English week 5

Steven Seagal sadly cannot make it to Monday's
Aktivitetstorg but sends his best wishes.

This week we're doing all sorts of different stuff.

From the outside, it looks chaotic but if you look very closely, you'll see that it's actually very highly organised and disciplined.

Aktivitetstorg

A-bas students have an "aktivitetstorg" to prepare for Monday 3rd February, so they've got to pull out all the stops for that. If anyone can think of how to translate "aktivitetstorg" to English, they deserve a medal.

Artist's impression of student
in English class at Hagaberg.

Appearance

Meanwhile everyone else is slogging their way through vocabulary exercises about physical appearance. Actually, it's a very rewarding activity - I have never seen such a contented, happy looking bunch of students.

Advertisements

A rare window of opportunity opens on Wednesday - the computer room is free! This will allow students who are not busy with their "Activity square" preparations or their appearance vocabulary to continue analysing adverts.

Have a good week!

English week 3

This week we're trying a different way of working - and trying to look on the bright side of life with the help of material from BBC Learning English.

Here is the material: How to...Point out the positive side of a situation

And here's where it came from: Learning English - How to....

English week 50

This week, children and grown ups across Sweden are preparing for Friday when we celebrate "Lucia".

The Swedish celebration is very sweet on the surface, but the slow procession, red ribbons and candles hint at something deep, solemn and horrifying.

See what you think as we work on a text that attempts to recreate Santa Lucia's life and death: Lucia: Refusing to be moved or silenced

There are a lot of questions to help you identify details in the text, but I hope it also sets you thinking about people like Lucia and how much has changed in today's society.

English week 49

We're studying health and illness... and now I'm ill!

So if you're in school, you have a few options:

1. Continue with the worksheets from last week and Monday.
2. Help another person in the group with their worksheet.
3. Log into Twinspace (see icon on right) and do a new exercise called "Who is who" (see picture below) plus respond to anything else you have time for and find interesting - like the autumn thing, my generation or the new winter topic.

Twinspace

Remember your login? Any problems, ring/text me (look me up in Eniro/Hitta).

Everybody has a login and they're setup the same way, based on your First Class login - just ask a classmate to show you!

English week 48

In school right now, almost everyone seems to be coughing, sneezing and complaining about being tired so what better time to study the language of health and illness?

First, we're working our way through the following vocabulary exercises:

Health & illness (En4)
Health, illness, injury (En5)
Health & Medicine (En 6)

When classifying illnesses according to "not serious", "more serious" and "very serious", one of our bright students wanted to write, "1 heart attack", "2 heart attacks" and "3 heart attacks".

Well, that's something the book's author probably never thought of. Perhaps he might respond as Luigi Patrovita did in the classic 80s film, Raw Deal...

With our newfound vocabulary, it would be nice to try some role play and of course, no English class about health would be complete without us learning some Doctor doctor jokes.

There's a serious side to our study of health. It's important to be able to describe symptoms and ask for help in English - it might even save your life.

Here are 2 songs related to this week's topic...

Madness, "Cardiac arrest"" (songmeanings.com)

Regina Spektor, "Chemo Limo" (songmeanings.com)

English week 47

Wednesday 20 November

Today we have different tasks to do...

Great Women
If you have completed your study of a historically significant woman, make a summary on 1 page of A4 paper that we can add to our display of "Great women".

Include the key facts (dates and achievements) - enough to make us curious and want to learn more!

My generation
Everyone who wrote a text in answer to Monday's questions has received detailed feedback and corrections. So...

• log into Twinspace and add/edit your text. 
• comment on somebody else's text
• show a new group member how to log in and publish their work

Welcoming new group members
In the classroom, we're going to do some different types of exercise so we can learn about one another, see what works best and what each new participant can contribute.

Personal pronouns

Here is a link to the original document: Personal pronouns 1

Here are 2 copies that can be freely edited: Personal pronouns 1 - copy1
Personal pronouns 1 - copy 2

Monday 18 November

This week we welcome some new group members!

