Summer. For c1.1s & c1.2s

1. For all…

Reading Club, with books, poems, stories, essays I suggest for our work. Rememer to 1. sign up and 2. subscribe to the R.Club!!! (the online course).

We will also include TV Series and movie senes for Dramatized Readings & performances.

talkingpeople.net/ecampus

2.

Grammar in context extra support for people making under-the-level grammar mistakes and for new students joining the c1.1 course next September.

+ for people who I recommemded to take the c1.1 course again, and use their summer work to consolidate the B2+ level in grammar and types of written texts…

About learning about textual structure I recommend my notes on Writing, on Talking People, and reading students work published on Your Stuff. I’ll be adding some c1 writing texts I have.

This self-study exercise book is also good for people who will start a c1.2 year in September but whose grammar needs urgent improvements and consolidation. It will help you understand which are mistakes you should work on avoiding by connecting this training to the input you get from reading and listening in your everyday bilingual life!!

3.

For people who wish to advance work they could be doing at home during the c1.2 2019-20 year…

Remember my courses are about projects and workshops with original materials, SO read the C1 RESOURCE PACK, downloadable for free on talkingpeople.net – enter – in class – c1

Diary for March 23. UL 4 conversations

Today the lesson was awesome! We welcomed Greg to practice/practise conversations, and Bea S. brought these delicious cookies/biscuits!

 

 

Bea made a picture, which is great! I’ll add it to our banner! 💜💕🧡🌱🙏😚

Please, jot down my notes so you re-use this UL and also connect it to your LoM!

 l

Diary for May 6 – BH, the end!

Today we had no orals and I answered questions.

Then we finished working on our wonderful listening comprehension activity, including phonemic transcription by Margarita, so well done!!!, congrats!, and lamguage questions at the c1 level.

Please, give me a copy of your checked handout with the result on the top right corner.

Remember to gather UL  from dictionary entries and other you find or think of, on the term ‘responsibility’. Consider ‘guilt, blame’ and ‘accountability, holding sb accountable.’

Next day, orals, please prepare a little oral, reading a poem, retelling another story or simply telling us about your day. And the spring test. Peeps who did not take it can print it, do it and correct it in class next Thursday, with us!

We welcomed Teresa back!

And I had 4 brief tutorías!

Thank you for a wonderful lesson, with people totally involved and interested! Curiosity to power!!

Night night, sleep tight, don’t let your fears bite!!!

A little pressie, enjoy what a 16-year-old Elementary student shared in our I Feminist Cultural Week!

http://www.talkingpeople.net/tppodcast/2019/03/01/special-episodes-feminist-artwork-desis-poster-my-body-my-rules/

 

Edited! Getting Ready for an Interactive Speaking Activity

With Greg!

Activity designed by Greg and MF on the 16th of May. Spare paper copies in class, but you can also downloaded here: apartmentsharingGreg (1 Word page).

These are my old worksheets. I’m planning to update them or adapt them.

 Sharing a flat 2 – 2 tasks (1 page)
 Sharing a flat 3 – 3 tasks (1 page)
 Sharing a flat 1 (2 pages)

Remember to give me the info I need. See Diary May 2

How to learn to tell a story

I am re-reading Leonora Carrington a bit these days and also Marina Warner’s forewords to Carrington’s works, and while surfing for more info on Warner I found a very valuable doc I’ll be using in our (adult foreign language state-run education) advanced courses. Here it is. It’s the 6- or 7-page pdf by the Society for Storytelling in Britain.

Grateful to all of those who led me here! 💜🤗😚

https://sfs.org.uk/content/telling-tales-beginners-guide-telling-stories

Ana’s notes in the BH documentary

People, post your notes if you like. I ll be giving you feedback. 🍃👍🌱

Games for inspiration

Look! Coyote in a matriarchal tarot

What’s “double dutch”?!

March Productive Tasks (min. for Eval. Cont)

After the Feminist Cultural Week, to collect info on your progress in using TENSES and mastering NARRATIVES, apart from collecting the minisagas from all of those people who haven’t even handed in one (thanks to the rest of you!), here are the exercises I suggest (and now I’m not giving you the chance to freely choose, please, just pick one of my suggestions, OK?):

In March EVERYBODY needs to do the following two productive tasks in class (oral or handing in handwritten work). We’ll start on March 12 and who goes first? The people who have not been working on their learning tasks (individual personal projects but also shared projects, like the writing tasks), or have not handed in or shared any work, or who have done too little work (none or almost none in Term 2 and very little in Term 1), so that I can see how many people are going to drop out of Evaluación continua and design a spring test for them so they can see what the June test will be like. For people whose English is not at the B2 level yet, this exercise is recommended.

