3 lessons to plan

Today you are going to start off by planning the next three lessons for your English 7 course.

The plan should include some time to go through your returned assignments with me.

You have a number of good resources to work with:

The English C book


Advanced Gold Book



Advanced gold CDs for Listening work

The Internet- for example https://smedjeback.wordpress.com/

Past papers: www.examenglish.com

Listening:  www.esl-lab.com

Watching: http://videolectures.net/    https://www.ted.com

Grammar, writing, structure:  http://www.grammarnow.com/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/sitemap/

Speaking: http://iteslj.org/questions/ Or http://www.tedpower.co.uk/discuss.html

Start planning and then get working.

At the end of next Friday's lesson you will do an assessment of what you have done and how it has gone!!

Grade talks for those who missed out last Friday

Planner and distribute "letters"

Today we will go through the planner for the term and distribute the last book- a piece of modern literature- "Letters from the Inside".



Here is some information about John Marsden.

The book is written in Australian English and is a series of letters written between two teenage girls of around your age.

There are three assignments about the book which are on the planner.

I would like you to start reading it asap. The first assignment will be on week 11.

That's about it for today!!

Grade talks for those who missed out this coming Friday!

Writing and grade talks

Today you will have a chance to write one of the pieces from the Cambridge test which I gave you on Monday.

You can use some planning tools but when you are writing try not to look up words etc.

While this is going on I will be talking to you about the results from the autumn term.

Cambridge Writing

Take a couple of minutes to talk to one of the people sitting behind you or in front of you about your week-end ( at least the parts you remember and which cannot be used as evidence against you!)

Last term we looked at some of the basic principles for writing good English.

HERE WERE SOME OF THE KEYS:

Writing, as opposed to speaking is a learnt skill. Even a native speaker can have problems with writing for a number of reasons.

There are 5 KEY areas to consider when discussing Writing as a language skill:

1.    REGISTER

Is it FORMAL, INFORMAL or NEUTRAL?

2.    FORMAT

What does the task require in the way of format?

Headings ? Introduction ? Formalia ?

3. ORGANISATION

What aspects of organisation does the task require?

Paragraphing ? Sequencing? Contrast ? Information ?

4. LANGUAGE & GRAMMAR

Will be defined by the context. Is there a need for specialist vocabulary ? Strategies ?

5. BALANCE & CONSEQUENCE

Have I really answered the question ? Is my language consequent and ”tight” ? Is my writing balanced ?

Today we are going to look at an example past paper and see what is important to consider when tackling the writing task(s)

Writing

The writing test consists of two pieces of writing (see the example you have got from a past paper)

In the first section you are given a lot of material which you need to reshuffle into a finished product.. The format of the product can vary but the task is generally very similar.

In the second section you choose one of several topics to write about. 

On page 4 in the "Advanced Gold" book you have the list of the different kind of topics. 

Check out the different exercises and the way they differ

There is also an example of a Part 1 question on page 124 and

an overview of Part 2 on page 186-

However, the best resource I have seen is on the net..

The address is:

http://cae-tips.blogspot.se/

Here you can go through each kind of format and see what is required.

We will try to examine the example questions on the paper you have received today in the light of this...

When I go off for my online lesson you can have ago at one of the exercises on the past paper.

Remember there is rather limited time and you need to use it effectively.

Discuss your ideas with a friend and do a plan for one of the topics.


If you feel that you need to use the time to finish off the Shakespeare then that's ok.

Welcome back!

Hope it feels ok to be back at school.
We start off by doing an interview about your Christmas holidays.
Here is the document You will do it on paper!! So you'll need a pen or pencil.
Make sure you interview someone who you haven't spent time with during the Christmas break!!


One person who didn't enjoy his Christmas was Anthony. He has written a letter of complaint to Santa. You will remember that one  of the assignments for the formal English part of the writing course was a letter of complaint. Please read:-

http://www.dearcustomerrelations.com/2014/12/dear-santa/

Open a new word list and start writing in any new words + sentences.

Discuss with your neighbour what is wrong with this letter as a letter of complaint.

Then in groups of four discuss what a friend might say  to Anthony to improve his experience of Christmas


The next thing today is to do some planning in groups of four:-

1. Which language skill do you think we should give priority to this term?  (speaking, writing, reading, listening) ? Which areas/methods should we focus the most on (grammar exercises, text book, internet, vocabulary lists etc.)? 

2.Decide in the group on one way we can practise listening

3.Decide one way in the group we can practise speaking

4. Decide on AT LEAST one text from "English C" and "Advanced Gold" we can work on together.

5.   Decide on one topic in the group we can do a writing assignment about.

Mail your answers to me by the end of the lesson on vklass.

This coming Monday we will start to look at the writing part of the CAE and next Friday we will have some grade talks

At the end of the lesson you will have time to work on the remaining two exercises for Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona". 

These are:_

1. The written exercises from SHAKESPEARE SURVIVAL KIT


2. The final exercise on "Two Gentlemen of Verona".
I have extended the deadline until Monday