Modern Language II: English CA3 Fighting for Survival OVERVIEW Part I: October 31 November 2 Part II: November 2-10 - Part III: November 11–16 - Part IV: November 15-21 - Study the materials in the unit “Fighting for Survival”. Make initial decisions with your team in your Group Work Space. Write your contribution to your Group Wiki. Correct the wiki text with the other members of your team (1st draft). Wait for your teacher to highlight the text and then do the second correction of the text (2nd draft). Post your wiki text in the Forum. Read and comment on classmates’ contributions in the Forum. Do a speaking activity in Skype with the other members of your team (see note below). Listen to other groups’ Skype conversations. Reading Comprehension Exercise. Note: The Skype speaking activity appears above in Part III, but teams may do this task at any time between November 11th and November 19th. OBJECTIVES • • • • • • • • Read an article about survival in the Antarctic. Listen to conversations about survival on a desert island. Study and practise the expressions It’s time, I’d rather, in case, unless, provided, and as long as. Study words and expressions related to giving advice. Study vocabulary related to survival. Have a group discussion with your team-mates on Skype. Write about survival tips for people in a new situation. Practise reading comprehension. EVALUATION Group mark 40% Group Wiki collaborative text Individual marks 40% Skype speaking activity 20% Reading Comprehension Exercise Part I: October 31st – November 2nd CA3 corresponds to “Fighting for Survival”, which is about endurance in difficult situations. You should work through all the exercises so that you can learn the vocabulary needed, revise grammar and read about the topic. 1 Part II: November 2nd –10th 1. Make initial decisions with the other members of your team. A. Select a spokesperson for this CA activity, preferably someone who was not the spokesperson in the last CA. This person will be responsible for: ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ Writing to the CA3_Survival folder in the Forum to inform the rest of the class of the topic chosen by the team (see below). Please note that teams should avoid topics which have already been chosen by another group. Opening a new page in the group wiki. Informing the teacher when the first draft in the wiki is ready for him/her to check (see step 2 below). Sharing the team’s finalized wiki text with the rest of the class. B. As a team, decide on a topic for a wiki text based on the following: (You should do this in your Group Work Space) Survival in a new situation can be a challenge. Your team should select one of the situations from the list below or make one up of your own. In this part of the activity, your team will need to prepare a text in the wiki with specific advice for people in the chosen situation. How to survive the first 100 days… - of marriage. of a (romantic) relationship. of parenthood. in a new job. of a new boss. in a new home. in a new city. as a student of Modern Language II. as a foreign student in this country. another idea??? Please note that the tone of your writing may be serious, semi-serious, or humorous. C. Inform the rest of the class when you have decided on a topic, the spokesperson should write to the CA3_Survival folder in the Forum and let the rest of the class know which topic they have selected. Remember that teams should avoid topics which have already been chosen by another group. D. In your team decide which aspects of the topic each of you will write about. Use the Forum space in your Group Work Space for this discussion. 2. Prepare the team wiki document. A. Based on the decisions taken by the team in step 1 above, you should write your contribution in the Group wiki space. Each student should write between 150 and 200 words. B. Once all members have added their text, as a group you will need to edit the text so that the various members’ sections fit together as a coherent whole. You should also correct any spelling, vocabulary or grammatical mistakes. You 2 should follow the same procedure used in CA2 to work together as a group (remember to check the document about group editing that the teacher sent to the Notice Board). C. When the first draft of your wiki is ready, the spokesperson should inform the teacher, who will then look at your document and highlight (but not correct) your errors for you. D. As a team, correct the errors highlighted by your teacher. Remember that you will receive a group mark for the process of writing, editing and correcting your text. E. When you all agree that the final version is ready, the spokesperson should post the text in the Forum in the CA3_survival folder. Part III: November 11th – 16th Read & comment Read your classmates’ texts in the Forum and comment on at least two of them. Do a speaking activity in Skype with the other members of your team. Note: Differently from the previous course, in Modern Language II you