Discussion / Ethnic ghettos

Emigration is not always a choice. Some people have to escape from their country because of war, natural disasters or many other reasons. For these persons, the obligation to move to another country is already hard, but if they have to abandon their language, their culture and their background too, it would be really difficult to adapt for them and they will be forced to live a completely new life.

For this reason, I think that migrants should be allowed to conserve their own language and to create  communities in which their culture can be "rebuild" and where they can feel like "at home".

By allowing this, the host countries would help the migrants to adapt easier. But efforts should not come only from one side, migrants should also respect the new "home-countries" and their cultures. And, in my opinion, one form of respect is to learn the local language. What ever the reason was to migrate, the immigrants still are in a foreigner country, for this reason they have to adapt to it and not just continue to live their previous lives without paying attention to the people by which they are surrounded.

In conclusion, migrants should be able to conserve their languages and cultures but they also have to make some efforts to integrate in the new country.

Some tips for online learning!

Behind the news: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/
This website is good to improve the listening skills and at the same time hear at some interressting news.

BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
This is a similar website but the level is a bit higher and the news more detailed.

http://www.learn-english-online.org/
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/
These websites show the basis of the English language such as the grammar, preposition and spelling. They are not really to improve Academic skills and still simple but it can help to check some basic rules when sometimes we have a memory gap.

RMIT University: https://my.rmit.edu.au/portal/page/portal/RMITPortal/Home/Studies
Probably everybody know this site but I write it because I think it is a good website to improve every skills and the exercises are similar to the requirements in the exams.

http://www.canadavisa.com/ielts/free-practice-tests.html
This site focus on the IELTS test but they are some listening and reading exercises which can be useful to prepare the exams.

Good luck everybody!

Discussion / English language and culture

I think we all agree that the English language became an important aspect in nearly every country and my home country is not an exception. Actually I can talk about two countries, Germany and France, because I grow up in both. In France, most people, especially the old ones, want to ignore the english language and culture. They think that French, "the language of the humans rights" is the best one and that they don't need to learn English. Most are really patriotic and also focus on their own culture. But now the new generation changed, young people think it is "cool" to know some english words and american culture and more and more people admit that English became an important language and can have some advantages, especially in work opportunities . It is similar to young people in Germany. But I have to admit, Germans are, in my opinion, more open minded and accept more easily the growth of the English language.

To summarise, even if some countries don't accept the "English Impact", it is very hard to ignore it and the American culture has big impacts in nearly all countries, even in France.

Discussion / Keeping languages alive

I believe that it is important to keep languages "alive". A lingua franca is a useful and convenient way to improve trade and relationships between different countries, but this global language should not replace the local language because the disapearance of a language has also an effect on the related culture and as a result, on the diversity of our planet.

In France, where I lived before coming to Australia, the government realized the "danger" of English for their native language. So they decided to come up with some strategies to keep their language pure. Some of their strategies was, for example to create a new law which forbid the use of english, translate all english documents and movies and create new french expressions to replace the english ones. 

Some of these strategies are useful, but I think it is not necessary to "over-react" and translate everything. For instance, some English documents and specially the movies can continue to be in English. One additional strategy can be to focus on the education of the "french pure" language.

To summarise, keep local languages alive is the key for our diversified planet. Consequently, some  strategies are required to avoid that English erase other languages, and I agree with some of the French ones. 

Reflections of week 3

During this week we didn't do so much practice because of the Melbourne Cup day, on which we didn't have class ( :D ), and the exam day.

On Monday, we did a listening practice in the morning and a writing exam practice in the afternoon. On wednesday we had our writing exam, in the morning we discussed the article in groups and the afternoon we had 1h30 individually to write a 500 words critical essay on this same article. I had a lot of ideas about the article but it was difficult to connect all my ideas correctly. I also didn't have time to check my essay and look at grammar or spelling mistakes. I am waiting for the results now...

In the end of the week, we learned how to write a critical response for two article. The structure is really different and I think the time will be really short during the exam to write about 8 paragraphs. But practice will probably help and I will begin right now with our homework Yiahh

Reflections of week one and two

During these two weeks we did a lot of practice in every skills.

The first week the teachers explained everything to us, like the differences between E6 and E7, gave us the time table for the next five weeks and introduced the oral presentation to us.
In these days we learned to think critically, we did a lot of reading practice, listening and learned to take notes.
E7 is quite different to the previous module, we have more homeworks and we need to learn more independent. In contrast to E6 where we just had to understand the meaning and main points of the articles, in this module we have to give our personnal opinion and analyse it. It is similar to what they asked us to do in my high school in France. It is interessting to see the similarities and the differences between English and French essays.

In week two we did some listening again and we focused more on our oral presentations. We had to choose our topics, the focus and the aims. Now that our teatchers approved it, we will start to do some researches.
We also continued to work on critical analyses in class and learned the structure of a critical essay.

I think I will work more on writing than on the other skills because this part changed a lot compared to E6. I have to learn the structure and the main points I have to discuss in my essay, like the tone, the logic, the evidences, analyse the arguments, find the premise and know if the article might be biased or not.

My goals and strategies for E7

   1.     Writing
> write more academic english

• read some academic articles and write the specific vocabulary down.
• read the new vocabulary every night
• make a list of the most academic used expressions

> avoid the small grammar and spelling errors

• write the wrong written words 20 times
• read some pages in the grammar book every day
• do some online grammar exercises

    2.     Reading

> understand more vocabulary to better understand the real meaning / details

• read more english books
• look up the vocabulary in the dictionary which I don't understand
• learn vocabulary from my notebook

> improve my skimmimg

• read with timming
• try to underline the main points and ignore the details
• focus on the asked questions

   3.    Speaking

> being more confident in front of an audiance

• do some exercise / practice in front of my family/friends
• good prepar my topic to feel well informed and being able to answer the questions
• use a good structure to permit the audiance to follow me

> speak more fluently

• speak as often as i can with english native speakers
• avoid grammar errors and structures mistakes
• listen to lectures and repeat them

  4.    Listening

>  stay concentrate during the whole lecture or extract

• practice at home in a quite room
• listen to news every day to improve my listening
• listen to conversations between two english speakers, even if I don't understand all

>   take good notes, try to get the most informations

• learn all the abreviations and symboles
• not writre whole sentences
• practice with listening packages, listen again with my notes and look what is missing