AL Week 5 Dec 10, 11
- Niamaat
- Nov 29, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Dec 23, 2022
PRESENTATION
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Prepare a short presentation about any topic. Receive helpful feedback..
The following presentation was prepared outside of our session. A series of audio recordings was put in the Skype chat area. You can use those to hear the correct pronunciation and intonation. You can practice listening and repeating if you want to.
Discipline
Lack of discipline costs. Lack of discipline means that you don't achieve your goals. Lack of discipline results in not achieving your goals.
Why don't people have discipline?
People need to develop discipline, but they don't know how to do it.
People think that discipline is a struggle to attain and requires too many denials.
People have negative mental programming and a negative environment.
People avoid doing things that require effort and persistence.
People lack inner strength.
People are lazy.
People prefer comfortable laziness rather than actions that require effort.
People accept and practice many pleasures indiscriminately, and without using commonsense these activities tend to weaken self discipline.
People don't have goals or purpose in life.
People have the habit of procrastination.
People lack willpower, motivation and ambition.
What do you need to do to improve your discipline?
When you are feeling unmotivated, countdown from ten and force yourself to do whatever it is you are doing.
Put your goals where you can see them.
Keep your end goal in mind without allowing yourself to forget where you started.
Set small goals first.
Practice prioritizing.
Get people to hold you accountable.
Alejandra, the activities below were designed with your stated goals in mind. However, you may feel that one or more of these activities are not helpful for you to achieve your goals. You are welcomed to do any of these activities below outside of class or during class, as you see fit, if you feel that the activity is aligned with one or more of your goals. You are not obligated to do any of the below activities.
ACTIVITY 1
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Practicing communicating in English.
At work, in English, is your message getting across? How do you know that it is getting across or that it is not getting across?
At work, in English, is it easy for your audience to understand your message? How do you know if it is easy or not easy for your audience to understand your intended message?
At work, do you feel responsible for your audience understanding your intended message? Why or why not?
When you feel nervous communicating in English at work, what specifically makes you nervous? What specifically might make you less nervous? What specifically might make you feel calm and not nervous at all?
Do you feel nervous when preparing work presentations in English?
You sometimes know in advance that you will be speaking at a meeting or speaking to an individual in English. In those cases, do you prepare in advance? How do you prepare? Is that working well for you?
You sometimes don't know if advance that you will be speaking at a meeting or speaking to an individual in English. In those cases, you speak spontaneously.
ACTIVITY 2
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The purpose of this activity is to practice speaking spontaneously on a topic that you are not an expert in, that might seem to be unrelated to your job.
Please define each of these topics in any way that you like.
socializing online
domestic violence
drones
freedom of speech
To me ________ means ...
For me ______ means ...
In my opinion, _____ means ...
From my perspective, _______ means ...
Talk to me about one or more of these topics and tell me your position or your point of view regarding the topic.
ACTIVITY 3
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The purpose of this activity is to practice correct pronunciation and intonation in English. You may have the opportunity to expand your English vocabulary also.
Miracles by Lucy Corin https://tinhouse.com/miracles-by-lucy-corin/
We watched our father take the jar out to the patio on the day we had been waiting for since he put the spider into it with its egg sac. It was a black widow spider which we knew never to touch in the garden. We knew how to recognize black widow spiders by the red bow on their belly.
We had been living in the country since our stark raving mad mother started calling the apartment from her orbit.
Our father lay down, near the jar, on his side. He was always showing us stuff around the farm. He was growing a beard. He was always tired and patient. There was a barn with a horse in it. We were taking care of the horse.
Our father said a lot about learning to take care of others as a part of growing up. We watched him with eyes too big for our heads. We gathered around the jar and put our noses to it in turn, looking for the movement he said to look for in the egg sac. He explained how you could see it was time for the babies to be born by shadows crossing. We were getting a little bored when the babies started to come out, just like he said. They were very very very small. You couldn’t tell if the mother spider was paying attention. The babies were spreading out over the inside of the jar.
They were making their way to the air holes punched in the lid of the jar. Our father just watched and commented for our benefit. He put a stick next to an air hole and we watched babies crawl out of the jar, through an air hole and along the stick. Spiders crawl their whole lives. We watched, but some of our attention wandered.
We were new to the countryside, to the new life surrounding us. I remember a lot of things from that place besides this.
