Working for your presentation/Going through the essays

Today you will have the opportunity to continue (or start) to work on your presentation.

Linnea and Andreas maybe you can do something together.

The presentations will be next Friday. 

So you have the whole lesson today to work on the information part and then next Tuesday to prepare the  actual presentation.

The rest of the time today I will be going through the esays with you individually.

Use your time wisely.

I will read through the order in which I  will talk to you.

Make sure you're around at the appropriate time.

Don't forget- music students- keep out of the CELLAR

Going through your essays

Today you will be working on your own and I will be going through the essays with half the class.

sorry I haven't had a challenge to look at your Mike challenge questions. Hopefully by Friday!

To start off- what about learning vocabulary. Here is some good advice from Alex rawlings





This is one of the most important aspects of learning a language and you need to find good strategies for this.

Today we start preparing for the PRESENTATION I want you to do at the end of term. 

Work in groups of 2-3. Choose your topic, mail me who is in your group and your choice of topic and start working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You need to use the Tuesday lessons VERY EFFECTIVELY since part of the Friday lessons  will  continue to go to "Looking for Alaska"

By this Friday EVERYONE needs to have read up to page 172 of the novel.
there will be a compulsory exercise and quiz about this part of the book (136-172) at the start of Friday's lesson.

Finally, the people whose names I READ OUT need to be around at the times stated to go through your essay.

For the music students- the Estetkällare is OUT OF BOUNDS DURING OUR LESSONS.

GOOD LUCK!

Welcome to the celebrations!

Today we celebrate the fact that the school is twenty years old.

So at 11 a.m. we will go down to the cafeteria to join in the celebrations.

Until then we need to continue to work with our English.

1. Looking for Alaska
Today I want you to do the Mike challenge based on your reading of page 100-136 in the book.

Basically I want you to write five questions where the answers are in the text (between pages 100 and 136).

Send in your questions as a message to Vklass.
Any unanswered questions will be rewarded with a small prize.

2. Working on your own
You now have three possibilities for the rest of the time until 11 a.m.

1.Looking for Alaska
Continue reading 
136- 172
These pages bring us from TWO DAYS BEFORE until TWO DAYS AFTER the most important happening in the book

2.Echo short stories
Continue (or start) on one of the short stories 2,3,4 or 5 according to last Tuesday's blog.

3. Your diary
Those who haven't written their diary will have the chance to do it or complete it today  (see term planner)

Finallllllllllllllllllllllllly................. those who missed the essay last Friday will have a chance to write it next Wednesday at 2 p.m. (14.00) here on the language corridor.

Now enjoy the celebrations and have a good weekend

On your own-boot camp!

First of all don't forget the homework for Friday:-
( From last Friday's blog)....



Your homework by Friday is to write about the way in which Miles changes after he comes to Culver Creek (based on your reading up to page 100)

In your view what changes are positive and what changes are negative?

Send in your document to the course page on Vklass- Miles

By Friday read up to page 136.

Secondly. It is time to remind you about what is written on our term planner- your diary in English for a week ( 5 days)


Not so many weeks left now until Christmas!!!

Today we start a series of lessons where you get to choose which texts to work on and how you will work with them. This week that means working from the Echo Short Stories book

Choose a story (2,3,4 or 5)
LISTEN to it and then work on it either with exercises from the book or making up your own:

Example- A summary of the story; a character study; learning new words;  etc.

The alternative for this week is to work from "Looking for Alaska" in class.

TODAY AND FRIDAY YOU WILL WORK ON YOUR OWN (NEXT WEEK IN GROUPS OF 2-3)

We will go through your essay on Growing Up next week during the lessons

Working on your own requires MATURITY 
AND TRUST. If I see that people are wasting their time then I will give you exercises to do instead. You choose!

Growing Up!

The theme for the essay has been a major theme for us this term.

(Growing Up)

All of the texts we have studied have dealt with the theme of growing up:

In Context 1- Panic not mother is a text about young people facing challenges as they go off on their gap year

In Echo Short Stories  the text Zelda was also about growing up.
It even says:

"growing up is like waking up" (page 11)

The film Billy Elliot" is about Billy's experiences of growing up in a male orientated society with all the traditional values and prejudices.

