Discussion Board

RE: Why English is the lingua franca in our time

Author:

Tran Mai Khanh HOANG

Posted Date:

Monday, January 24, 2011 3:37:42 PM EST

Edited Date:

Monday, January 24, 2011 3:37:42 PM EST

 

In any event, English is used by more than 800 million multilingual in Asia alone (Bolton 2008). English is now an Asian language; it is commonly used as a lingua franca throughout Asia by so-called non-native speakers in order to communicate with other non-native speakers. Because of the popular English, many children have to learn English when they just study at primary school. In general, I think the primary school should focus on local languages; children need linguistic confidence and a sense of identity.

TED - An useful website for English listening

TED is one of my favorite websites when I begin to study E7 level. From this website, I have watched a lot of useful oral presentations or lectures such as:"What's wrong with what we eat" (Mark Bittman on), "Environment: John Kasaona - How Poachers became Caretakers" (John Kasaona). It help me improve my English listening skill and oral presentation as well. When I listen to a speaker from this website, I recognize which things will make a successful presentation. Additionally, I can not only listen but also can take notes when I do listening and check tape script after completing. Interestingly, almost all websites have English subtitles and Vietnamese subtitles which help me follow easily the presentation. 

http://www.ted.com/ 

Learning journal in the third week

I have gone a half of E7 routine so it is not extraordinary to me. I understood the basic of a critical response essay and I had a writing test this week. I am waiting the result which will be noticed on next Monday. I have known some new vocabularies on critical essay such as "vested interests", "coherent" and so on. And now I am preparing to practise to analyse two articles to evaluate them. It seems not to be so difficult but it makes me confused about choosing an appropriate essay structure. In addition, I need to learn some comparative languages to support my writing because we have to compare the arguments of two articles. I finished an essay to critically respond the article of Carnegie and the article of Croydon and I am looking for the feedback from Sara and Rosie.

This week, I have searched some journals and images to prepare my oral presentation. I will make and design the content of presentation at this weekend. I have to spend more time to finish it next week because the final exam is coming. I practised some listening tests in class with a variety of topics; therefore, I could identify some signal languages and key information. However, I have not answered over a half of total questions; I should do more listening tests to achieve the good result at the end. We also read many articles to do short answer questions and sentence completion. I can identify where the answers are in the reading text but it is difficult to paraphrase them. The requirement is short answer but my answer is sometimes too long. It is necessary to review the grammar points to absolutely correct the sentence completion part.

The final test is coming so I need to study harder in the next week. Try my best! E7I, we will pass...

Second critique from Discussion Board

The impact of Business English on the economy

 It is the same situation with Vietnam. The English business was affected by English. Many English schools have established in th recent year such as the language school, from the international primary to the international university. A lot of Vietnamese want to study English. The parents also encourage their children learning Enlish when they were kindergarten. As a result, there are many language school and it is difficult to choose a good school to the learners. Although there is the development of number of schools, it is not easy to know and control their teaching quality.
Mary

Critique from Discussion Board

Why we should learn English

Learning English is very necessary to students like me. I want to study the Master level, I have to be good at English to read the materials and understand the lecturers. There are many books and journals are not translated to my own language so English is a tool which help you access the knowledge. Moreover, because I need to have a good job with high salary in the future, I must use English fluently. Using English, I can work in a multinational corporation and will be promoted in a high position. From that, I can satisfy some main demand of myself such as supporting my parents and helping the poor people in my country.

VOA Learning English

The Voice of America (VOA) is one of the world's most trusted sources for news and information from the United States and around the world. On the other hand, it is also a helpful website for students who are learning English. It has a core vocabulary of 1500 words.  Most are simple words that describe objects, actions or emotions.  Some words are more difficult.  They are used for reporting world events and describing discoveries in medicine and science. Special English broadcasters read at a slower pace, about two-thirds the speed of standard English.  This helps people learning English hear each word clearly. Therefore, I can enlarge my vocabulary and improve my listening skill.

