Todays Plan PostGrad Spoken English

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Todays Plan Post-Grad Spoken English
200 Welcome and Teacher Introduction (slides
2-5) Spot-Check Student Introductions 230
Course Objectives and Quotes on Speaking 250
Break 300 Textbook Oral Workshop Argument
lesson 1 quotes on TV 312 Discussion groups
and TV Boon or Bane? Questions 340 Group
feedback 345 Homework Be prepared for giving
an impromptu response to the impromptu topics 13
topics of interest on 13 pieces of paper
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Introductions Teacher Steve Watson

• My name is Stephen Watson. I will be your teacher
  and guide for Spoken and Written English.
• I come from Canada, but have lived for extended
  periods of time in East Africa, southern India,
  Israel, Japan, South Korea, USA, and China.
• I have studied or gained varying levels of
  fluency in the following languages French,
  German, Latin (middle and high school) French
  (university) Swahili (while in East Africa)
  Tamil (while in India) Korean (in South Korea)
  and Mandarin.
• When I am not busy travelling or teaching myself
  a new skill, I teach. I have been a teacher of
  mathematics, computer science, physics, biology,
  art, elementary music, special education, and
  English language.

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Introductions Teacher Steve

• I have written two books (teacher and student)
  for a simplified approach to learn English. They
  may be published soon. They are online at my
  current website http//twohandsapproach.org
  (viewable if you have Adobe Reader). I am
  currently working on the word part of the
  approach - series of parallel databases that
  contain words and matching phrases and short
  sentences and present them in a multimedia
  format.

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twohandsapproach.org
http//

• This is my current main site. Here you will find
  .pdf copies of my two books teacher and
  student. The aim of the books and the approach is
  to simplify the essentials of English, and as
  well to focus on the fundamental unit of
  communication the sentence. There is also the
  beginning of a database of sentences. These are
  real examples of the 11 sentence forms that have
  been identified.

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knut.kumoh.ac.kr/stevekorea
http//

• Here is the website I worked on for five years
  when I was teaching from 1998 to 2002 at Kumoh
  National University of Technology in Kumi, South
  Korea. Many links are still valid. Go to the site
  map, and you can find lots of interesting links.

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(No Transcript)
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Course Objectives

• To dialogue better with others about fundamental
  human ideas and issues.
• To increase your English thinking skills to
  read, write and speak English with increased
  analytic clarity and cogency.
• To help develop oral communicative competence.
• To develop skills of team-building and
  leadership.
• To gain an expanded appreciation of what is
  signifcant about human life in past, present,
  and future, and the importance of culture.
• To do some thinking about language in general,
  and about the mysteries and polarities of
  languages.
• To improve your skills and increase your
  confidence in talking to large groups.

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On Conversation (1)

• Conversation is a meeting of minds with different
  memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't
  just exchange facts they transform them, reshape
  them, draw different implications from them,
  engage in new trains of thought. Conversation
  doesn't just reshuffle the cards it creates new
  cards.
• Theodore Zeldin
• www.brainyquote.com accessed on 2003.05.01

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On Conversation (2A)

• All of this is by way of coming around to the
  somewhat paradoxical observation that we speak
  with remarkable laxness and imprecision and yet
  manage to express ourselves with wondrous
  subtlety - and simply breathtaking speed. In
  normal conversation we speak at a rate of about
  300 syllables a minute. To do this we force air
  up through the larnyx - or supralaryngeal vocal
  tract, to be technical about it - and, by
  variously pursing our lips and flapping our
  tongue around in our mouth rather in the manner
  of a freshly landed fish, we shape each passing
  puff of air into a series of loosely
  differentiated plosives, fricatives, gutturals,
  and other minor atmospheric disturbances. People
  don't talk like this, theytalklikethis.
  Syllables, words, sentences run together like a
  watercolour left in the rain.