If I were you what would I do? How would I proceed? So that I can exploit this excuse of a task to improve and consolidate my English in all kinds of ways?

• First, I’d listen to each of the stories, a couple of times.
• Then, I’d listen while reading it.
• Then, I’d listen a last time.

After doing that with all of the stories, or a minimum of three, I’d pick one and start LISTENING AND LISTENING TO IT, taking notes on Useful Language, and finally drafting an outline to guide my oral. Remember that storytelling is not about learning by heart (de memoria) but about TELLING THE STORY. Your version won’t be exactly the same, of course. That’ll be OK, of course!

The tasks for the two lessons I’ve mentioned above are:

MARCH ORAL (MINIMUM). Retelling of one of these stories:

• Coyote Kills a Giant, by the Diné/Navajo people – recommended for everybody!
• Any of the stories in Mary Poppins (choose one, or one chapter)

Recommended for people who desperately need to improve their use of the present and the past because there is no way you can reach an advanced level if you have not consolidated your ability to understand when you are using a present or a past tense to narrate a present or past event!

• A Telephone Call, by Dorothy Parker – recommended for people with under-the-level mistakes because there are some notes on language items people should have mastered at the B2+ level. It’s two pages, not one, but you can make it shorter, of course.
• The Debutante, by Leonora Carrington (Surrealist literature, but easy and entertaining to tell!)
• Dishwashers, by me! 
• Cat in the Rain, by Ernest Hemingway
• The Fun they Had, by Isaac Asimov
• House of Light & Shadow, by Nicholas Gage

Yes, we will listen to different people telling the same story, and you will see how human oral traditions have worked throughout time! 😉 It’s good you listen to different people telling the same story. You consolidate language items and learn a lot about storytelling.

MARCH WRITING TASK (apart from a minisaga, a reasoned opinion, a description a month). Re-writing the story you told in class.

---

FAQ

So why have you posted the Rebecca Solnit Pack?

Because some people do work on their English almost every day and are moving into or consolidating the C1.1 fringe, so this gives them more reasons to keep the effort (and joy) up!, even when they’re very busy! And they are grateful for my suggestions. In any case, we’ll also use this material in class some day in March.

Lesson Plan for Today

Pending (agreed): two people to share their Maathai autobio first contribution to share in class (Margarita and Antonio, if I remember correctly)

today is a language lesson, so bring your Time & Tense workshop, and we’ll also do a listening comprehension exercise.

I’ll give two new handouts, too.

The Time & Tense workshop:

Supposedly, we’ve all read the intro and now we need to consider the first exercise or example I give of how to use tenses.

Procedure: individual speaking: each member in the small group needs to imitate the exercise I do as an example, to practice my language awareness with tenses, and monitoring my production. Other group members need to listen and take notes, and once the person has finished, give feedback on mistakes once the person has finished, and/or engage in having a conversation where you practice BEING AWARE OF THE USE AND THE MEANING OF TENSES IN CONTEXT.

Listening Comprehension exercise:

We’ll also do a 10 minute listening exercise: listen twice and answer a multiple choice exercise. Plus listen again and jot down useful language. Plenary where you’ll share and we’ll also go through my own example of UL.

Evaluación Continua requires in Term 2 at least one of my listening exercises a month.

Diary for Jan 15 – The Wangari Maathai Sharing 1 Session (Part 1)

Intro. Lots of people came to class, which is great. It seems more people are understanding the point of our time together, and are starting to work or consolidating their work in the right direction. Actually, I requested María Luisa to share her evolution this year with you all next week. ML, remember to jot it down on the page for Booking Orals on the Announcement Board. Efrén went to the Málaga demo, so that’s why he did not join us, but he’ll be sending Bea S’s part of the video. Here is the link to the text, on the DIF Blog > SCF > Presentation (direct link: https://coeducacioninteligenciafeminista.wordpress.com/semana-cultural-feminista/). I recommend everybody follows the DIF blog this year, and checks out this page every now and then! We’ll be needing all the support we can gather after we share with you all the info we’re preparing these days. ❤

I presented the new Pages (Getting Organized, Term 2 E.C. and Language Awareness)and posts (feedback for LoMs) on this blog and explained the new approach to Evaluación continua, inviting people who are lost and unable to follow this blog to book a Counselling Session (Tutoría).

