Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Survey. Technology and foreign language learning

Dear students!

Here is the link to the survey. I have also sent it to your emails. Would you, please fill it in and submit?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEE5NEhiVVliMGVyWHJyb2h3MmN1bGc6MQ

Kind regards,
Yelena Valerianovna

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Aliona`s listening

Hello, everybody!

I want to share with you some information I`ve got after my additional listening.

So, first I listened to the tape from VOA Special English Economics Report named "Getting Young Indians to Choose Tea Over Coffee". The title seemed interesting to me, as personally I can't imagine how would be the morning without my cup of coffee! So, I found, that coffee smells around the world and even in the the birthplace of tea, India. India is being quickly taken to tea and coffee culture, but they remain faithful to tradition. I knew, that Indians drink eight times more tea than coffee. By the way, tea is called as "chai" in many different countries, not only in Ukraine or Russia. 

Secondly, I chose the video from ESL Video Quiz "Golden Retriever, the coolest dog in the world".
It was really great pleasure to watch it, because this breed of dog is just wonderful! You know, that
<>the Golden Retriever is one of the most beloved dogs in the world? They don`t afraid of water and have special "soft mouth" - they can carry an egg in the mouth without breaking, so that you don`t worry about your children. In general, it`s amazing family dog!
After listening, I`ve done the test and took 10 score of 11 (also I liked, that there were shown the right and wrong answers).

Generally, I enjoyed my listening today, and I advise you to watch the video about these amazing dogs!

Aren`t they cool?

Thanks a lot.
By Aliona Kovalinska.

Nataliya's listening

Hello, everyone!

Today I decided to practice listening with the help of ESLvideo.com. I chose two videos from the intermediate level for that. The first one is under the title 'Differences between American and British English'. Great difference between American and British expressions aree shown in that episode. The video helped me to catch   the meaning of some English words in the USA and in the UK. Great difference, I would say!
After watching video I did some tests and got 100%.

The second video epiosode under the title 'Food Piramid' was found by me in High Intermediate. It was about ballanced diet. Some special advice of how to group food and what kink of food to choose were given in the episode. Generally speaking, I liked the video, but I my test results reached only 70%.

Thanks a lot.

Written by Nataliya Hlushachenko.

Saturday, 25 February 2012

Alina's last listening

Hello everyone!
  To practise listening I chose three videos from Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab. The first is called - "Car accident". My score is 80%, the second is "Telemarkering",  the score is 80%, and the last is "A student credit card ", my score is 80%. As for me it is a very useful site, it helps me to improve my listening skills. I found out some interesting facts, repeated  and learned some unknown words. These videos are clear and delicious for me.
Thanks a lot!!!!




Written by Alina Korchan.

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Hello, everyone!

You see, to practise my listening today I chose an episode from Ted Video for Listening and an audio track from ESL-lab.

Searching site www.ted.com, I found there some show talks related to business. I decided to watch an episode under the title 'Amy Lockwood: Selling condoms in the Congo', because I thought it would be connected with some serious problems as AIDS. And I was almost right. The reporter was talking about HIP prevalence people in Congo and about marketing fails in selling condoms campaign.
In general, I found that site great, because all the videos were quite simple and understandable. The language is rather clear, so I could hear everything well.

As for the track from ESL-lab, I chose the track from Medium under the title 'Breakfast Resipes and a small surprise!'. It was a dialogue between father and daugter. They were arguing about the dish for breakfast. And the end of the story brings a really nice and unexpected suprise. Generally speaking, I understood the conversation very well and answered all the questions correctly.

So, as for me, I like listening to different kinds of extracts, because they allow me to practice English and to learn some interesting facts at the same time. That is some kind of great practice for me!

Thank you.

Written by Nataliya Hlushachenko 

Thursday, 16 February 2012

Top Ten Slide Tips

Hello, my dear students!

Follow this link and you'll find Top Ten Slide Tips to make your presentation better.

http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/slides.html

Good luck!
Yelena Valerianovna

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

So, practising my listening first I`ve listened the tape connected with clothing styles from "Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab".
After I`ve done some tests and got 80% score. I liked the unformal atmosphere in the dialog and it was quite clear for me so I had no difficulties with understanding the point.

The second tape I`ve listened was about carees from "Listen a Minute". After listening I`ve done the tasks given there. For me, I found some new words and expressions, also some new facts like that people can have more than 4 careers now. I even thought about getting another career in addition to mine in future.

So, I liked such way of practising English, becouse we can get something new every day just sitting at the computer and spending small time for it.

Thanks.
Aliona Kovalinska.
Hello, everyone! Here you can see some graphs for description.

The second one shows Australian quarterly inflation in the period from 1987 to 2011.

The third one shows a line for the median price and bars for the numbers of homes sold in "Woburn's single family"



Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Hello, everyone!
This is my graph for description.
This bar chart describes the rate of inflation in Ukraine during the period from 1996 to 2010.
By Aliona Kovalinska.

Monday, 13 February 2012

Enhancing listening skills

Hello, my dear students!

As you know, listening needs constant practicing.

Here is the link to our IE listening resources webpage:

https://www.sites.google.com/site/ielistening

Enjoy listening and don't forget to share on our IE Class Blog  reflections on your progress.  

Kind regards,
Yelena Valerianovna



HELLO!! Here are some graphs for description.










By Aliona Tonkonih
Hello everyone! Here is my graph for description.

Foreign Direct Investment ($US million)

 By Alina Korchan.
Hello, everybody!
Here are some graphs for description from me.


By Aliona Kovalinska.

