Instructional Text - How to save Hitler’s life

How to save Hitler’s life

In order to perform the task, you will need a time machine. I you do not own one, find one. When you found an available time machine, jump into it.

1. Find the ‘year’ button on the dashboard of the time machine.
2. Type in 1923.
3. Find the ‘place’ button on the dashboard of the time machine.
4. Type in Thübingen, Germany.
5. Press the ‘OK’ button.
6. Put on your seatbelts.
7. Press the ‘START’ button.
8. Enjoy your flight.
9. When you reach your destination, park the time machine in a safe parking zone.
10. Buy a parking receipt if necessary.
11. Find out where Hitler is giving a speech by following men with strange haircut and narrow moustache.
12. Mingle in the crowd.
13. Do not cause sensation.
14. When you arrive at the desired place, look for a non-Nazi man with a gun.
15. If you do not see him, then wait for him.
16. If you see him, jump on him.

Congratulations! You have just saved Hitler’s life.

[158 words]

Simplified flowchart

Narrative article homework

Migrants face ‘living hell’ in Greek detention

The frail, young man, sitting crouched in the corner of the overcrowded tent and coughing violently, is evidently in a bad health condition. His curious gaze follows the newcomers, entering the old military camp, but then his eyes close in pain. Adnan (28) has severe stomach ache due to the lack of hygiene in this detention camp near the Turkish border, where he has been forced to live for eight months. It is not only the constant pain that has marred his face, but also disappointment and hopelessness. He fled from Syria to Greece to seek asylum in the hope of starting a new life but has been detained to this camp, which he describes as “living hell”. “I came here to live and to work, not to get sick. I did not leave my home country to live like an animal,” said Adnan. The refugee camp lacks basic sanitation, fresh air and sunlight, as well as migrants lack proper nourishment and suffer from outrageous inhuman treatment.

[167 words]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/01/migrants-living-hell-greek-detention-medecins-sans-frontieres-scabies-tb

PSA - The End of Death?

“When do you think people die? When they are shot through the heart by the bullet of a pistol? No. When they are ravaged by an incurable disease? No. When they drink a soup made from a poisonous mushroom!? No! It’s when… they are forgotten.”

(Eiichiro Oda)

Are you afraid of being forgotten? Don't be! Join us today and create your afterlife avatar. 

With the help of our online service you can create an everlasting image of yourself.

Don't you want your grandchildren to be able to hear your advice?

Don't you want to remind your beloved ones how much you love them?

Now you have the chance. Create and customise your after death avatar now!

Pronunciation Diary 2 - Intonation

Chosen pronunciation model: British English


In order to improve my intonation I have been listening to the podcasts of the British Council. I liked these podcasts very much, as besides the interesting topics they offered a great opportunity of spoken input too.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-podcast-english-listening-downloads-archive.htm

My next - supposedly long term - aim is to acquire the musicality and rhythm of the English language. In order to do so, I have started listening to http://www.ted.com/
where I not only find very interesting lectures, speeches and interviews but I can also study the transcript and with the Ben Franklin method I can learn how to use my voice when speaking in English. Apart from this, I have read that exaggerating the stress and the intonation can be very helpful for beginner pronunciation learners, so that they get used to the proper sound of the language, so I decided to give it a try.


As I have been searching for pronunciation exercises, I encountered some really funny tongue twisters provided by the British Council. They are quite a challenge and worth trying!
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/tongue-twisters

Though the best pronunciation challenge is definitely the poem The Chaos by Gerard Nost Trenité. I know this amazing poem from grammar school, where I attended an English drama club. We divided the poem into smaller sections and performed it on a Talent Day. It was great fun practising it and we were so proud of what we learnt of the English pronunciation!

Pronunciation Diary 1 - Sounds

Chosen pronunciation model: British English

My pronunciation problems might stem from the problem that when I started to learn English, acquiring the right sounds and learning the exact position of the tongue and lips when producing them was never really explained to me. 

As time went by, I managed to master the pronunciation of most consonants. However, I still have some serious problems with differentiating vowels, such as:
/æ/ cat, /e/ met; /ə/ away, /ɒ/ rock, /ɔ:/ call

I have been practising them with the help of the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/), though me producing these sounds is still far from perfect.

What I find especially complicated is pronouncing the words beginning with 'e-' or 'ex-'.
For example /ɪɡˈzɑːmpl/, extreme /ɪkˈstriːm/, exfoliate /eksˈfəʊlieɪt/ are all pronounced differently.


Concerning consonants, I had not been sure how to distinguish between 'V' and 'W' but since I watched Ronnie's video about it, it causes no problem any more.

I found Rachel's video concerning the 'TH' sounds also very helpful, as it explained the differences perfectly.

