Advanced Language course 
last update: Friday, July 1, 2011

required level: ESL/English Literacy -   beginner and intermediate.

For our advanced course, we offer grammar revisions, exercises in reading, writing, transcribing, comprehension, - we have adapted archive material to provide a template for those weekly exercises. Each chapter takes about 3 hours per week to study - do not work more than 3 hours per week on one chapter (if you haven't finished, you can come back later). It is very important that you do each chapter. When you are finished with this, take a break and come back later to revisit and revise.

the full course should be completed in 3-4 months.

TTS Voice reading software -  provided by IM Translator)  speed settings " - -"  for English

TTS does not replace solid bases in pronunciation but should be of help for reading longer texts and further develop an ear for language.

Our documents on here were written with the Open Office Suite - which we recommend.

OpenOffice.org is both a product and an open-source project. Both have been in existence since October 13, 2000. OpenOffice.org 1.0, the product, was released on April 30, 2002.

OpenOffice.org's Mission Statement is...

To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.

The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Oracle, which is the primary contributor of code to the Project. Our other corporate contributors include Novell, RedHat, RedFlag CH2000, and IBM. Additionally over 450,000 people from nearly every curve of the globe have joined this Project with the idea of creating the best possible office suite that all can use. This is the essence of an "open source." community!

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Language Projects

It is very important that you take about 30mn at the beginning of each lesson to revise the grammar section (from the beginner, intermediate and advanced sections). 

1-GRAMMAR

Definition of communication

1) notion of abstraction

2) articles

3) verb 

4) tips: adapted from: Marcia Yudkin - Writing articles about the world around you.

02 -  EXPERIMENTAL TRAVEL PICTURE DICTIONARY

in six languages that I have been working on for the past 18 months or so. It's a cross between Richard Scarry and Robert Capa and free to download as a PDF file. I found it handy, when travelled to the Irish Gaeltacht, Spain and the Czech Republic.  Languages are: English, French, German, Spanish, Czech, Irish. The pics are a mixture between my own photographs, scrapbook illustrations and there are a few drawings by Stephen Cartwright. The images by Stephen Cartwright are in the process of being replaced by our own. Enjoy.
[ www.scribd.com]

writing a travel journal / writing travel-related articles by e-how

03 - Correspondence

This exercise aims at practising using templates and adapting them, social skills and basic formal communication.

Part 1: transactions

exercises: write letters or email with help of the templates.

Template for letter/ enquiry/ acknowledgement of receipt/ purchase/ dispatch letter/ invoice/ payment/ receipt/ complaint/ request / mailing / newsletter/ thank-you note / template for invoice / template for expense sheet

Part 2: social occasions

Request for an appointment/greetings/birthday cards/invitations/ congratulations/ reference letter / asking for permission / cancellation/postponement/ refusal / letter of welcome / postcards

04-TRANSCRIBING AN AUDIOFILE

exercise: transcribing a speech from an audio file. This is an exercise to train comprehension, spelling and punctuation.

05-ANSWERING QUESTIONS, RESEARCH, TRANSLATION

This exercise is aimed at practising sentence structures, research and translation. There is no need to learn the answers by heart, but it is very important to know how to find and express those. The easiest way is to practise your sentence structure is to convert the question form into an affirmative form and then translate the answer into the language you are learning. There are many ways and as long as the answer is factually and grammatically correct, you are fine. This is a page that we shall update occasionally, so if you find this way of practising the written language entertaining you can come back for more.

06-REPORT

exercise: writing a report from an event, a debate, a TV programme. (being in an audience, taking notes or working from a recorded document, additional research, transcription) 

07- PERFORMING (text and audio)

exercise: Performing a text. The TTS software is able to help you pronounce words, and the dictionary will explain words to you however, you need to breathe life into a text, give it meaning, flow and heart - try performing the poems or listen to the performances in the videos.

from "Poetry in the Making" by Ted Hughes
Die Dinge Singen hör ich so gern - Rainer Maria Rilke (+audio)
The Streets of Laredo - Louis McNiece (audio)
Untitled Sonnet - Mairtin Crawford
Bei Dao - translated by Wolfgang Kubin in German
Zweierlei Vögel - Nicolaus Lenau (in German)
Ted Hughes reads from "Crows" (audio)
Le Corbeau et le Renard - Jean de La Fontaine
The Nameless Ones - Mogg Williams
The Mail - W.H. Auden (audio)
Matricce - Jan Neruda (in Czech)
La Boheme - Michael Stavaric (in German)
Simon Armitage reads The Christening
Stealing - Carol Ann Duffy; (+ audio)
It's Never too Late - Kenneth Williams
Die Dinge Singen hör ich so gern (Rilke) performed by Xavier Naidoo and the Rilke Project (in German)
Andaluces de Jaen - Miguel Hernandez (in Spanish)
Caislan Oir - Clannad (in Irish)
Non, l'amour n'est pas mort - Robert Desnos (in French)

08-ESSAY

- The students may try to write one of their own using some of our guidelines. This exercise aims at reading, /research, structuring ideas and  writing sentences, 

09-WRITING A CV OR A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

exercises - writing a CV and a short biography - template for CV, template for short biography. This exercise aims at practising social skills by getting to know oneself or the person you are writing about, as well, as presenting a document to a prospective employer.

10- WRITING A REVIEW

exercises - watching a foreign language film, writing a review - reviewing a book, a piece of music or a concert, and reviewing artwork.  Including specialised vocabulary.

9 - PROVERBS

exercise: cultural - browse, read and maybe learn some popular wisdoms and compare them. 

proverbs sourced from Wegweiser fuer Alle Lebenslagen plus various dictionaries.

10 - WRITING STORIES

exercise: writing stories, finding your writing style

"Put one word after the other" originally published by The Guardian Review (February 2010) with quotes by Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Galman, David Hare, PD James, Andrew Motion, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Zadie Smith, Colm Toibin, Rose Tremain, Sarah Waters, Jeannette Winterston. - Plus some photos from the internet.

"copyright applies where stated" "for educational purposes only"

c) DKav/zebras54 2002-2011