Pontos das tarefas e avaliação

ADEC 5 - Non verbal to verbal

Choose a graph or diagram online.

Post the link to this image.

Describe the graph without giving your opinion.

Deadline: Friday, June 28th.

Adec 4 - Connectors

Each presentation group:

1. Post a short summary of your talk, or your prezi, as well as post a link to download (dropbox) your group's ppt.

2. Post 5 items of activities for the maing connectors of your presentation. 

Deadline - Saturday, June 15th.

Highlights do colóquio

Para quem não pôde comparecer:

Grupos Seminário de 10 e 17 de maio

FYI

Info about Argumentative writing

As you know, last class we started to effectively write our argumentative essay. 

For this Friday, you should have your INTRODUCTION ready. 

DO NOT write the rest, because we will be doing it in class. 

If you missed the class, please download the pdf entitled "Argumentative essay.pdf" and the video files starting with "IELTS Argument Essay Writing 1 ...." and follow the pdf until you finish writing the INTRODUCTION only. 

To download, visit the link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xgff40s3tvrennw/ZS51cd2DHn

ADEC 3 - Analysis - Reading comprehension

Watch the video below and share your ideas. 

Are they effective techniques in your opinion? Why? Why not? 
Should we use them every time we read something? Why? Why not? 
What are the pros and cons of the strategy present? 

Remember not to believe everything you find on the internet! Be critical, bring in your own experiences and create your own truth......

Interesting info about exams

Click on the image to see original size

A student wrote to me asking about international certifications that prove you level of English. Here's my answer:

Well, I doubt it that a website would provide a valid, international certification like that. 

There are several tests in the field and each one serves a different purpose. 

For example, if you want to study in the USA, you need to have the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language http://www.ets.org/toefl). There's no pass or fail, there's just a score (a number), then each university requires a certain score for you to be accepted (along with other requirements). This is a more academic test.

Another academic test is the IELTS (International English Testing System http://www.ielts.org), which may be required, for instance, by universities in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Canada. Just like the TOEFL, there's no pass or fail. You are given a band (a number) from 1 to 9. Each number represents a certain proficiency level that you have in the language, in other words, each number tells us about what you can do in English, in terms of reading, listening, writing and speaking. There's also a general (non-academic) version of IELTS and it is usually taken by people who want to immigrate or work in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Canada.

These two tests have an expiration date.

Other tests available may test your performance on general English:

Cambridge KET (Key English Test), PET (Preliminary English Test), FCE (First Certificate in English), CAE (Certificate of Advanced English) and CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English) (http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-qualifications/)

Michigan Proficiency (http://www.hau.gr/?i=examinations.en.ecpe) 

Other tests are more related to business or international communication, such as:

Bulats (Business Language Testing System http://www.bulats.org)

TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication http://www.ets.org/toeic)

There are also some companies, such as www.insignaconsultoria.com.br, which apply English performance tests, but usually to companies that want to attest their employee's skills in English. 

So, depending on your needs and context, you might consider one or another test. Also, it would be good to get informed about what kinds of certification is usually more accepted in the companies to which you will be sending your CV. Some companies may accept any Brazilian school "diploma", but more serious ones may require a certain score in Bulats, TOEIC or IELTS.

That's it. Let me know if you need more help.

ADEC 2 - Correcting a piece of writing

Last class I asked you to analyze a classmate's piece of writing, a summary in English.

You had to read it and check if you understand the "message": 

Does the writing make it clear what is textual type and what is textual genre? Is the distinction comprehensible?

If so, what linguistic elements allow you to understand the text? In other words, why is the text clear, cohesive and coherent? 

If not, provide an example of a part of the reading that is not clear. Then point out the reasons for this lack of clarity. Mention specific linguistic (lexical, morphological, syntactical, pragmatic, discursive) evidence to support your claim. 

Finally, provide a suggestion to improve that part in order to render it more legible, adequate or clearer in English. 

For example:


Read the piece of writing below. Then notice the CORRECTION CODES in blue:

Now look at the codes and their meanings:

What could you say about this piece of writing? How could you improve a part that is not clear or coherent?

For instance, you could say: The first sentence seems incomplete. Also, there should be no comma (,) in it. The right spelling is "chronological". Both mistakes don't really interfere in the meaning of the sentence. The problem really seems to reside in the incompleteness of the idea.
Another problem is "And the genre is the touchable". It's weird to start a paragraph with "And" and, in English, we never use the definite article "the" before an adjective, we never say "She's the beautiful" or "It's the difficult". We say "The genre is touchable texts" or "Genres are touchable things/texts" or "The genre is A touchable TEXT"; we would also say "She's A beautiful GIRL" or "She's beautiful", "It's A difficult TASK" or "It's difficult".

........and so on

I just showed an example, there could be many other comments about this writing.

So, here's ADEC 2:

One member of the groups we formed last class should post the comments from the group. Don't forget to write your names!

Hope to read your posts soon!

Opinion poll - TOPICS for our classes

Please fill out the following form:


Next class I will divulge the results.

Second prezi and ADEC 1 - preparing for reading

Here's the prezi I used last class and the one we'll use in the next one.

ADEC 1 - Bring to the class the answers (from 1 to 10) to the following activity (in the first unit we'll work ok):

Activity C - Background and Vocabulary (here's just a part of it, you should bring ALL the TEN answers):

The prezi is here:

Textual type and textual genre

Here's the prezi about type and genre.
We've done the first part. We'll still do the second. So bring your handout next class.