Thursday, 15 March 2012

The last session of this series of our conversational get-togethers.
I handed out the vocabulary list for unit 5 which you can also find here. For more information about what to do with these lists, click on the 'tags' vocabulary lists and useful links underneath this message.

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Today is International Women's Day. Do you think it is necessary to have a special women's day? Do you like being a woman? Are you glad you are a man? 
We finished unit 5A on school days. Most of us still have vivid memories of when we were at school. We mentioned friendship as a good memory and travelling to and from school as a bad memory. We also talked a bit about the differences between now and when we were at school. 
Next week will be our last session of this series. we will try to finish unit 5B then. Please prepare activity 3A and 3B of that unit at home.

Thursday, 1 March 2012

Luck by Mark Twain can be listened to here.
We finished unit 4 by correcting the homework you did in the self-study section on page 101. I then handed out the vocabulary list with unit 4, which can also be found here. You can import this list, and the other Let's Talk 3 vocabulary lists I made before, to your own personal account you can create at wrts. How to import lists to your own account and answers to other FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) can be seen here. We read the vocabulary list together to mark the stress in each word. This helps with pronouncing them correctly. 
We then started unit 5 about Education and learning with 5A called School days We finished the session by reading the first page of Mark Twain's story Luck.

Thursday, 23 February 2012

We started off with telling stories with the cartoons on pages 76 and 85 of our book. We then finished unit 4B and started the accompanying self/study section by making sentences with 'seem', 'look like' and 'look as if'. Next week I will hand out the vocabulary list for unit 4 and we will correct the rest of the self-study section. 
We then answered your own comprehension questions with stave 5 of A Christmas Carol and we finished reading The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow by taking turns reading out loud. try to make your own vocabulary list with this story and then listen to the video below: 
National Geographic on Sleepy Hollow:  
Try to recognise as many words as possible while watching this short video. You will already know most of what is told.

Thursday, 16 February 2012

This week there were only six of us due to illness. We talked about the past week. We finished unit 4A and moved on to unit 4B (page 16). We then collected the questions we drew up for stave 5 of A Christmas Carol. We will answer them collectively next week. We finished our session by reading a version of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, which can be listened to here This famous American legend fits perfectly into our Surprises and superstitions theme. Next week we will finish unit 4 and the Legend Of Sleepy Hollow.

Thursday, 9 February 2012

After a brief look at page 99 we started unit 4 about Surprises and superstitions. In unit 4A we had a look at optical illusions. How do they make you feel? How would you describe them? Does your brain fool you? We finished our session with answering the comprehension questions with stave 4 of A Christmas Carol. Reread stave 5 and think up at least two questions along the same lines as we answered for staves 1-4.

Thursday, 2 February 2012

One of our group returned after a three week absence. We asked question about his holiday in Austria. Did he have snow? Has he broken any arms or legs? How was his journey? Why was he not present at last week's session? I then handed out the vocabulary list with unit 3, which can also be found here. You can import this list, and the other Let's Talk 3 vocabulary lists I created before, to your own account at wrts. How to import lists to your own account and answers to other FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) can be seen here. We then finished unit 3 by discussing page 98 of the self-study section. Page 99 is to be prepared for next week. We answered the comprehension questions with stave 3 of A Christmas Carol and to round things off we had two rounds of 'My holiday packing list', one for a skiing holiday and one for a cruise.

Thursday, 26 January 2012

What happened last week. Did anything exciting or special happen to you? We talked about the four films that are mentioned at the beginning of unit 3B Crime stories. You prepared for this at home by googling for information on these movies. I have added the story lines for each of them here. They are all from IMBb or the Internet Movie Database, an excellent site to find information about most films ever made: 
Plot summary Witness
Plot summary for Catch Me If You Can
Plot summary for Ocean's Eleven
Plot summary for Fargo
I also handed out short summaries of these four films. For next week prepare activity 2C. Choose at least one assignment to which you answer the questions. 
We finished by answering the comprehension questions with stave 2 of A Christmas Carol. Please read stave 3 for next week and again answer the questions that go with it.

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Last week we talked about crimes and punishment. Quite a few of you have had experiences with being a victim of crime. We kicked off this session with you telling us your stories in English. This involved using the past tense, giving descriptions and expressing emotions and feelings.
We finished the unit on Breaking the law with activity 3 and we will start unit 3B Crime stories next week. We rounded off our weekly meeting with discussing stave 1 of A Christmas Carol by answering the comprehension questions with it that are on the list I handed out last week. We agreed to read and discuss one stave a week in this fashion.

Thursday, 12 January 2012

I handed out the vocabulary lists to Let's Talk 3, unit 2, Expressing yourself. Once again it can also be found here. You can import this list, and the other Let's Talk vocabulary lists I created before, to your own account at wrts. Once imported you can add your own words and use the 'extra' option to listen to the correct pronunciation. How to import lists to your own account can be seen here.
We finished unit 2 by having a look at page 97 and we started unit 3 on Crime and punishment. Unit 3A deals with crime and criminals. We talked about how we personally judge the severity of different crimes and we talked about suitable punishment. Activity 3A and 3B should be prepared at home for next session.
We ended by talking a bit more about A Christmas Carol. I handed out a list with comprehension questions with each stave of the book and we agreed to discuss staves 1 and 2 next week.

