Assessment and Christmas clean-up

Today we need to get things cleaned up before Christmas.

1. Cambridge (CAE) Reading test
Hopefully Martin and James can get it done today after the lesson

2. Classic book talk
Here is the document

Adrian B
Martin
Anders N
James
need to sign-up

2b. Writing workshop
I'm still missing loads of stuff.
All 4 assignments are COMPULSORY to COMPLETE THE COURSE!

3. Assessment
Here is a copy of the assessment for those who are missing in action!

Fill it in and send it to me. Those who are in class please do it on paper!

Spot the deliberate mistake! Ha! Ha!

4. One of the points raised in the assessment is the form of assessment or evaluation we do on this course.

I try to use Formative assessment.

For me it is very time consuming  (about 300 hours until now). That's ok as long as people are taking advantage of it and Learning.

The alternative is more summative exercises:

For example many students have problems witth using capital letters. Not even "I" is spelt with a capital
Here are some rules:

1. Capitalize the first word of every sentence.

This is the first time he used a snowboard.
Speech-recognition software is better than ever.

2. Capitalize the days of the week, names of months, and holidays.

He spoke on Monday and Tuesday.
During December and June he got his royalty checks.
At Christmas and Easter he took a break; during Thanksgiving andLabor Day, he relaxed.

3. Capitalize important words in a title (including the beginning and ending words).

For Whom the Bell Tolls
Fly Fishing for the Complete Idiot
A Day No Pigs Would Die

4. Capitalize proper nouns and proper adjectives such as nationalities, languages, geographic places, groups of people, and formal periods of time.

I studied history, French, math, and English in school.
The British and the Russians enjoyed studying about theRenaissance.
Three Japanese students took my class.
A boy from Arkansas got the lead.

5. Capitalize titles before a person’s name. Capitalize a title that takes the place of a person’s name unless the title is preceded by the wordmy (or another possessive pronoun like their, our, his, her, your).

	Capitalize	Do Not Capitalize
	President Clinton was here. Senator Miller walked in. Professor Rutter lectured. “Come, Mother, let’s go.” “Hey, Dad, let’s eat.”	The president was here. The senator walked in. The professor lectured. My mother is here. My dad is hungry.

6. Do not capitalize the seasons, and only capitalize directions (north, south, east, west) if they stand for a specific place.

I love winter and fall.
I don’t like spring and summer.
When I’m lost in the North Woods, I always go east.
The wind is blowing from the east.
I used to live in the East.

Here is an exercise

Now check your answers

Give yourself a score out of 18 ( ½ point off for 1 error in a sentence).

Which is better?

Decide and comment on the assessment!

Finally, I want to wish you a good holiday and blessed Christmas. Inbibe good things!!!!

See you in 2015!

P.S. Don't forget the Shakespeare assignment!

No lesson today

Please sign up for a slot for your book talk.

See you on Monday + the extra time for those who are concerned.

Shakespeare Act ! continued

Many students have not sent in the answers to their study questions for Act I. We will contine to analyse this today. By the end of today I hope everyone will have completed the assignment.

I am going to give you a piece of holiday work.  We are going to analyse about 30 lines of text each person our edition - going through the whole of Act II and Scene 1 of Act III.


The analysis will be based on the following document.
You will analyse as follows:
Victor B                             p. 57
Andrea B                           p. 58
Adrian B                            p. 59
Anton B                             p. 60
Axel B                               p. 61
Dennis                               p. 62
James                                 p. 63
Anton D                             p. 64
Johanna D                          p. 65
Eric G                                p.66
Jakob G                              p.67
Olle H                                p.68
Linn H                                p.69
Linnea H                             p.70
Naj                                      p.71
Joel                                     p.72
My                                      p.73
Emeli                                  p.74
Anders N                            p.75
Alma                                   p.76
Martin O                             p.77
Isabell                                 p.78
Linn R  (25lines)                p.79
Emma R           (2 l. p.79)+p. 80 
Nentan                                p.81
Jesper                                 p.82
Christoffer                         p.83
Lovisa                                p.84
Adrian V                            p.85
Josefine V                          p.86

You are going to give a short presentation of your analysis on the first Friday lesson after the holiday.

Remember the document Figurative language

You need to use those terms when doing your analysis.
Today we can look at p. 39 in Act I as an example.

Finally a video from Spark Notes providing an excellent summary of the play


For those who missed out on their book talk last Friday there will be a final chance this Wednesday at 2 p.m.

This Friday's lesson will be for those who have signed up for the classic talk. I have now "locked" the document. Please respect the times. Those who did their talk last Friday or will do it this Wednesday are free on Friday.

Our final lesson will be next Monday 8-9. Our visitor will hopefully be coming after Christmas.

