martes, 8 de noviembre de 2011

The objective of this blog is for you to identify the components parts of the topics proposed, understand its structure and composition, recognize logical fallacies in reasoning and make distinction between facts          
    



READING 








Reading comprehension is what allows the reader to interact with the text in a meaningful way. It’s the bridge from passive reading to active reading from letters and words to characters and contexts.


Check out this great video about Reading Comprehension strategies and tell me what you think. If you have any doubt you can always watch the video again or leave a comment for us. Listen carefully and enjoy!


ACTIVITY


Activity Time 

Read the following short-story posted below, using the reading comprehension strategies discussed lately and answer the activities 

 THE ROBBERY

It was 80 degrees in the shade. A man wearing a heavy army jacket, a pullover wool cap, and dark sunglasses walked into the First American Bank at the corner of Maple and Main streets in downtown Short Beach.
The man walked up to the teller and held up a hand grenade for all to see. He said, “Give me all your money, all the money in this bank, right now!”
Everyone in the lobby screamed and started running, even the security guard. Nervously, the young female teller handed the man three big bags loaded with cash. He walked out the door. A second later, one of the money bags exploded, covering him with red dye. He yelled in pain and surprise, and started pacing around in circles because he couldn't see where he was going.
He couldn’t see, but he could hear. He heard the police siren get closer. Then he heard the police tell him to get down on his stomach on the sidewalk and put his hands behind his back. They handcuffed him and placed him in the back of the police car.
Seeing the hand grenade on the sidewalk, the police told everyone to get back. They sealed off the whole block and called the bomb squad. The bomb squad came and examined the hand grenade. Then they laughed. They told the police it was a fake. The hand grenade was actually a harmless dummy, something a 12-year-old might play with.
The police chuckled. The bank employees returned to work. The bank customers returned to their lines. The bank robber, hopefully, would never return.




 Exercises 
Complete the crossword taking into account the clues given below that are related to the Robbery reading 

  
1   
2   
3   
4   
5   
6   
7   
8   
9   
10   
11   
12   
13   
14   
15   

Across:
2.
Vultures will ___ around in the sky above dying or dead animals (above dying humans too!).
6.
The shy man ___ asked the beautiful woman if she would like to have dinner with him. (She said yes!)
7.
To cool off on a hot day, drink a glass of cold lemonade while you sit under the ___ of a big old oak tree.
8.
People in Cambodia and Angola are still losing their legs (and lives) when they step on a land mine and cause it to ___.
14.
In WWII, almost all soldiers were armed with hand ___s to throw at groups of enemy soldiers or at machine gunners.
15.
Almost every day on the local TV news in Los Angeles you will see news about a bank ___ or restaurant ___, Usually, no one gets shot or killed.
Down:
1.
Some criminals are so clever that they can escape even after the police have secured their hands behind their backs with locked, 'escape-proof' ___s.
3.
You'll smile, ___, or laugh at a joke, depending on how funny you think it is.
4.
If you get a ___ache from milk, it's probably because of the lactose (sugar). You need to buy lactose-free milk to prevent bloating and gas.
5.
You don't have to see the speeding fire engine in your rear view mirror, because you will easily hear its ___.
7.
Police usually ___ off a crime scene area with bright yellow ribbon to prevent looky-loos and other amateurs from altering evidence.
8.
If you don't let the doctor ___ you, how can he diagnose your problem?
9.
The bank ___ is the person you (and the bank robber) talk to during a visit to the bank.
10.
In the army, two to four ___s make up a platoon; three to four platoons make up a company.
11.
To increase passenger safety, researchers place a crash test ___ (or two) into a car to see how well the ___ survives a collision.
12.
Just one powerful ___ist in Washington, DC can have more influence over Congress than a million ordinary US citizens. (So much for 'democracy'!)
13.
In public, some women wear jewelry with ___ diamonds; the real diamonds stay in the safe deposit box.

  Answer the questions according to the reading


What was the temperature?

What kind of eyewear was the man wearing?

Which bank did the man walk into?

Which corner is the First American Bank at?

What did the man hold up for all to see? 

What did everyone in the lobby do, even the security guard?

How many big bags of cash did the man receive?
                



            

LISTENING 






Listening is the most common communicative activity in daily life: 
"we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write." (Morley, 1991, p. 82)

Listening is also important for obtaining comprehensible input that is necessary for language development.

What is involved in listening comprehension?

  • speech perception (e.g., sound discrimination, recognize stress patterns, intonation, pauses, etc.)
  • word recognition (e.g., recognize the sound pattern as a word, locate the word in the lexicon, retrieve lexical, grammatical and semantic inforamtion about the word, etc.)
  • sentence processing (parsing; e.g., detect sentence constituents, building a structure frame, etc.)
  • construct the literal meaning of the sentence (select the relevant meaning in case of ambiguous word)
  • hold the inforamtion in short-term memory
  • recognize cohesive devices in discourse
  • infer the implied meaning and intention (speech act)
  • predict what is to be said
  • decide how to respond

lunes, 7 de noviembre de 2011

LISTENING

         
    ActivitY  time


    Please check out this video about Robots, and in order to develop listening comprehention  answer the following activities.
    Complete the sentences according to the video


    The  movie ________________
    2.        Future robots______________________________
    3.      There is been driven by _______________________________________ for ___________________________________________
    4.      It is all about_________________________________________
    5.      They are stronger, they are __________________________________________
    6.      People involve in boxing ______________________________________________
    7.       The number of injures increase in ___________________________________________



    Activity 2

    Reflecting and Analyzing 



     We are in the age of technology. What do you thing about that?

     answer the following sentences:   

    J How much do we depend on technology?

    J Is technology necessary?

    J What kind of technology do you use?




    Activity



    Write a paragraph  about  your opinion of  our near future and our machine friends “robots”.


    ______________________________________
    ______________________________________
    ______________________________________
    ______________________________________
    ______________________________________
    ______________________________________
    ______________________________________