Finally, our book "Looking for Alaska" is about Miles and the changes he faces when he goes to Culver Creek and how he grows up.

Your homework by next Friday is to write about the way in which Miles changes after he comes to Culver Creek (based on your reading up to page 100)

In your view what changes are positive and what changes are negative?

Answers to Vklass- inlämning MILES

By next Friday read up to page 136.

Have a good week-end

WRITING

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


You are not given the theme in advance

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

But not at English 5 level

So planning is very important..

Today there will be "Improve your writing" booklets to remind you about some important issues. You can borrow them during the lesson and hand them back at the end..

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

1. Organization  (paragraphs/intro/linking)
2. Structure (beginning/midddle/end)
3. Style (something to work on !!)
4. Clarity (grammar/spelling/ swenglish)
5. Register (informal/neutral/formal)

There are really good materials in the context book to help you (see page 251-253)

The last thing I want to go through with you is the Writing skills  the checklist!

Here is some great advice the English teacher Pernilla gave to one of her classes last year on her blog

http://sa14es14.blogspot.se/2014/11/week-47.html

On her blog are excellent net resources such as EngVid

Here is a good starting point

Now use your time wisely.

Assessment and "Looking for Alaska"

We start off today by doing an assessment of the course. You need to open the document and save your own copy before you can send it back to me as a message on Vklass.

Then we move on to "Looking for Alaska"- page 58-76.


Today I want you to work on your own...

Here are the questions:-

1. Who are the Culver Creek Nothings?

2. Why do they play basketball and not soccer at Culver Creek?

3. What does the Colonel do at every home match?

4. How many times has he been kicked out of the gym?

5. Why does Mr. Hyde ask Pudge to stay behind after class?

6. Why do the friends decide to study at McDonalds one day?

7. Who is Lara? Why is she different from the rest of the group?

8. How did Alaska get her own name?

9. In what way is it hard to predict how Alaska is going to behave?

10. How did she do when the friends were busted for smoking?

11. What was the Jury and how did it work?

12. Who fixed up Pudge's date with Lara? What did he feel about this?



Finally, if you have any time over continue working with the text from Context 1 (chapters 10,11 or 14)
Here are two ways of working:-

Texts 1

Texts 2

Next week we are going to work on the "Writing" ssection of the National Test.

However, I want you to continue reading " Looking for Alaska"-
up to page 99 by next Friday, please!

Welcome back!

Hope you had a good mid-term break.

Here are some simple questions to use in an interview with someone sitting behind/in front of you.

1. Where did you spend your break?

2. Did you travel anywhere? If so, where?

3. What was the best thing about your break /holiday?

4. Choose 3 things from the list which you did. Talk about them in the CORRECT tense (past tense)

Go to the cinema
Buy clothes
Watch a game/film
Take pictures (photos)
Go to a party
Eat...............
Work
Study
Play..............

5. What does it feel like to be back at school?

Now we are going to study the first 57 pages of "Looking for Alaska"
Work in pairs and send in your answers on Vklass
Looking for Alaska 1

1. Who is Miles Halter? Describe him? (At least three facts)

2. Why does he decide to go to Culver Creek? Give three reasons.

3. Who is the "Colonel"? Write down 5 things you find out about him.

4. When does Miles meet Alaska the first time? What does he notice about her?

5. Miles's parents told him not to mix with the "wrong people". Does Miles listen to them?

6. What do Miles, Alaska, the Colonel and Takumi have in common?

7. Takumi is really excellent at one thing. What is it?

8. Why do some students almost kill Miles?

9. Dr. Hyde is a teacher who impresses Miles? Why do you think that is?

10. Which of the characters have you found the most interesting so far? Why is that?

After you have finished the work on the book you can continue to read (up to page 76 by Friday) or work on a free choice chapter in Context 1 (chapter 10, 11 or 14)
Here are some ideas to use working with the text