have chosen are:
New English File Upper-Intermediate
Student's Book 978-0-19-451842-0
Workbook + KEY + MROM 978-0-19-451846-8
I will be supplementing the textbooks with material online and in class.