Thursday, 22 December 2011

We started off this tenth and last session before the break by talking about A Christmas Carol of which you can find the third stave at the bottom of this blog entry. Can you read the text? Do you understand what the story is about? Are there any words you do not understand? The story has 5 chapters or, as Dickens called them, 'staves'. A 'stave' is a song stanza, so the 'carol' or song has 5 stanzas. I will send the Word document of the book, that will also be published here, by e-mail so that you can print out the text. We then finished unit 2 of Let's Talk 3 and we had a look at page 96 of the self-study section. please finish page 97 before our next session on January 12, 2012!

Thursday, 15 December 2011

Again we started the session with asking each other questions using do/does/did + infinitive. We had a talk about what is important in learning English and what are the goals for our conversation group.
We then started unit 2A, activity 1. Activity 2A and 2B are to be prepared at home for next week.
We then talked about A Christmas Carol of which you will find the second installment below. Since most of you have said they prefer reading a printed version, I will convert the text into a printable Word version. In the coming weeks, during our Christmas break, I will publish the rest of the online installments at this blog.

Thursday, 8 December 2011

We began with asking questions and making negative sentences. In most cases you have to use two verbs to do so. For questions use do/does/did + infinitive and for negations use don't/doesn't/didn't + infinitive. For example: Do you celebrate Sinterklaas? No, we don't exchange presents on December 5. Did you see Nova Zembla? No, we didn't know it's in the cinema.
We then finished unit 2A and we had a look at The cat that walked by himself and its exercises.

To get into the Christmas spirit we are going to read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I will publish a retold, simplified version in five 'staves' or installments. Although simplified, it is not a simple text but try to get the gist of the story. There are many films made about Scrooge so you will most probably have heard about it. Click on the window below to expand the text. Scroll down to read.

As a bonus, here's Scrooge from the film The Muppet Christmas Carol. Click on 'show more' to read along with the lyrics of the song.

Thursday, 1 December 2011

After a short discussion of our past week, we continued with let's Talk 3, unit 2A. The last bit of this unit will be dealt with next week. make sure that you are prepared. I then handed out Rudyard kipling's poem poem The cat that walked by himself and we briefly read it. At home you can listen to it here Click on the 'play' button. Practice the pronunciation of the words and lines by listening to them and then repeating them. You can also do the exercises online but we will certainly discuss them in our next session.

Thursday, 24 November 2011

We started off again by sharing what happened last week or what plans you might have for the near future. Any parties, holidays, events, appointments? How did or will these make you feel? Happy, sad, worried, stressed, excited, upset, peaceful?
After this little warming up exercise we continued our book with unit 2A How do you feel? and by having a look at the homework in the self-study section.
We ended the evening by completing silly jokes on a hand out. For more silly jokes, look here.

Thursday, 17 November 2011

We asked our group member who was absent last week, how his week was. We then had a look at the assignments with the video of November 3, Getting Acquainted (see below) and we finished unit 1 by finally having a look at the self-study section. Next week we will start the new module. We also took up doing word search puzzles again.
We ended the session with telling somewhat 'blue' jokes but unfortunately they were not exchanged in English. :)

Thursday, 10 November 2011

The first proper Autumn week although it's still quite warm outside. As usual we started of our session with some talk about last week by asking each other questions. We spent quite some time on this.
I then handed out the vocabulary lists to Let's Talk 3, unit 1, Getting Acquainted. It can also be found here. You can import this list, and the other Let's Talk vocabulary lists I created before, to your own account at wrts. Once imported you can add your own words and use the 'extra' option to listen to the correct pronunciation. How to import lists to your own account can be seen here.
Next week we will finish unit 1 by looking at the last activities we prepared at home and by working at the self-study section with unit 1.

Thursday, 3 November 2011

We started of the session with talking briefly about our past week by asking and answering questions. After that we finished unit 1A and we started unit 1B with a few hiccups such as riddles that proved to be too difficult to solve, a missing book and no CDs to do the listening exercises. In a communal effort we managed to have a full lesson nevertheless.
Next week we will again talk about the past and we will practice asking more questions


For next week have a look at this video and I will hand out a work sheet in next week's session. To view captions (subtitles) for this video, click on the 'CC' button on the player control panel to turn captions on.

Thursday, 27 October 2011

Today I handed out the group's phone circle for 2011-2012. In case of an unforeseen cancellation of one of our sessions, I will use this phone list, I will send out an email to all participants and I will leave a message on this blog.
I also handed out the new books, Let's Talk 3, after which we had a brief look at the book's scope and sequence (pages iv and v) and revised useful classroom phrases on pages vi and vii. We then started unit 1 'Getting acquainted' and managed to nearly finish unit 1A on Successful conversations.
For next week revise unit 1a and write down 9 questions for activity 3B