Sunday, 12 February 2012

Hello, everyone! This is my description of the graph (#2)

The bar chart shows figures for clothing sales in the world in 1998. Here you can see a ratio between teenagers, adult men and adult women.

The horizontal axis shows quarters of the year and the vertical axis shows the percentage of sales. Violet column means sales for teens, blue - sales for adult men and white - for adult women.
It's clear from the graph that the level of clothing sales fluctuated a great deal during the year. In the 1st quarter of the year the level of clothing sales for teenagers was 40%, adult men - 30% and adult women - 25%.

In the 2d quarter sales for teens and adult women had a slight decrease. Sales for men had an encouraging 35% success rate.

Speaking about the 3d quarter i can say that, on the one hand, sales for woman arrived to its lowest point and were 23%, but, on the other hand, sales for adult men reached a peak and were 40%. Sales for teens crept up to 37%.

In the last quarter of the year sales for teenagers went up very quickly to 45% and reached a peak in this point. Sales for men totally collapsed and were on the level of 15%, but sales for women boomed and were 40%.

Written by Daria Voloshyna.

Description of the graph

   Hello, everyone! This is my description of the graph (#4)
 
   The bar chart shows figures for production and distribution costs compared to final profit in the period from 1994 to 1997 . 

    It is clear from the chart that the level of production costs fluctuated a great deal during this time. At the beginning of the period it stood at 24 millions. Then the figure shot up from 24 to 27 millions. After that the level of production costs went down slightly by 1 mln in 1996. We can see that the figure rose insagnificantly to 29 millions in the next year.

    So, let's now move on to the distribution costs. Generally speaking there was a steady downward trend of this figure inn the period from 1994 to 1997. On this chart we can see that in 1994 the level of distribution costs stood at 29 millions. After that there was a small fall by 2 millions in the next year. From this point we can see a modest fall in the level of distribution costs by 1 mln a year. So, in 1997 the figure reached 25 millions.

    As for the final profit, at the beginningg of the period it stood at 31 millions. By the way, it was the highest point during all that time. But the next year the level of final profit plunged dramaticly and reached only 11 millions. From 1995 to 1997 there was a marked upward trend in the rate of final profit. In 1996 figure increased sharply by 8 mln and at the end of this period the level of final profit continued to rise and reached 23 millions.

    Written by Nataliya Hlushachenko.

Monday, 6 February 2012

Hello everyone!! This is my description of the graph (#1).

1998 World Clothing Sales

The bar chart shows figures for clothing sales in the world in 1998. It is clear from the chart the sales in Europe and Asia fluctuated a great deal during this time. At the beginning of the period clothing sales in Europe, Asia and USA were $50, $75 and $45 million accordingly.

In the second quarter there was a decline in sales in Asia and in the 3rd quarter the sales reached the lowest point at $55 million. But in the fourth quarter there was a gradual rise to $65 million. In Europe there was a decline in the second quarter and then there was a sharp increase to $65 million. Then there was a decline again in the fours quarter.

In the United States the sales increased slightly in the second quarter. It stayed at this level until the 3rd quarter, but in the 4th quarter there was a small drop of $5 million.

Written by Aliona Tonkonih.
         Hello everyone! This is my description of the graph.
The bar chart shows figures for travel expenses in 1998. It is clear that the rate of travel expenses went up and down frequently. At the beginning of the year food stood at 12 per cent, gas at 17 per cent and motel expenses - 10 per cent.
From January to February food expenses had risen slightly to 17 per cent, gas expenses had fallen slightly from 17 to 11 per cent and motel expenses had increased significantly from 10 to 22 per cent.
From February to March the same year, there was a small increase to 22 per cent in food expenses, gas had reached a peak of 28 per cent and motel expenses had fallen suddenly from 21 to 14 per cent.
From March to April there was another marked drop in food expenses from 22  to 14 per cent, gas expenses decrease dramatically  from 28 to 10 per cent, there was a slight rise in motel expenses of 17 per cent.
From April to May the same year, food expenses decreased gradually  from 14 to 11 per cent, motel expenses from 17 to 10 per cent but gas expenses had shot up to 17 per cent.
From May to June there was a sudden increase food expenses from 11 to 19 per cent, gas expenses had declined slightly to 15 per cent and motel expenses had gone up significantly to 20 per cent.

           Written by Alina Korchan.
   Hello, everyone! This is my description of the graph (#3).
  
   This bar chart shows figures, connected with travel expanses during the first 6 months of a year.
As you can see, the costs of food in January stood at 12 million pounds. During the next 2 months there was a marked increase and in March it has reached its peak of 12 but than it has fallen suddenly to 14 million pounds in April. From April to May there was a slight drop to 12 million pounds again. There was the sharp increase  in June and it reached 19 million pounds.
   Looking at the chart connected with the expenses for gas, we can notice, that in the beginning they stood at 17 and until February there was a considerable decrease to 11 million pounds. From this point it rose sharply and had reached a peak of 29 million pounds in March. Than there was a significant drop again and the value of costs reached its bottom point. After that there was a marked upward trend once again. From April to May the figure shot up from 10 to 17 million pounds. Finally, it has been fixed on the level of 15 million pounds.

   What about motel expenses, from January to February there was a steep increase from 10 to 21 million pounds, but than the value decreased rapidly and stood at 14 million pounds. During next 2 months it was trying to recover and in April it reached the rate of 17 million pounds, but there was a dramatic fall to 10 million pounds in May. Than a sudden rise followed and it arrived at 20 million pounds in June.

Written by Aliona Kovalinska.