Welcome to English 1C (which is generally about oral communication). The aims of this course include providing students with opportunities to (a) use oral English skills obtained prior to entering the university, (b) extend that knowledge through a variety of speaking and listening activities, and (c) gain confidence in their ability to function in English both inside and outside the academic community of the university.

The Basics ...

Our class syllabus is available on Oh-o Meiji, of course, or you can take a look here at the syllabus for this English 1C class on Wednesday.

One of the most important aspects of speaking any language is using the correct register. This refers, of course, to the level of politeness and the vocabulary and usages appropriate for that particular level. As you will soon know from class, you should address me in a particular way, both in person and when sending email. The latter — sending email — is a task you'll need to employ several times this year, and I hope you'll find it useful training for when you must do so in the future. Thus, here we have the particular style that I require when you write a polite e-mail.

Here is our video on Polite Email in English. Here, too, is the PDF of the polite email video.

Word Bank

A crucial part of your English skill is improving your vocabulary knowledge. To do so, we will be creating a Word Bank, which is an online vocabulary notebook in which every student makes one page. As noted in the video (below), you will be adding five new, useful words every week in the first term and then seven new words in the second term.

To begin with, let's watch the video on our class Word Bank. Here, too, is the PDF of the Word Bank video.

Our Digital World

Here, now, everyone—of course, I am referring to our digital world, the one in which we are connected (almost) always, everywhere.

Having considered your personal Internet lifestyle, perhaps you noted some positive points. One of the most eloquent advocates of the benefits of the cybersphere is Clay Shirky, who penned an essay in 2010 titled The Internet makes us smarter (Shirky, 2010).

On the other hand, a fair number of people maintain that the Internet is not beneficial, instead causing considerable harm to users. Among those folks is Nicholas Carr, whose 2010 essay asserts that the Internet makes us dumber (Carr, 2010).

A small challenge for you, good people: how about giving up your cell phone and all of your other electronic devices for 90 days? Here we have an interesting TED Talk by Anastasia Dedyukhina about this: Could you live without a smartphone?   In addition, here is a much shorter clip of Jake Reilly, a young man that did give up his cell phone for 90 days

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

As you know from our class discussion, IPA represents a nifty method of showing pronunciation exactly. English spelling is, of course, quite inadequate, and katakana has its shortcomings as well.

Several links should prove helpful as you venture in to the world of IPA. One includes a wealth of information about the IPA, courtesy of Omniglot, the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages. Another helpful page comes to us from the International Phonetic Association.

Fluent Forever is a nicely-done YouTube channel on pronunciation in various languages (the one I'd like to learn is Arabic). For us, however, the series of videos on IPA and English pronunication is quite useful, I think, and here is the link for video #1 .

 IPA notes from class (pptx): 

Night at the Museum

As you all are aware, we have been enjoying a movie set in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. However, Good People, you may not just watch and listen, although the listening practice is certainly our primary goal. You will also prepare a written report (with a partner or alone—your choice) that will be due by July 27 (Wednesday). Your report will be about something from the movie; you could, for example, write about the creation of moai (sample paper here), President Theodore Roosevelt, Gulliver's Travels, railroads in the American West, or Tyrannosaurus Rex. Of course, there are many, many more things you could investigate.

Here for your viewing pleasure is the movie trailer for Night at the Museum  If you happen to have some extra time, here is the movie script, which is also good for listening and reading practice.

Please hand in your report using this File Request (Night at the Museum report)

Unlock 3 (Ostroska et al.)

This section includes random — yet somehow related — links from the units in our textbook, Unlock 3 by Sabrina Ostrowska et al. Enjoy!

Unit 1 (Animals) — This video shows ...

Unit 2 (Environment) — Here we have

Unit 3 (Transport) — Our third unit is about ...

Our Exciting Final Exam

My apologies for the delay, everyone. Here is the final exam for English 1C, which is due by 23:59 on July 31.

Writing

As you know from class, I require polite email. Recall, too, that if you send me a file, the filename has a certain form.

In addition, know that any report in my class must be in the correct format (i.e., academic paper format). Here's an explanation of the academic format that you should use.