...Empathic Essay (draft) I’m disappointed. Really disappointed. Everybody’s congratulating me on my performance. I was so happy before the performance started. My uncle Rawhiri came back from somewhere called Papua New Guinea, and Nani was wearing her ‘vegetable’ hat with the dress that Uncle Rawhiri bought for her, and some lime-green panels to it that made her look “out of this world”, Uncle Rawhiri said. Which was really funny because the dress was red. My dad was also there. But paka wasn’t. But it didn’t matter, because he could always come later and listen to my speech at the end. The school break-up ceremony was going to be held on a Friday evening, and I had sent out invitations to EVERYBODY in the family, including Koro and his boys to the ceremony. I made sure to remind them to not wear leather jackets to the ceremony, and especially to NOT park the motorbike in the headmaster’s parking space again. I was so embraced last year... When I saw my uncle and Nani, I asked Nani if I could fix her hat in the back seat, and outside the window, I saw Uncle laughing really hard while I fixed Nani’s hat. I don’t know why he was laughing though, because I didn’t find anything wrong with Nani’s outfit. As it turns out, the correct word was ‘embarrassed’, not ‘embraced’. Whoops.. I was so excited for the whole performance; with the school choir, skits and gymnastics, and the neat clothes, I wasn’t really paying attention to the words for the invitation. And especially...
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...The Effects of Mass Media on Adolescents Kelsey Wyatt Western Governors University Abstract This Paper contents reviews of several studies conducted on the effects of mass media on children and adolescents. Most of the research suggests that over exposure and unsupervised use of mass media outlets can alter the psychological development of children, as well as create anxieties in adolescents. All of the researched reviewed examines the effects of all media other than book content. Research has shown that consuming too much mass media at a young age can alter the social and psychological structure of adolescents. Mass media can even desensitize youth to unhealthy behavior and effect their education. One of the more noticeable changes in the 21st century has been the growing media consumption, availability and influence. A major consequence of this growing influence is the negative effect it can have on a children’s well-being. Parents no longer have to worry about the influence of “bad” friends but the “virtual” bad influence readily at the fingertips of their children. According to the U.S. census over 80% of adolescents own at least one form of media technology (Comer 2008). The use of this technology is increasing every year with text messages and social networking being an easy access to both youths and adults. A survey was conducted in 2010 by the Kaiser Family Foundation on daily media usage. The survey found that children 8 to 18 logged an average of 6 hour media...
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...I was only metres from home when the silver Jag drew up beside me. The tinted windows slid down with a whisper and a voice from inside said, “Get in.”… I knew what horrors I’d be faced with if I turned around, but it was too late … they’d found me and they were taking me back. I remember the first time it happened , I’d just got out of the shower and as I was getting dressed my step brother walked in , I asked him to leave but instead he slowly shut my bed room door, sat me down on my bed and explained it was his house and he could do whatever he pleased. Even though I knew deep down inside it wasn’t his house; it was my fathers, I was too scared to talk to him. My father and I never really had a relationship… he was one of those people that believed children should be seen and not heard. My Parents were busy people which meant they were always out of the country which usually left me in the care of my step brother Mikhail, who was nineteen at the time. I used to think home was somewhere I’d feel safe, somewhere no one could harm me but I was wrong. Home let me down, home hurt me and home abused me. Home took away something that belonged to me, something that was mine. My name is Irina Samarina I’m fifteen years old and I am no longer pure, my knees are covered in dirt and on my wrists imprint the fingerprints of a sinner. I don’t want to look him in the eyes because if I do I’ll cry and I can’t break … I won’t. As he takes off my dress and slides down my under wear...
