Today's class Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Today we reviewed the correct answers of the interview with Lorraine Monroe once again. We also did another listening comprehension where nine people talked about their jobs, or their professions.

We started reading the first two diary entries from the book The Freedom Writers. It's the true story about students and their new teacher in Long Beach, Los Angeles. The book contains their own journals and their story was made into a movie starring Hilary Swank as the teacher. Check out the Freedom Writers' own website here.

Here is a trailer from the movie Freedom Writers that we will be watching in class later this term.



Your homework for Thursday is to finish reading the diary entries that I handed out today. Please come prepared to English class on Thursday even though you have a math test that day.

The Freedom Writers Diary and preparations for the national test Monday, March 30, 2009

The upcoming weeks we will primarily be doing two things in English class: we will read, discuss and write about selected parts of the book The Freedom Writers Diary and we will practice for the upcoming national test of English. Tomorrow I will introduce the reading schedule and we will do another listening comprehension. See you then!

Class summary + Interview with Lorraine Monroe Thursday, March 26, 2009

Today we summarized the story about Keisha. We came up with the following:

• Keisha was a strong girl that did not give up despite the problems she faced.
• She did what she wanted to do. She pursued her dream.
• Keisha's mother supported her kids. She tried to keep them away from trouble.
• It does not matter where you live or where you come from. It's the person that makes the difference.

After that we listened to an interview with Lorraine Monroe, the principal of a school in Harlem, New York. The interview comes from a national test of English A. Watch a video of Lorraine Monroe here: http://www.aeispeakers.com/video.php?SpeakerID=702

Here are the answers, as promised:

1. The school was in chaos.

2. There were burnt out rooms/burnt bulletin boards/lots of graffiti on the walls. (One of these is enough).

3. It was a mixed area.

4. Because she loved yellow.

5. All of the graffiti.

6. The children started to behave.

7. Because it was economical/cheaper.

8. Everybody thought the school was nice/a good school.

9. They had to wear their uniforms. Come to class. Bring their equipment. (One of these)

10. They couldn't bring weapons/drugs/fight. (One of these)

11. If children didn't do their homework they had to stay in school after class and do it.

12. The school received funds/money.

13. The children loved them.

14. Because they had a tennis court next door/close to the school.

15. For the weak children/for those who did not know how to read and write properly.

16. In reading and math.

17. 20% were latino, and 65% were from single-parent homes.

18. A much larger proportion of the class went to college.

19. She had fun/she had good teachers.

20. They should use their power and regard their job as a mission.

Please note that your answers may be correct even though they are not worded exactly like mine. Ask me next time if you have questions about your answers.

Next week I will give you a written individual summary of your performance so far in this course and also some advice on what you need to practise.

Keisha Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Today I showed you a picture of a girl and asked you to speculate about who she is and what her life is like. We collected some of the ideas on the board. Then we read the story "Keisha" in your book Toolbox. I stopped reading after each paragraph and asked you to summarize what I had just read in 1-2 sentences. That way you practised listening, reading, thinking, writing and summarizing your thoughts at the same time. It turned out that some of your predictions and guesses about the picture of the girl were right.

Your homework for Thursday March 26 is to read the story "Keisha" again. Also write down your answers to the following questions:

1. What parts of the story do you find most important?
2. What would you have done if you were in Keisha's position?
3. Describe Keisha's life 10 years from now.

Please bring your answers to class on Thursday. See you then!

Sample argumentative writing Sunday, March 22, 2009

In class on Thursday we decided to argue the point that vegetables are good for you. Here is our text, as promised:

Vegetables are Good for You
Introduction + background
One of the most important things in life is to stay healthy. Health issues are being discussed on TV, in magazines and online. People's lives are affected by what we eat and how we act when it comes to food. Research shows that .... (here it's a good idea to state some facts or statistics that will support our case)

Thesis
One way to become more healthy is to increase your daily intake of vegetables.

