Film review

Today we are going to do our last assignment of this half-term- to watch a film and then review it in a written document,
A number of students will be missing today but if you are on the skidpan or at the doctor's or test-driving a car or just taking a sickie... you still have to watch a film and review it.....

Since I don't want you to copy something from the internet I would like you to think about the following points:

What is the message of the film and how universal is it?
How does the director use music and other devices to enhance the message of the film?

How did the casting work for the success of the film? Were the actors/actresses chosen because of their fame or in order to characterise a special role?

Where did the original story for the film come from? Find out how the film and original story differ.

Your review should be in my digital mailbox by Sunday 3rd November. Have a good holiday!

 

Speech or song lyrics

We start off today by listening to a song performed by the students from the music programme as a presentation related to their area of study.

Then we continue to either look at a song text (lyrics) or a famous speech to analyse it and discuss it.

I would like you to work in small groups on this task (maximum 4 students)

For those who choose a speech I recommend this site on the internet.

Examples of a famous speech might be 
1) Winston Churchill's wartime speeches
2) Martin Luther King's "I have a dream"
3)Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement speech

Another site which can help you is the following 

If you choose a song lyric then it should be one which is famous for its content and not only the music:

Some examples might be:
Beatles                Eleanor Rigby, Let it be
Bob Marley         Redemption Song, No woman no cry
Don Mclean         American Pie, Vincent
Leonard Cohen   Hallelujah, Suzanne
Eagles                  Hotel California
 Bob Dylan           Times they are a changing
Here is a site you may find useful for your analysis

Presentations

Today it is time for our first round of presentations. These should be done in small groups and have some connection to your area of studies.

In the spring you will be given the opportunity to present your "Gymnasiearbete" for the rest of the class.

As well today we are going to introduce you (on this course) to peer assessment. This is something which is used widely in other countries and can provide a lot of help (peer support, peer learning etc). 

This means that as soon as soon as you finish your presentation you should do a peer assessment of the following group.

The document is available on the blog but for simplicity I have printed out copies for everyone.

The last group up (we decide at the beginning) should assess the first group up.

Start off the presentations by giving your name. 

All the presentations will be filmed for marking purposes.
They will NOT turn up on YouTube..

Some practical things to arrange:

1. Debate
-Topic
-Speakers

2. Monday (week 43)
-speech
-lyrics

3 Friday (week 43)
-Film (suggestion for a good biographical/thematic film) 
We will also try to do our first assessment of the course on this class. 

Area of interest

Today I want you to prepare for a short presentation on Friday about some subject connected to your area of study. You can work in groups of 2-4 (maximum) students and the presentation can be based on the sources given on the planner or directly from your studies. It could be a study visit, a project you have done or are working on, your planned YE company, your field trip to Uganda or anything else.

The presentation should not be more than 5 minutes long and should contain some kind of simple presentation material (photos, powerpoint, prezi, impress, film clip etc.).

Everyone in the group must be actively involved in the presentation.

As a final possibility you could always do a presentation of the impact of a contemporary person for your area of study:
- Professor Hans Rosling for social science
- Steve Jobs for technology
- Stephen Hawking for science
-Muhammad Yunus for economy(microloans)
-Paul McCartney or Mike Jagger for music
(And of course Jamie Oliver for food)

We will start the presentations at 8.30 on Friday in order to give you some time on Friday morning.

Before you go today I should receive a paper slip with your names and the title of your presentation. 

A time to reflect and look forward

We need to stop for a moment and reflect over what we have done.
If we base our reflection on the 4 language skills we can see the following:

Reading

•  Literary texts (text book and classic novel etc)
• General interest texts (text book)
• Non-fiction texts (internet)

Listening

• TED Talk
• Text book
• Internet

Speaking

• Role plays
• Ice breaker
• Discussions

Writing

• Reflections
• Text analysis
• Comprehension questions
• letter writing (informal)

Other skills/areas

• Vocabulary building (word lists /corrections)
• Grammar/syntax (corrections)

I have now caught up with all corrections. The question is how many items have you sent in? Learning a language is a continual process which needs effort.

Today we look at debating.
A debate in the sense I mean is not like you see on the TV when Reinfeldt and Lowén are battling it out.

We can look together at a good website which can help us.

A debate in this sense requires teamwork and preparation.

We will look at a clip from "The Great Debaters"- a biographical film from 2007 which really gives insights into the art of debating.

How can we tackle this in class?

If we look at the texts we studied last week several debating topic emerge.

Here are three proposals:

1. This house believes that war can be justified
2. This house believes that women are the weaker sex
3. This house believes that western lifestyle is morally bankrupt

We will now divide you into 6 groups
three for the proposals and three against.

You will have time to prepare your arguments and then be given an opportunity to briefly "meet" and present them for each other.

We will not follow the procedures of a "proper" debate as formulated by Karl Popper but at least give you the opportunity to present something in small groups.

