Dicussion board

Subject: RE:The impact of English 
Author: Guang YANG
Creation date: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 11:10:51 AM EST
Date last modified: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 11:10:51 AM EST
Total views: 2  Your views: 3
English has increasingly impact on Chinese economy and language nowadays, even it is changing the Chinese language.Despite the fact that it is not destroying China's languages and culturesEnglish remains a significant issue for China and must be dealt with thoughtfully and carefully, especially among the minority nationalities. In my opinion, it is possible for China to acquire English without losing its linguistic diversity.


Subject: RE:English is lingua franca around the world !!! 
Author: Guang YANG
Creation date: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 11:27:57 AM EST
Date last modified: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 11:27:57 AM EST
Total views: 1  Your views: 2
Some people argue that China will become the most powerful country in the future and Chinese language will replace English as the lingua franca.I doubt Chinese could overcome the international influence of English. There may be more native speakers of Chinese, but they are concentrated in China, whereas dozens of countries on all continents have English as an official language, including India, the only other country with a billion people in it.


Subject: RE:Why is English the lingua franca of our time?
Author: Guang YANG
Creation date: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 11:35:24 AM EST
Date last modified: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 11:35:24 AM EST
Total views: 1  Your views: 2
In my opinion,English, like other lingua franca of the past, is often used as a second language to effect common communication for a specific purpose (such as diplomacy) between people for whom the lingua franca is not their first language.

Recommended websites

http://www.theage.com.au/  the age newspaper good for reading and listening
www.abc.net.au/btn/  behind the new     good for listening
www.voanews.com/  very famous VOA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/  BBC!
esl.about.com/library/glossary/bldef_80.htm  break the news

Vocabulary

aver                    vt 断言 证实
benevolent        adj 好心肠的， 行善的
coerce              vt   强迫 强制
manipulate         vt   熟练操作  控制
empower           vt   授权 许可
incite                  vt   激励 煽动  刺激
eloquence          n   口才 雄辩
plague               n   瘟疫  vt 使染瘟疫
assimilation       n    同化 同化作用
repeal                vt  撤销 废除
indigenous        n   土著 当地人
sceptical          adj  常怀疑的
scepticism         n   怀疑态度
diagnose          vt   诊断  判断
backland         n 内地 偏僻地区
oversight          n  失察 疏忽  照管  监督
impediment      n 妨碍 阻碍
homicide        n  凶杀重案组  杀人
endorse            vt   签字 支付
overhaul          vt  彻底检查 追上 赶上 n 检查 大修
hefty                adj 健壮的 相当多的
fury                  n   狂怒 激烈
initial                 adj  最初的
probe                v  探索 调查
ongoing             adj  进行中的 不断的
plunder             vt 劫掠 财物  掠夺
revelation          n 显露 泄露
momentum        n  动力 冲力 动量
fragile                a  易碎的 虚弱的
fraudulently        adv 欺骗的
dictator              n  独裁者  专政者
compatible         adj  合得来的
contrived           adj  不自然的 人工的
frivolous             adj  不重要的  不必要的
hispanic               adj 说西班牙语的人
vibrant               adj  震动的 充满生机的
ellipse                n 椭圆
brackets              n   括号 

Reflection Week 3

Time goes on! The most significant thing happened in this week should be the CAT which is called for continuous assessment text. The text was a little different with texts we practiced. There are 4 arguments and one response to 1 counter argument in this text, while the texts we practiced usually had 3 arguments. In the morning, we discussed the text following the question list which was given by Simon. That gave us a lot of clues which we could write in the critical response. As a consequence, I wrote the essay quickly without thinking. Practice is the only way to be familiar with new knowledge. During the assessment, I wrote the essay as my practiced before and it needed more than 500 words to response clearly, actually. Ninety minutes are just enough for me. So I need to practice my time in the next week. Most importantly, I got twelve of total fifteen which was not bad for me. I wish I can have a better result in the final exam.

In terms of oral presentation, I have found some academic books as materials of my topic which were written by some Chinese scholars. I began to write the body paragraphs and I want to take some typical examples to make my presentation more interesting. That could be helpful.

This week I found some materials about prefix and postfix of English words. I think that could be helpful for my expanding my vocabulary. Because the Chinese characters are so different from English words, it always takes a lot of time for me to remember the English words for one by one. With understanding the prefix and postfix I can remember words by their association. It will save much time.