Pecha Kucha Experience

“the Process”

Although I have prepared numerous Power Point and Prezi presentations so far, Pecha Kucha differs considerably from them and requires slightly different skills too. First of all, it was quite a challenge to structure the text of our presentation into 20 units and to condense the content of one subtopic into 20 seconds. It was a great advantage that the scope of our topic was not too small or specific and we could freely decide how to process the great amount of information we gathered. What I really enjoyed was the quest for the perfect pictures, which had to be both of high quality and had to express the main point of that specific 20 seconds. Giving a presentation in pairs also requires more responsibility. However, it has not caused any problems in our case. I was lucky to have Harald as my assigned partner since he is not only creative but also very dutiful. Pecha Kucha is not only about writing a well-constructed text and choosing the right pictures but also about timing. As a result of all these features, Pecha Kucha requires more practicing and more considerate preparation.

“the Product”

I really liked listening to the presentations of others. Almost without exception everyone prepared very well. However, after seeing the presentations, I came up with a short list of Pecha Kucha no-nos. First of all, timing should be really taken into consideration. Continuous speaking which is not in harmony with the pictures can be very disturbing. Secondly, too much information on the slides is quite distracting. Finally, only reading from the paper and not keeping eye contact is not a positive feature either. I hope we are doing more PKs in the future because it was certainly a very interesting experience!

Improving my Vocabulary

My vocabulary notebook

How the entries in my vocabulary notebook usually look like

As I'm a visual learner, for me one of the most important tools for learning – and especially for vocabulary learning – is using colours. I've created a complex system for myself which helps me find certain pieces of information quickly. As the pictures show, I use different colours for the word itself, its word-class, its important grammar features, synonyms and antonyms, pronunciation, explanations and example sentences or collocations. In case of complicated words I even add a German or Hungarian translation. Sometimes I even draw illustrations for the word or expression, so that I can combine more types of visual input.

Illustrations

My strategy

I usually collect the definition and example sentences of a word from different sources. One of my best sources is my Oxford Advanced Learner's Monolingual Dictionary, which has an electronic and an online version too, so it's easily available wherever I am. I often use Vocabulary.com as well, especially in case of the Porter words. I like that all words are gathered in one place with plentiful explanation and numerous examples. I also use Vocabulary.com to test myself.

The most efficient method for me is combining the words with certain pictures – usually with mental ones. I try to associate the word with a scene, with people or with little stories or memories. This way I stimulate more parts of my brain when recalling these memories. It's a very entertaining way of memorising things.

Example

Let me show you an example, but please don't laugh!

Let's take a word from the Porter list I have never heard of before:

cogent = clear and persuasive

Cogent looks like 'agent' and reminds me of the word 'Kojak'. Now let's imagine that the good-looking Lieutenant Kojak steps in front of you, looks at you in a persuasive way and gives you a clear argument for lollipops being healthy.

Now you remember exactly what exactly a cogent argument is: clear and persuasive. Isn't this method fabulous?

EU Language Quiz

Just imagine that Europe contributes with 11% (740 million people) to the world's total population.
(data from 2011, http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm)
In Europe 234 living languages exist which is a really huge number.
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/languages.htm
I'm just fascinated by the diversity of languages in Europe and I find it amazing how many languages developed throughout the centuries, sometimes even in geographically small areas.

Dear Frank, thanks for recommending this language quiz, it has just made me even more conscious of how much I'm fascinated by the phenomenon of languages.

How do you sneeze in your mother tongue?

So, after doing (the first half of) the quiz here are my results and the most important things I learned:

Number of questions answered: 30
Number of correct answers: 21 (though some of them only for the second time)
Score: 175
http://ec.europa.eu/languages/quiz/quiz_en.htm

Did you know that...?:

• Mark Twain had troubles with learning German, he had been suffering with trying to master the language for 20 years! He complained that sometimes he would need a telescope in order to find the verb at the end of the sentence. Mark Twain claimed that Friedrich Schiller was able to put the whole history of the Thirty Years' War between two parts of a separable verb.
  (I know exactly what Twain meant... :)
  
  
• The saunas in Finland were not only used for relaxing but also for healing the sick and for giving birth because that was to most hygienic place on a farm. The mothers stayed there for a couple of days with their newborn babies.

• Latvian and Lithuanian are the only Baltic languages and they are among the oldest Indo-European languages. Lithuanian is also called "the dinosaur of languages" because it's so archaic.
  
• The word 'robot' was first used by a Czech playwright in the 20th century.
  (I though it was much older!)
  
• Slovene poetry is pretty romantic! Slovenian has a rare grammatical form referring to exactly two entities, thus making it easier to express love.

What surprised me the most:

• The Wiener Schnitzel actually comes from Milan! It's called cotoletta alla Milanese and the difference is that the Italian version contains the bone. There are different theories how it came to Austria but none of them is sure.

And last but not least, the easiest question (at least for me):

• Hungarian is the only language in Europe which places the family name before the given name. The reason is that the family name is usually a description, such as a personal feature (Kis Anna = Anna Little), original nationality (Német Anna = Anna German) or profession (Kovács Anna = Anna Smith) and these descriptions are always before a noun - or a name, in this case. It was really strange for me here in Austria to get used to the 'general' European way. Apart from Hungary this type of name order is used in some parts of Africa and Asia, for example in China and Japan.