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On Conversation (2B)

• ...(cont'd)
• To understand what anyone is saying to us we must
  separate these noises into words and the words
  into sentences so that we might in our turn issue
  a stream of mixed sounds in response. If what we
  say is suitably apt and amusing, the listener
  will show his delight, accompanied by sharp
  intakes of breath of the sort normally associated
  with a seizure or heart failure. And by these
  means we converse. Talking, when you think about
  it, is a very strange business indeed.
• Bill Bryson
• from p.83 Mother Tongue The English Language,
  Penguin, 1991 ed.

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On Speech (1)

• It is not armlets that adorn a man,
• nor necklaces all cramped
• with moon bright pearls,
• nor baths, nor ointments,
• nor arranged curls.
• Tis art of excellent speech that only adorn him
• Jewels perish, garlands fade,
• this only abides
• and glittery undecayed.
• from the original Sanskrit (Nitishatakam, 19),
  translated by Sri Aurobindo

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On Conversation (3)

• At its heart this book is about conversation --
  the most basic, most varied, and occasionally the
  most elevating of all human activities. Of
  course, the ability to converse is not unique to
  humans -- chimpanzees do it, dolphins do it, even
  parakeets and poodles manage to make themselves
  understood by one another. But humans have made
  conversation the defining experience of our
  social identities. Conversation is the sea we
  swim in. Conversation is the way we convey
  information, inspire each other, and achieve
  understanding. Conversation is the way we display
  our prowess, knowledge, and refinement.
  Conversation is the way we challenge, amuse, and
  amaze each other. Conversation is the music we
  make when we commune. But not all conversation is
  created equal. Some talk, though right and
  proper, is small. Cocktail chitchat, locker- room
  bravado, office gossip, and talk show repartee
  come to mind.
• Jaida n'ha Sandra
• Introduction (in The Joy of Conversation - A
  Complete Guide to Salons) http//cafe.utne.com/bo
  oks/ salonsintro.html accessed on 2003.12.28

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Discussion Quotes on Television

• Quotes about Television
• Television is altering the meaning of 'being
  informed' by creating a species of information
  that might properly be called disinformation...
  Disinformation does not mean false information.
  It means misleading information misplaced,
  irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information
  information that creates the illusion of
  knowing something, but which in fact leads one
  away from knowing.
  Neil Postman
• 2. People have romantic notions about
  television. In the highest realms they think it's
  some sort of art medium, and it's not. Others
  think it's an entertainment medium, it's not that
  either. It's an advertising medium. It's a method
  to deliver advertising, like a cigarette is a
  method to deliver nicotine.
• Bill Maher from en.thinkexist.com

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Another Quote about Television

• In just half a century, television has covered
  the planet. More than 2.5 billion people watch TV
  on more than 750 million TV sets, in more than
  150 countries. For every child born in the world,
  a television set is manufactured a quarter of a
  million every day. Surprisingly, more people have
  access to television than telephones. And there
  are more than sixty thousand transmitters either
  on the earths surface or in orbit over our
  heads. Because of all this activity, the earth
  actually gives off more energy at certain low
  frequencies than the sun does.
• -adapted from Michael Winship, Television

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Unit 1 Television Boon or Bane?

• How did you spend your weekend?
• Talk about your daily or weekend
  television-viewing habits.
• Is too much TV detrimental or bad?
• Does aggression on TV and in movies carry over
  into real life?
• Do you have a love or a hate relationship with
  your TV?

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Unit 1 Television Boon or Bane? (2)

• How much international coverage is shown on
  American, Canadian, Chinese, ... TV?
• Do you watch only Chinese TV?
• What stations do you prefer to watch.
• Do you like to click'n'surf?
• Does watching TV replace conversation with your
  friends?
• What frustrates you about TV? What impresses you?

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More on TV

• Do you like any ads? Or do you dislike them?
  (Without ads, there would be TV).
• What type of programs do you like to watch
  comedy sitcom, reality TV, action sitcom, news,
  sports, music, documentary, comedy special,
  national holiday special,?
• If you could change TV, how would you change it?

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Impromptu Discussion Topics

• A1 The steps in writing a good article how to
  maintain good teeth and gums modern day aches
  and pains
• A4 a chemical process a problem in biology the
  most pressing environmental problem of the day
  maximizing the benefit from using computers the
  increasing use of light in technology