3 arguments
By eating more vegetables your immune system will improve, and you will therefore be less susceptible to infections. You will also be more energetic and feel better in general. Eating vegetables will help you keep your ideal weight and you will not risk obesity in the future. Furthermore, you can make tasty, inexpensive dishes out of almost any vegetables. Some vegetables are even cheaper than meat.

Conclusion
Our conclusion is that eating more vegetables will serve you well. There are no good excuses not to increase your daily intake because there are plenty of vegetables to choose from.

Better grades give you security. Saturday, March 21, 2009

Better grades give you security.

One of the most important things in life is to have good marks. It helps you to be that you want to ask. It can happen any obstacles in your educational journey but it is smart to not give up. And trying to make their mistakes at a point that it can start from. Rating has a great importance to have a happy life.


But in order to invest in higher grades, it means that you should strive to acquire knowledge. For that sometimes when you only have good grades, it would not give others need from you but the key is often very different things. It may be, for example, that you must have some experience which may be supplemented by your high ratings. Where is affecting more and others is can benefit the work experience you have in the workplace.


The main thing is what you need to know to be developed, it is necessary to have knowledge that would make itself relevant or appropriate to move forward in life. We can get through that we deepen us in a direction that will help us to get any benefit from it in the longer term.
The person who has taken the exam have more rights and the opportunity to develop their lives to live, which be different among them who be without that. They have few opportunities in life.


Only want good education, it can help many people, you can feel happy and make others to be proud.



In addition, you can support yourself and you can even take care of others, so that they would not be dependent on anyone else.
Finally, I would say, if you are trained, you can deal with different situations and to handle most problems, when that is, you encounter any problems, you can treat it when it delayed a short time when instead know that difficulties can be resolved and it will take over and life continues.

Grades are important to have. And finally, I want to say something to my dear readers, if you were a teenager and read this letter so you know you are the hope for this country, through you to get developing country, or even if you were a grown man should know you can get the country flourish.

Writing class Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Today I gave you a few different topics to write about. I asked you to pick ONE topic and the idea was to write an argumentative text using the guidelines we have talked about in class.

The topics were:

Money makes you happy
Money does not make you happy

Teenagers need rules
Teenagers do not need rules

Sweden is a great country
Sweden is not a great country

Grades are important
Grades are not important.

The structure you needed to use was:

Introduction
Background
Thesis (main point)
Argument 1
Argument 2
Argument 3
Conclusion

It seemed to me that some of you thought this was a difficult task. We probably need to spend Thursday's class on argumentative writing as well. Be there!

Arguments for, against or in-between? Thursday, March 12, 2009

Today we reviewed the structure of an argumentative text. We also tried to find as many arguments as possible for the following opinions:

Money makes you happy
Money doesn't make you happy

The way you look and the way you dress is very important
The way you look and the way you dress doesn't matter

Being on time is very important
Being on time is not important

We came to the conclusion that arguing for something you don't really believe in is quite difficult.
It's also true that our opinions on certain issues are not necessarily "black or white". Usually we are somewhere in between the two statements like: "Having money won't hurt you, but it doesn't necessarily make you happy in the long run" or that "the way you look and the way you dress is important to a certain extent, but other qualities are important as well". Time is sometimes looked upon differently depending on the context or the culture.

However, we managed to come up with plenty of ideas supporting each opinion and we had an interesting discussion.

Expressing your opinion Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Today we practised expressing opinions in English by discussing different issues. First I gave you some phrases to use when you agree, disagree, when you ask questions or when you want to interrupt an ongoing conversation. Remember to always be polite in English, especially when you disagree.

We also studied the structure of an argumentative piece of writing on the movie Brokeback Mountain. An argumentative essay is usually structured like this:

• Introduction
• Background
• Thesis (main idea/main point)
• Argument 1
• Argument 2
• Argument 3
• Conclusion

Here is a trailer for Brokeback Mountain.

