All Students!

Can anyone and everyone who has not yet sent me their email address please do so as soon as possible! I wanted to email 2 students today, and couldn't because I didn't have their email addresses!

AC2 students, if you still haven't been able to get onto the link, try joining from the home page, and if that doesn't work, drop me a line by email and I'll try to sort it out.

YB2.2

First, a reminder that we have no class next week, and so we'll meet again, as long as the ghosts don't get us, on Saturday 6 November. Remember to write your ghost stories by then!

Here are a couple of links from Saturday's class.

The flying suit video is here. I never tire of watching this - it's an amazing thing to do, I think.

The Jackie Chan clip, with better music than what we saw in class is here.

Do check back here, as I'll try to put something else up on StudentZone for you before we meet again.

Happy and Haunted Halloween!

AC2.1 Homework and Reading

AC2.1 students, remember there are no classes this Friday, so I will only see you on November 5th and 6th.

In the meantime your homework is:

- Write a ghost story based on the principles of creative writing we looked at in class.

- Do units 13 and 41 of English Vocabulary in Use Advanced

- (Saturday Class) Do the summary about the difficulties in investigating the origins of language

Friday class has agreed to read up to chapter 5 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by next class.

Saturday class has agreed to read up to the end of part 1 by next class. Enthusiasm!

Finally, do try to go onto The Link and post a comment or a post on anything you feel motivated to write about!

And a Happy, I mean a Haunted Halloween to you all!

Linking Problems

There seems to be a problem with the email invitation function on 'The Link' and none of the admin team have been able to invite anyone new on this week. If you are still not a member, go to The Link, click on 'Join now to start a new topic' at the top left of the screen, and apply to join from there.

Apologies on behalf of lefora.com for the inconvenience!

Links for AC2 classes

Here's the link to the YouTube video of the first part of 'Carla's Song'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZmecDKCQ1o
A very powerful film, worth seeing, though very challenging with the accents, and be warned, a lot of strong language.

People waiting for the link to 'Stone Age Brains', please hang on - I still have one class to do this activity with!

British National Corpus

I have updated the link to the BNC Simple Search page on the right. ==> Click on 'Sara' to take you to the British National Corpus simple seach page.

YB2.2 - Homework

Here is your first writing task for this year. You should hand this in at the latest in the lesson on October 23rd. This gives you two weekends, including this one, to do this piece of work.

You have seen the following anouncement on the noticeboard of your British Council classroom.

Film reviews needed for the British Council Porto Magazine!

Have you been to the cinema recently? If so, could you write us a review of the film you saw? Include information on the acting, the characters and story, and the soundtrack, and say whether you would recommend the film to other people. Where appropriate, comment on other aspects of the film such as stunts, special effects, sets etc. The best reviews will be published next month.

Write your review in 120 – 180 words in an appropriate style

Note - in the exam, you don't have to tell the truth! If you had this question in the exam, you could write about a film you saw on DVD, or even about a film you invented!

AC2.1 - Open University Link

The Open University materials about 'Identity' are here. The themes we talked about in class are here, and other aspects of 'identity' are also explored.
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=399036

AC2.2 - Memory

I'm doing this link in class before I forget I have to do it... MY memory isn't what it used to be!

For AC2.2 students who enjoyed talking about memory, here are links to three editions of ABC Radio National's 'All in the Mind' programme about this very subject. Listen or read the transcript by following the links.

All In The Mind 26 June 2010 - The Remarkable Story of HM: remembering the man without memory
Summary: Afflicted with amnesia after brain surgery, he became a man who lived in the perpetual present, and the most famous patient of 20th century neuroscience. Join Natasha Mitchell for a powerful posthumous encounter withhttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2010/2934031.htm - 51k - [ html ] - 26 Jun 2010


All In The Mind 6 August 2005 - Remember This! - The Origins of Memory (Part 1 of 3)
Summary: Do you remember your first kiss? The smell of your grandmother's perfume? How to do calculus? From birth through to death our brains will file away impressive amounts of information - names, faces, sounds, smells, andhttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2005/1420417.htm - 13k - [ html ] - 6 Aug 2005


All In The Mind 28 July 2002 - Faltering Memory
Summary: We'd like to think our memory is reliable even photographic, but more often than not, it isn't. How do our memories get screwed out of shape or are they all jumbled up to begin with? Why do our brains rewritehttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2002/616051.htm - 6k - [ html ] - 28 Jul 2002


More from 'All in the Mind' here. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/

Zen and the Art of Starting the Year

The first post of the new academic year, so hello and welcome to new students, and welcome back to students I've had before!

First of all, can I remind everyone to please send me an email identifying yourself. My email is snowfinch@yahoo.com I can then invite you to 'The Link' forum, and get in touch with you when I need to.

The set book for all AC2 students for session one is 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. You can download it free on the internet from sites such as these:
Here it is available in pdf and there is also an mp3 version.
Here it is in html format.
And here is another pdf version.
Of course, if you prefer to have a 'real book' you can also buy it from places like Amazon or The Book Depository.
Do buy or download this book straight away - we will be aiming to read at least a chapter a week so that we have read the first half of the book by the end of session one. I'll put some questions to think about and/or comment about on the 'burrowing into the book' section on 'The Link'.

And that's enough for one post. Any questions, do ask!

- Mark