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...Dear Councilor, We are a facing traffic menace that seems to get no respite from frequent traffic snarls. Local residents in the Canterbury Bankstown region are unanimously groaning under the weight of the chaotic traffic management of some of Sydney’s busiest and well known roads and without a kinetic and curated strategy the quandary will continue to choke our city. Average travel times for commuting trips by both car and public transport for Greater Western Sydney residents are on a daily basis longer than for the rest of Sydney. With a constant foot on the brake, commuters are finding it hard to keep moving . In recent findings by the Department of transport, the average commuting time of residents within this region has crawled to an intolerable 34 minutes one way only to be further delayed in ravaging weather conditions. With the transport system unravelling everywhere, projections on other vital fronts are further cause for pessimism. Not surprisingly, public transport's decline is counterbalanced by growth in car ownership and increased saturation of traffic volumes on the city's packed roads. This limited choice for intra- regional travel and the lack of key public transport linkages to employment opportunities, facilities and services exacerbates the existing traffic dilemma. The State Government had hoped its Metropolitan Strategy would guide the city's growth. Instead, the strategy has become a lightning rod for all sorts of dissidents all yearning for a new...
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...TCP1* English Composition II (UG 0214) | | Topic: Work Place Productivity Research Question: are employees more productive when working from home? Thesis Statement: Research suggest that employees are more productive at home because they have less distractions, are more comfortable and are able to achieve work life balance. References: 1. O’Leary, M. B. (Mar 15, 2013). Telecommuting Can Boost Productivity and Job Performance Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2013/03/15/telecommuting-can-boost-productivity-and-job-performance. A. Companies should not require all employees to work on site all the time. While telecommuting is popular, it is not something that's run amok and–when well managed–it boosts productivity, commitment, work-life balance and retention. Presented by Michael Boyer O'Leary is an assistant professor of management, Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Relevance based on the authors review of the actualized benefits of some workers working from home B. This article is about the benefits of some employees working from home. The argument is that some not all teleworkers do see a boost in productivity, employee retention and work life balance. Mr. O’Leary an assistant processor at the prestigious Georgetown University, Directly sites Yahoo’s recall of employees back to the office as an example of a mistake. The author uses research from Stanford University, The US census and the Harvard school of business...
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...Induction task for AS English Language and Literature. Read through the opening section of ‘In Cold Blood” by Trueman Capote & annotate it as per the narrative aspects listed below. Then answer the following question in 4-500 words. How does the author use narrative aspects to tell the story in chapter one? * Narrative Voice * Dialogue * Setting * Events * Figurative language * Descriptive language * Character * Form & structure I. The Last to See Them Alive The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them. Holcomb, too, can be seen from great distances. Not that there's much to see - simply an aimless congregation of buildings divided in the center by the main-line tracks of the Santa Fe Rail-road, a haphazard hamlet bounded on the south by a brown stretch of the Arkansas (pronounced "Ar-kan-sas")...
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...knows one, Knows none. By Max Muller Bilingualism is the ability to speak or write more fluently in 2 languages. In Canada this term has particular meaning it means the ability to communicate in both Canada’s official language i.e. English and French. Official language act it declares the equality of status, for English and French, for all government and federal departments. According to linguistic census there were almost five million Canadians who speak their mother tongue other than English and the number has risen since then. There are almost 338000 students who study in school based French immersion program and almost 1.5 million students are taking core courses in other languages. Each province has increased their enrollment in immersion program by 1 to 5 percent since 2000 but eastern Canada has shown the maximum progress, British Columbia has their policy of first come served signup, which delayed their growth in bilingualism. Status of bilingualism showed a decline growth over past few years due to rise of other multicultural groups in Canada. Given the rise of different language group over the last years there is growing movement toward creating Canada as a multilingual nation. I totally support bilingualism, English and French school in Canada but I feel that there should be more options for other language as second language education. Metropolitan cities school has more options of second language courses. Courses like Spanish, Mandarin or Punjabi...
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...Mother Tongue and L2 English Learners I remember the time when I was told that in an English class the use of the mother tongue cannot be acceptable because it is not beneficial for students to learn a foreign language. So I asked to myself, why? Because I knew that you cannot speak in Spanish all the time, but “never”? In my classes I accept it for some activities and for others I do not. According to Davis Carless “Students use of the mother tongue in the task-based classroom”, the use of the native language or mother tongue (MT) is quite complex because it could be beneficial for learners but, at the same time, it could not. In general, the use of MT is stigmatized by some methods, and teachers who cannot handle a class in the target language (TL) feel frustrated by the overuse of the students’ first language. However, as the writer claims, by taking into account the type of tasks we give to our students we can analize which are the ones that imply a positive effect on the second language acquisition and the ones that imply negative effects. Thus, teachers will be able to handle a task-based class with both languages in interaction. Firstly, Carless argues that the use of MT may have positive and negative effects on second language acquisition. Positive effects seem to “serve social and cognitive functions, including the construction of scaffolded assistance and create through collaborative dialogue the opportunity for language acquisition to take place.” In fact, through...
