Final lesson

Today is our final English class of 2016 and my final lesson with your class.

We are going to finish off on a Christmas note.

Here is a funny place to start off.

Then what about the background to why Santa Claus is called the name he is..

Here is one answer from HowStuffWorks.

Finally you will have a Crossword to do on the theme of Christmas.

Don't forget to return your "No. 1 Ladies'" books to the library when Björn gets back.

Wish you all happy holidays and a good spring term with your English course.

Correction day

Today we will be looking at your essay and other marked work you have done.

While that is going on I want you to finish off the final assignment about "No. 1 ladies' Detective Agency"  ( comparing the book and film- SEE last Friday's blog).

First off is to complete the literature work on the compendium:-

Anna/Josefina       Moby Dick
Tove/Alfred          Frankenstein
(Nellie/Alva)        Oliver Twist

There is also an assessment of the course which I want you to do. Please take it seriously as it can be a great help to your new teacher after Christmas..

Presentations today

Presentations today and then on Friday

Anna/Josefina       Moby Dick
Tove/Alfred          Frankenstein
(Nellie/Alva)        Oliver Twist

+

 Correction day!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comparison film and book

Today we finish off our study of "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" by seeing the film of the same name.. based on the book.

We won't be able to see the whole film but most of it..

Your task is to compare the book and the film.

Find five differences between the book and film based on the story up to page 170 (chapters 1-16)

and  five differences based on the final chapters of the book (chapters 17-22)..

..and a final comment as to what you thought about the book and why. Could the book be of help to someone preparing for a study visit to Uganda, for example?

Send your answers AS A DOCUMENT to 
 Vklass AT THE LATEST next Friday.

Good luck mma and rra!

Have a good weekend and don't forget...

MONDAY IS PRESENTATION DAY!!!

Final preparations for your presentations

Today is the final chance to get your act together for your Uganda presentation.

Remember it should include at least a half page of text and some kind of media/presentation production that should be at least 5 minutes long.

Here is a good resource for some keys areas to make a good presentation in class

http://www.wikihow.com/Do-a-Presentation-in-Class

Here is also a really good resource:
https://www.princeton.edu/~archss/webpdfs08/BaharMartonosi.pdf

This Friday we will be doing an exercise on No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

You need to have read the rest of the story..

Presentations from anthology

Here is the anthology.

Today we do the presentations from the texts of the anthology...

Next Friday:
Anna/Josefina       Moby Dick
Tove/Alfred          Frankenstein
(Nellie/Alva)        Oliver Twist

By then you have to have READ the whole of No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.



On Monday you will work with your projects.

Have a good weekend!

Working on the Project

Today we continue to work on the Project:

SA15
UGANDA
History-                                                   Elin / Maja

Importance(role) of English                    Liga / Maya

Education System                                  Carl / Trolle                 
LRA                                                         Viola / Tove

Economy                                                 Bella / Sophia

Traditional clothes and fashion             Anna / Josefina

Aids, malaria and other sicknesses      Alfred  /  Oliver

Situation of women                              Cornelia / Klara


ES
Music in Uganda

Taste in music Uganda vs Sweden  Alva /  Nellie

Dancehall & RB in Uganda               Andreas /  Fanny

HipHop & Gospel                              Smårs / Celina


Then on Friday we will have short presentations of the texts from the compendium according to the following:

1.Some facts about the author

2. 10 new (or interesting ) words from the text

3. Some comments about the content (innehåll) and how it is written..

Maja/Elin             Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Alva/Nellie           Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)
Fanny/Smårs      Mayor of Casterbridge (Thomas Hardy)
Anna /Josefina    Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
Viola/Klara          A Dream (Edgar Allan Poe)
Alfred/Tove         Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
Andreas/Bella     Sonnet (Shakespeare)
Trolle/Calle         Huck Finn (Mark Twain)
Liga/Maya           Call of the Wild  (Jack London)

No. 1 ladies pages 121-171

Today we will be doing a mini-test exercise on chapters 10- 16 in our novel.

Good luck!