After the apocalypse, a brother of mine said, “Do you remember if you were nervous with all those poison spiders radiating from the jar? Do you remember that we didn’t have any insect spray because we had just moved out there, but our father had a can of hairspray and that’s what he sprayed on them, just as they were getting away? Why did we have hairspray? Was it hers?”
ACTIVITY 4
The purpose of this activity is to practice listening comprehension, knowing only the title of the presentation and the description if any. This is similar to work when you know the purpose of a meeting or you have the agenda of a meeting in advance. This advance information, puts you in the right frame of mind to receive information on the given topic.
Please read the instructions first.
Instrtuctions
Please tell me about the video in general.
Then tell me about what you remember about the activities of each member of the family.
Please pause the video to take notes and to ask me for clarification if desired.
ACTIVITY 5
The purpose of this activity is to practice useful vocabulary, pronunciation and constructions that we have seen recently, so that in the future you can use this in your English output or when you are reading or listening to English.
VOCABULARY
gathered
to gather
This means to collect.
This also means to congregate.
to gather around
This means to form a circle.
People gathered around the piano to sing.
The family gathered around the Christmas tree to decorate it.
wandered (simple past affirmative)
to wander = to stray = to not stay on a path = to not be focused
Their attention wandered.
= Their attention strayed.
= Their attention lost focus.
= Their attention left the spider and with here, there and everywhere.
to crawl = gatear
danger
There is a danger in not consuming enough Vitamin C.
Was the drunk driver a danger to himself and to other people?
I think that being taped to the outside of a moving car is a danger for the taped person.
dangerous
It is dangerous not to consume enough Vitamin C.
Can words be dangerous?
I think that it's dangerous for the person to be taped to the outside of the car.
dangerously
The drunk driver was driving dangerously.
Did she drive dangerously?
.The person who volunteered to be taped to the back of the car lives dangerously.
out of politeness = just to be polite
Maybe I was invited out of politeness.
Maybe I was invited just to be polite.
to prefer not to VERB
I prefer not to go.
Jorge prefers not to eat processed carbohydrates on weekdays.
She preferred not to stay in the USA.
critiques (cre TEEKS) = a product produced by a critic
Yesterday I decided to buy Misery because I read good critiques about the book.
= Yesterday I decided to by Misery because I read good reviews about the book.
to critique = to evaluate something, often to evaluate something subjectively or subjectively and objectively
a critic IS A PERSON who critiques works of art
a book critic, a literary critic, a movie critic, a theater critic, a music critic
the physical version
= the hard copy
= the paper version
= the print version
I prefer the physical version, but I usually listen to audio books because I don't have a lot of time to read.
I prefer the hard copy, but I usually listen to audio books because I don't have a lot of time to read.
I prefer the paper version, but I usually listen to audio books because I don't have a lot of time to read.
in the car
Please get in the car. I don't want to be late!
no space
= no room
The car was packed, and there was no room for anyone else.
The care was full of people, and there was no space for anyone else.
book club/book clubs
She has book clubs.
She is a member of book clubs.
She has a book club.
to have a live stream/to do a livestream
Every two weeks, they have a livestream on Instagram.
Every other week, they do a livestream on Instagram.
book reviews/literary reviews
They give literary reviews on their livestream.
They offer literary reviews on their livestream
They present book reviews on their livestream
to have an allergy
I have a shrimp allergy.
Many people have a peanut allergy.
Do you have allergies?
Does she have an allergy?
to be allergic
I am allergic to shrimp.
to have an allergic reaction/to get an allergic reaction
I have an allergic reaction when I eat shrimp.
I get an allergic reaction when I eat shrimp.
to have a runny nose
I had a runny nose last week.
CONSTRUCTIONS TO PRACTICE
?Es caro? = Is it expensive. (not "Is expensive?")
PRONUNCIATION TO PRACTICE
critic
critique
touch
belly.
orbit.
taking
talking
learning
gathered
holes
watched
their whole lives
She lives in Spain.
attention wandered.
life surrounding us
apocalypse
poison
radiating
insect spray
hairspray
AL Overview in Progress https://getbetterenglish.wixsite.com/getbetterenglishnow/post/al-overview-in-progress
AL Week 4 Dec 3, 4
AL Week 5 Dec 10, 11
AL Week 6 Dec 17, 18
AL Week 1 Dec 24, 25
AL Week 2 Dec 31, Jan 1
AL Week 3 Jan 7, 8
AL Week 4 Jan 14, 15
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