Self Study Session Friday 29th August

Tomorrow's tutorial/self study session offers you a further opportunity to research your essay. Now that you have prepared your first draft, your thesis statement and essay structure should be clear and so now you can concentrate on finding the references that support your argument. While you are researching though, you need to be continually assessing the appropriateness, reliability and validity of the sources you are using. You should also be putting into practice your summarizing, paraphrasing and referencing skills in order to avoid plagiarism.

If you are still in doubt about how to use the internet as an effective research tool, take a look at the website below. The "Internet Detective" offers a tutorial on some of the issues above.


http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/brief.html

Tuesday 26th August

Check out the link below from the Guardian Website. Today's editorial discusses many of the issues related to Free Trade that are relevant to the essay topic. You may even want to use this piece by George Monbiot in your essay but remember to consider the relevance and appropriateness of the source and any possible bias before you do.

As well as reading the article for content, also look at the structure. What is the topic sentence of each paragraph? How have the paragraphs been organised? Put your noticing skills to work - this kind of exercise will help you when you come to write your plan and first draft.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/26/food.eu

Sean

Reflections On Today's Presentations

Although you might feel that this morning was a bit of a disaster - it was actually a really useful exercise. Furthermore we have still got time before your assessed presentation to work on and improve these skills.

Over the weekend think about these 3 areas:

Presentation Skills (body language, using visuals, preparing visuals, sign posting, organising)

Note taking skills (summarising, writing clear concise notes, not writing too much)

Language Skills (e.g. Pronunciation: fluency, chunking, strong form weak forms, Grammar & Vocab areas: countable/uncountable nouns, noun forms, auxiliary verbs, articles - especially the zero article - verb & preposition collocations)

Which of these areas do you need to work on?

SB

Work Record for York & Sheffield Groups

YORK

Monday - A discussion on possible problem language areas

Tuesday - Grammar Overview - Concepts of time & Aspect

Wednesday - Tentative Language Introduction, Globalization Reading

Thursday - Modals of certainty & uncertainty - Homework read notes on paragraph construction & introducing arguments - do the exercises if you feel you need to.


SHEFFIELD:

Monday - Overview of month's assessments, Analysing Essay Questions

Tuesday - Brainstorming ideas on Globalization

Wednesday - Assessing sources

Thursday - Listening - Globalization Debate. Group Note taking using the reccommended texts (Workbook pp. 52 - 64)


Friday - Each group must present a OHP chart summarising the relevant information from the essay they had to read. All presentations should last for 4 - 5 minutes with each student speaking for one minute.


This week we touched on many issues related to the way Web 2.0 technology is changing our culture and perspective on the world. If you are interested in this topic have a look at what media commentator, Andrew Keen has to say on his site -

http://www.cultoftheamateur.com/

London Met - Month 3 - Week 1

Hi Everyone!

Here is a place and cyberspace where you can ask questions, exchange ideas and practise your English.

The first week of the final month is nearly over and there is a lot of information to get out to you!

SELF STUDY:

Remember you should be working on problem areas each afternoon (as well as doing your homework and researching your essay). If you don't know where to begin take a look at these links below:


SUBJECT AREA

Listening



A lot of lectures at: http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~wcl8/sacll/lectures.php. Maybe you could use them for note taking practice.

Some excellent lectures (but difficult) at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith/


EASE CD-ROM: UNIT 5: Significance and attitude: “Note-taking”, “Vocabulary” and “Conclusion”.

Have a listen to as a lecture at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb062/Unit3/li_spinal/page_01.htm. This site gives you a lot of exercises and a long 23-minute lecture.

Listen to more lectures and do some good exercises at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb063/eap/04/du4s50404.htm



Exercises on note taking while listening at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb063/eap/03/cdu2s30103.htm

Intensive listening at: http://cla.univ-fcomte.fr/english/trailers/trailersindex.htm


Some excellent lectures (but difficult) at: http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=1110

TV programmes and exercises at: http://literacynet.org/cnnsf/archives.html




Reading



Academic Encounters: Unit 8: pp180-187: Friendship.

Readings with exercises at: http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/tests/tsindex.htm

Readings with exercises at: http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/tests/pt1index.htm


Study Skills


An interesting website of different ways of learning at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb064/studyskills/01/xs70305.htm

Identifying study skills at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb063/eap/06/identifying_the_study_skills_you_need.htm


Writing

A lot of academic writing exercises at: http://www.essex.ac.uk/myskills/skills/writing/default.asp. Includes introductions, conclusions, style, note taking and more.