will NOT do the speaking tasks in pairs, but with all of your team-mates. A. Write to your Group Work Space to: ¾ ¾ ¾ agree on a day and time to meet with the others on Skype. exchange Skype user names. exchange telephone numbers in case there are problems. B. At the agreed time, one member of the team should call the others into a Skype conference call. Together you should do the Skype speaking activity that appears in the Appendix. • Important: ¾ At least one of you should record the group conversation. In order to do this, you can use Pretty May (Windows users), Ecamm Call Recorder (Mac users), or Skype Call Recorder (Linux users). If you already have one of these or another Skype recorder installed on your computer, you can use that. For technical advice on these applications, please see the documents that you will find in your classroom under ‘Recursos’ / ‘Communication Tools’. ¾ Introduce yourself clearly at the beginning of the call, and use your partners’ names as much as possible during the conversation so that the teacher can identify who is speaking when he/she listens to the recording of your conversation. Please note that you should NOT READ from a script. Remember that naturalness of your intonation is one of the characteristics that will be taken into account when evaluating your recordings. C. The person who recorded the Skype conversation should send the sound file to the CA3_Skype_Survival folder in the classroom Forum. Listen & comment 3 Listen to other groups’ Skype recordings and comment on their decisions. Part IV: November 15th – 21st Do Reading Comprehension Exercise 2 (RCE2). Click on the link in ‘Recursos’ ("Reading Exercises"). The deadline to submit the RCE is November 21st. Remember that once you have finished answering all the questions, you must click on the button ‘submit’, so the teacher can receive your exercise. 4 Appendix: Skype speaking Before you do the speaking activity, please note the following: • We do not expect perfection, so do not worry too much about making mistakes. The most important thing is to demonstrate that you are able to communicate your ideas effectively in English. So you should try to participate in the conversation as much as possible. • The activity should take you approximately 15-20 minutes to complete. However, it is perfectly acceptable if you finish in a little less time. • You should speak only English. If you don’t know a particular word or expression, try to describe what you want to say to your team-mates to see if they can help you. For example: A: What do you call the thing you use to open a tin? B: A tin-opener? A: Yes. That’s it. Thanks! • Listen carefully to what your team-mates say. If you don’t understand something, ask for clarification. For example, Could you repeat that, please? What does ____ mean? • Where appropriate, you should try to use some of the following language that you learned in the unit “Fighting for Survival”: - Vocabulary and expressions related to survival I’d rather…, in case…, unless…, etc. Skype speaking activity Remember to introduce yourself clearly at the beginning of the call, and use your partners’ names as much as possible during the conversation so that the teacher can identify who is speaking when he/she listens to the recording of your conversation. A. With your team-mates, choose from the following list the 6 items that you consider would be most useful for survival on a tropical desert island: a a a a a box of matches carton of cigarettes large sheet of plastic torch (with batteries) Swiss Army knife a first-aid kit extra clothing a compass a tin of tuna (500g) insect repellent B. What would you and your team-mates take along to Tiki Wiki? Imagine that you and your team-mates are being sent to the desert island of Tiki Wiki in the South Pacific. You will take the 6 items that you decided were the most useful in the previous section and will be allowed to choose 4 more items to put in your survival kit (4 items total for the team, NOT 4 items per person!). Decide with your team-mates what you would like to take and why. The only conditions are: They cannot be the items that you considered least useful in the previous section. They cannot weigh more than 1 kilo. Electronic devices are not allowed (i.e., no satellite phones!). 5 Our additional 4 items: C. 1. ___________________________________ 2. ___________________________________ 3. ___________________________________ 4. ___________________________________ Who would your team take along? You and your team-mates may also bring along a famous person (one person per team!). Decide who you would choose and why. When you have finished, one of the members of the team should send the recording of your conversation to the CA3_Skype_Survival folder in the Forum. Please rename the file as follows: CA3-Student1-Student2-Student3 (e.g., CA3-mperez-jlopez-fgomez) This person should also indicate the 4 additional items you selected in Part B and the famous person you chose in Part C. 6