USEFUL WEBSETS

1、http://freerice.com/  English Vocabulary
 It's a good page with the meaning of the vocabulary, dislike my Chinese page giving the Chinese mean, it gives the synonyms.
2、http://www.topics-mag.com/   Reading & Writing
It is a free English magazine online, most of them are good for our writing and reading skills.
3、http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml  Listening
This page helps us improve the listening skills with the local pronunciation.
4、http://www.merriam-webster.com/  English Vocabulary
This is another website to learn English words, it is a online dictionary with the English meaning
5、http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html  Reading & Writing
This websites has the famous navels and it can help us improve our reading and writing skills.

Reflection of week two

How time flies!The second week of my E7 class has already finished. It means half time of my E7 has pasted.We will have a writing exam next Tuesday so this week I focused on writing more.

Writing:
I learned the structure of Critical response this week and learn how to analyse in terms of Logic, Evidence, Tone, language and possible bias.I practiced one critical response essay and teacher gave me the feedback.  I have known how to write a completely critical essay and I have understood about what kind of sentences in should use in a critical response essay. I took more than 2 hours to write the essay.This time too long because we will have only 1.5 hours to write the essay in the exam.

Reading: 
We have done some reading practises in the class. It is not very difficult but when we were doing reading we need to find out premise and main arguments of the arcticle and do preparation for the writing.

Listening:
This week we did two listening practises which form is similar to the listening exam.Now I see how difficult it is.There are little words on the answer sheet to help us and the lecture spoke quite fast.I can't catch every key points he talk to us and the first time I only answered almost half of the question.Now I know my listening is not good enough.I will download some exerices on the learning hub do more practise.

Speaking:
I have chosen a topic for my oral presentation with teacher's help. My topic is "Using technology to learn English" and I focus on what technology we can use to learn English  I searched it on the internet and have prepared some materials about this topic .

Discussion Board 1

RE: Everyone who can, should learn English

Author: Bo CAI


Posted Date: Tuesday, 15 February 2011 21:30:45 o'clock EST

Edited Date: Tuesday, 15 February 2011 21:30:45 o'clock EST

Hi everyone.I'm Rice.I have read the topic and all the replies. Although  Rema Ibrahim ALABDULHADI and Xinyi TIAN think learning English is necessary for every one who can learn it,I still have to say that this topic is a little bit over-generalised.Although English is very useful for many people, it still useless for some people.For example my old grandmother.She can read and has ability to learn English but learning english is not easy for her because she is not young anymore.She can't learn English as fast as young people.She needn't to communicate with foreigners and her hobbies are not relate to English as well.Why she should pay so many time and energy to learn such a useless languang for he? So I agree with  Hai Ha VU and  Abdullah Yahya A MOAFA, not everyone need to learn English. This depends on many things such as age, major and job.

Reflection for week one

This is my first week of E7 and I was so nevous because I have heard a lot about E7 from my friends.I know E7 is hard and I will meet a lot of difficulty in the E7.The first difficulty is that I can not adapt to the new time table.I need to get up at 7:30 am in the morning.This made me always feel tired at the beginning.Now it is much better and I think I have get used to the new time table.This week our teacher gave us a introduction of E7 class.I found E7 is much harder then E6.There are lots of differences as well.Now I will talk about it.


Listening:
     My friends told me listening is the most difficult part in E7.The test form of listening has changed a lot in E7.In E7 we will not get the questions at first and we have to learn how to take notes.We did a exercise of note taking.The speech is so long!I did quite well at the first time but the teacher said there won't be so much words on the note paper to help us in the exam so i still worry about it.


Reading:
     I think reading is the easiest part in the E7.It hasn't changed a lot. All the questions are short answer and sentence complet and it is not very hard to find the answer.The only problem is I need to read quicker because the articles are so long!


Writing:
    Writing exam has changed a lot .We need to learn how to write Critical response.It is a new form of writing that I have never done it before and in the same time,writing words is two times as E6 writing,that is 500.It is a big chellenge.

Speaking:
    E7's Speaking exam is the oral presentation.This presentation needs us to talk for 10mins. It's much longer than the presentation in E6.I did not very good in the E6's presentation because I was too nervous so this time I need to do more exercises.

Goals of Learning English

Goals and strategies of Learning English

Listening:
Goals:

• To become more familiar with native speaker's pronunciation.
• To learn how to take notes when listening a speech.
• To learn how to catch the key points of a speech.

Strategies:

• To watch the news and some other programs of native channel and try to understand what they are talking about.
• Down load some learning packages from RMIT Learning Hub and do more exerices.
• To listen some some speeches on the TV or the internet and try to catch the main point of the speeches and take notes of them.

Writing:
Goals:

• Improve my writing speed.
• Improve my vocabulary.
• Make fewer grammer mistake in my writing.
• To learn how to write Critical response.

Strategies:

• Read a grammer book to improve my grammer
• To write more essay
• Make a vocabulary book

Reading:
Goals:

• Improve my reading speed
• To learn how to find the main arguments of the arcticle.
• Improve my skill of guessing words.

Strategies:

• Read newspaper ever day
• Do more practice to improve my reading speed
• Try not to use dictionary in the reading practice

Speaking:

• To learn how to do oral presentation.
• To make my speech clear and simple.
• To have more confidence in speaking.

Strategies:

• Communicate more with native speakers
• Do prepare for the oral presentation
• Practice my oral presentation with my roommate

Goals:

My learning style

Visual learners
Visual learners attend to information most effectively when they see something, for example, pictures, diagrams, films and videos or demonstrations. Check to see if some of the following characteristics may apply to you.

Behaviours/ characteristics of visual learners:

• Remember what they see rather than what they hear
• Remember diagrams and pictures
• Prefer to read and write rather than listen
• Have trouble remembering verbal instructions
• Need an overall view and purpose before beginning a project
• Like art more than music
• Sometimes tune out when trying to pay attention. 

 

Study hints for visual learners:

• Take written notes in lectures & class
• Use colours to highlight important points
• Pay attention to diagrams, charts and pictures in text books
• Use mindmaps ( with colours & diagrams) to organise information for an assignment or for revision for an exam.
• Put summaries and mindmaps on the walls in your study area
• Use a wall planner.

Kinaesthetic learners or active learners
Kinaesthetic learners prefer to being involved in activities. They need to apply the information and make it their own by constructing something or practising a technique or skill.

Characteristics of kinaesthetic learners

• Often they take notes or even draw pictures or doodle whilst listening
• Remember best what they did
• Memorise by walking and seeing
• Like ‘hands on’ activities and group interaction 

 

Study hints for kinaesthetic learners
Test your learning by applying it or transforming it to another form. For example use lecture notes or readings to draw a diagram, flow chart or even construct a model.

• Start or join a study group
• Relate facts or theories to your own experience
• Learn or memorise information by teaching or telling someone else
• When studying take frequent breaks. This is also helpful for the other learning styles

According to the result of VAK LearningStyle test, I'm both a visual learner and a Kinaesthetic learner. I think the result is interesting. The wesite also give me some advices for my study.Maybe I should use these skills to improve my English.