http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/ 

Be better in the second week

The first week has gone with many extraordinary things in new module. However I felt better after our teachers had guided us about the assessment a lot. Therefore, I had a little confidence to begin week two.
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
In writing, I practiced one critical response essay and Rosie gave me the feedback. It was probably better than last one. I have known how to write a completely critical essay and I have understood about the used language in a critical writing. I also have known what the difference between the bias, tone and language is and how to identify and evaluate the author's arguments. Nevertheless, I have not explained  clearly the reason why I give my responses. I have to improve my writing more next week.
In reading, our teachers gave us some reading tests. They are not so difficult but it is not easy to answer the question correctly. I need to read more carefully and choose the best answers. I learned some new academic vocabularies and I believe that they are very useful for my study.
In listening, we practiced two listening tests in class and I realised I had improvement in the second test. That is the result of my practice in ILC. I often listen news and take notes in the break time. Although I improved my listening skill a little, I think it is not enough to pass E7. Thus, I know that I will have to learn and practise more next week.
In speaking, I have chosen a topic for my oral presentation after a long time of searching references. My topic is "The difficulties of Vietnamese students in learning English" and I focus on the English pronunciation. I think it is an interesting topic because I can describe something about my own language - Vietnamese.

My learning journal may be better and I hope I will ameliorate in next weeks.

And now! Do homework and enjoy the weekend.... hip, hip, hurray!

The first week's journal

I came back the school after over ten days holiday.

First time, I feel very happy because I passed E6 and I met my friends in REW. Begin a new level, Sara introduced general information about E7 that it will be overloaded. At that time, I could not imagine how it is difficult. When I began to study E5, my friend from E6 said that E5 is easy, E6 is more difficult and I passed E5. After that, I stydied E6, my friend said that E6 it not so difficult but E7 is much more difficult and I passed E6. Therefore, I thought I will pas E7. Nevertheless, Sara gave us a listening and reading practice on the first day and it was really difficult. I felt nervous and fidgety because I did know how I will study effectively. My weakest skill is listening so I went to ILC to practise listening after the class time. 

On the second day, our teacher talked about the critical response essay. It was very complicated and hard to understand clearly about structure of this essay. Critical essay is very different from argumentative and discursive essay or cause and effect essay, therefore it make me confused a lot. I did not know how to write a completely essay as the requirement. What is the difference between the bias, tone and language? How to identify and evaluate the author's arguments? About the oral presentaion, I also did not understand clearly about the requirement of topic. It is very difficult to choose an appropriate topic to do the speaking test.

Next days, Sara and Rosie guided us  a lot about critical essay so I could figure about this and I wrote the first critical response essay. It was not really good but I received the feedback from Sara and I though I can improve next week. The listening assessment requires the note taking skill but I am not good at taking note; thus, I am worried a lot. In the last weekend I practised two listening tests and set up my goals and strategies to achieve my goals. I hope that I will be better this week.

A useful website!

http://www.abc.net.au/btn/

Website Behind the News is one of the most popular websites in Australia. You can update a lot of news in the world, especially in Australia. All of information about the living style, fashion, science, education, technology and so on are showed clearly. You can know and understand the events happened in the world. Moreover, this website has a resource of learning English. For example, you can listen many kinds of article to practise your listenning skill and note taking skill. You also have chance to relax by watching some interesting movies in Behind the News. It is clear that I improved my listening skill after I have visited this website last time. In conclusion, Website Behind the News is very effective to practise listening skill.

New level with some goals and strategies!

Listening

Goal 1: Identifying the key information and arguments in the text.

• Strategy 1:  It should learn the signal languages and academic words.
• Strategy 2:  Reading each transcript many times after listening to find out more new words. Moreover, I can understand the content and structure of the lecture. I have to practise 5 listening tests every week.
  
• Strategy 3:  Read and listen the text at the same time to learn how to pronounce new words and identify the swallowed words.

Goal 2:  Developing note-taking skill and respond to comprehension questions.

• Strategy 1: Establish an own abbreviations and symbols system and learn by heart them carefully.
• Strategy 2: Practise how to use the phrase when I do not need to use sentence. Never use a phrase when I can use a word.
• Strategy 3: Enlarge the academic vocabulary because I have to listen the lecture. I will learn the academic vocabulary list at the end of each unit.

