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Welcome to Flight 004. This flight is a bit more special as it is the last of the 4-week cycle for some items (publication guide here ). Use of English discusses idioms and speaking goes into doing presentations. This week Study Guide it is all about meaningful learning and again 5 more words with vocabulary and another 5 Minutes On for listening. Be mindful, this week is also the last week to access Flight 001.
Enjoy this week studying!
You can download the complete Flight 004 here (zip-file in Dropbox):
Study Guide 004
Meaning
As we now know where to study, how to behave, and which mind set to have, it is time to get into detail. This week we discuss meaning. If learning does not feel meaningful, it is harder to master it. It is also more difficult to connect it to prior knowledge, and therefore more difficult to retain. Add meaning to your learning and you will perform better.
OWL 004
Don’t forget to read every day to learn new words effectively. The OWL lists will season your vocabulary bank.
The five wits of this week: disclose, evanescent, prosperous, accumulate, and mimicry.
Use of English
Idioms 001
It’s idiom time. Idioms are figurative expressions that can spice up your writing and speaking skills. Knowing them also helps to understand written and spoken language better as not all idioms are logical. Being red in the face might give you a clue, just like having green fingers, but being tinkled pink or out of the blue might cause some difficulty if no-one ever explained it to you.
Listening 004
The BBC 5 minutes on listening assessment of this week is about Bikes for Likes. More and more people are filming dangerous stunts to upload for social media hits. Cleveland police introduce us to TikTok Bikers and dingers.
for teachers
You can do this assignment in two ways. After the warming up students answer the questions as they listen. You can have them listen to the recording twice. This would be CEFR B1/B2 level.
The second method is having students take notes while they are listening and after the recording show them the questions. This would be CEFR B2 level. This would also practise CITO listening: note-taking for Dutch students.
Speaking
presentations 001
This week the first of a 12-part series on doing presentations. We start with some theory followed by a TED-talk analysis. Then there is a assignment to practice.
In the first lesson we will go into communication. Presentations are different than performances and understanding the differences will help you a lot in sharing your ideas. The TED-talk by Nancy Duarte is a splendid example on how to present well. It has been the cornerstone of my presentation classes for years.
Literature
Finally, I have been reading some fiction again. This week I have picked up Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. I loved the movie so I decided to give the novel a go. It is different, more fairy tale. There are different encounters though some scenes are quite similar. It feels as if somebody tore slips from the plot and someone else tried to fill the gaps with their own ideas. Both stories are great, but they are different.
For non-fiction I started Carl Sagan’s The Demon-haunted World about the importance of science and why we should be vigilant in guarding it. I thought it would be complicated, but actually it is quite a comfortable read.
The Novel of the Week for this week is Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The story is set during the 9/11 attacks in which Oscar tries to come to grips with the loss of his father, who was in one of the towers. It is a quest story, but also a story about dealing with loss.
Summer has finally arrived in the Netherlands with temperatures getting above 25 degrees so it is time for a top 10 books for summer with Eric Karl Anderson.
Novel of the Week
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close follows a young boy named Oskar Schell who embarks on a quest to uncover the meaning behind a key left by his father, who died in the September 11 attacks. As Oskar explores New York City, he encounters a variety of unique individuals who help him unravel the mysteries of his family and find closure.
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Year of publication: 2005
Pages: 326
CEFR: B2/C1
Plot Complexity: moderate
Language Complexity: moderate
Ideas Complexity: high
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close presents a moderately complex plot with interwoven story lines, exploring themes of grief, loss, and human connection. The language used is more advanced, incorporating rich vocabulary and varied sentence structures. The ideas explored are thought-provoking, requiring readers to engage with abstract concepts and delve into deeper themes. Overall, it offers a rewarding reading experience for those with an upper-intermediate level of language proficiency.
You can find more novel ideas at www.rookreading.com.
Poem of the Week
My poem of the week holds us to no promises. We are free to remember lost ones and we are free to forget, as with the deceased: they may remember, they may forget. This idea connects both the living and the dead as we both exist in uncertainty. We do not need to do all kinds of things to revere the dead as the dead will not sense it. There are a lot of 'nots' in this poem, but that frees us from obligation. We can choose to remember, as we can also can choose to forger. I also like the soothing rhythm of the poem, as if lulling somebody to sleep.
Song
by Christina RossettiWhen I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.