Flight 010
Welcome to Flight 010 (October 2024)! A learning package full of English material is ready to download. Don’t forget Flight 009 is still available for a month.
New this month is Writing Essays. These are adapted pages from a Writing (pre-)academic essays Reader that I use for my 17-18-year-old students (CEFR B2/C1). I expect to have around 10 lessons, 2 per month.
You can download the complete Flight 010 here (zip-file in Dropbox):
Flight 010
Study Guide 013: illusions of learning
Study Guide 014: the learning styles fallacy
4 OWL assignments
Advanced Grammar 005: conditionals
Idioms 005: transport
Phrasal Verb 005: GET
Word Formation 005: COLONY
Listening 013 - 5-minutes On “The pandemic babies starting school”
Listening 014 - 5-minutes On “The man taking knives off the streets”
Speaking - Cooperation 005: jobs
Speaking - Individual Long Turn 005: music
Speaking - Pronunciation 005: /w/
Speaking - Presentations 05: Involving audience
Essay Writing 01: introduction
Essay Writing 02: writing process and brainstorm
Reading
The start of the new school year always demands a lot of time, so not a lot of reading this month. The best read was AI Snake Oil. It is a critical and positive book about AI. It explores three forms of AI: Generative AI, predictive AI, and content moderation AI. There weren't many eye-openers or any profound insights. It solidly describes how we got here and the potential and deceit of AI. It was ironic that the book ended with two scenario predictions whilst being very critical of predictive AI.
My fiction read this month was Dances with Wolves with The Holy Road. It was interesting to see that the movie, which I adored as a teenager, kept quite close to the book. Only the end of the novel seemed rushed, changing pace dramatically. I also missed real Indian words or speech. If you want to show the Indian way of life, its culture, the least you could have done is some research into the language.
The Holy Road is a different story. Dances with Wolves has only a small part to play. His plot seems to be a contrived way to remove him from the main events of the book. Everything that happened to him to the very end couldn't interest me. It felt Blake had to put him in the novel to attract potential readers, but he is an insignificant side-character. There are quite some plot lines and it is difficult to find a focus. It seems that Kicking Bird is the one claiming most space and has a pivotal role concerning all the plot lines. The other plot lines are insubstantial.
The real story of the Comanche is indeed a sad one, but Blake doesn't seem to capture it into a meaningful fictional story. The writing is slow paced, lacks focus, and misses on cultural details. Yes, the camp is described, but I didn't feel I learned anything particular on Comanche life. Especially when you want to show the decline and loss of Indian culture, why not show that culture in its rich details?
Video
Ben Reads Good discusses the book news for October.
Novel of the Month
The Novel of the Month The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. A new Atwood poetry collection has been published (Paper Boat) this month, so I think this novel is quite fitting.
Offred, the central character in The Handmaid’s Tale, lives in a dystopian society known as Gilead. The novel explores Offred’s experiences within the oppressive regime, her struggle to retain her individuality and memories, and her yearning for liberty. It delves into the challenges she encounters and her quest for autonomy in a masculine world where fundamental rights have been curtailed.
Author: Margaret Atwood
Year of publication: 1985
Pages: 300
CEFR: B2/C1
Plot Complexity: moderate
Language Complexity: moderate
Ideas Complexity: moderate
You can find more novel ideas at www.rookreading.com.
Poem of the Month
Poetry does not necessarily have to be grand or deep or insightful. At its core, poetry is a search with words. A search for a representation of thoughts, of the senses, of life.
If I Could Tell You
W.H. Auden
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.