Final Assignment

Hello, and welcome to a new week! It's our final week of class, so I wanted to thank you all for the very nice experience. I enjoyed working with you all and I hope that we'll have another class together in the future. If not, I wish you the best of luck; if I can help you in any way, please feel free to contact me through my Sitzman ABC blog.

Remember that this Saturday is our last day, so we'll need to finish our presentations. Also, any blog additions or changes you want to make need to be made by Friday at noon at the latest, so I can take your comments into account before our class.

Now, your homework:

For your last assignment, I'd like you to do a self-assessment of your blog this bimester. I'll take your comments into account when I evaluate your blog posts. I'd like you to be honest, so if you'd prefer not to post this to your blog, that's OK; you can send it to me by email instead.

For your self-assessment, I'd like you to write a couple of sentences about each of your posts, including a score for each on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest). You should take into consideration first of all your English use (Vocabulary, Grammar, Mechanics, etc.), as well as your promptness, completeness, and your interaction with your group partners and their blogs.

You had 5 assignments, so you'll have to write your comments for the 5 posts. To remind you, they were:

Week 1: Paragraph about your eating habits

Week 2: Ideal location for a business in Costa Rica

Week 3: Explanation about your mid-term presentation

Week 4: Story using travel vocabulary

Week 5: Outlining debate topics

For example, you could say:

Week 2: 9/10. I feel that I did a good job with this post, since I followed the guidelines completely. I explained the type of business I was talking about, as well as the factors that such a business would need. I also identified good places in Costa Rica for such a business. I commented on my partners' blogs, but I took off a point since I was two days late posting my assignment.

So, do that 5 times, and you should be fine. Remember that you can also email me this assignment if you feel uncomfortable posting it to your blog. You can also take this opportunity to give me feedback about any aspect related to the class.

Thanks again, and good luck! See you all on Saturday!

Week 6 Homework

As I mentioned in class, you've got two things to do this week.

First of all, you should re-write your story from week 4, taking into consideration the corrections we made in class. If you need to, you can add information to make the story better. When you're done, post the edited copy of the story to your blog.

Secondly, you should prepare your final presentation. We'll be doing them this Saturday, so you should be ready! We'll be picking random names, so if you're not ready, I'll have to lower your presentation grade some. So, please be prepared to do your presentation. If we can't finish all of them on Saturday, we'll finish them up in our final class.

Here are the guidelines for your final presentation:

1. You will be the teacher for 10-15 minutes. You'll be in charge of leading the class in some sort of activity that is related to your objective. Speaking of that...

2. Your presentation should have an objective. Everyone should be able to complete the phrase "After my presentation, my students will be able to..." Basically, what should your students take away from your presentation?

3. You can (and should) use games or other interactive activities in order to make sure that most students are able to participate and learn from your presentation. Still, those activities should somehow help you and your student fulfill your objective.

4. Almost all of you decided on a topic in class, but as a reminder you can present on anything related to education, business, or professionalism. Some suggested topics I gave you were:

-Interview skills

-Presentation skills

-Coping with different cultures

-Lead a well-structured debate

-Highlight an aspect of language or language learning

When you're planning your presentation, again, remember to keep in mind that your students should be doing most of the action; you shouldn't just stand in front of the class with a PowerPoint slideshow while they sit in their desks and listen to you talk.

So, if you're having any problems planning or have any questions, please tell me. Also, if you'll need me to help you get any resources, tell me before Friday. Good luck, and have a great week!

Week 5 Homework

I still can't believe the shoes on the left are older than Felipe.

Hello! You have two things to do for this week's homework. 

First of all, check out your group partners' blog posts where they wrote a story using week 4 vocab, and leave a comment on their blogs. Some of you have been doing this diligently in the past weeks--if that's you, good work! If not, please get to work! I know that sometimes there have been problems with posting comments to your blogs (or your partners' blogs in this case). If that happens, you can also leave your comments on your own blog, and just mention that it's a comment.

Also, if your group partners haven't finished their story posts, then you can leave a comment on another classmate's blog.

Secondly, I'd like you to think about more debate/discussion topics. Do this in two parts:

1. You should come up with a general topic, and then identify two opposing viewpoints that students could represent in a discussion (much like we did in class today). 

2. Then, I'd like you to write a paragraph or two saying which side of the debate you'd represent, including as many details as possible about why you see things that way.

The general topics we discussed in class today were globalization, internet, cellphones, religion, green energy, animals, and social networking. You could use one of those topics, but I'd prefer it if you could think of something different, just to make your brain work a bit.

If you have any problems with or questions about this assignment, please tell me as soon as possible. Have a great week, and keep on rocking!

Guns and/or Roses

Just for the public record, here's the video we watched in class today (and here are the lyrics):

Also, here's the video for "Estranged." I was originally going to use this song instead, since it's less well-known than November Rain, but the video is even more bizarre, believe it or not:

The song is great, but the video's a bit of a mess.

I'll post this week's homework assignment in a few minutes, so please check that out and complete it.
So, have a great rest of the weekend, and see you next Saturday!

Flyswatter

Even if the word apparently isn't in a dictionary, "flyswatters" do exist. Here's the Eels song we heard in class.

The video's a bit confusing.

Week 4 Homework

Hi Everyone! You've got a few things to do this week:

First, please be sure that you're caught up with any blog posts from previous weeks. This week you won't have to comment on your partners' blogs, but if there's anything you want to say to them, you still can leave a comment, of course.

Second, your blog homework for this week is to write a short story using the vocabulary words from the crossword puzzle we used in today's warm-up. You can make it either fictional or non-fictional, but try to make it interesting! As you surely remember, the words were all nouns, but you can convert them to verbs, adjectives, or other parts of speech if you want. 

I'm sure that you all have the words, but in case you want a reminder, the words were:

suitcase - business trip - insurance - credit card - export - cruise - flight - journey - luggage - transport - passport - sightseeing - airport - Euro - theft

If you have any questions, please tell me as soon as possible. 

Thanks again to the people who did their presentations today--they were very good! And thanks to Esteban and Juan José for their patience; we'll have their presentations next week.

Have a great week, and see you next Saturday!

Regarding A Class Question

Hi! If you recall from our class yesterday, there was a question regarding how to make a word ending with "s" possessive. For example, we talked about things that could belong to someone named Carlos or Phylis (my mom's name). 

Apparently, I was correct: there are two ways of making those possessive: by either adding and apostrophe+s, or simply an apostrophe. So, we could say:

Carlos's car or Carlos' car  OR  Phylis's children or Phylis' children

You can find a much more extensive explanation, including more tips for using apostrophes in general, here, here, and here.

Have a great Sunday!