Thursday, April 3 Group 1

Techniques for learning vocabulary
Words are related to situations and context. For example, you know words to describe your work because you need them to communicate in the office. But if, for example, you've never done kayaking you probably won't know many of the words to talk about it even in Italian. So today we're going to think of various situations and explore different ways of learning those words.

• sentences
• pictures
• maps
• flash cards
• synonyms

Thursday, April 3 Group 2

Present Perfect
For unfinished actions: How long have you worked here?
Vocabulary
How to remember words
Lists and flash cards

Homework
Make at least 20 new flash cards for Monday.

Tuesday, April 1, Group 2

Present Perfect
For life experience: Have you ever been to Paris? When did you go?
Music for life experience: U2 I still haven't found what I'm looking for
video: http://vimeo.com/73577436
lyrics with music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ISAntOom0


Homework:
Here's what some Internet users think about the meaning of the U2 song: meaning: http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/33691/
Read through them and add your interpretation of the song to this post as a comment.

Tuesday, April 1, Group 1

Techniques for learning vocabulary
Words are related to situations and context. For example, you know words to describe your work because you need them to communicate in the office. But if, for example, you've never done kayaking you probably won't know many of the words to talk about it even in Italian. So today we're going to think of various situations and explore different ways of learning those words.

• lists

Resources

dictionary: http://www.wordreference.com/

for pronunciation and synonyms: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Homework
Choose a topic you want to learn words for. In your learner diary make a table of these words like the one we made in class WITHOUT writing the topic. On Thursday we'll see if we can guess the topic based on your words.

Thursday, March 27th

Dear all,

I'll be back with you on Tuesday, but unfortunately I've fallen ill and will only be online intermittently tomorrow. I have, however, set up a series of tasks for you to do during your time in your lab. I hope you do them and that we can discuss them next Tuesday in the classroom.

Group 1
Carmen, Rossella, Tatiana, Valeria e Lara
You all know more than you think you do and you need to be more confident! Please, together with whoever is in the IT room, complete A2, Modules 2, 3 and 4. For homework, complete the modules and write a brief paragraph in your learner diary about what you learned. Un consiglio: be patient!

Viviana, Alessia e Elisa
Think about the future. I would like you to do A2, Module 2, 'This Christmas she's going to'. Please complete the full guided path. For homework, write a brief paragraph about your plans for the Easter holiday.

Group 2
Theoretically you all have understood that the simple past in English, for a finished action is ONE VERB (e.g. went) or one verb with DID in a question or DIDN'T in a negative. Now, let's move on to the more complicated present perfect, which does not exist in Italian so don't try to find an equivalent. Complete B1, Module 3, 4 and 5. For homework, write down all of your doubts and questions (in Italian or English) about these different verb tenses and we'll discuss them in class next Tuesday.

Keep on learning!

Sarah

Tuesday, March 25th Group 2

Review of the future forms.
Review of music & past forms through music:
click on this link. Download the doc or make a copy of it for you personally. Then complete the tasks. The last task includes making a comment to this blog post.

Tuesday, March 25 Group 1

Good morning everyone! Let's see if we can video conference using Skype or Google Hangout. As soon as everyone's in the IT room, send me a comment to this blog post and we'll see what can work.

If it doesn't work ... :-( today I'd like to focus on work vocabulary so that you can clearly and easily talk about what you do. Take some time in your learner diary to describe the following:

• what you do during a typical day
• the people you work with and interact with
• the institution and department you work for
• things around your office

I'll be observing you in your learner diaries as you write so I can provide support there.

Sarah