I'm in a meeting with my LISA colleagues from 9 - 12 so you don't need to be in school for the first lesson.

Those of you who have a login to Twinspace can work there on the topic "My generation".

For those of you who don't have a login or experience problems with Twinspace, here are the questions I'd like you to work with:

What year were you born?
What special experiences and memories do you have in common with other people of around your age?
What are the problems that face your generation?
What opportunities does your generation have?

What differences have you noticed between your generation and older generations?

You can email me the answers - gordon.mcculloch@folkbildning.net

I'll check my email at 10:15 on Monday and register class attendance then.

English week 46

First of all, a grammar exercise:
Let's conjugate a verb today - positive & negative

I have to apologise - we forgot to cover "past perfect" (I had....) but we'll do that next time.

This week we're looking at the positive and negative aspects of being online from a teenager's perspective.

Do you know where your children go online? is a Guardian article based on the testimonies of several young people of different ages talking about what they do online.

In class, each student takes one young person's testimony, reads it and then answers the following questions:

a) Identify:

1) Things that person sees as positive about having access to the Internet.

2) Problems that person (or people they know) have encountered because of having access to the Internet.

3) What things that person does to keep themselves safe online.

b) Add your own reflection on what that person wrote – for example, if you agree, have a similar experience or would like to give advice.

English week 45

Variations on a sentence

We took a sentence and then did everything we could think of to manipulate it:

N. discovered a nice swimming pool in Gnesta.

N. didn't discover a nice swimming pool in Järna.

What did N. discover in Gnesta? A nice swimming pool.

Did N. discover anything nice in Gnesta? 
Yes, a swimming pool!

N. has discovered a nice swimming pool in Gnesta.

N. hasn't discovered a nice swimming pool in Järna.

What has N. discovered in Gnesta? A nice swimming pool!

Where has N. discovered a nice Swimming pool? In Gnesta.

and so on... 

Issues facing young people today

1) What do you think are the biggest issues facing young people today? Make a list.

Here's what the class came up with:

• Playing PC games all night instead of sleeping
• Stressed out due to being online 24/7
• The internet generally 
• Global warming
• Global economic crisis
• School
• Too large groups - hard to concentrate 
• Spoonfeeding information
• Homework - too much, wrong type, leading to disparities
• Burden of having to make important choices when young
• Overloaded with information and activities
• Family life
• Shortage of jobs - unemployment
• High pressure to be "successful"
• Uncertainty about what the future will bring
• Drugs
• Too many choices
• Declining mental and physical health

2) Once we've done our own list of issues, we'll take a look at this short film:


Here are some issues that these North American university students identify:

• Apathy
• Being yourself
• Cars and traffic
• Compassion for others
• Diet and obesity  
• Environmental problems
• Media influence
• Relationship with technology
• Tolerance
• World peace

3) Compare the issues they identified with what you came up with. 

• Is there anything you'd like to add to your list? 
• Anything important they missed out?

4) Now we'll draw up a table with issues and how we should respond to those issues. The responses might be at a personal or social level, depending on the issue and how we think it should be handled.

Youth bulge

Young people are often viewed as a problem in themselves. Take a look at this article: Youth Bulge: A Demographic Dividend or a Demographic Bomb in Developing Countries?

Now look up some population pyramids here: http://populationpyramid.net/

What countries face problems due to a shortage or excess of young people?
How can we solve those problems?

English week 43

This week we're continuing to look at great women in history AND experimenting with some shared online English work with students in Sophie-Scholl-Schule Leutkirch.

We're using Twinspace to communicate, writing blogs, sharing our experiences and ideas and learning about one another. There's quite a lot to do there, so when you get the chance, log in, fix your profile and take a look at the project area - particularly the "My generation" project which we'll be working on next.

