selfstudy on 4th Sept

These days we are focusing on pronunciation in Robin’s lesson. It is really hard to speak like a native English speaker. Because the stress, the pause and the weak forms are totally different from the system of our own language. And sometimes they also join words together. Such as:
back up/ba up put it on/pu ti ton keep it up/kee pi tup take it off/tay ki off
So I read some twisters to train my tongue in these days.

selfstudy on 2nd Sept

These day we are busy polishing our essay. In the class today, Susannah gave us some guide on the format of bibliography in the essay. It is really a strict task to write it. So my self study today is to research how to how to write a correct reference and bibliographies . And i also find some useful directions in the internet.

http://www.aresearchguide.com/12biblio.html
http://www.neilstoolbox.com/bibliography-creator/
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/phil/current/ReferencingGuide.pdf
http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/annotated.html
http://www.cyberbiz.com.au/training/citation/harvard_5.pdf

selfstudy on 1st Sept

These days we are all busying preparing our essays. Today Susannah give back our essays. It is really a responsible feedback. I have made a lot of mistakes in both spelling and grammar which makes the eassy hard to be understood. Also Susannah appreciate the contents of my essay, otherwise, it is only a draft which still needs polish. Therefore, i spend all the afternoon in the library in search the information and examples to support my essay.

selfstudy on 30

I practise summarising by rewrite an article on page27:
Nowadays, with the widely access of internet, college students tend to plagiarize essay from the internet which really makes their tutors annoyed while the tutors have nothing to deal with for a long time. So in order to prevent students from copying, a new software engine—TurnItIn appears. It can tell the tutor whether his student has copied and how much of the essay is original after TurnItIn scanned the whole essay. Undoubtedly, all the resource of TurnItIn is based on internet, the same as the students doing plagiarize. But the power of this search engine is far stronger. Even changing words or copying a phrase can be discovered. Furthermore, it can list all the references if the student has forgotten it.

Source: Duncan, E. (2007) “TurnItIn is Taking Off”, London Metropolitan Staff Newsletter 2/3 (p5)

selfstudy on 26

We heard a lecture to practice how to take note today. The lecture was about globalization, the topic which we are going to write the essay. A lot of note-taking strategy was concluded in today’s lesson as follow:
-list
-title/section
-short form
-symbol
-make notes to check later
All these strategies were used during the lecture. I want to say it is really helpful for me to pick up the main ideal of the lecture. During the self study after class, I easily got the overview of the essay. And each sub-heading seems clear to me. Though I couldn’t catch some details at the same time, I was succeeded in grasping the emphases of the lecture.

Overview of the first week

We have two classes every. First one is language workshop taught by Robin (a very humorous gentleman), and the class is mainly focus on our oral language and grammar. In the previous week, we learnt using modal verb to express our speculation systematically, and also to support an argument. Such useful sentence like:
·sb might/ought to/have to do sth
·it is surely/certainly/definitely/undoubtedly/realistically that
·sb tends /has a tendency to do
The other class is aimed to teach us how to get with the study in Britain, and also about self-study and essay writing. Our tutor Susannah is very nice and patient to us. She scans our blog to check our self-study. Thorough this week, we gain an over view of an essay. Susannah also provide many ways to gather information for of an essay.

first week in london

Well,time flies. I have already finish my first week in the language course. I made many new friends during the study. Although i cann't pronunce their names correctly sometimes. But it doesn't matter. Gerendally, my first week is nice.

But in the other, I also met some problems. Unfortunately, i was given a visa of only 3 month, and it will expire on 31/10/08. Therefore I have to renew it. So at the period many difficulties appears, such as opening a bank account. Most banks need a visa of 6 months. But the student service said they won't give me the certification which i need to renew the visa until I finish the language course. Oh, my god!!! Finally, I apply an account in Abbey. Hope it will be successful. Otherwise my cash will run up.