Me and my academic paper...

Hello everyone! Although the last few weeks were quite busy for me (exams, assignments, presentations etc. – I guess you know what I’m talking about!), I’ve finally found time to start working on my academic paper. Apart from my introduction and an approximate idea what the content will be like, I had almost nothing. In the days I tried to organize my sources – and I was more than successful! Thanks to our university’s online library, I could easily print out the three articles I need for my paper without having to go to the ‘real’ library and search for hours and hours for the magazines. The articles are quite long but easy to understand. So far, I’ve fully read two of them and excerpted the most useful parts. Concerning my online sources, I’ve skimmed through all of them but I still need to read them carefully in order to find out what I can use for my paper.  Reading my sources has definitely helped me to gain a better insight into my topic and to figure out what I can actually write about. I plan to start writing this weekend and to write at least 400 words so that I can enjoy the Christmas holidays without having to worry too much about my paper!

 

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all enjoy the last few days of 2013 and find time to relax!

Textkompetenz: Why the EU should intervene to stop Hungary from a dictatorship

Here's the link to our text: http://heroldflux.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/why-european-union-schould-intervene-to.html

Pronunciation Diary

PRONUNCIATION – not only a trick word when it comes to the right spelling but it’s actually quite difficult to be good at it!

Speaking honestly, I’ve always neglected working on my pronunciation skills. In the last few months here at the ITAT I’ve definitely improved my grammar, learned a lot of useful vocabulary and also my text writing abilities have (hopefully!) improved. But pronunciation? I remember Fiona telling as over and over again that the “v” in “village” is something totally different than the “w” in “weather” and that “to comment” should never sound like the noun “a comment” but apart from this my pronunciation was for me something that I thought will “improve by itself”. Sure, if you are constantly in touch with the English language your pronunciation automatically improves but in order to really sound like an English native speaker, you have to go into detail and learn more about different accents, how tricky words are pronounced the right way and what you as an English student should definitely avoid.

And is there a certain accent I aim for? Well, I think this question is difficult to answer. I think both the British and the American accent sound good but as I’m more used to listening to American accents and as it sounds more natural to me, I will definitely aim for an American accent.  After listening to some of the American accent tutorials on our pronunciation practice page, I also searched for useful tutorials on Youtube. Here’s what I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYLZUcjTZAs

In this video, a Canadian English teacher called Melanie explains that most Americans don’t pronounce the “t” if it comes after an “n”… For example, the word “interview” would more sound like “innerview”. The same goes for the “d” after an “n” like in the word “understand”.  I was really impressed by this video because I had never realized it before! I also watched a few of Melanie’s other videos and I tried a few exercise. Of course, not everything worked out that good and some words still sounded a bit weird when I tried to pronounce them correctly, but in one of her videos Melanie says that it takes at least 21 days to get used to a new speaking habit. I think this is the most important thing you have to keep in mind when you practice your pronunciation: It will take you some time to sound like an American/Brit but if you work hard on it and practise every day you will be able achieve your goal! 

By the way: Melanie has her own webpage where you can learn vocabulary or read more about different grammar chapters. (http://www.englishteachermelanie.com) 

Do you remember the disturbing “English” song Frank showed us in our class last week? Well, here’s a similar video, with the title “Skwerl”… Have fun with it, maybe you understand more than I did ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the Advent season! 

Comment on 'summary1'

Summary of “Europe already has one foot in ‘Japanese’ deflation grave”

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 analyses Europe’s debt crisis. (1)

According to Evans-Pritchard, more and more European states are suffering from the recent “trend” (2) of deflation as prices are falling and debt is increasing. Spain and Italy, for instance, are pushed into runaway debt trajectory and even Germany, renowned for having a flat inflation (3), is said to be in danger of deflation too.  Debt itself is already difficult to overcome but with deflation, the situation becomes lethal. Basically, Europe is now feared to end up in the same situation like Japan (4), sliding into a deflationary trap which will have hardly any turning back.  Nevertheless, possible solutions are proposed to try to, no matter how, break out of the impasse (5). The ECB, for instance, should do whatever it takes to keep inflation high enough to lower the risk of deflation in any vulnerable country. Another way to protect Europe from a complete deflation disaster would be the ganging up of the Club Gang (6) on Germany and forcing the country to accept inflation.

