Class: 18^th/19^th October

Dear All,

It was a real pleasure to meet you. I hope the feeling is mutual. Anyway, as soon as I get all of your e-mails, I will send you the calendar of our academic year. I urge you to miss as few classes as possible because missing one class means missing out on a whole lot of content. You will feel lost and it is the worst thing that can happen when trying to learn anything. (Hopefully, this blog will minimize this.)

As I explained in class, the marking criterion is as follows:

10% of your mark (grade, in American English) is participation;

30% corresponds to homework, blog, etc.;

10% the Oral Project; (I shall explain more about it further ahead in the course.)

10% the Mid-term Evaluation

40% the Final Exam

We will be producing 8 written pieces of work in an attempt to improve our writing skills. We’ll look at punctuation and organizing text content as well as fine tuning our understanding of tone and register.

I plan to work a bit on pronunciation for a couple of important reasons: 1) if you can’t pronounce properly, no one will understand all the wonderful and sophisticated words you are producing; and, 2) you’ll understand far more of what native speakers are saying because you have a better idea of what to expect.

One of your classmates suggested taking a look at the blog below. (Thank you, Carmina.) It might frighten you at first but it is very useful. We’ll take a look at it in class at some point during the course. http://allphonetics.blogspot.com.es/

In preparation for next class (25^th/26^th October), I would like for you to watch a TED talk by chef Jamie Oliver and find out who Dr. Ben Goldacres and what it is he has to say that is so interesting. (In other words, google him.)

Jamie Oliver: Teach every child about food

http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html

(Click on Show transcript at the bottom of the image window to see the talk written out.)

Finally, please don’t forget to bring any photocopies/hand-outs I give you to every class. We will often refer back to these.

If you have any questions about anything, you can contact me at auroracsim@gmail.com.