Learn about “Reporting: paraphrase, summary and synthesis” at http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm

What is good academic writing? This is a discussion on what makes good writing. http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb062/Unit4/wr_or_02_x/page_02.htm

Information and tasks related to referencing at: http://www.essex.ac.uk/myskills/skills/referencing/referencingSkills.asp

Tutorials and exercises on paragraphing at:
http://cla.univ-fcomte.fr/english/paragraph/index.html

This is a discussion on what people find difficult when they write. http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb062/Unit4/wr_or_03_x/page_02.htm

Nine or ten good exercises on using information in your writing at: http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm

A good exercise on structuring your essay: http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/essay/4ai.html

Organising paragraphs at: http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm. There are a lot of exercises here, some of which are difficult.

A lot of exercises on writing paragraphs at: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/llc/academic-writing/

An exercise on understanding the question at: http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/cill/eap/functionsexplanation.htm

More exercises on understanding the question: http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/essay/2b_q1.html

An interactive exercise on structuring an essay:
http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/effective/2ai_q1.html

A site on structuring your essay:
http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/essay/4biii.html

Example Essays


An essay outlining both sides of an argument:
http://users.dragnet.com.au/~dalythom/argueweb/bothsds.htm

An essay on tourism: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/llc/academic-writing/sample-essay.html

A clear example of an essay:
http://users.dragnet.com.au/~dalythom/argueweb/modelmp.htm

A site with a number of marked essays: http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/essay/sample.html


Presentations


Listen to a presentation at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/materialsbank.aspx?resourceid=2722

A good presentation at: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/courses/eap/links/learning_resources.htm. (You’ll have to scroll half way down the page fro the speaking videos.

Pronunciation


Practice individual phonemes at: http://www.shiporsheep.com/

Do an exercise on word-stress for business vocabulary at: http://www.uefap.com/speaking/multi/stress.htm


Vocabulary

Using concordances to improve your vocabulary at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb063/eap/07/zs10208.htm

Vocabulary for tables and diagrams at: http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm. (You’ll need to scroll down the page to find the exercises – there are about 7 or 8)

An exercise on discourse markers at: http://writingworkshop.edtec.unsw.edu.au/activities/trans2.html

A fantastic site that allows you to copy and paste an essay into a ‘gap maker’. The gap maker will then take all the ‘academic’ vocabulary out and give you an exercise:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/index.htm

Read vocabulary specific to your subject at: http://www.uefap.com/vocab/vocfram.htm

Grammar

A LOT of tests at: http://www.vnn.vn/vnn4/test/

Shows how to produce noun phrases: http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb063/eap/05/vs70402.htm

Improve your tenses at: http://www.english-4u.de/grammar_exercises.htm

A lot of grammar exercises and tests at: http://www.world-english.org/

More grammar exercises at: http://aliso.cnice.mecd.es/~jchamero/home.htm

A lot of grammar and punctuation exercises at: http://www.smic.be/smic5022/Onlineexercises.htm

A very big website with grammar quizzes, punctuation and vocabulary at: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm

A LOT of good descriptions of grammar points (no exercises) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/


Referencing and Plagiarism

Read more important information about avoiding plagiarism at: http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm

A very eay-to-understand site on referencing at: http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/lskills/open/sfl/content/harvard/citing/index.html

A pdf about referencing at: http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/students/publications/referencing.pdf

Research


Learn about qualitative and quantitative research at: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nursing/sonet/rlos/ebp/qvq/index.html


Month 3 Project - Globalization Essay:

You will find a list of links in your English Course workbook but also have a look at what's available from the Global Policy Forum (www.globalpolicy.org ) and Harvard Working Papers (www.hbswk.hbs.edu )

Essay introductions and outlines are due next Friday (29th August) so you need to get cracking on your research this weekend.

FREE TIME

It's a Bank Holiday weekend so get out there and explore London.

Have you been to....

Greenwich (you could take the River Taxi http://www.london-taxi.co.uk/guides/london/entertainment/river-cruises.htm) ?

Spitalfields Markets http://www.spitalfields.co.uk/markets.php ?

The Prince Charles Cinema http://www.princecharlescinema.com/ ?