The register of English should be neutral-formal.

What we do today can be the basis of a proper debate later on in the course.
 

Reflections on Friday's texts

Here are some reflections on Friday's reading texts

Falling Leaves

Pre-reading activity.
In an age when most Chinese women stayed at home and tried to please their husbands, "Grand Aunt" emerged as a woman who wanted to radically change that view. She dared to go against the norms about occupations and lifestyles.
 TRY TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT THE SITUATION OF WOMEN IN CHINA IN THE EARLY 1900'S 
 or
FIND OUT ABOUT A SWEDISH  BUSINESSWOMAN OR INNOVATOR WHO WENT AGAINST THE TIDE IN THE EARLY 1900'S


Alternative title
Feminism-Chinese Style /My Great GrandAunt


Why included in the book
The text tells us nothing abouit the author but it is clear she was inspired by Grand Aunt for her courage. We see a picture of women who have the potential to liberate themselves. This is what Amy did later in her own life. The text is very relevant in our days when we can still see prejudice snd discrimination against women.
It is a good introduction to the later chapter entitled "The World of women".

 Dust of life
Pre-Reading Activity
 Liz Thomas was only a year older than most of you are when she left everything that was familiar and secure to work with war victims in Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War (around 1973).

Discuss what can make a person do as she did. In what circumstances would you do the same?

Comment
This text is a huge challenge to our lifestyle  based on comfort and self-indulgence. It really asks the question as to what is truly important in life. We need heroes and heroines (not heroin!) to shake us up and wake us up!

Alternative title
Leaving it all behind

What similarities are there between them and what differences are there?
Both texts tell the story of  women who were completely unafraid and ignored the restrictions placed on them by society in order to do what they felt was right. Both women have a very strong sense of social justice.
Both texts are set in Asia and even introduce the local language (Chinese/Vietnamese).
 In "Falling Leaves" Grand Aunt has her whole family around her but still manages to go her own way.
In "Dust of Life" Liz leaves everything to live in an extremely dangerous and precarious situation.
Both women are amazingly courageous.
I admire them both.
From the formal sense the texts are very different. "Falling Leaves" is written in the third person and is a stylized text.
"Dust of life" is written in the in the first person and contains elements of Vietnamese which are hard to understand.

It's all beer and no books
The article presents a very gloomy picture of the ambition level of 18 year-olds in Britain who are studying at University.
Thankfully, today many students take a gap-year or, in Sweden, wait until they are motivated (if ever!) to study.
One quote which I liked can be applied to the earlier texts:
"If you don't want to solve the world's problems at 18 then you surely never will"
The writer is somehow biased but achieves her goal.

The heroes in the rubble
I thought immediately about Shakespeare's quote from "Twelfth Night"
Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them
 
If Grand Aunt and Liz achieve "greatness" then the rescue workers of this text "have greatness thrust upon them".
The article is written like a TV script offering cameo pictures of the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. The aim is to highlight the bravery of the rescue workers and, in my view, it succeeds.

Reading- non-fiction texts

Today we are going to work on non-fiction reading.

First of all, on Friday we spoke about the two methods of scanning and skimming to read larger amounts of text quickly.

Here is a site to see if you have understood and practise these skills.

Do all four tasks and write a comment to me about them.

Now read the following pdf file about Reading skills

Use the method stated (scanning and skimming) to find brief information about the following:

What is "reciprocal teaching" and when can it be used?

What is important to remember when writing quick summaries?

Compare "Magnet summaries" and "gist summaries". What differences are there between them?

Now two brief articles on non-fiction subjects but at a very elementary level. Read and do the relevant exercise

Here is the first text 
about the relationship between science and society.

The second text is about Florida and introduces some very simple economic terms. 
Paraphrase the final paragraph of the article.

The final text is a longer text about the effects of listening to music when reading
Summarize these effects in a few sentences.

Reading skills

Today we are going to look at the skill of reading. 
It is an essential part of language learning.

Often students forget to apply the skills they use as native speakers when reading in a foreign language. They stop to look up every word and find reading very difficult compared to listening.

Here are some strategies to improve your reading:

• Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection
• Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content
• Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions
• Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up
• Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text.

Today we are going to read two texts from the text book. 

I want you to read the texts and apply some of the strategies given above.

After reading I want you to make up a pre-reading activity that a student could have done before reading the text in order to help a student to get more out of his/her reading.

Why do you think just this text is in the textbook? How could we apply it to our situation today?

Make up a new title for the text so that a reader more esaily can understand beforehand what it is about.

Here are the two texts:

Falling Leaves  page 19

Dust of life   p. 39

Finally, compare the two texts.

What similarities are there between them and what differences are there?

If you have time over you can read either

It's all beer and no books p.26    or

Heroes in the rubble p.45.

These are not extracts from a literary work but are self-contained articles with a specific purpose.

What do you think the purpose is and does the writer achieve what he/she set out to do in your opinion?