Using your inventory to learn English Finding things. Keeping things in order Changing Names - Renaming Giving other people objects and notecards
Next week: Maps and Landmarks, finding your English Class |
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Monthly Archive for August, 2008
Introducing Pebbles Kronfeld Here is an overview of a sketch comedy session with Pebbles and how it can be useful for improving your English skills. Initially we read through the script of a sketch called Camel Spotting created by the famous Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Pebbles helped us with pronunciation and difficult vocabulary, as well as making sure that we understood the humour of the sketch. Understanding humour is a really important aspect of learning a language that is often overlooked in the classroom. It is one thing to be able to ask directions to your hotel but getting a joke is an entirely different kettle of fish. After helping us to understand the script and the situation, Pebbles asked us to try and imagine how the different characters were feeling and exactly what they wanted to say when they were speaking. We then had to try to read the script aloud with the correct tone of voice to express this feeling. This is another really important skill to have when communicating in English. The tone of voice we use and the words that we stress in a sentence can completely change the meaning of what we are saying. How many different meanings do you think the following sentence can have depending on which word in the sentence is given the most stress? I don’t think he should get the job. Click here for answers and examples. To read more about Monty Python’s flying circus click here and to watch a YouTube clip of the comedy sketch that we practiced click here. Next week: Find out how dropping in for a coffee at Millie’s café will have you chatting like a local in no time. |
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Giving instructions In the first place, we have an introductory lesson to present the most common instructions students will be listening to in each class. In this introductory class, we use English to explain these expressions (listen, pay attention, repeat please, come here, follow me, how do you say …. in Spanish? among others). All the phrases taught are posted to the course wiki, in a written form and we also add a recording. In this way, students can access this resource as many times as they want. In this introductory lesson as well as in our regular classes, we use boards with images that illustrate instructions. Images help students understand and retain the message. In some cases, especially at the beginning of the course, we offer the written instruction in English and Spanish. Modeling is perhaps the most efficient way to give instructions using the target language. In order to do this, we have a helper (team-teaching). The teacher gives the instructions to the helper once or twice, for the students to see what they have to do. This is especially good for complex activities. In case that the instructions are not clear, the helper translates them. We believe that we should not waste time in the instructions because what is important is the activity. As the course proceeds, students get used to the language used for instructions and there is no need for translations. In the following pictures you will see some of the instruction boards we have created for our Spanish lessons. |
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Tense choices 101 I believe that you should stop thinking about the names of the tenses. First think about what you want to say and THEN how you can say it. Which tense is going to convey your meaning? I know this isn’t easy but you could try this technique when you’re writing. Take your time. Think it through. Build your confidence. In the meantime, have a look at this very brief list of tenses. |
| Please send comments to this blog with a caption or a description of what’s happening in each picture in the cartoon. Look at the last picture and write a sentence about it. Relate it to the actions that happened before it. |
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How you look affects how you learn How to change your clothes |
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| If you really need some help choosing or finding some cool clothes, visit one of the City people, Donatella Benoir in Periwinkles, Language Lab’s clothing store. Everything is free and Donatella is on hand to give you some advice about what looks good.
How to save your appearance
Once you are happy with what you are wearing you can save it. Right click on yourself and you will see a circle menu, |
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| English expressions which refer to clothes | |
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a) think about a problem carefully b) stay calm c) try harder d) shut up! e) don’t tell anyone, keep a secret |
| Answers1d 2c 3b 4e 5a
Next week: |
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Recently you may have heard the words ‘City People’ mentioned by teachers and other LanguageLab staff and students. If you have been reading this blog carefully, you will have seen several references to them. Before I start my introductions (one City Person character per week) I’d like to say a little more about myself. You can read a short summary about the City People and what they do here, Next week my first focus will be on Languagelab’s very own resident actor Pebbles Kronfeld who has been hosting a series of activities |
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What do you look like in Second Life? Is it important? Appearance is important in RL and it cannot be taken for granted in SL. In Second Life you can look as you wish, you can even look like any animal. This flexibility is great for teachers. You can change your image according to the lesson you are teaching. Changing your appearance is an easy and fast process:
You can also access the window, by clicking on the “Edit” and “Appearance” options at the top menu. Here you can find all the options to modify the character:
You can use textures and colors to enhance your avatar by applying them to your avatar’s skin and clothing. Inventory items to wear can be found in your Library folder. Open your inventory, find something to try on. Right-click the file and select “wear” or drag each item from your inventory onto your avatar. You can also find free clothes and body parts (shapes, skins, hair, eyes) in different places in SL. You can change your appearance to make a topic more real, for example, dressing as a doctor or nurse if you are teaching about health, a hospital, etc. Wearing an animal avatar if teaching about animals. Quickly changing clothes is very handy for teaching clothes and colors. Your imagination is the limit! Tutorial Links here for Changing appearance and |
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Have you had your coffee yet? Are you sure? When did you have it? This week at LanguageLab we focused on practicing and using Understanding when to use these two tenses is difficult for many students of English.
That sounds good in theory, but what does it mean in practice? In this class I used photos that showed a day in my life to demonstrate To practice using the present simple and the present perfect click here.
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Important! Read this blog quickly, before you look up difficult words. To improve your reading skills, it is sometimes a better idea to find the main point of a paragraph, chapter or even the book.
Last month, I gave you part of the opening paragraph of Eva Luna (by Isabel Allende). Here is the first paragraph, again, My name is Eva, which means “life,” according to a book of names my mother consulted. I was born in the back room of a This paragraph is a little complicated and, in my opinion, there is more than one idea. Here are my answers. What do you think?
This tells us that there are no wrong answers. Think, read and then think again. |
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Sounds Good – Using Sound in the ClassroomListen, hear, eavesdrop,, heed, To get the best out of your English classes at languagelab.com you need to be able to use and change the sound. Today’s blog will help you listen to your teacher as well as the other students in your class. We’ll learn how to mute and control the sounds you hear when you are in lessons and interacting with other students and your teacher. |
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| Setting up
To set things up yourself click Edit > preferences > voice chat. Push ‘device settings’ and you can change where you sound comes from (input) and where you hear it from (output). You can also change how loud you will sound to other people in class. Please make sure that your speakers are turned off when you are in class, this make a terrible noise called feedback which everyone can hear. If you are having very big sound problems then there are languagelab helpers who can give you some advice. Listening to the teacher and other students Your teacher will often ask you to talk to other students in your class. This might be in pairs or in small groups. This is really important and gives all students the chance to practise speaking a lot. When you are talking to another student or students you can ‘mute’ all the other members of the class you are not talking to. There are two ways you can ‘mute’ another students. Click on the ‘nearby’ button at the bottom right of your screen and select mute for each person. (right) |
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| or Right click on an avatar and choose ‘mute’ from the circle menu |  |
| Ambient Sound Often there are places in language lab where there are sounds from the environment. This might be the waves crashing against the rocks or the birds singing in the trees. If this bothers you, then you can turn it down or off. At the bottom right hand side of your screen you will see a picture of a speaker to the right of IM history, click this to see this dialogue box and change the sound settings. ‘Ambient’ and ‘sounds’ control things like birds and water. |  |
Which one of these common English expressions means that there was a lot of noise?
Next week: Clothes: How does what you look like help you learn English? |
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