Class: 18th/19th
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 (25th/26th
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
(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.