I can’t remember why the question of traumas in language learnig and nationalisms came up but I posed the big question of why in Spain we get so upset with Catalunya having its own status in football championships, as a nation, because it is one of the various nations in the greater nation of Spain, when we can see that Britain, a greater nation also consisting of other nations, has their own teams in football championships (not only Britain, but the smaller nations of Scotland or Wales are also represented, I think). I’m no expert, please, correct me if I’m wrong. I did mention my own opinion, which I related to my experience during the dictatorship in Spain and my knowledge as a language teacher and researcher on the language situation in Spain during the dictatorship, how we were not allowed to call “William Shakespeare” or “Charles Dickens” like that, and were forced to name them in Spanish: “Guillermo Sha-kes-pe-a-re” or “Carlos Dickens”, which was just consistent with the fact that people who spoke other languages in Spain were not allowed to speak them either. I think this very Dark Past in terms of denying diversity via enforcing severe punishment for Other Language Users has kind of traumatized Spanish people and that’s why they can spend 8 years learning English and panic when having to communicate in English, or simply use a broken kind of English, which does not show the level they would probably have if not traumatized.

Students also shared some language questions. One was about capitalizing, which was good because I keep explaining — which means some people are still unaware.

Another question was about the use and omission of “the”. We analyzed these examples, reflecting upon their differences in meaning or approach. These examples are a particular case of the use and omission of “the” in English, a case which depends on the meaning of the whole sentence (your approach, where’s your point of view?), not only on what language item needs or doesn’t need “the”. Compare when we say “Plurals in general do not take the definite article in English”, e.g. Cars are vehicles, Women can wear pants/trousers or also chose their sexual partners today and not be called bitches.

• In English, you capitalize all the words in a title except (the) prepositions
• (The) People in this class are really nice

Next day, as we have a language lesson (where 2 people who did not have time yesterday to share on Maathai’s book will do so), I’ll bring a workshop I have for improving your use and omission of “the” at the advanced level.

Please, post a comment here with whatever I miss, if you like, or you could also start simply posting comments like some of your classmates have been doing all this time together! 🙂

Next, we had the following people sharing their work and insight on a particular passage or quote from the book. Please, if I misunderstood, post your corrections!

• Elena (pages 10 & 11). Culture and Colonization. Elena spoke about her shock when learning about the negative impact of colonization in African societies and cultures.
  This is one of the key topics you can learn about from this very valuable source of information which is an African person’s viewpoint.
  Language note: depending on approach, we have two words, “colonization” or “invasion”, e.g. “the colonization of America” versus “the Norman invasion in Britain”. For American Indians, they were not colonized but invaded and massacred.)
  UL: How can I explain? What shocked me was SOMETHING (cleft sentence), les dieron = they were given (passive), geographical names were “enthusiastically replaced”,
  LoM. “THE”: the colonialism is… Much more reasonS > Many more reasons. Pronunciation: at school their culture was discouraged and demonized /dis-keregt/ /dímonaist/ converts /kÓnverts/

  Elena shared with us her advice so we can learn to respect diversity, and I hope she can send us her extended version for publication on Talking People. ❤

Benefits from Learning about Other Cultures
* It helps build acceptance of human diversity
* It creates curiosity and we learn about other points of view
* It makes us open-minded

