THEN 18
English
Mikael Svensson
Intro meeting
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General course information
Roll call
Exercise: Correct or incorrect language
Exercise: Text types
Aims
Communicate effectively in English
• Academically
• Professionally
Improve your communicative skills
• Written
• Spoken
Aims
Improve your language awareness
• Vocabulary
• Sentence structure
• Style
• Text types and text structure
• Communicative function
• Recognizing your strengths and weaknesses
Methods
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Reading and preparing texts
Practical exercises in class
Feedback on written and spoken assignments
Peer response
Self assessment
Course work
Active participation
Oral assignments
• Prepare and give presentations
• Prepare, present and argue a case in a debate
• Evaluate your own and others performance
Course work
Written assignments
• Argumentative essay
• Group report
• Summary of an English article in English
• Summary of a Swedish article in English
• Formal letter
• Review of A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
Written exam
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Summary
Reading comprehension
Vocabulary
Proofreading
Formal letter
Grades
• Course work 3/4/5
• Written exam 3/4/5
Combined into a course grade 3/4/5
Literature
• Bryson, Bill. 2004. A short history of nearly
everything.
• English Compendium THEN18, to be sold in
the A-building entrance 19C. All texts and
exercises will also be available through the
home page
THEN18 – HT13 period one
week 36
Introduction
week 37
Lesson one
Introduction, correct or incorrect sentences, text types and style
“Engineers test highly accurate face recognition” + study questions and
vocabulary, paragraph writing,
Assignment: Paragraph writing
Lesson two
week 38
Lesson three
“Outdated airport security” + study questions and vocabulary, Subjectverb agreement, Tools of the trade
“Big Ben – Big Brother” / “Legal confusion on internet privacy”, essay
structure, punctuation
Assignment: Essay on security and privacy
Lesson four
“What if” + study questions and vocabulary, Tenses and conditionals
week 39
Lesson five
Pronunciation and word stress, presentation techniques
Hand in: Essay on security and privacy
Assignment: Form a group and select an article and prepare a short
presentation
Lesson six
week 40
Lesson seven
Bring your own article + short group presentation
Assignment: Report and group presentation
“The great transformer” + study questions, Report writing, Statistics and
graphs
Lesson eight
“The responsible company” + Connectives, numbers and dates
week 41
Lesson nine
“Social games, virtual goods” + questions, Definitions, Referencing
Lesson ten
“The measure of things” – Chapter 4 in A short history of nearly
everything, + work sheet
week 42
Lesson eleven
Group presentations
Hand in: Report
Complaints about technical writing
(MacIntosh 1967)
1.
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12.
13.
Generally foggy language
Inadequate general vocabulary
Failure to connect information to point at issue
Wordiness
Lack of stressing important points
Too much “engineering gobbledygook”
Poor overall organization
No continuity
Poor grammar
Poor punctuation
No sense of tone for circumstances
Poor adaption of form to purpose
Almost meaningless introduction
Correct or incorrect language
1.
Today pneumatic tyres are fitted to practically all road vehicles, originally
they were developed for use on bicycles.
2.
The recent development of breeder reactors are completely changing
the economics of ore extraction and are boosting the known reserves of
nuclear energy very considerably.
3.
The minister agreed in principle to a new urban public transport system
development plan.
4.
There were yellow lines down all the streets and the car parks were full,
so I couldn’t find nowhere to park.
5.
The cause of the delay in laying the foundations was due to exceptionally
heavy rain that was flooding the area.
Sentence 1
Today pneumatic tyres are fitted to practically all road
vehicles, originally they were developed for use on bicycles.
Today pneumatic tyres are fitted to practically all road
vehicles. Originally they were developed for use on bicycles.
Today pneumatic tyres are fitted to practically all road
vehicles; originally they were developed for use on bicycles.
Today pneumatic tyres are fitted to practically all road
vehicles, but originally they were developed for use on
bicycles.
Sentence 2
The recent development of breeder reactors are
completely changing the economics of ore
extraction and are boosting the known reserves
of nuclear energy very considerably.
The recent development of breeder reactors is
completely changing the economics of ore
extraction and is boosting the known reserves of
nuclear energy very considerably.
Sentence 3
The minister agreed in principle to a new urban
public transport system development plan.
The minister agreed in principle to a new
development plan for a public transport system
in the city.
Sentence 4
There were yellow lines down all the streets and
the car parks were full, so I couldn’t find nowhere
to park.
There were yellow lines down all the streets and
the car parks were full, so I could not find anywhere
to park.
There were yellow lines down all the streets and
the car parks were full, so I found nowhere to park.
Sentence 5
The cause of the delay in laying the foundations was
due to exceptionally heavy rain that was flooding
the area.
The delay in laying the foundations was due to
exceptionally heavy rain flooding the area.
The cause of the delay in laying the foundations was
the exceptionally heavy rain flooding the area.
Model of communication
Sender:
Who is
speaking or
writing?
What is the
purpose?
Message:
What is
being said?
In what way
is it being
said?
Medium:
How is the
message
sent?
Context:
In what situation is the
message communicated?
Where and when is the
message received?
Receiver:
Who is
listening or
reading?
Text types and styles
• What is the communicative purpose?
• Who is the audience?
• What is the medium?
• What is the context/situation?
• How do the answers to the above questions
affect the language that is used to communicate?
Text 1
?4U. Who 8 my pizza? CYAL8R. <3
Text 2
Ruth Milkman, Chief
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20544
Re:
AT&T Response to Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Letter, DA 09-1737 (July 31, 2009);
RM-11361; RM-11497
Dear Ms. Milkman:
On behalf of AT&T, I am writing in response to the Bureau’s July 31, 2009 letter, which
asks a series of questions about Google Voice and the Apple iPhone in order to inform
Commission policymaking in certain pending proceedings. As discussed below, AT&T
had no role in any decision by Apple to not accept the Google Voice application for
inclusion in the Apple App Store. AT&T was not asked about the matter by Apple at any
time, nor did it offer any view one way or the other.
Text 3
In these rotten economic times, putting in long hours has become a
popular strategy for boosting job security. And that's really too bad.
If you rabidly focus on work, in the long run, you'll be unhappy. Ran
Kivetz, a professor of business at Columbia University, recently
conducted a series of experiments that identified a paradox in our
behavior: Doing the "right" thing—putting our responsibilities ahead of
momentary pleasures—often leaves us unhappy down the road. When
we skip a vacation to work overtime or pass up that awesome vintage
Porsche for a used minivan—sure, we pat ourselves on the back for a
week or two. But as the years go by, we invariably regret our
monkishness and wish we'd enjoyed ourselves more.
The word for this is hyperopia: an excess of farsightedness[...]
Text 4
Many purchase and consumption decisions involve an intrapersonal
struggle between consumers’ righteous, prudent side and their
indulgent, pleasure-seeking side. Whereas purchasing and consuming
utilitarian necessities and virtues (e.g., a practical car, a healthful food
item) is considered responsible and farsighted, yielding to hedonic
temptations (e.g., buying a luxurious car, eating a chocolate cake) is
viewed as impulsive and wasteful. The perceived precedence of virtue
and necessity over vice and luxury is at least as old as ancient Greek
civilization (Plato and Aristotle argue that reason should rule appetitive
and passionate elements). [...]
Recent research challenges this approach and suggests that consumers
often suffer from a reverse self-control problem—namely, excessive
farsightedness and overcontrol, or “hyperopia.” Hyperopic consumers
overemphasize virtue and necessity at the expense of indulgence and
luxury[...]