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...Review of “Research Summary and Bibliography for Structured English Immersion Programs” of the Arizona English Language Learners Task Force Stephen Krashen University of Southern California Kellie Rolstad Arizona State University Jeff MacSwan Arizona State University The “Research Summary and Bibliography for Structured English Immersion Programs” of the Arizona English Language Learners Task Force purports to present a scholarly and balanced review of current scientific knowledge regarding effective programs for English Language Learners (ELLs) in general and Structured English Immersion (SEI) in particular. However, we find that the review neglects to reference significant research bearing on the questions raised, and frequently draws inappropriate conclusions from the research presented. Perhaps most disappointing is the tendency in the review to neglect important conceptual distinctions which could have usefully guided the research summary. Below we address each area of literature review in turn, pointing out significant limitations and incorrect interpretations as they arise. 1. What is the current state of scientific research in the area of effective instruction for English Learners? The review cites references to make the point that there are relatively few high quality studies regarding program effectiveness for English Language Learners, with estimates ranging from five (Gersten & Baker, 2000) to fifty (Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders...
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...multiple-choice questions. A text or several short texts preceded by 15 multiple-matching questions. One compulsory question. Candidates are expected to be able to write non-specialised text types such as an article, a contribution to a longer piece, an essay, information sheets, a letter, a proposal, a report, a review, or a competition entry, with a focus on advising, comparing, evaluating, expressing opinions, hypothesising, justifying and persuading. Candidates are expected to demonstrate the ability to apply their knowledge of the language system by completing a number of tasks. Test focus Candidates are expected to show understanding of attitude, detail, implication, main idea, opinion, purpose, specific information, text organisation features, tone and text structure. 1 READING 1 hour 15 minutes Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 1 2 WRITING 1 hour 30 minutes Part 2 Candidates choose one task from a choice of five questions (including the set text options). Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 A modified cloze test containing 12 gaps and followed by 12 multiple-choice items. A modified open cloze test containing 15 gaps. A text containing 10 gaps. Each gap corresponds to a word. The stems of the missing words are given beside the text and must be changed to form the missing word. Five questions, each one containing three discrete sentences. Each sentence contains one gap, which must be completed with one word which is appropriate in all three sentences. Eight separate questions...
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...some may take a more traditional approach with an emphasis on structure and grammar, others may provide meaningful tasks that are goal-oriented, some may focus on vocabulary using a lexical approach, and still others may claim to use only authentic language of native speakers in real situations. Thus, in formal educational setting, especially for language teaching, the necessity of course books leads the way to the exploration of the course book evaluation by teachers. The aim of this paper is to make a detailed evaluation of a common EFL course book ‘Cambridge English for Schools’ which is taught in a popular Iranian language school, Simin Educational Association, according to certain general principles, based on good language-teaching practice. Course Description Cambridge English for Schools is a course in English for young students aged 10/11 and upwards consisting of five levels, Beginner, False beginner, Elementary, Pre-intermediate, Intermediate. The Starter level provides around 40-60 hours of class work while levels 1-4 have 32 units and 80+ hours each. The reason the author has chosen this book for evaluation is twofold-his long familiarity with the course as a result of teaching it at different levels for some time and its claim to benefit from a new approach to English, designed especially for young students and adolescents, namely communicative, task-based approach to...