Next week

Monday...Working on your project

Friday.. presentations from the Anthology

Uganda Project and work on the essays

Then we will start on our projects which will end up with a presentation and a text.

You can see the results of some  of the texts from last year in the handbook for Uganda.


Now it is your turn. You will be working in groups of twos

Here are the topics:

SA15
History

Importance(role) of English

Education System

LRA

Economy

Writers and literature in English

Aids, malaria and other sicknesses

Situation of women

and for ES

Taste in music Uganda vs Sweden

Dancehall & RB in Uganda

HipHop & Gospel

(Kandongo Kamu and Kidandali)

Presentations on Monday week 50 (and handing in the texts- about ½ page A4)

We will divide the texts.

Then we will start going through the essays next Monday. (8 people)

The Estetkällare is OUT OF BOUNDS for the duration of the project period during English lesson time.

Those who missed the essay on the Twentieth Century will do it today

Finally, this Friday there will be a test on the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" pages 121-172 (chapters 10-16)

Twentieth Century

So today we are going to use the lesson to write a "mock" national test essay.. The subject is "The Twentieth Century".

Use the materials on the paper to help you to write your article.

Those of you who are allowed to use your computer please bring it along.

Otherwise just bring a pen or pencil.

No cell phones will be allowed during the lesson.

Prepare for writing and finish your compendium text

As you can see I am home today trying to recover from pneumonia..

However, you still have two things to work on

Don't forget to use the beginning of the lesson to complete the work on your anthologies.

What if you don't even understand what the texts are about?

Well open the online version of the texts. There you could use a translation tool to give you some idea about what is going on!
(However, the idea is that your vocabulary level should be expanding all the time!)


This Friday, as you can read on the planner, we will be doing the mock writing essay.

The theme is the twentieth century. So, today I want you to start looking for resources to help you prepare for writing about it.
Think about the great people, events, discoveries and problems of the twentieth century (1900's)..

The year most of you were born was its last year...

In the national test at English 6 level you will receive preparation materials a week before the test- to get you thinking..

A very good resource to help you is on ENGVID

Here are two excellent links
http://www.engvid.com/how-to-write-an-effective-essay/
and 
http://www.engvid.com/effective-essay-introduction


Skolverket has materials that can help you:
http://nafs.gu.se/prov_engelska/exempel_provuppgifter/eng6-writing-exempel

Another simple resource;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P4fzbzwwAg&feature=youtu.be


Here are five key words you need to think about:-

1. Organization
2. Structure
3. Style
4. Clarity 
5. Register

The last thing I want to go through with you is the Writing skills  the checklist! which hopefully you will receive from one of my colleagues

Literature work- continued

Today we start off by looking at the World Literature Quizzes we did on Monday...

These were only a bit of fun and belong to the world of trivial knowledge.

However, today we will do a literary timeline..

This is important because literature is always written in a context and themes and styles vary from period to period.

When you have done this we will look briefly at a short compendium with the first pages from several famous authors.

You will be asked to work in pairs and find out something about the author and the text which you have been given

Here is the anthology

True Grit!

Today we will be having a short lesson. I have to leave by 10.55.


Those who missed the exercise about chapters 2-5 of No. 1 Ladies' need to do it today.


Otherwise we will do two things.

1. Planner- to go through the planner and discuss especially the reading of No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

Week 45- pages 71-120 (chapter 6-9)

Week 47- pages 121-172 (chapters 10-16)

Week 48- pages 173-233 (chapters 17-22)

2. To watch a short Ted Talk about motivational skills and their importance for our success as students and people.

Here is the film



Then discuss the film in small groups.

Why is "grit" so important compared with intelligence and social background?

Can you give any examples of famous people who have shown "true grit" in their success?

Can you think of examples from your own life when grit and determination really helped you?

Send in a  message from each group to Vklass where you give bfeedback about your discussions.

Background to No. 1 Ladies

Today we are going to introduce the background to Botswana where the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is set.

We can watch the first part of a You Tube Clip about Botswana....


Then we can see a small clip from the film based on the book where we see how Precious grew up.

