End of Semester Holiday Extravaganza!

We are now in the midst of what is commonly called "the Holiday Season" in the U.S. There are several winter holidays celebrated during the months of December and January including Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and New Year's. 

During today's class, we will spend some time talking about each of these celebrations, sharing information about traditional celebrations associated with holidays in the U.S. and Russia and enjoying some fun activities and holiday music! I've included the activity links below. 

Class Links

I. Warm-Up

How are you? How are things? What's new? How was your weekend? What's going on this week? Are you busy? Are you looking forward to the holidays? What will you do? Do you have any questions for me? 

II. Holiday Potluck

Let's enjoy some food during today's class :) Be sure to thank your classmates that were generous enough to bring something to share! 

III. White Elephant Gift Exchange

In order to decide who will go first, we will have a short, improvised "Spelling Bee". In groups of three, you will have 30 seconds to correctly spell the word. The winners will move on. The losers will not. WHO WILL WIN (and get to pick the first gift?!)

IV. Games! 

I hope we can enjoy the last day of class together with a few games including: 

1. Categories (here)
2. Find Someone Who... (here)
3. Hangman 

V. Resources

I hope this is not the end of our time together! I've really enjoyed working with all of you! You've really been one of my all time favorite classes to work with! But, just in case our paths do not cross again, I wanted to leave you with a few links to resources you can consult in the future. They include: 

1. The American Center - Moscow
2. American English
3. "Shaping the Way We Teach English" Webinar Series
4. Conversation Club/Reading Group (for next semester)

VI. Holiday Activities

If there is some extra time, we can do one or two or the following activities. I was thinking that numbers 1, 3 and 13 would be fun! 

1. Holiday Discussion Questions
2. Winter Holiday Presentation 
3. Holiday Bingo
4. Holiday Vocabulary
5. New Year's Reading
6. Christmas Reading
7. "Twas the Night Before Christmas" Video
8. The History of New Year's Video
9. The History of New Year's Discussion Questions
10. "The Gift of the Magi" (short story by O. Henry)
11. "The Gift of the Magi" Discussion Questions
12. "The Gift of the Magi" video interpretation
13. New Year's Resolutions
14. Holiday Music

VII. Final Comments & Certificates

That's it (for now) my friends! Thank you for the opportunity to get to know and work with each one of you. As I mentioned earlier, working with you has been a very positive experience (one of my best). I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors. Please stay in touch (via email or in person). I sincerely hope we'll get the chance to work together next semester! 

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

We're almost at the end and that means I would like to take some time to look back... kind of ironic, I know. You have all proven yourself to be effective communicators in both written and spoken English. Today's class is designed to help you to further increase your accuracy in written communication in English. To do this, we will focus on a common issues that I have noticed popping up repeatedly over the course of the last two months. Hopefully, you'll find this review useful! An outline for today's class can be found below.

Reflection & Focus on Accuracy

Objectives: Students will be able to...

1. explain the importance of accuracy in written communication
2. engage in some focused practice designed to improve their writing skills in three target areas
3. explain the importance of reflection to the writing/learning process
4. engage in personal reflection about their writing and any growth they've noticed in their writing over the course of this semester

I. Warm-Up 

How are you? How is everything going? Did you have a nice weekend? How are your other classes going? Are you excited for the end of the semester?!

II. Final Vocabulary Quiz

I hope you're ready (insert evil laugh). But wait, there's a surprise...

III. Homework Review

Let's take a look at the homework you did on "Critical Thinking"

IV. Focus on Accuracy Workshop 

Much of our work these last two months has been focused on developing proficiency. I've wanted you to write as much as possible so I could give you some feedback and you could get used to producing a lot of different writing in preparation for the CAE exam (hopefully, you will also be able to apply some of what we've talked about to your other writing, too). 