We will be doing a course evaluation and talking about the holidays.





 

CAE/ Classic talk/Shakespeare

Today we meet at 8 am in the classroom.

1. Cambridge CAE reading for those who missed it


2. Classic book talk according to the timetable


3. Continue with Shakespeare. Send in 12 questions by Monday's lesson

Shakespeare Introduction

Before we start:

1. The writer's course is finished!

I should have 4 pieces of work.

Some people have not turned in ONE piece yet!

If I don't have  two pieces of work by Friday then I will give you an "F" warning!

2. The next two Fridays are for the Classic book talks. Sign up!
Please fill in the sheet which is here 

3. Those who missed the Cambridge Reading Test will do it on Friday


Today we finally get to start studying "Romeo and Juliet".

We will use a Shakespeare Survival Kit which should be completed by the time we finish the play.

We will start off by getting a copy of the play from Björn.
Then there will be a video about Shakespeare's life.

Fill in some information for each heading on the document (available on paper)

After that we will begin studying the language and looking at the compendium.
Here are some of the documents:

General 

Words  -Some basic information about Shakespeare's language

Common Shakespeare terms- more general language information 

Figurative language- some of the devices Shakespeare uses to enrichen his plays

What did he say? Test your own knowledge of Shakespeare's words having read through the information about his language

Punny guy! The classic Shakespeare device for providing verbal humour (N.B. This is a pdf file!)

Here ia an extra resource from about.com( http://specials.about.com/service/newsletters/shakespeare/3d5479d1d00001ad8c000fac.htm )which I can recommend

Romeo and Juliet
This list of links provides more information than you will ever need 

A taste of things to come- Act I Scene 1 (first part in original text and modern text).

Here are the study questions for Act I

1. What is the setting for the play?
2. What scene of conflict opens the action of the play?
3. Which character tries to stop the fighting among the servants?
4. Which character is aggressive and eager to fight?
5. What warning does the Prince give to anyone who breaks the peace again?
6. Who has asked for Juliet's hand in marriage?
7. How old is Juliet?
8. In what state of mind is Romeo when we first see him in the play? 
 9. Explain how Romeo finds out about the Capulet ball?
10. How does Benvolio try to remedy Romeo's love sickness? 

We shall go through Act I on Monday. By then you should know the answers!

If you're around then come around!

No official lesson today as most people are attending the Big Mess!

Book talks next week. Don't forget to sign up!

Remember no lesson this Friday. Here is the blog content for Monday

Ok people. So no class this Friday.

Monday's lesson I will still be away but at least you have some work to do!

(You can do it from home as long as it gets done!!)

This time it is a translation.

First some general info:-
Today we have reached the end of our writing course.

To recapitulate 

We have talked about the general characteristics of writing:

• How it stands "outside" time
• How it requires a structure
• How it is governed by many rules and constraints such as:

1.  Grammar
2.   Spelling
3.   Syntax
4.   Register 
5.   Paragraphing

We have looked at a five-paragraph-essay as a simple building block of writing.

Then we have tried our hand at formal and informal English.

Today we finish off with the skill of translation.

I will start off by distributing and going through a handout with you.
Here it is.

Translation involves transferring the meaning from one language to another as faithfully and accurately as possible.

It is not the same as paraphrasing or summarising in another language.
It is a very useful skill.

If we look just at Leksand and its municipality we can see many areas where translation is needed.

• Business (international companies)
• Twinning arrangements (Uganda-Leksand)
• Tourism
• Music/Song

It is claimed that on an average University course in Sweden 70% of course literature is written in English.
So the uses are endless.

Nowadays it is possible to use eletronic tools to assist in translation.

If you use google translate "It's raining cats and dogs" it no longer says:
"Det regnar hundar och katter" but if you put in
"How are you going to worm your way out of this?" the result is just as bizarre!
Try  "He turned up like the bad penny!" and see what you get!

The problem of producing a good translationis not only to be accurate but also to get the right "feel" conveyed by the original text.

Here is your translation task. Easy? Probably not!


This is one of the harder things to do well!

The handout takes you through the most important things

1. Accuracy- That does not mean "word for word"
otherwise you get
"Have it so good" (ha det så bra) and
"Shoot yourself" (sköt dig (själv))

2. Terminology
The translation is about skiing. What words (terms) specific to that area will you need?

3. Language and style
The original is somewhat informal. Your version needs to be the same"

4. Country standards
What do you do with the miles in the text?

5. Text formatting
We are more careful in English about paragraphing than in Swedish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good luck!!

FINALLY

Now let's turn to next week.
We have the classic book talks.
15 people will do their talks with me on Friday week 49 and15 on next Friday (week 50). 

Please fill in the sheet which is here 

• Your name
• Author's name
• Title of book
• Week 49 / 50