What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Today we studied cleft sentences, word stress, intonation and how you can change your vocal settings.

What I like about this band is the fact that their drummer does the singing.

Another one is this classic. Watch the /l/ in "This is L.A." and then notice the cleft sentence in the chorus.
Finally we need to add that scene from Cool Hand Luke which I am quoting in the title.
We'll see you all next week. Except Francis. Bon voyage, sir.

Just a note.

So today we did diagramming.  Though most modern teachers hate this, I still find too many learners who don't recognise the essential importance of the subject-verb relationship or know what the object of a preposition is.  Because of this, they fail to use them leading to conversations with students which include gems like: "Is good go to pub!"  

We worked from the Learning Objects post.

We also reviewed the words you see below on the left-hand side of the board which are also in your homework.

Wow. Glare.

Inside out is all that's difficult to read.

We learned why "diagram" is "diagrammed" in the past.  And I have included this link to for you to work on your spelling of -ing and ed forms.  It's for native speakers so don't feel bad if you aren't perfect neither are we.

But we pretend.

New Vocabulary from the Wednesday Learner Lesson

We studied four mysteries today. Probably the biggest was "the mystery of learning": How do you learn alone?  What is the process of independent learning?  My theory is on the board and we saw how difficult it is to finish by hearing your stories about the "self-assigned" homework from last night.

Of the twelve people who chose to participate only 4 managed to learn something they can use today.

That's actually quite impressive.  Usually STUDENTS usually can't do the first three without help.

LEARNERS can.

That's what I want you to be able to do.  I want you to be able to read a text or hear a piece when you choose,  identify new stuff-whether Grammar, Pronunciation or Vocabulary- and then USE it.

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Here are some of the new words and phrases from today and last night:

fell down
went down
fell off
a cover-up
a conspiracy
gets red or burns
gets brown or tans
pastor
ditch
absent-minded = forgetful
couch potato
(be) out to lunch
(be) a piece of cake
"Bottoms up!"
(have got) a sweet tooth
wrist
cash register
icing

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"Seek and ye shall find" = Now go use google.

Learning Objects

I believe you can learn a lot on your own.  The knowledge is not locked up in buildings with in books anymore.  It's out here on the Web.  Come and get it.

At TCD I'm building learning objects and learning about learning.  Here at CES I'm teaching.  This means I'm essentially guiding the learners I work with while they are here.  I look for the errors they don't perceive and show them what we do as native speakers and give them ways to understand why we do what we do.  I explain the values of our language, which are different to theirs.

We really value the subject-verb relationship in English.  Every sentence needs to have one.

So can you learn more about this online now by DOING something with the information.  Well yes.  Try this

http://www.wisc-online.com/Objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=WCN8207 

This is a good one but there are loads of others.  I hope to put a list together but a complete list might put a lot of teachers out of business.

Try reading this aloud for contrastive stress:
"Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer, should."

Teachers and students should have a much more complex relationship than just "information provider" - "information receiver".  What do you think?

We used this video today to talk about syllables and intonation. And Jeju Island.

Pronunciations of R

My project

http://www.scss.tcd.ie/~whipplej/meta/artefact.swf


A phonetic chart of English Sounds with SOUND!


http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-and-app/interactive-phonemic-chart/