Conversation and Pronunciation 5
Course ELTFX715
Summer 2012
Instructor:
Christina Andrade
·
Facebook: facebook.com/christina.embassy
·
Website:
crazychristinasclass.blogspot.com
Class Times:
Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:45-12:05
Room: SH
128
Required
Materials: Notebook, pen/pencil, sometimes a laptop will be required
Course
Goals
This is an
elective course aimed at improving your conversational English and
pronunciation. The goal of this course is to prepare students to speak fluently
with little or no hesitation in informal conversations on practical topics and
to use a wide range of vocabulary and complex grammar. Students will increase
fluency and accuracy in the areas of speaking and pronunciation.
Christina
believes that the difference between “advanced” and “fluent” English speaking
is the use/understanding of idioms, common collocations, and slang. For this reason, the effective
use of idiomatic language along with common collocations and slang will be
highlighted in this course.
Finally,
as speakers of English as an international
language (not just an American language), it is important that you be
exposed to a variety of English accents. Christina will make an effort to
provide listening practice from a variety of accents. Pronunciation practice
will be maximized in this course through the teaching of the phonetic alphabet.
If I do my job well, by the end of this course students will:
·
Use
idiomatic language daily
·
Improve
pronunciation
·
Be
confident in their ability to speak in conversations
·
Have
fun speaking English!
Course
Objectives
1.
Speak fluently with little or no
hesitation in informal conversations on practical topics.
2.
Use a wide range of vocabulary,
including idioms, slang, and common collocations.
3.
Learn the phonetic alphabet
Classroom
Expectations
Students are
expected to come to class on time, prepared and ready to participate.
This means:
1.
Do not come to class late.
2.
Bring your notebook and pen with you
every day.
3.
Volunteer to speak often.
4.
Work cooperatively with different
speaking partners.
5.
Be *engaged*.
Engaged
(adjective) = interested and excited to participate
*Engagement*
is a very important word to Christina. You will hear it all the time.
Learn
it, live, it, love it J
Attendance
Policy
My attendance policy is simple: Come to
class!
If you come to class regularly,
Christina will like you and you will learn.
If you must miss a class, please tell
Christina before the class you are going to miss.
You can contact Christina in person, by
email, or by Facebook (so easy, right?)
Students are required by the US government to
have a minimum of 80% attendance.
If you are more than 10 minutes late to
class, you will be marked absent. This will make Christina very sad. L
Do you think attendance is important to
Christina???
We have a lot of fun in this class. I promise
you won’t want to miss a minute of it! J
Grading
System
40% Class
Participation/Word of the Day Journal
30% Quizzes
and Tests
20% Oral
Presentations
10% Random
Question of the Day
Late
assignments cannot be accepted
**Please notice that a large part of your final
grade comes simply from coming to class prepared and participating. Your
attendance and participation is very important to me!
Cheating
Policy
Any student
caught cheating will immediately fail that assignment.
Any student
caught cheating three or more times will fail the class.
Course Assignments
Class
participation
Your participation in in-class discussions and activities is the
most important part of this course and the key to your success in improving
your English! Participation will be judged on many things including your
contributions to weekly “Open Questions” Time, Random Question of the Day
discussions, and your “Word of the Day”
Journal.
“Open
Questions” Time
Christina thinks the absolute best way to improve your English is
to participate in the English speaking world around you. I encourage you to
watch movies and TV, listen to music, read the newspaper and speak to native
English speakers. When you do this you are likely to encounter “real world
English” (like slang, idioms, swear words). Christina encourages you to listen
to find these words and bring them to class! There will be an “open questions”
time each week where you can ask Christina anything you want!
These can be questions about:
1.
New Vocabulary
2.
Slang
3.
Idioms
4.
Life in San Diego/ life in the USA
This may be where you learn the most!!!
Weekly
Idiom Quizzes
Each week 5 new idioms will be introduced through the form of a
group quiz. We will review the idioms by using them in conversation, playing
games and role playing.
Random Question of
the Day (RQOTD)
We will begin each class with a “Random Question of the Day”. Each
student will be assigned one day to think of a random question for the class.
This is an interesting question that you think your classmates would like to discuss
for 3-5 minutes. It does not have to be related to anything we are doing in
class. It should not be a yes/no question. Here are some examples:
·
If you had
to choose love or money, which would you choose? Why?
·
What is
your favorite memory?
“Bling” Word
of the Day Journal
We will learn many new vocabulary words each day. I want you to
keep a “Bling Word of the Day” journal that you will bring with you to class
each day. For each class, write the date and then your favorite/most useful
word you learned in class that day. You must include the following in your
journal entry:
·
Class date:
·
Word:
·
Definition:
·
Example sentence:
Quizzes
and Exams
Vocabulary retention will be tested by in-class vocabulary
examinations. Unfortunately, if you miss the test, you cannot make it up.
Oral Presentations
There may be some informal oral presentations in this
course.
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