Today, we are going to do some more work focused on developing accuracy. Based on the writing you've done, I want to focus on the following areas: 

1. Consistently Formal Tone
2. Promoting Cohesion in Your Writing 
3. Identifying Countable/Uncountable Nouns 
4. Proper Article Use

We'll be using this series of activities. If there is extra time, we will focus on these activities for promoting cohesion in your writing.

Homework for Next Monday (Our Last Class :(   )

Course Reflection Assignment: Your final writing assignment is a comprehensive reflection essay designed to help you engage in some critical introspection about the topics we've covered this semester and the ways you've grown as a writer. 

Get Your "White Elephant" Gift: We're going to do a small gift exchange called "White Elephant". The directions can be found here. Participation is optional, but if you want to participate, you need to bring a small gift. The gift can be 1). something you make, 2). something you already own and want to "re-gift" or something you buy (no more than 200 RUB). Here is a short video overview of how to play! 

Sign-up to Bring Something for the Potluck: You can do that here. 

Critical Thinking

The ancient greek philosopher Socrates is quoted as saying, "the unexamined life is not worth living". What does that statement mean? You will have a chance to decipher the enigma as part of this week's discussion post. This week, we will be discussing the importance of critical thinking (in general, as part of communication and in writing). An outline for today's class can be found below.

Critical Thinking

Objectives: Students will be able to...

1. Provide a general definition of the term"critical thinking"
2. Explain and exemplify various terms associated with critical thinking
3. Explain the importance of thinking critically
4. Develop a strategy for improving their critical thinking skills

I. Warm-Up

How are you? How are things? How was your weekend? What's new? How are your other classes? Are you getting excited for the end of the semester? Any plans? Any questions from this class? 

II. Vocabulary Quiz

Any questions? Speak now or forever hold your peace! 

III. Critical Thinking Discussion

Using the almighty GROUP RANDOMIZER you will be divided into groups of three. Once in your groups, you will be tasked with discussing the questions about critical thinking found here. After, we will discuss these ideas with a PowerPoint presentation. 

IV. Critical Thinking Reading

Now, let's explore the concept a little deeper. We will do this using a "jig-saw" reading activity. The steps for the activity are as follows...

Step One: You will be given a number between 1-3. Based on your number, you will read one section of an article on critical thinking. The sections can be found below: 

1. Critical Thinking Reading - Part One
2. Critical Thinking Reading - Part Two
3. Critical Thinking Reading - Part Three

Step Two: You will get into groups of five (everyone with the same number) and discuss what you consider to be the major points of your section using this organizer.

Step Three: Now you will get into groups of three with one '1', one '2' and one '3'. Each 'topic expert' will present the major points of his/her section to the other group members who will take notes. 

Step Four: Finally, you will get into new groups of three and come up with answers to the comprehension questions found here. Once everyone has finished, we will discuss the answers as a class. 

V. Critical Thinking Practice

 Depending on how much time we have left, here are a few (short) activities designed to help develop your critical thinking skills.

1. Fact or Opinion?
2. Logical Fallacies: Missing Premise and Hasty Generalizations (practice)

Homework

1). Writing a Letter: The writing assignment for this week is a letter. I think the concept of a letter should be pretty familiar to you all by now. Just in case it is not, I have attached an example. There are also some critical thinking questions about how question to approach this assignment. You need to answer these questions as well. Please submit your work by Friday, December 12th, 2014 at 11:55pm. 

2). Discussion Post: There is a new discussion posting related to critical thinking due by Friday, December 12th, 2014 at 11:55pm. 

3). Final Vocabulary Quiz of 2014!!!! Oh my goodness! The last quiz! But there's a catch! It's cumulative! So you better start studying now!!! The word list can be found here (among other places). 

4). Sign-up for the "Holiday Potluck" (last day of class) here. 

Color Test Results

Below I've included pictures of your color test masterpieces. Do you remember which picture belongs to which group? Can you tell by looking at the artistic representations of each "color"? While I do agree with the comments made in class about no person being all one color, it was interesting to watch various elements of your primary colors manifest themselves during our class!