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...Task-based Teaching of Grammar By: V. yousefi, Ave Sina Shahed High School, Hamedan I. Introduction The idea of getting learners to acquire English through tasks was developed in India by N.S.Prabhu in the 1980s. Prabhu made a strong Communicative Approach Project in Banglore, south India . He put forward many kinds of tasks, and designed the learning contents into all kinds of communicative tasks. He thinks learners may learn more effectively when their minds are focused on tasks, rather than on the language they are using. Prabhu’s Banglore Project can be regarded as a first try that tasks can be designed into a unit in classroom design (Li,2004). In recent years increasing numbers of teachers, in all subjects, have been looking for ways to change the traditional forms of instruction in which knowledge is transmitted, in a one-way process, from a dominant teacher to a class of silent, obedient, “passive” learners. They have sought ways to make the classroom more “student-centred” and have investigated the different ways in which students can play more active roles in discovering and processing knowledge. The result of the research is the outcome of task-based learning. Although task-based learning is regarded as one particular approach to implementing the broader “communicative approach” and, as with the communicative approach in general, one of the features of task-based learning that often worries teachers is that it seems to have no place for the teaching of grammar. Actually...
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...1 Academic performance and Self-efficacy of Filipino Science High School Students on Mathematics and English subjects Angelo R. Dullas Central Luzon State University Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2152791 Academic Performance and Self-efficacy of Science High School Students Abstract 2 Primarily, the study was conducted to determine the relationship between self-efficacy and academic performances on Math and English subject of science high school students. The objectives are (a) to find what level of self-efficacy do High school students have and (b) to explore if there is gender difference among high school students in terms of their self-efficacy and academic performance. The data are gathered using survey type questionnaire which is composed of two domains, English efficacy and Math efficacy to find if there is significant relationship between academic performance and their self-efficacy. Data was analyzed using mean and test of difference (t-test). Result showed that students‟s performance on Math subject posed a high significant relationship with their self-efficacy beliefs with statistical interpretation as positive substantial relationship (p=.615**, a=.000). On the other hand, students registered a significant relationship and a moderate relationship (p=.401*; a=.015) on their self-efficacy and academic performance on English subject. The researcher also found out that Filipino science high school students possess a high level of...
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...Frequent Errors in English Grammar: Articles and Possessive Markers Keiko Muto-Humphrey 1. Introduction During past decade or so, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has been making increasing efforts to shift the focus of EFL pedagogy from “correctness and accuracy” in English to “communicative ability” (MEXT 1998). In response to this, much emphasis has been placed on students’ ability to express themselves orally in class. This has, however, had the (undesired) effect of grammar and lexis being minimised in schools. We are now at a stage whereby the overwhelming majority of students enter universities with an insufficient knowledge of grammar and lexis. This paper will examine two error patterns committed by Japanese studying English as a second language: the genitive markers of/’s indicating possession; and the English article system a/an/the. The former is concerned with the misuse of the English preposition of, which I consider to originate in the L1. The analysis shown below manifests that it is difficult for Japanese students to distinguish between of and ’s: a comparison of this will ensue. The latter originates in the misuse/overgeneralisation of learning strategies: the usage of articles: a/an/the. The Japanese language lacks an article system, making this, “one of the greatest problems for Japanese learners [and this] is vividly revealed in the high frequency of mistakes,...” (Kimizuka 1968:78). After analysing the two...
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...Cambridge CELTA Written Assignments Evaluation Assignment 3-Language Skills Related Tasks 1. This article deals with a topic that it is easy to relate to because we all have had experiences in which we have lost something valuable be it money, jewellery, etc. and these personal experiences can provide material that the students can use when working on follow-up tasks. This is an authentic text that we can use to develop students' reading skills because it contains real language that is challenging enough, but not too difficult for intermediate ESL learners to understand and therefore it will not cause student's demoralization at the time of reading (Harmer J, The Practice of English Language Teacher, p 185-187). 2. For a lead-in, I would show pictures of jewellery to the students, ask them to imagine that is theirs and to discuss with a partner where in their house they would store it to keep it safe. Before all reading tasks, we should always have a lead-in activity because "We will not get students to interact properly with spoken or written material unless we ensure that their desire to read or listen has been awakened" (Harmer, The Practice of English Language, 1991, pp. 188-189). 3. I think these are the lexical items that would be necessary to pre-teach: Scour Stash Burgled Split Lying around Triggered Panicked Ring up Rubbish tip Metal detector Trash Mates Will ya Shut up 4. To provide students with practice in skimming, I would tell the students...
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