• María Luisa (ch. 1, p. 6, last para.). Language & Pronunciation of foreign words. ML also shared some passages so as to comment on language questions, particularly the question of renaming mountains and the like by colonizers in Kenya, this is, changing the names of things that have a name in their own country, and the question of why we misprounce certain borrowings. UL: Peoples (= pueblos) subject to this abuse need to be “wrestling with the realities of this dual world”, its impact on their culture, how it BELITTLES their culture (approach, values, traditions).
  LoM. Pronunciation. /intradÁkshn/ (introduction), Europeans /iu-re-píens/, regions /rí-llns/. ADJECTIVES & ADVERBS. She speaks English really good (adj.) well (adv. = speak –a verb– well –an adverb) cf. I’m making good (adj) progress (good –an adjective– progress –a noun, not a verb). LISTEN TO SB/ HEAR: listen a Spanish people > When you HEAR a Spanish PERSON saying… LISTEN TO me! (not: Listen me!). THE: The people look at you strange > People look at you strangely (adverb modifying verb not adjective modifying noun, but it’s true natives use the adjective here all the time when speaking informally). SEE/HEAR/LISTEN/WATCH: people, please, pay attention to the use of these verbs and jot down examples: “When you hear someone saying/say…” (not “When you listen someone” eek!!!!!! the “to” after “listen” is also missing, on top of everything!), “When you see something happening…” (not “When you watch something happening”)
  UL. “In this passage/excerpt…”, “translating names and renaming, too”, “About what you (just) said…”, “Why are you saying that?” “What are you saying?” – please, jot this one down for discussion in the Time & Tenses Workshop, because many of you say “What do you say?” which is TOTALLY WRONG when the sentence refers to NOW.
• Marina (ch. 7, p. 139) MASCULINITY & RELATIONSHIPS. Marina read out an excerpt to bring up the issue of how the construction of masculinity in patriarchal cultures harms personal relationships, how society can exert pressure that pushes people who love each other to break up.
  LoM. Pronunciation. mutual /miúchuel/, venture /Vén-chuer/, a man /mAEn/, (some)  men /mEn/, I looked it up /ai lúk ti tap/, I need to look it up /ai níd te lúkitap/, occurred /okÉrd/ It occurred to me … Se me ocurrió
  UL: (for a couple) this is particularly so = this is the case
  Boys are expected to be greater achievers
  Society expected a lot from us
  Society’s perception of … (personification)
  Women understand they need to fake failure because society and men feel threatened/belittled by their success
  Teacher’s note: this happens even if men love them for the reasons Marina pointed out: the pressure men get for being the best in the pair; or just because the values in patriarchal culture establish Man is the measure of all things human and women are in a subordinate position (and not trusted intellectually speaking).
  Society’s perception of masculinity may wreak havoc in a relationship.  People, find more sentences where this phrase is used and share in class.
• Almudena 2 (pp. 16-18, some quotes or passages). CULTURE & FAMILY. Almudena reflected upon what she learned/learnt about families, about a different approach to what a family is.
  Teacher’s contribution: The pair here for discussion is “nuclear families” and “extended families”. I recommended students to listen to materials on that and then practice their language for making (constructive) comparisons around this topic, like saying what one feels is positive about each kind of structure.
  I’m asking students to listen to this poem, The Housing Poem, by an American Indian who teachers at a US American university and see if you can relate it to what Maathai says about family and to Roma people’s culture (la cultura del pueblo gitano). Note on unconscious prejudices we have: when we speak of a different culture’s Culture or Traditions we freeze them in time, without understanding that every single human culture evolves — which means that I can come from a culture where family still operates and is an extended family but a culture which has abandoned certain traditions, those which hurt and harm people.
  LoM: Pronunciation. courtyard /koort-iárd/ constructed /kans-tráctid/. Grammar: they had another other children (“children” is a plural, “another” is a singular) + Saying “have” instead of “had” (for everybody’s LoM: mixing up the present and the past of “have”) in a sentence like “When they had to…”
  UL: Our society is far too dependant on money / on the value of money — when it comes to developing relationships?, like when we buy a kid a machine instead of increasing the amount of time we spend playing with her (or him)?
  According to what you (just) said…

Wow. It’s been 2 hours now and I need to stop working now because classes start at 16.00! Sorry, Ana, Juanfra and Laura. I’ll be back soon!

Reporting about your work in class: Template

Here is a template to make your life easier and help you make sure you share the information you need to share with your teacher.

You’ll fill it in tomorrow, once you share whatever it is you wish to share at Plenary, regarding the Maathai project. I’ll print copies for whoever needs one at the beginning of the lesson and leave some spares on the chair for late-comers. Late-comers, please, get your copy before sitting down.

Obviously, this activity requires sharing an oral in class, so only people doing so can fill it out/in (US/UK). If you miss tomorrow’s lesson, you can always share another day provided you book a date or inform me so I can rearrange lesson plans.

• c1templatereporting (1 word page)

Who’s recording what – NEWS!

