My Sunday Listening

Hello, everyone!

         Today I went to our class blog just to rest from hard work with thousands of home tasks, so I had chosen for listening the video clip of the group which is unknown for me - Plain White T's - "Hey There Delilah". And I really had a rest! This song is so light and melodic, performed by guitar.. The boy is singing about his girl, who is far away from him, he is singing for her, wanted her not to forget him and their time together. I liked it very much and was not surprised when I found out, that it was the number one hit in 2007 and was also nominated for a Grammy! And, of course, it was not very hard to guess the missing word from the context and fill in empty places.
         Next place I visited was "Randall’s.." and the tape about baseball. Frankly, I have never understood the rules of this game, but I always liked to listen to the commentators - they are so passionate and excited that I felt the game too. I found out that Mark Sosa is a great player and he can easily bring the win to his team. The final score of the game was 9:8, and my score after doing the test under the tape was 100%!
Thanks for attention:)

Summer Reading

Dear students!

Summer is an excellent time to enjoy doing what you like best of all. And I am sure that reading is on the list.

Here are some URL addresses of great resources for online reading.

http://www.readprint.com/
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/
http://www.awesomestories.com/

Feel free to: 
                   - explore them;
                   - choose books or short stories to your liking;
                   - read them;
                   - post your reviews (with vocabulary to books/stories you've read) on our IE Class Blog. 

Follow this link and you will find some tips on how to write a book review:

http://www.mybookbag.net.au/book-review-template/

And here is the template to help you:

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/printouts/book-review-template-30200.html#ideas

Kind regards,
Yelena Valerianovna

Our Photos

Dear students!

I really appreciate your hard work.
I am  proud to have such bright and industrious students as you are!

Best wishes,

Yelena Valerianovna

                                            ALINA'S LATEST LISTENING!!!!


Hello everyone!
 This time I chose the episode 11 from videos. It is called "Can I help you". This episode is about how to make business calls. I think it is an excellent example of  how people should make calls. When we use a phone we can not see other person.We should try to speak clearly and listen to carefully. We should use polite language, need to respond in the right way or the conversation should be quite short. There are a lot of good phrases which we can use to check details or when we want to leave a message.


THANKS A LOT

06/05/2012

Hi everyone!

Today I decided to go to 6 Minutes English from BBC Learning English. It is really interesting resource. I was listening to audio track under the title "Pulitzer Prize losers". It was a conversation between Jen and Chris. They were talking about the biggest prize for fiction in American literature - the Pulitzer Prize.
Surprisingly that this year, the judges at Colombia University New York have decided NO book is worthy of  the prize. This last happened in 1977, but there’s been a big change since then. Since 1980 the Pulitzers have revealed their short lists, so we now know the judges didn’t ultimately think much of Train Dreams, by Dennis Johnson, Swamplandia by Karen Russell, or The Pale King by David Foster-Wallis. Mr Wallis is no longer alive, but it’s a bit embarrassing for Johnson and Russell. The judges haven’t explained why they didn’t make the award, which would have meant a cheque for $10,000, and a lot of sale.
Yeah, that's really strange!
Unfortunately I don't have more time to practice my listening because I have to finish my coursework. That's all for now. Thank you!

by Aliona Tonkonig

06.05 Natasha's listening

Hello, everyone!

     It has become a tradition really that I go to ESLvideo.com to practice my listening skills. Today I went to Intermediate and found there a video episode under the title "13 Things to Do in New York City". As far as I understood from the episode the author of that video is travelling around the world and makes the list of some things to do in each of them. Not a bad idea, I would say! 

So, the narrator proposes us to visit some places of interest in NY, such as Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island, Square Garden etc. To my mind the places, which were mentioned by the narrator are really worth seeing. 

The video was great and not difficult for understanding, and I got 80% of correct answers in test after it. 

Then I decided to go to www.palgrave.com, Reading skills and chose there chapter 21 under the title "Making Up Your Own Mind". That Episode was about how to understand the context while reading. The narrator proposes to find out some information about author's life and his social and political position just to understand better what he wanted to say with these or those words. The other advice was to try to challenge the author for discussion in your mind. That really works when you disagree with the author's point of view but before starting arguing try to understand what made the author think so. To be frank that is not the full list of advice proposed by the narrator. I'm not going to name all those proposals to give you a chance to listen to them yourself  at www.palgrave.com.

As for me I found those pieces of advice rather useful, because it's always important to think about what you're reading. 

Thank you for attention. Have a nice listening!

by Nataliya Hlushachenko

22/04
Aliona's listening...

Hi everyone!

To practice my listening I chose the video from ESLvideo.com under the title Martin Luther King, Jr. A legendary person, he was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and discrimination. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennesse.

After watching I did the Quiz and got 82%.

Then I went to ESL-lab and chose the audio track from medium level called Traffic Ticket. It was a conversation between a driver and an officer Smith. They were talking about driver's speeding in a school zone, that he was going 50 miles per hour zone in a 20 miles per hour zone. Also a driver was not wearing a seat belt, AND his driver's license expired six months ago.
So after that tense conversation I did tests and got 100%.

Written by Aliona Tonkonih