The rest of the time will be spent prepaing for Monday's lesson.

To improve your language I can recommend the following link:

http://agendaweb.org/



Good luck!

Test is best and own planning

Today we have one group left to do their presentations...

After that I want to go quickly through the test you did before I went to Uganda....


As you can see from the planner you have a couple of lessons you can plan on your own this week.

To complicate matters there will be an exercise in class on Monday for No1 Ladies' - chapters 2-5 (pages 13-70)...

So maybe a bit of reading (unless you've already read these chapters) would not be a bad thing...

Whatever you choose remember you need to expand your vocabulary to reach a suitable level for English 6...

As the results of the test indicate, we are on a higher level of language now and the only way to improve is through study!

Presentations of the gender project.

Today we will continue with the presentations of all the remaining groups.

Gender identity project and preparation for minitest

On Friday you will be having a test on chapter 1 of Context 2.

Today we winds things up.

Speaking
Discuss your week-end with a new person

Role play- 
Groups of four (works with three)
1. Leaders for Sweden, Germany, Finland and Denmark discussing present situation.  Generous attitude and Restrictive attitude

2. In the train compartment- soldier, housewife, Kamprad and alcoholic discussing life etc.

Listening

Page 16- True, false or not clear

Practising the grammar
http://www.english-4u.de/past_perfect_ex2.htm

http://www.english-4u.de/past_perfect_ex3.htm

Finally
Do the practise test on the gleerups web for chapter 1

Week 38 (Friday's lesson), week 39 and week 40 I will be in Uganda with students from the social science and arts' programme.

During that time you will have a theme to study about gender and identity (sexuality).

The files are on vklass (utbildningsmaterial/delade filer)


Here are the groups:

Group 1  (resources 1-3)
Andreas, Bella, Tove

Group 2 (resources 4-6)
Alva, Trolle, Anna, Josefina

Group 3 (resources 7-9)
Elin, Celina, Carl

Group 4 (resources 10-12)
Maja, Fanny, Liga

Group 5 (resources 13-15)
Sophia, Alfred, Maya

Group 6 (resources 16-18)
Oliver, Cornelia, Susanna

Group 7 (resources 19-21)
Nellie, Klara, Viola

Please read the instructions carefully

Winding up with the text

Next Friday at this time we will be having a short test to Check your knowledge about what we have done up until now.

We will start today's lesson with a quiz and some prize giving..

Then we will wind up the work with the text. Here is something we missed last time.

Verb forms

A lot of the text is written in the past tense

(simple past and pluperfect "had thought" etc.)

Please discuss Work out 56-57  on page 296-297

Remember the irregular forms of many verbs in the past-

both the simple past and the participle:-

DRIVE- DROVE- DRIVEN

GIVE- GAVE- GIVEN

HERE is a list of most irregular verb forms..

Loads of exercises available at:


agendaweb.org

verb exercises


past and past perfect

Let us look at the PAST PERFECT

Here are some examples from the text in the book:

page 6

He had been living for the past year...

He had flown out to New York

Page 7
He'd noticed

Page 8
They had had a year together
He had thought it through
He had told her about the job

Page 9
he'd always liked it

Why and when do we use this form?

We are going to watch the video from Agendaweb

http://www.agendaweb.org/verbs/past_perfect-exercises.html

Now turn to your neighbour and discuss when and where you use the PAST PERFECT.

The form of the Past perfect is easy to use
HAD   or 'D   + past participle

FINALLY let's get into the Gleerups Web. Many of you have still not done the Context + exercises there.
The words/phrases in the test are all taken from the two exercises there.

Moreover we will practise verbs using "Take"

Monday's lesson will be for revision

Just a reminder

Just to make it clear about what work you need to do:
1. Word list by the end of this week


2. Letter to a pen-friend in Uganda for ALL SA15 students and recommended for the ES15 students.


3. 3 exercises on Context + (webbövningar) for the text " I'm sorry but I'll have to let you go" ( by 16th September)

I'm sorry but I'll have to let you go

Thanks for your work about " No. 1 Ladies'"
Still some missing though!!!!!


