Saturday, 17 October 2015

Post CPE Lesson 2

Cricket, Mealworm and Chocolate Lollipop
Class
Grammar rules
In the article, Pinker mentions fused participles, dangling modifiers and serial commas.
1. Do you mind me asking you a question?
In the above example, which is very common in spoken English, the participle asking is 'fused' with the noun me. Do you mind my (possessive) asking (gerund) is the 'correct' form.
2. Hungry, the leftover pizza was devoured.
In this example, the modifier, hungry, is left 'dangling' because it is not clear what it modifies. Hungry, the guests devoured the leftover pizza has no such problem.
3. Serial commas (i.e a comma before a conjunction) are unnecessary and therefore usually eliminated. There is no need for the second comma in red, white, and blue for example. However, when conjunctions join words that constitute a single item in the list, the comma is necessary to avoid confusion, e.g. Can you be sure of what flavour cupcakes Molly bakes in the following sentence?
Molly was proud of her new cupcake recipes: blueberry, peanut butter and chocolate and coconut.
Phrasal verbs
What generalisations can you make from the particles up and down?
Adapted from New Proficiency Gold p. 84
The future of food
Jellyfish and Chips

Discussion, vocabulary and reading.
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/13/future-of-food-what-we-eat

Presentation
When I Grow Up from the musical Matilda.

Listen again and/or read the lyrics and note all the uses of will e.g. part of a conditional expressing cerrainty, strong intention, prediction, assumption, promise. 
Note also how the phrasal verb, grow up, is adapted e.g. All grown up now.

Corrections
Since now x
Do you mean up to now or from now?

They try to short the time x
Short (adjective) shorten (verb)

A couple of friends which x
A couple of friends who

Evoluted x
Evolved

Obeys to the law x
Obeys the law

Bread growing x
Bread baking/rising

Pronunciation
tastes /s/ not /Iz/


Homework
1. Learn any new phrasal verbs which came up today e.g. free up, shoot up, step/stand down, break down. Make sure you record the type of multi-word verb it is (transitive, intransitive, separable, inseparable), an example sentence and a synonym or English definition.
2. Do the collocation exercise (question 4) from today's photocopy. For the last two questions you will need to find the missing words yourself. 
3. Go to the original article on The future of food and read a out some of the other topics. Do they discuss the same issues that we talked about today?




Thursday, 15 October 2015

E.U. Commission Writing Course Lesson 5

Discussion
Italian political perspecrives on E.U. Policy

The English Tense System

Vocabulary 
Up to date
Broadband
Roleplay

Corrections
Verb Structure
Want that someone does something x
Want someone to do something

Don't to accept x
Not to accept
Doesn't accept

Concentrated to x
Concentrated on 

Suffixes
Limitated x
Limited

Collocation
Behind the curtain x
Behind the scenes



Tuesday, 13 October 2015

British Council at ANIA Lesson 19

Group 5 C2
12:30 pm

Class
Speaking - fluency skills - Using fillers for giving yourself time to answer
CPE Speaking Practice - Part Two Collaborative Task

Notes

Criteria
Look at the assessment criteria for Cambridge speaking exams – What do each of these terms mean?
Grammatical Resource
Lexical Resource
Discourse Management
Pronunciation
Interactive Communication 
http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/cpe-examiner-comments.pdf

Functional Language
Hedging:
"I'm not entirely sure but"
"Perhaps"
"That's not my field of expertise but"
"As far as I know"
"Well, I'm not an expert but I would think that..."
Stalling/Fillers:
"I haven't really given it much thought"
"That's a very good question."
"Let me just think about that for a minute..."
"I'm glad you asked me that because that's an area I am really interested in..."
Conditionals:
2nd (present hypotheticals) If it were me, I would ...
3rd (past hypotheticals) If it had been me, I would have ....
Modals:
Assumption (will/won't, should/shouldn't)
Deduction (must, can't/couldn't)
Possibility (may/may not, might/might not, could)
Relative Clauses:
(Especially when you can't think of the right word in English)
The person who
The place where
The thing which
The time when

Interactive Communication
Expanding Your Answer:
State point - "In my view..." "The way I see it..." "As far as I'm concerned..." "From my point of view..."
Explain it  - "What I mean is..."
Give an example - "Take _____ for example..."