No matter which way Europe chooses to stabilise (7) deflation and debt, measures must be taken before Europe ends up in the same deflation lodge as Japan.

[200 words]

Here are my comments:

(1)    I think it would be better to change the word order in this sentence in order to make it 'easier' to read and get rid of this comma: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard analyses Europe’s debt crisis in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013.

Still, this sentence is a good start/introduction!

(2)    I think the word 'trend' is not the best choice in this sentence. Maybe you could just skip it and write something like: '…are suffering from the recent deflation as…'.

(3)    I looked up the word 'inflation' on the COCA and the most frequent collocation for it was 'low'. Therefore, I would change it to 'a low inflation'.

(4)    It is very good that you mention Japan in this context as it explains the title of the newspaper article. 

(5)    You chose a very fitting metaphor in this sentence! But shouldn’t it be 'break the impasse'?

(6)    In the text it was the 'Club Med', right?

(7)    Maybe it would sound better to write something like 'fight deflation', but I guess 'stabilise' is also correct!

In general, I think your summary is very good! What I liked most is that you used metaphors like 'to be pushed into runaway debt trajectory' or 'to break the impasse' as they help to depict the actual problem. Apart from this, the clear structure and logic of your summary helps understanding the matter. In my summary I tried to divide the main part into three smaller paragraphs which was not such a good idea. Your summary shows me that one can still write everything in one paragraph and still have a good organisation. I also liked that you referred to Japan and thus explained the title of the article very well. This is also something I will definitely do in my next summary. However, there are some words and phrases I might have written differently.

EU project: European Citizenship

Original Paragraph

European Citizenship

Everybody who is a citizen of a country in the European Union is automatically an EU citizen. As you probably know, citizenship means belonging to a community in which every citizen has certain rights and duties. Therefore, European Citizenship means belonging to the European Union. There are a number of ways to obtain EU citizenship, namely, acquisition by birth, descent, marriage or naturalisation (which means spending at least a certain amount of your life in a country legally). An EU citizenship has various advantages: A well-known advantage of EU citizenship is the right to move and reside freely within the EU, under the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any EU country. In practice, this means a British person can move to Greece and work there without having to ask for permission from the local authorities. Should this expectation not be met, EU citizens can sign a petition at the European Parliament and lodge a complaint to the European Ombudsman. People with a European citizenship can also directly influence politics by either casting their voice in an EU-wide election or even standing as a candidate for the European Parliament. However, there are also disadvantages about EU citizenship: For example, the right to reside and work in another country does not necessarily mean being accepted by its people immediately and many have to face racism and prejudice every day. To make matters worse, local authorities are mostly incapable of providing social services such as housing, education and health care. While they are struggling to master this challenge, the citizens blame the immigrants for allegedly taking over their country and stealing their jobs. Some also fear the loss of their national identity and cultural heritage, which is a common cause for xenophobia. After all, being a European citizen does not only bring important rights with it, but in order to grant the European community to live together peacefully, each and every citizen has to live up to their responsibilities.

(329 words)



Final Paragraph
 
European Citizenship

Every citizen of a country in the European Union is automatically an EU citizen. There are a number of ways to obtain EU citizenship, namely, acquisition by birth, descent, marriage or naturalisation. EU citizenship has various advantages, for example, people with European citizenship can directly influence EU politics by either casting their voice in EU-wide elections or even standing as a candidate for the European Parliament. Another well-known benefit is the right to move and reside freely within the EU, under the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any EU country. In practice, this means a British person can move to Greece and work there without having to ask for permission from the local authorities. However, there are also disadvantages about the right of free movement within the EU: The right to reside and work in another country does not necessarily mean being accepted by its people immediately and many immigrants have to face racism and prejudice every day. To make matters worse, more and more local residents also fear the loss of their national identity and cultural heritage, which is a common cause for xenophobia.  Being a European citizen not only entails important rights and benefits, but in order to allow the European community to live together peacefully, each and every citizen has to live up to their responsibilities.