IN case you find the time these days when we will be ending a year and starting a brand-new 2019! ❤

https://coeducacioninteligenciafeminista.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/accion-videos-en-apoyo-a-la-scf/

More specific information (and I’ll email a link to this post to the people mentioned here):

Presentation of the Feminist Cultural Week: https://c1coursebymf2018.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/presentation-of-fcw-whos-recording-what-reminders/

Gender Issues: Feminist Approaches:

Audios for training your reading aloud and improving pronunciation and intonation: http://www.talkingpeople.net/tppodcast/2018/12/09/gender-issues-feminist-approaches-why-we-have-education-for-equality-in-spain-coeducacion/

• Asun, p. 1, From “The cross-curricular subject of Education for Equality” to (p.2) “towards nonviolent societies”.
• Melania, p. 2, from “Women are people” to “These violent ideas we find in society).”
• Rocío, p. 2, from “Those in power have not granted us human rights” to (p. 3) “what we hear about female feminists”.
• Elena, p. 3, from “Likewise, men have not only been Man” to “people who understood this”.
• Teresa, p. 3, from “We are making progress” to “the victim of rape if she’s a woman”.
• Margarita, p. 3, from “We can shout out “Equal salaries!”” to “that threaten our lives and living”. – And Margarita you have another paragraph further on, sorry for that. I hope it’s OK with you?
• Reina, p. 4, from “Respect for traditions cannot possibly involve the silencing of reasoning and dialogue” to “a biased opinion”.
• Laura, p. 4, from “Consider the issue of revolutions in History” to “see things different to their mainstream culture”.
• Little Esmeralda, p. 4, from “I suspect that is why Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie” to “particularly verbal, conceptual and attitudinal violence”
• Marina, p. 5 from “We cannot perceive all of this unless we overcome the cultural conditioning” to “the cross-curricular subject of Education for Equality”
• Cirenia, p. 5, from “Feminist struggle” to “peopel with diverse bodies or sexualities”.
• Margarita again! Hi! Thanks! <3, p. 5, from “Agreat deal of people have been omitted from patriarchal history” to “makes our lives merrier”.
• Desi, p. 6, from “Traditional identity roles” to “for a better world”
• Activity on page 7, Lorena – UPDATED JAN 3. THANKS, LORENA!

Melania and Rocío are B2 students, but they’re DIFitas, in the organizing team, and Cirenia and Desi are ex C1 students here, and also DIFitas.

—

Without your help, we would have nothing of this. So please, as you reflect upon your achievements this year, don’t forget to include your English learning and your Developing a Feminist Intelligence and help other people develop it! Big hug!

TV. What is binge-watching? | Macmillan Dictionary Blog

http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/binge-watching

How Trees Talk to Each Other, by Suzanne Simard

Why Education for Equality (revised version) / December 10 HR DAY

In Spanish, too. It might be of use for your reviews on Ngozi’s talk, too, I suppose!

http://www.talkingpeople.net/tppodcast/2018/12/09/gender-issues-feminist-approaches-why-we-have-education-for-equality-in-spain-coeducacion/

 

 

False Friends: candid

 

• What does it mean to be candid with someone?
  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/candid
  Straightforward and truthful talk might be described with the adjective candid. If you’re always candid, your parents will know that they can trust you. … In photography, candid has become a noun meaning “an unposed photo.” The word comes from Latin candidus, meaning “white,” which was later extended to mean “pure.”
• Is “candid” a word people often use?
  

  Can I Be Candid with You? The Real Definition of Candor

  
  A few weeks ago, a college student introduced me before I spoke at a conference. I heard him practicing out loud shortly before he was to read my introduction on stage. As he practiced, I heard him struggle with the word candor. Initially he pronounced it as can-door vs. can-dor. He’d never seen the word and didn’t know what it meant.
  The word candor is not being used on a regular basis. Younger people may not know what it means. And, in my experience, people who are familiar with the word often misinterpret candor to mean bad news. Most people expect bad news to come after the question, “Can I be candid with you?”
  The definition of candor is to be honest, truthful and forthright.

• My Useful Language
  
  • I gave them my candid opinion (blunt, frank)
  • A candid interview (informal, unprepared)
  • I commend the black students for the strength required to candidly share their unique experiences on our campus,” Johnson said in a university news release.Washington TimesDec 8, 2018

A candid photo
Source: https://digital-photography-school.com/11-tips-for-better-candid-photography/