Urban Jungle (Unit 8)

Here are our slides from the last two classes for you to review. We had a lot of good vocabulary and we worked hard on inversions so make sure you take some time to go over it again.

Here is the TED talk we watched:

The 4 commandments of cities

Cpe 06.09.14 from murpheemurphy

Academic Skills / Avoiding Plagiarism

This post is not strictly related to CPE but it will be very helpful for writing tasks where you need to summarise texts and to help you avoid plagiarism in writing homework. I strongly encourage you to use the websites and try the activities here.

So... how can you be sure to avoid plagiarism when you research a topic in order to write about it?

Ok... but I need more guidance and practice!  

First some fun summarising practice :) Go to this site: Bitesize English and try the activities. They are 'light' but useful and contain lots of new vocabulary for you.

Now for the serious stuff!

UEFAP is an excellent site on Academic English. The section Avoiding plagiarism explains plagiarism clearly and provides advice and practice exercises. Try this section first and, when you have time, explore the skills (reading, listening, writing) sections.

I hope this is useful for you and for your students too. This article may also be of interest: how-the-digital-age-affects-cheating-and-plagiarism (from Wired Academic). Please leave any comments below. 

Cliches + Cheese :)

Today we looked at overused, cliched, cheesy images and quotes. We also worked on using participles in writing. Here is the PPT and next week's writing task.

Homework:

• p.61 ex.6
• p.64 & 65 (reading)
• visit the blog (plagiarisim, paraphrasing information)

Cpe 22.08.14 from murpheemurphy

Midweek error correction & interesting online course

I hope you are all having a nice week. Don't forget to watch the videos and comment on the previous post :)

Here are some little mistakes from last week's class. Can you correct them?

Cpe 20.08.14 from murpheemurphy

And here is some information about a free course that might interest you and your colleagues! Check it out, it could be very interesting and useful :)

Exploring English Language and Culture 

Art & Design

Welcome to Term 2!

In the reading and listening sections of CPE you may deal with topics that are not your speciality. This fortnight we are considering art... 

and design...

Art is not my specialist topic so I did a little research on two of my favourite sites - Video Jug & TED. 

I suggest you visit these sites too, there are great for practising listening, building your vocabulary and learning something new :)  

Read these questions from a Video Jug interview with an art dealer and watch the video to find the answers (link below):

1. ARE THERE BUSY AND QUIET PERIODS DURING THE YEAR?
2. DO YOU CONTACT PARTICULAR BUYERS WHEN AN ARTWORK BECOMES AVAILABLE?
3. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO BECOME AN ART DEALER?
4. HOW DOES BEING AN ART DEALER AFFECT FAMILY LIFE?
5. HOW MUCH TRAVEL IS INVOLVED IN BEING AN ART DEALER?
6. ARE MANY OF YOUR FRIENDS ARTISTS?
7. WHAT MAKES A GREAT ARTIST STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD?
8. WHO IS YOUR INSPIRATION?
9. IF YOU COULD WORK WITH ANY ARTIST, LIVING OR DEAD, WHO WOULD IT BE?
10. WHAT IS THE WORST THING ABOUT BEING AN ART DEALER?
11. WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT BEING AN ART DEALER?
12. HOW DAMAGING IS A BAD REVIEW OR SHOW TO AN ARTIST'S CAREER?
13. WHAT'S THE MOST EXPENSIVE ARTWORK YOU'VE EVER SOLD?
14. DOES YOUR JOB STILL EXCITE YOU?

Watch the video to answer the questions. 

Video here (click)

You probably already know TED and maybe you even use it in class :) Here is an interesting talk by an art curator called Luke Syson. Watch it and make a comment below sharing: 

1. some useful language 

2. a new idea you learned from the talk.

How I learned to stop worrying and love useless art

Writing a review

Today we worked on reading and past tenses (p.34-35) and reviewed food idioms (p.36-37) mmm...!

Created with Padlet

We also watched a short film about factory farming and a parody of this film. The lesson came from a great site called Film English The film we watched was called The Scarecrow

Your homework is to write a restaurant review. Use the guidelines on p.38-39 and visit Delusionary Culinary (the blog we used in class) to help you with this. The vocabulary you found in the restaurant blog is below - great teamwork!

Remember there is no class on June 14. See you on June 21!

Letter of complaint, Reading

Today we read an article from The Guardian newspaper about fish farms in Germany. 

You can find more Guardian articles to read here: 
classroom materials - look for the ones which say 'advanced'.

We also complained! Here are the answers to the letter error correction exercise:

Cpe 31.05.14 from murpheemurphy

These are some of the problems you have had with goods and services:

Your homework is to:

• Decide on your complaint
• Add a comment below saying what your complaint is
• Write a formal letter of complaint. State what the problem is and what action you want the company to take. 300-350 words.

You can use last week's letter for ideas. Also review p.26 & 27 for language to include. This example from Flo Joe can also help: flo-joe complaint letter