Agreeing & Disagreeing:
I couldn't agree more
I agree with you up to a point
I see where you're coming from but
I wouldn't go as far as that
You may be right but,
I'm afraid I don't see it that way

Interrupting Politely:
If I could just add/say/jump in

Sorry to interrupt but …


Corrections
Pronunciation - vowel sounds
Bought 

bɔːt

bəʊθ

Vocabulary
Groceries
Fresh produce - fruit and vegetables
Renounce/give up

There was a time when these objects there aren't. X
There was a time when there weren't (any of) these objects.
There was a time when we didn't have these objects.
There was a time when these objects didn't exist. 

Homework
(1) Reading - Steven Pinker: Many of the alleged rules of writing are actually superstitions."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/oct/06/steven-pinker-alleged-rules-of-writing-superstitions
(2) Listening - Follow the link to find some short videos on functional language for speaking exams. The videos are prepared with IELTS in mind, but much of what they say is equally valid for CPE. 
(3) Watch the video below and assess the candidates' performances in part two of the exam. When you have done that compare your ideas with the comments made by the examiners which you can find on this link: http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/cpe-examiner-comments.pdf



Group 7 C1
2:00 pm

Class 
International Cooperation & Diplomacy
Abbreviations and acronyms p. 28 - 29 questions1a, 1b, 8a, 8b, 8c.
Reading & vocabulary p. 30 Ambassadors

Homework
Reading p. 28 - 29 Cern: A shining example of international cooperation
Questions 2a, 2b and 3



Sunday, 11 October 2015

Post CPE Lesson 1


New words/slang/text speak
Discussion - importance & use
Quiz What's Your Social Media Age?

Corrections
Relative pronouns which/that/who
To sue (verb)/(law) suit (noun)
Speech/talk Look at the difference in use. The are not always synonymous. 

Lobby groups are conflicting each other x
Lobby groups are in conflict with each other

I used to receive (past habit - no longer true)
I'm used to receiving (current situation that you are comfortable with/accustomed to)

Pronunciation
Private /I/ vowel sound
Privatisation word stress
Mandatory word stress

Vocabulary
Indefinitely

Homework
Reading: Steven Pinker "Many of the aleged rules of writing are actually superstitions."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/oct/06/steven-pinker-alleged-rules-of-writing-superstitions

Thursday, 8 October 2015

E.U. Commission Writing Course Lesson 4

Class
Mock Case Study Task
45 minutes planning
45 minutes writing

Homework
Write up a good copy of your briefing note and email it to me.
We can discuss the assessment criteria and I will give you feedback on your communicating/drafting skills in the session on 22nd October.

Going Further
Reading - Steven Pinker: Many of the alleged rules of writing are actually superstitions."


Remember that from next week our lesson will be on Thursdays at the same time (3pm - 5pm)

Tuesday, 6 October 2015

British Council at ANIA Lesson 18

Group 5 Level C2
12:30pm

New words/slang/text speak
Discussion - importance & use
Reading - What's Your Social Media Age?
Exam Folder 10 - CPE Speaking Exam format

Group 7 Level C1
2pm

Unit 3.1
National Traits - discussion and reading
Dependent prepositions
Adjectives of character

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

E.U Commission Writing Course - Lesson 3

Lesson 3
Class
Writing legal texts in plain English.
Sentence length, subject + predicate structure, using strong verbs, turning -ion nouns into verbs, avoiding "of" , making everything you write "sayable".


Homework
Read the article Drive for plain English from the New York Times in the link above.
For more golden rules see: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/garner/