Second Semester

November 22, 2021

REMINDER: There will be an extra day of Monday classes on Saturday November 27th. Because this class is on a Saturday, the students voted to hold the class via Zoom. Check your email and WebClass for the link to the meeting.

Work on your presentation about a historical event. The deadline for the first draft is November 29th. Your presentation should include about 8-12 slides, and each slide should have about 50-100 words of narration per slide.

After you get your corrected PowerPoint file, practice performing it many times. The most common weak point last semester was that some students' voices were too quiet and difficult to hear. Use these video lessons from the first semester to review public speaking techniques:

How to Relax Your Accent Part 1: Consonant to vowel linking  

How to Relax your Accent Part 2: Consonant Linking

How to Relax Your Accent Part 3: Vowel Linking

Imitation Technique

November 15, 2021

The homework is the same as last week: Work on your presentation about a historical event. The deadline for the first draft is November 29th.

You can do voice training and pronunciation practice by reading aloud. Practice with videos I made of the lecture transcripts. You can listen to my voice reading the narration, then you can turn off the audio and play the video while you read the words on the screen. This is the the video lecture comparing two American presidents, and this is the video comparing two types of elephants.

November 8, 2021

Work on your final project: a presentation about a historical event. The deadline for the first draft is November 29th.

Review the the video lecture about two American presidents. You can download the transcript and exercises here. In the next lesson you will have to make a spoken summary of the lecture, so study it as well as you can before coming to the class on November 12th.

October 25, 2021

Work on your final project: a presentation about a historical event. The deadline for the first draft is 11/29.

Review the the next video lecture about two American presidents. You can download the transcript and exercises here.

During the class, I corrected your summary of the previous video lecture. You should write it again with all the corrections made. Pay attention to the kinds of errors you made. Most of the errors I corrected were simple mistakes with singular or plural (final s on words) or mistakes with a, an and the.

The next class is on November 8th.

October 18, 2021

Begin work on your final project: a presentation about a historical event. The deadline for the first draft is 11/29.

Study the Summary Writing Guide. Use the advice in this guide to write a summary of the lecture about two types of elephants. Look at the notes you made (page 5 in the transcript and exercises) while you write your summary. You should also look at page 3 of the document to see the vocabulary you can use to explain differences and similarities. Don't copy sentences from the original text, and don't even look at the original text. When you write a summary, it is important to write your own original sentences.

Use this video to practice reading the lecture aloud. You can listen to it when you play it the first time. After that, play it again with the audio off and read it aloud while the words appear on the screen.

October 11, 2021

Begin work on your final project: a presentation about a historical event.

Study the Summary Writing Guide. We will use this in future lessons.

Download the transcript and exercises for the lecture about two types of elephants.

Review the two videos we watched about how to use a teleprompter:

1. How a Teleprompter Works

2. How to Use a Teleprompter

This is a link to a teleprompter you can use on a computer.

This is a link to free teleprompter software that you can install on your computer. There are also many teleprompter apps that you can find for Apple and Android tablets and smartphones.

October 4, 2021

Next week, bring the papers that we used in the class on October 4th.
Decide the topic of your final project.
Download the transcript of the lecture about Formal and Informal Language
Practice listening and reading aloud of the lecture with this video.

September 27, 2021

The final project this semester is a presentation about a famous historical event. I showed an example in class about an event that occurred in San Francisco in 1969. You can review the video. It is a video project rather than a powerpoint presentation, but that doesn't matter. It is a good example of a subject to study and a good example of a simple explanation. It is not necessary to make a presentation that is as long as this example, but study it anyway as a model to inspire your own study.

Remember that success in the final presentation assignment requires practice of your performance. The preparation of the text and images is only half of the challenge. Before you make your recording, practice it many times. Try to use all the techniques we studied in the videos on this YouTube channel in the first semester. Here are the links to four of those videos:

How to Relax Your Accent Part 1: Consonant to vowel linking  

How to Relax your Accent Part 2: Consonant Linking

How to Relax Your Accent Part 3: Vowel Linking

Imitation Technique

April 12, 2021

Make yourself healthy. Don't catch a cold this year! Review the video Diet for a Strong Immune System.