(222 words)

My Vocab Notebook(s)

Since last year, I've been using the same method when studying vocabulary. Firstly, me and some other English students from my group divide up the new vocabulary and everyone of us looks for the best definition, synonyms, antonyms, example sentences and the German translation for two or three units, writes it in a Google spreadsheet and makes it available for everyone of us. After that, everyone can add anything important that might be helpful for the progress check. As I'm not really into learning with my PC, I always print the spreadsheets and put it in a folder.

Apart from this, I have a second vocab notebook in which I write 'mean' words I have difficulties with or other words I come across, which will not necessarily be tested in the progress check. 

(Sorry for the weird photos.. but blogger.com doesn't want me to turn them!)

EU individual paragraph

Brainstorming:

• what topic was news to me?
• European Year of Citizens: individuals in the center, make EU less complex
• since 1983: every year different topic
• funding, laws have been amended

Original Paragraph:

Aspect of the EU that interests me from this week’s class

While most of the terms that were raised in class seemed familiar to me, I have never heard of the “European Year” before.  In class we found out that 2013 is the “European Year of Citizens” but I still did not know what this means. After doing some research on the Internet later at home, I came across an interesting article on the European Year and its purpose. Every year since 1983 the EU calls attention to a certain topic in order to raise awareness and make people ponder. In previous years, various projects in connection with the European Year have been financially supported by the EU and in some cases laws have been amended. Especially this year’s theme, celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, is interesting for all of us as it is the “European Year of Citizens”, which means that the main focus is on how the EU affects the lives of us individuals.  The goals of this year will be to make the EU look less complicated and gigantic as well as to point out the advantages of being a part of it.  


Feedback I:  

In general, the people in my group mentioned that some parts of my text seem to be unnecessary and a bit long-winded (e.g. I don’t have to point out whereI did my research on the Internet). Also one of the sentences seems to be a bit too long and can be shortened easily in order to make it easier for readers to understand what I want to express. Another improvement would be to subisdise the phrase "what this means" with "what this meant" or even only with "what this was" as it would be better to use the past tense.

Regarding to the topic sentence, Laura, Tiana and Harald were pleased with it as they thought it is a good idea to begin with a personal experience and then get further into it. 

Version 2: 

Aspect of the EU that interests me from this week’s class

While most of the terms that were raised in class seemed familiar to me, I have never heard of the “European Year” before.  In class we found out that 2013 is the “European Year of Citizens” but I still did not know what this was. After doing some research on the Internet, I came across an interesting article on the European Year and its purpose. Every year since 1983 the EU calls attention to a certain topic in order to raise awareness and make people ponder. In previous years, various projects in connection with the European Year have been financially supported by the EU and in some cases laws have been amended. Especially this year’s theme, celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, is interesting for all of us as it is the “European Year of Citizens”. This means that the main focus is on how the EU affects the lives of us individuals.  The goals of this year will be to make the EU look less complicated and gigantic as well as to point out the advantages of being a part of it. 

Feedback 2:
The people reading my paragraph seemed to be pleased with my work. Since I described my own experiences and how I found out more about the European Year I did not use a lot of high-register vocabulary but the others thought it is fine like this. However, what I definitely need to correct is the "especially" as it should not be at the beginning of a sentence. Also making a stronger connection between the 5^th and the 6^th sentence will improve my paragraph as the theme-rheme-structure is not obvious.

Final Version: 

Aspect of the EU that interests me from this week’s class

While most of the terms that were raised in class seemed familiar to me, I have never heard of the “European Year” before.  In class we found out that 2013 is the “European Year of Citizens” but I still did not know what this was. After doing some research on the Internet, I came across an interesting article on the European Year and its purpose. Every year since 1983 the EU calls attention to a certain topic in order to raise awareness and make people ponder. In previous years, various projects in connection with the European Year’s theme have been financially supported by the EU and in some cases laws have been amended. This year’s theme, celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, is particularly important for all of us as it is the “European Year of Citizens”. This means that the main focus is on how the EU affects the lives of us individuals.  The further goals of this year will be to make the EU look less complicated and gigantic as well as to point out the advantages of being a part of it.