Class: 25^th October

Unit 1: Cities

Can-Do Objectives:Describe different aspects of cities and city life

Talk about problems and how to tackle them

Talk about changes in urban areas

Pages: 8 - 10

Grammar: Perfect Tenses; Introduction to the IPA phonemic chart

Vocabulary: well-run, run-down, sprawling, spotless, vibrant, affluent, filthy, deprived, dull, appalling, to mug, to choke, leisure, façade, bumper, downside, drawback, derelict

Fine tuning: Here below are a few links where you will be able to read up and, hopefully, get a clearer idea of the use of Perfect Tenses. I encourage you to search the web for further explanations and exercises.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-perfect-verb-tenses-in-english.html

http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/verb-tenses.html

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verbs/present-tense/present-perfect

Also: Please listen to these TED Talks so that we can discuss them in class.

Jeff Speck: The walkable city

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

Carolyn Steel: How food shapes our cities

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

Steven Johnson: How the "ghost map" helped end a killer disease

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

HW: Workbook pg. 4, 6 (Reading ex.) pg. 7, pg. 8 (Vocabulary)

Class: 18^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 10 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.

Visit the below site and go to Pronunciation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

In preparation for next class (25^th October), I would like for you to watch the TED talk by Edi Rama: Take back your city with paint. It is extremely relevant to the topic of Unit 1.

http://www.ted.com/talks/edi_rama_take_back_your_city_with_paint.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.