Summary of today's class Thursday, March 5, 2009

The hardest thing about writing a news story is to avoid just "telling a story". Your news story needs to be exciting, unusual or dramatic to be a news story. Make sure these questions are answered early in your news story:
Who?
When?
Where?
What?
How?
Why?

Spend some time on the headline. Your headline needs to make the reader want to read your news story. It also needs to sum up what the news item is all about. Here are some examples of headlines:
Woman forgets life savings on Gothenburg tram
Well-endowed thief in late night condom raid
Woman baffled by 10 billion kronor banking mistake

You also need to condense the information in a news story. You normally need to get as much information as possible in a few lines. Here is an analysis of the news story we read in class. I have highlighted my comments in bold writing. I have also marked all of the verbs in the past tense.

Woman forgets life savings on Gothenburg tram
Published: 1 Mar 09 12:05 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.se/17918/20090301/

An elderly Swedish woman lost her 500,000 kronor ($56,000) life savings when she left them on a Gothenburg tram on the way to the bank. (This part answers the questions: who = an elderly Swedish woman, what= lost her life savings, where = on a Gothenburg tram, how= she left the savings on the tram.)

The 83-year-old retired seamstress, identified only as Birgitta, had for years kept her savings in a desk in her home in Gothenburg in western Sweden.The elderly woman finally decided it would be safer to put the cash in a bank account, the Aftonbladet daily reported. (This part answers the question: why=she was 83 years old. Why=she thought it would be safer to put the money in the bank. It explains what happened before the incident. It also provides more background information to what happened. It also states the source of the information = Aftonbladet daily)

On February 19th, she filled a paper bag to the brim with 10,000-kronor piles of bank notes before taking a tram to the centre of town."I was going to the bank to deposit the money," she told the paper. (This part answers when it happened = On February 19th. It also answers the questions what and how = she filled a paper bag with money and took the tram. Where? = to town. It also has a quote from the woman. She was probably asked what she was going to do with the money.)

But when she got to her stop, she forgot the bag and got off leaving her life savings behind. Birgitta was too embarrassed to tell her family what had happened at first, and when they finally contacted the tram operator the money was long gone. (This part provides more details of what happened and how it happened. Who else was involved is also answered here: her family + the tram operator.)

"I don't think there is a chance I'll get the money back, but if someone does return it they will of course receive a finder's fee," she told Aftonbladet. (This part is a quote. It makes the article come alive and provides information about the woman's thoughts after the incident. It also states the source once more.)

Gothenburg police were more optimistic however, pointing out that surveillance cameras on the tram could help them identify who had taken the bag of money. (This part brings an optimistic touch that points to a possible solution. It answers the question: what will happen next? = the police will investigate the theft with the help of the surveillance cameras on the tram)

_______________________________

In class we read two more news stories to practise pronunciation and to study the structure of a news story a bit more.

In class next week we will go back to argumentative writing.

Please note: I am quite disappointed, and surprised, that some of you still choose (beacuse it IS a choice) to be late for class - or not show up at all. I really don't get it. Like I said last time: I have had it with excuses. The truth is: You are missing out on A LOT!!! Ultimately it will affect your grade in this course.

Individual comments Wednesday, March 4, 2009

I have now commented on your news stories. Please make sure you read them. See you in class tomorrow morning at 8:30.

News stories - a summary Monday, March 2, 2009

I will comment on your news stories individually, but here is a summary:

You have all picked interesting topics for your news stories. They work well in this context.

It is obvious that some of you have paid attention to the news story we wrote together and that you have used the ideas and the special news language in your own news stories. This is something you should all do! Try to see the difference between a newspaper article and "story-telling" in general.

A news story is always told in the past. This means you have to be sure of the verbs in the past tense, verbs like: went (gick), said (sa), came (kom), drove (körde) etc.

A grammatical construction often used in news stories is the passive. For example: han hittades = he was found. This is a very effective way of re-telling what happened "newspaper style".


Tomorrow in class we will take another look at verbs and how to use them more effectively in writing. We will also keep talking about how to argue a point in English.