Reflection week two

Things go on this week! This week we had separate classes. Students who are repeating this level went to a new class of their own. What a pity! We were just familiar with each other.

This week we went on our critical response which is the most important skill on this level. David gave our feedback of the article written by Auld and he thinks we are on the right way of critical response. That was a good beginning. I had a little problem of my grammar, such as problems with ‘the’ and some prepositions which is the most difficult one of grammar, in my opinion. Later of the week, we learnt about referencing which is pretty important for academic essays. In essays, we should acknowledge other people’s ideas which are called referencing. The academic system and lecturers in Australia are very strict with it. And some good expressions and sentences of critical response we have learnt are very useful, such as ‘one good argument the author put forward’. In addition, next Wednesday we will have a continuous assessment of critical response which is for just one article. The task is to identify the author’ main arguments, summaries and respond to the opinions.

In terms of oral presentation, I have decided my topic about the impact of Chinese traditional culture on English teaching in China. This is a topic of English associated with Chinese context. In my opinion, this topic is the current situation of English teaching in China. In next two weeks, I will focus on this topic and go on the search. From now on I should spend much time on my oral presentation.

My Course Goals

Listening

I’d like to take accurate notes of listening. It is really a useful method during the listening test and important for the lectures. Here are my strategies: I want to use websites which is with mp3 files and transcripts. There are some very useful websites, such as BBC in Britain, ABC in Au and I like VOA as well. The other one is it will be useful to be a gust in lectures at RMIT Uni. I can get used to the real lectures in university and take note in this circumstance.

The second goal for listening is to understand arguments. I think it will be good for me to listen to the programs on TV and radio which are argumentative. It can practice the ability to understand arguments from different sides of an issue.

The third goal for listening is to get used to local accents. The strategy of this could be joining some students’ activities which are held by RMIT students union. There should be many local students joining those clubs. The other one is to make some local friends.

Speaking
In terms of speaking, the first goal is to improve my fluency. Firstyl, try to practice my speed. Secondly, keep talking with classmates and friends with English.

The second goal is to get the right pronunciation. Firstly, improve it through the way of improving listining. Follow the listening lecture again and again to imitate it. Secondly, watch some English movie and TV series.

The third goal is to learn some idiom and slang. Strategy: talk with local people and watch English movie and TV series.

Reading
1st: to read more quickly. Firtly, use a newspaper'opinion and commentaty page articles. Secondly, time myself when I am reading.

2nd: get better understanding. Firstly, summarise the reading for 6 "wh" . Secondly, try to understand the text by the context and get meaning of unkown words.

3rd:quickly get the main point. Firstly, pay attaintion to the structures. Secondly,  focus on the topic sentences.

Writing
1st: to write morequickly. Firstly, time myself when i am writing. Secondly, practice more to get familia with the structures.
2nd: improve my writing structures. Firstly, use particular structure with the topic. Secondly, practice some m ost useful ones.
3rd: expanding my vocabulary of writing. Firstly, more wrting at normal time. Secondly, continue my vocabulary book. 

Weekend Reflection--week one

This is the first weekend in my E7 level which is totally new for me. In my opinion, week one is the introduction week for us.

I met two new teachers in this class. The first one is younger Dave who gave us his self-introduction with several words on the board. He was born in England and is a fan of West Ham united in English Premier League which suffers a lot in this season. By the way, I am the biggest fan of another soccer team in London –Arsenal which is the top team in Europe. Look at the name of my learning blog. You got it, I believe. The other David is young David who is a very humor teacher and worked in Herald Sun once. He seems to be erudite and interested in Politics, cultures and history which are my hobbies.

The most significant thing for us is critical response which is brand new for students who is coming from E6 level. We have a reading pack for the topic of E7 which is English. We went through two articles for reading and critical response. I learned we will have the reading test which has the form of short answers and sentence completion. I believe that they are more difficult than multi-choices in E6 level. Then we learned the structure of critical response and some key points of it. The BELT which we should keep it in mind all the time is very essential. In my opinion, we’d better practice it more for getting familiar with the structure and the language in the response which is pretty useful.

In terms of learning blog, I think it is really hard to figure out about two strategies for goals for each skill. Anyway, I will try my best. It is a good way for us to improve ourselves everyday.