CAE link

I just found a link that looks pretty good on the Oxford website.
It is chalk full of exercises to try out.
Let me know what you think of it.

Holidays

As I write this, one of you will be on holiday already. This picture is dedicated to you :-)
Others will be going away soon to other places, while still others may be staying home, hoping to get lots of things done during the coming two weeks.

I've left ideas for all of you to do, whether you go away or stay here. Look at the different exams, try out links, or write us a postcard while enjoying life at the beach, etc.

The idea is that using your English is even more important than practicing it. Sharing with each other is more valuable than doing something that is only for the sake of the teacher. That's the way I see it anyway.

I'm hoping that by the next lesson there will be more here than my own posts. A post can lead to discussion, so for example, if you don't agree with my statement above, say so! Write a comment expressing your opinion or dedicate an entire post to it.

But most of all, enjoy the two weeks of freedom you have. Get a book and relax in the sun, or go to the movies and have a good time with friends.

I'll be glad to see you all again in mid-October!!!

comments or posts?

HI everyone
Even someone like me runs dry.
Do any of you want to add something here? A question, a story, an invitation, anything at all!

I'm learning about social networking, so have lots of ideas now to bother you with ;-)

See you next week!

The "Nature" of Words

In class we quickly looked at words and problems involved in choosing the write word form. One example I gave was 'nature'.

You can see how words are used, and especially what words often come before and after these words by using a concordancer. A concordancer is a tool that accesses a HUGE databank of language that has been collected from many sources. The word is found and you get a list of excerpts using this word.

I tried it with 'whereas' and these are the first 10:

001.NO. 1 NEWBURY PORT, MAY 30TH, 1791_"WHEREAS, a Bridge over Merrimack River, from
002. displeasure.You treat the matter lightly -- WHEREAS I myself was never more serious." "I t
003. escribed by Bonifacio and Lugiato {7}, WHEREAS the Ikeda degeneracy splits to yield puls
004. extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it", (23) WHEREAS Joe Gargery endures the shrewish onslaugh
005. rtrays the proximal radial epiphysis for boy 34,WHEREAS the same epiphysis for girl 2 is portrayed
006. military National Guard, they number only 4,400, WHEREAS the normal US garrison of about 10,000 me
007. tribes of south-west Siberia referred to above. WHEREAS in sparsely populated regions of the north
008. ice Frankfurter's famous doctrine of abstention.WHEREAS the earlier cases turned rather narrowly u
009. effectively got a dead short through an ammeterWHEREAS a a volt meter's got a a hun , a high er r
010. "ticks"' with eachtick equal to &formula;% and WHEREAS, prior to October 1986, a typical spread

I also found out that 'but' and 'that' are the most common words before 'whereas' and 'the' is the most common after the word. (stated at the bottom)
You can choose the corpus, which is the place the language is collected.

So play around with 'nature' and see what comes up. There is another concordancer in the list in the links. Maybe you can compare which you think is most useful. Should I put both in? Should I use only the link from here? Let me know.

Finally, in the links you have one that say 'synonyms and antonyms'. This is very useful for expanding your vocabulary. Have a look at it and the 3 possibilitites, namely to find words with similar meanings, to find words with opposite meanings, and to find definitions.

great blog!

Dear Illya

this blog is really great, thank you so much for doing it. I have looked up some of the useful sites and they are really helpful, thanks for this again. Days should have more then 24 hours, at least 2 or 3 hours extra for learning English... for the case, that you find a special site, witch helps install such an extra-time, please tell me :-)

so, I'll leave you now, have to do some homework....

Greets
Maria

Rorschach blot tests

Okay, here's another task for you.

What do you see? Leave a comment (or leave another blot to comment on :-) )
and then you can also 'analyse' the meanings behind what others see.

If you're up for a bit of fun, this could be quite amusing!
To see what it reall is, read here.

New links and other news

As you can see, I've added the newest homework to the side, and I wrote Oxford University Press to see what they have to say about the key to the Student's Book. Please have patience. I'll also get the answers to the grammar section to you soon.

I've added a couple of links to the side bar.

FAQs for your questions, and your answers or suggestions are equally welcome. They are first on the list at the wiki.

Then I've found an excellent blog called Daily English Activities. The activities are all online, giving you a lot more practice in listening and you get the visual effects as well.

Then there's the Vokker link Maria gave us (thanks, Maria!) to collect vocabulary.