 Today I want to try out a more traditional language lesson .

We are going to work in the Context book with the first text:
"I'm sorry I'll have to let you go"

It's all about breaking up in  a relationship.

Ice-breaker
What is the most common way that people break up today?
Look at the video.

Where do you think the couple are from (their accent)?
Why is the girl so angry about the break-up?

Listening
We are going to listen to the text... Have a wordlist open in the background. I will ask everyone in the class questions about the text and vocabulary

Speaking
Role play
Play the role of Sarah and a friend after the break-up and discuss the way things went.
OR
Play the role of the protagonist and a friend discussing the break-up

Writing
Do exercise B on paper as outlines

Reading
Now we have read/listened to the text
There are a number of idiomatic phrases and words in the text. (You know like " Today it's raining cats and dogs)
Look for 10 of them and if they are new for you add them to your word list

Example  page 7  aggro;  page 8  up to scratch (line 3); page 9 taking it in (line 5);  page 10 (line 2) she knows the score: page 11 (line 10) get off my case

Page 344 is the word list

Finally

Using prepositions
Do exercises H and I

Verb forms
A lot of the text is written in the past tense
(simple past and pluperfect "had thought" etc.)
Work out 56-57  on page 296-297

Send in all your answers to Vklass as a message

write down any new phrases in your digital word list

already  Friday week 37 we will have a test on the chapter

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, planning and letter to Africa.

Hi everybody!

Hop  by the time you read this blog you will have a copy of our novel  No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency  in your hand.

I want you to read pages 1-5 today... just to get started...

Here are the questions I want you to answer..
Send them to me as a message (meddelande) on Vklass.

1. Where and how does the novel start?

2. What picture of the main character- Precious Ramotswe- do we get in these pages?

3. What picture of Africa (Botswana) does Alexander McCall Smith give us?  Write down some details.

Secondly I clean forgot last time that all the members of SA15 need to write a personal letter to an African pen-friend in Soroti. (For the students of ES15 (since the last years two students from ES have also travelled to Uganda) it is recommended - but not compulsory.
The letter should contain information about you and your family, your interests, where you live, your studies and things you would like them to tell you.

The deadline is Friday 16th September.

Finally today, if you have time, get into your planning groups and do some more concrete planning for one of your chosen chapters.
How can you do some kind of examination of the chapter to show what you have learnt?

All suggestions can be sent to Vklass.

Have a good week-end and I'll see you all on Monday-

Some planning and information!

On Friday I will be in Borlänge at a conference
You will have the chance to:  

• Plan for some lessons on your chosen chapters in the original small groups based on the document on the blog-CURRICULUM AND GRADES. Plan for at least 4 lessons.

• Go down to Björn and get a copy of " No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency". Read chapter 1 and do the exercise which will be on the blog.

Today we will be begin by going through the provisional planner for the course.

Here it is

After that we will look at the Context Web.

Most of you have a login from last year... If you have forgotten your password you can get a new one and check out the exercises..

Finally

We will do a simple game 

Boot camp

Hi everyone and welcome back after a long, long summer.

Hope your vacation (holiday) was all you had hoped for.

So, here we are with a new academic year, new text book and the same old teacher!  GROAN !!!!!!!!!!

So, let's make the most of it!

We start off by making the traditional pilgimage to the great prophet Björn in the library!

(Hope he's not one of the ones they are planning to shoot!)

Then when we get back to the classroom we will look at the book and remind each other about the web.

Today we won't be able to work on the web as the new licences haven't come yet..

After that we arer going to divide into small groups for some discussions and activities. 



In pairs

• Role Play

http://www.eslflow.com/roleplaysdramatheatregames.html

• Quiz 1

Answer the questions

In groups of four

• Planning

(see curriculum and grades)Try to find at LEAST two texts in context 2 that seem interesting- well LESS BORING!!!!

Think of ways of working with them...

Send in your deliberations on Vklass as a message with the name of the students in your group..

Then one final exercise which you will do On your own