Graduation

In a week's time we're going to have a farewell celebration for you - 3rd year students. Some people feel it is just another official thing, not worth the bother (and the money). For many, it is an important event the memories of which will be coming back after years. It is also very important for us, your teachers, who got to know you well over the three years and want to wish you all the best for the years to come.

Farewells are always difficult for me, yet this year will be even worse. I feel that through the blog and all the things we've been doing together we have developed a special kind of relation. That is why the graduation ceremony will be so important for me and so tough at the same time. When you say goodbye to your fist group of learners you will understand.

Those of you who have chosen not to be there will also be included in our good wishes. Some students don't want to celebrate graduation before the exams are over. I can understand that. But your family and friends, and we - your teachers, would be happy to see you all standing there, in the university hall, looking hopefully into the future.

Presentation

A new week, and new ideas.

You seemed very tired with working on corpora, so now something more fun-oriented. Whether it's gonna be fun or not depends on your ideas and what you bring with you. Our next field of development is PRESENTATION SOFTWARE. What Microsoft Office calls PowerPoint and OpenOffice has as Impress. If you want to enjoy the class and give a really personal touch to your presentation, bring with you files you would like to include. The topic is open - it may be your favorite artist, writer, actress, book, film, musician or band. It may be YOU yourself, if you like. Or your class from high school. Or your family. Anything that is not offensive to anyone. So bring pictures, stories, interesting facts, anything that relates to your topic. I hope you can really IMPRESS everybody with your presentation. ;)

After Easter

Coming back to normal - it's a bit difficult, isn't it?

I would like to help people see the good side of life, enjoy every day rather than curse our daily routine. This is the intention behind the next task:

• Please find something that has made you see things in the positive: an item of news from Poland - local or national - which brings you hope, or something you witnessed or perhaps did. Then give an account of it on your blog and say why you have chosen it.

Task

I hear some people would find it easier to write if they were given a task. I did plan tasks for your blogs (that's what ELT blogs are all about), so here you are:

• I would like to see a post on each and every blog of yours about the first book you read in English. What it was, why you read it, how you felt about reading in English and what it gave you as a language learner. I mean "real" book, not readers or magzines: a novel, let's say.

Mine was Steinbeck's East of Eden, and that was right after my matura, like 100 years ago. I wanted to have had that experience before entering my English philology studies. I went to Zakopane with my best friend (still!), and we walked the mountains during the day and spent quiet evenings relaxing after the turmoils of all the matura and entrance exams. And so I read it - from cover to cover. I was so absolutely proud of myself! I felt it was the tallest mountain I climbed that summer. The book was not probably the best choice for the start, but I just picked it off my Grandfather's shelf and followed His advice. Not that it was bad literature - I loved it. But it was not very easy to read and at some points a bit depressing.

Anyway, that's my story, and now I want to read yours :)

Some thoughts

Ok, so the test was tough. Error correction? Well, a teacher who cannot see errors will be of little use to his/her students. This is the reason we have the task in the exam and in our grammar tests. You need to learn the skill, and that's it. As you could see, I omit mistakes too (e.g. "the Untied States" instead of "the United States" :) ) , and some of you spotted them immediately. But the ones which were intended for correction were often omitted.
Now, about your blogs: some of them are gaining momentum, others are still at the initial stage and nothing seems to be happening there. If you have forgotten your password, which I know happens, you can start again and I will put the new one on the list instead of the old one. Also, if you want to change the title of your blog, and the way it shows on our list, it is very easy to do: after you log in to Blogger, go to Settings (Basic) and change your title (and save changes!). The change will be automatically made in our links, too. Remember that your blogs have been published on the Internet for anyone to read. Some of them (just a few) are nothing to be proud of.

To end on the positive note, listen to a song from one of my favorite singers (in RealPlayer).

I love the way her English sounds.

Working on the grammar test

Just a moment to take a break from writing the test for GRAMMAR. It's hard to match the test material with what we've been doing in class, especially if one wants to depend on real, authentic texts. But only such tests are worthwhile, really. They show how much of the things we worked on have found their way into your English "production." So thank God for the Internet and Google. And... brace yourselves - it's growing!

Many people do not see any difference between test tasks and practice tasks. For practice, you want to focus on a particular grammar problem and do not have to worry too much about things like reliability and validity. Testing IS a challenge. BTW, do you have any experience of writing (i.e. creating) tests? Did you find it difficult? If you have something to say about this, or any other comments on your experience as a "test taker," write a post in your blog.

First year without HIM