Many thanks for the class presentations so far on Coco Chanel, Cleopatra, Hypatia and Florence Nightingale. It's been really interesting to glimpse the different worlds that these women inhabited and see what they had in common. Looking forward to learning about more great women after the holiday!

Next week we have a half term break. So make the most of it. I mean, it's not like you're going to get another one before Christmas is it?

Whatever you do, don't swallow any musical instruments.

English week 41

First, a little handout derived from englishbanana.com to practice some common verbs in the simple past tense - From Bed to Work in 27 Easy Steps.

There's a lot of past tense this week because we're going to focus on women who changed history. We start on a religious note...

St Bridget of Sweden

Let the music to help you drift far back in time to the early 1300s. This was when a baby girl called Birgitta was born into a rich family, probably living near Uppsala, Sweden.

It's difficult to imagine how different life was back then. Sickness and death were never far away - even if you were rich. Rather than take comfort in riches and wealth, Bridget chose a very different path, asserting her right to preach the gospel and challenge injustice. She created religious communities where women could devote themselves to prayer, learning and provide hospitality for victims of poverty and injustice.

This old picture of Saint Bridget reveals some important aspects of her life - her pilgrim's hat, her writing, her inspiration, her noble birth, her greatest love and her religious habit (clothing).

She was declared a saint on 7th October 1391 - look at a Swedish calendar and you'll see the name, "Birgitta" on that day.

Here you can download our St Bridget story and worksheet.

Hypatia

Bridget of Sweden is the exception to the rule that history is made by, written by men and all about men. So having looked at Saint Bridget, we'll explore the lives and legacies of other important women in history. This time it's over to you to do some digging and present your findings in class!

If you need a bit of inspiration, browse the all encompassing Fordham University's Women's History Sourcebook, explore the different themes highlighted by Smithsonian - Women's History and Heritage Month, or use About.com A-Z Biographies of Women as a starting point for further research.

English week 40

What if...?

How about this for a country and western start to the week...


Let's see if anyone gets the connection between this song's lyrics and other stuff we're doing this week...

Langston Hughes 1903-1967

This week, we'll develop our Autumn theme from last week via a very short story by Langston Hughes called "Early Autumn".

The story prompts a question: "What if...?"

To ask and answer this type of question in good English, we'll study and practise an area of grammar called "conditionals" or "if clauses" using this worksheet on conditionals.

As well as the writing exercises, we also have some a conversation exercise called "What would you do"?

You can also read/download the Early Autumn story and worksheet.

You might also like to look at these two different (but equally illuminating) interpretations of the story - one by Catherine Sustana and another by Morgan Heinrich.

And while digesting all this, allow this week's grammar to work its way into your brain via another song:

English week 39

Autumn leaves

The word Autumn comes from the French word, automne for the season stretching from September to November.

Here's a song with you that also has French origins - Autumn leaves.





This is a handout containing the lyrics and some related questions and exercises: Autumn leaves song and exercises

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Why do leaves change colour in Autumn and why do they fall?

In groups of 3-4, let's find out. Then we'll present our explanations in the form of a diagram or mindmap that we can present to the rest of the class.

Here are some useful sources of information that approach the question from 3 quite different angles:

Horton, Jennifer. (2008, September 23). "Why do leaves change color and turn red?". HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved September 22, 2013, from http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/leaves-turn-red.htm/printable

Oneida Indian Nation.(13 July 2009). "Autumn Color". Retrieved 22 Sept 2013, from http://www.oneidaindiannation.com/culture/legends/Autumn-Color.html 

NASA/NOAA. "Why does Earth have seasons?" Sci Jinks. Retrieved 22 Sept 2013 from http://scijinks.nasa.gov/earths-seasons 

Plus the following articles in Wikipedia:

Autumn leaf color. (2013, September 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:02, September 22, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Autumn_leaf_color&oldid=573958381

Axial tilt. (2013, September 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:10, September 22, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axial_tilt&oldid=573393938

Deciduous. (2013, September 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:04, September 22, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deciduous&oldid=573786903

Good luck!