Speaking


Goal 1: Choose an interesting topic and prepare the content of oral presentation carefully

• Strategy 1: Doing some researches to find out the sources of information base on the focus and the aim of oral presentaion.
• Strategy 2:  Learn to develop the main points and  the details of the topic.
• Strategy 3:  Give some evidences for counter arguments to persuade the audiences. Search and show a statistic at least in the presentation.

Goal 2: Have the confidence when doing oral presentation

• Strategy 1:  Consider the use of visual materials when doing presentation.
• Strategy 2:  Design the presentation with the attractive and interested slides. I could add some pictures and video clips into the presentation.
• Strategy 3: Use rehearsal strategy to build confidence and practise many times to  overcome nervousness.

Reading

Goal 1: Improve skimming and scanning skill

• Strategy 1: Learn how to analyse structural features of acadamic texts.
• Strategy 2: Identify the signals languages such as transition words, conjunction. It should do 5 reading test per week.
• Strategy 3: Identify the argumentative languages to find out the main premises of the author's text.

Goal 2: Reading the specific information in the text

• Strategy 1:  Analyse the logic of texts by considering over-generalisations or marginalisation and so on.
• Strategy 2: Evaluate the evidence is supported in the texts by analysing the numbers and the statistics of references.
• Strategy 3: Guess the meaning of words I do not know base on the context of the writing.

Writing 

Goal 1: Understand the organisation and language of the critical response essay

• Strategy 1: Analyse the critical essays to learn to make a critical essay.
• Strategy 2: Learn the language is used in each part, for example: the language to evaluate the logic and evidence of a text.
• Strategy 3:Learn to use the parallel construction, the formal languages and academic vocabularies as well.

Goal 2: Write a completely critical response essay  Write 1 essay per week at least.

• Strategy 1: Analyse carefully the arguments in the texts to identify the main idea of the author.
• Strategy 2: Consider the article's logic and  examine the evidence about it's persuasion.
• Strategy 3:  Learn how to avoid the plagiarism and how to do paraphrase in the essay.

 


 

My learning style

There are three kinds of learning style

 I am a visual learner.

What is the visual learners?
Visual learners attend to information most effectively when they see something, for example, pictures, diagrams, films and videos or demonstrations.

Characteristics of a visual learner 

Visual-spatial learners remember what they see, but forget what they hear.

Visual-spatial learners are attracted to puzzles, mazes and building with blocks, LEGO, K'Nex, and even just a roll of tape!

Visual-spatial learners have a wonderful sense of space, but not necessarily a very good sense of time.

Visual-spatial learners have a wild imagination, are "outside-the-box thinkers" and can think of numerous solutions to a single problem.

Visual-spatial learners excel in spatial tasks but may have difficulty with spelling, math facts and organizational skills.


How to study effectively for visual learners?
Visual learning is a proven method in which ideas, concepts, data and other information are associated with images and represented graphically. Webs, concept maps, idea maps and plots, such as stack plots and Venn plots, are some of the techniques used in visual learning to enhance thinking and learning skills.

There are 7 steps:
1/ TAKE NOTES. When the visual learner takes notes, it connects the visual requirement with what is being heard.
2/ FLASHCARDS. When trying to remember facts, WRITE both the questions and the answers on note cards. Carry them around with you and flash them in spare moments.
3/ HIGHLIGHTERS. Create a color-code system and use those highlighters on critical information. This is color-grounding; visually connecting information through colors.
4/ Create charts and diagrams to demonstrate key points.
5/ VISUALIZE. Create mental pictures and mental movies to aid in memorization.
6/ Study in a quiet place away from visual and auditory distractions. This learner CANNOT listen to the radio/tv while studying.
7/ When listening to a lecturer, sit where you can clearly see the person, their body language and facial expressions. It helps to sit close so that there are no visual distractions.

References

http://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/1_StudySkills/study_tuts/learning%20styles/visual.html
http://www.visual-learners.com/
http://www.ehow.com/how_5236117_study-visual-learners.html
http://www.brainfriendly.info/mindmap/VisualLearner.htm
http://obscuresurrealism.wordpress.com/page/2/