Finally, how ever do you keep up with the newest additions? Do you have to keep going back to them again and again? Do you forget the links too?
There is something called RSS (really simple syndication) that lets you know when blogs, wikis or other websites have been updated. The easiest and most practical I've found is: http://feedblitz.com/
This sends you an e-mail to let you know that there is something new on the sites you are interested in. If you are more advanced, then the best one I know of is Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/
but you have to open the program to see if there is anything new.

You'll find these all in the links - happy surfing :-)

letter from Marina

Dear Illya,

I'm so glad I can attend your class. And I really hope I will manage the exam at the end. I was impressed by seeing the real test we need to pass at the end of the year. So I know what I need to learn!!! I want to do more than I can. I couldn’t finish my homework yet but I hope to manage it till tomorrow!!! Because I really need to do it. I realize it will be heavy studying this year! But I'm still very motivated just because I really want to learn English. I like this language and the people who speak this language.

I'm interested to get to know all of you better. So I'll just let you know something about me:

(according to the homework on the page 13 J)

Hi, my name is Marina. I was born in Kleinwangen. It is a farmer village near Hochdorf. After my obligatory school time I spent one year in the Welsh part of Switzerland. I did the teacher training school and afterwards I taught third grade for two years in Schüpfheim . After two years I had enough and I had the possibility to teach in the jungle of Peru, which I finally did for the two following years. Afterwards I was in different countries to help in different projects. I enjoyed it very much. I have enough of travelling. And I'm happy to settle down in Switzerland. I never thought I'd be living so near my home once again. But I do now. I'm living in Hochdorf. I'm very happy for my job in Rothenburg, my own flat and my first car. For me there is so much luxury in our country I really enjoy being here… and learning the language properly as I desire!

Actually there is a lot more to tell but for sure there will be another chance!

So I wish you all a good Monday evening! Till tomorrow!

Your new classmate J Marina

Hi everybody

It was really a great start. I'm looking forward to next Tuesday.
I couldn't put all the adjectives to the names or the faces but I'll try again next time.

See you all tomorrow

Dear Illya

Thanks a lot for your simpatico nature, you have made my day and the start of this adventure called CAE-cours as well.
I really enjoyed the first lessons, and I agree with you, it was a positive vibe. It's quite late now and that's a good excuse to not have to write as much as you did. Ok, the excuse won't hold the water (nice expression found by leo.org), and holding water would be useful now, when I look out of the window and hear the raindrops' sound on the leaves of the beech.

I guess the your-CAE-blog will be helpful, especially to look up the homework, but the links as well. I'll have a look soon again. Perhaps to write something or to read the others statements, I'm curious. And I hope there aren't to many mistakes now in my text. But as I mentioned above, It's quite late!

See you all

Great start!

I felt last night was a great start and hope you all felt the same way. A friendly atmosphere is condusive to learning and I've learned that generally the better a group gets on, the better the test results are.

Just to help you out with the names, here are the adjectives that were use. Can you put them to the names, or even better to the faces?

lovely, serious, yodeling, motivated, inquisitive, lovable, joyful, kind, sadistic? (no, social) sometimes nice, musical, yellow, allergic, lovely, midnight-learning, motivated (again), and one person still needs an adjective.

As you can see, I've added the homework to the sidebar, but beware! I change this every week.

I've also added a section with links to the tests so that you can find out about them and try them out.

Now I'm looking forward to reading your reviews and hearing(reading) more from and about you!

Preview for next week: we'll be working with dictionaries, so if you have an English-English dictionary, please bring it in, and if you don't, this coming lesson will help you choose one.

Now I'd like to end with a question. In the homework I mentioned a place to troubleshoot (in different words). Have a look at the link on the right that says 'CAE wiki'. Could you imagine using that for problems, questions and to help each other out? I'd be there as well, of course.

Well, that's all for now.

See you next week.

Something about me

One of my favorite places is Sardinia (hence the picture of Sardines!)
I love this island and one of the reasons why is that it is an island. The inhabitants are much more within their own culture. Sure they're Italian, but they are different and much less willing to make compromises then they would probably have to be on the mainland.

One of the funniest books I've ever read is 'The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs' By Alexander McCall Smith. I don't think I've ever made such a fool of myself in the bus than when trying to hold in a laugh while reading. It's about oneupmanship and is simply hilarious. A German professor, Dr Moritz-Maria von Iglefeld, accepts the chance to give a talk in the United States, but has unfortunately been confused with the late professor Dr. Iglefold. This starts off a series of events that make his life difficult. It is a simple book to read, but thuroughly enjoyable.

I'm sure you'll find out more about me during the course, and of course I'd also love to find out more about you. So leave a comment and tell us about yourself :-)