For teachers: Online teaching: Writing

     Planning my writing lessons is often a challenge for most EFL as well as EAP teachers. Keeping lessons interesting while making sure that students walk out of your class with a satisfactory level of understanding of the writing task, its layout and its target language can prove slightly challenging. The fact that this is now coupled with the unfamiliarity with the online teaching environment certainly won't make things easier. Therefore, over the past few days, I have been trying to gather as much information as I could on the topic of teaching EFL writing online and decided to share my findings with my fellow teachers in the hope of making our virtual sessions run more smoothly.

- Students must write at home

At the end of every face-to-face class, I used to ask students to start working on their essays while I walked between them to make sure that they understood the task and were headed down the right path. Unfortunately, this cannot be done in a virtual classroom. My suggestion here is to divide the writing task into smaller tasks, allowing students to complete a single piece of writing over multiple tasks. Although this method may take longer to complete the final piece, it allows students to pay more attention to the teacher's feedback and make corrections accordingly.

That being said, you may want to elicit some ideas on how to begin a certain paragraph and what structure(s) works best to achieve the goal of the paragraph.

- Your Time in Class: Model paragraphs are essential

Just like in a face-to-face class, you are likely to show students a model as an example of what their writing should look like. This can be either copied from the textbook or modified to suit your students' levels and needs.

You may also want to spend your time in class to focus on sub-skills of writing such as punctuation and outlining and organising paragraphs. This can be done through multiple choice, gap fill and reordering exercises.

- Giving Feedback

It is up to you whether to give in-class or after class feedback. Whatever you decide to do, be mindful of the tool(s) you use to provide feedback to students. You can of course give in class, collective feedback by using the virtual interactive whiteboard but you have to consider the its limited space. Choose your examples carefully and make sure that they are representative and illustrative of common patterns such as, for example, a common grammar or punctuation mistake. On the other hand, if you are giving offline feedback to be viewed by students after class, word processing documents that enable track changes are your best bet. Track changes allow you to correct errors and write comments to explain your suggested changes. However, one disadvantage of using track changes is that students may accept your changes without reading them. In this case, if you notice that certain students keep repeating their mistakes, talk to them directly and ask them to join you in your virtual office hours.

- Taking advantage of added affordances: Using corpus and corpus-like methodology

While online classes do take away some aspects of face-to-face meetings, they also provide teachers with new affordances that are not available in conventional classrooms. Since students now submit their work electronically, you can create a small text corpus (structured set of texts) of all your students' writings and use either corpus software (such as #lancsbox: http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/lancsbox/) or any other word processing software to perform different kinds of analysis on students use (and misuse) of language. I am currently in the process of studying students correct and incorrect use of the definite article (the) and its relation to their mother tongue.

At the end of this essay, I would like to recommend taking the Future Learn online course on Teaching English Online (https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/online-tutoring) for more information on teaching writing along with other skills through a virtual medium.

Online Class #1: Slides

Dear students,

A very big thank you to those of you who attended today. Here is a copy of the review slides we used today. I hope to see a bigger number tomorrow!

Click HERE to view powerpoint slides

COVID-19 Break: What can we do? (part 1)

Dear students,

I hope you are staying safe amid this global madness! As you probably know, we will not be meeting until after the 24th of March or later. So what can we do to stay busy and increase your productivity during the break?

Practice reading and comprehension in English

I know you are probably bored of teachers telling you to grab a book, any book, or any English text and start reading immediately. While that can actually be helpful, it is very vague and it is more helpful if you get some guidance first. Inspired by this global crisis, I have collected a few articles and videos discussing different aspects related to the outbreak of the coronavirus.


1. BBC news: Safety on Public Transport

This BBC article discusses the risk of infection when using public transport methods such as busses, trains and planes. I have also included a short quiz that you can complete to insure that you have understood the main points of the article and hopefully gained new information about safe travel during an outbreak.

Take quiz HERE

2. Kuwait Times: Fear, panic is real as number of coronavirus cases rises

This second article is a more local one. It reports the opinions of locals on the recent changes in policies due to the spread of the virus. I love this article because it is short and concise and it encourages the public to voice their opinions on what is going on. I have also included a short quiz to help you practice your reading and comprehension skills.

Take quiz HERE

3. Global Disruptions to Education

Tens of governments, including ours, have decided to shut down schools and universities. This is an article from the New York Times discussing the effects of those disruptions on multiple levels from using online methods of teaching and how it burdens women and families and forces them to rearrange their daily routines.


For more practice, you can always reflect on the information you read by writing a summary of the information you have gained from reading these articles or other ones. Feel free to share your writing with me. If you find any interesting articles, please do not hesitate to share them with us.

Stay home, stay safe and stay sane

I will leave you with this video that was taken in Siena, Italy of people singing together from their apartments to lift spirits. These times can be difficult, scary and all together depressing but let us try and focus on the positive aspects of humanity..

Much love to all of you <3
Ms Tasneem

Second Term Welcome Post 2020

Happy new year and welcome back everyone! I hope the first month of 2020 went well for you. I am excited to be teaching again at AOU! (:

This semester, I will be teaching EL111 and EL117

My office hours will be 

Saturday 1:10 to 2:00

Tuesday 8:00 to 8:50

Thursday 1:10 to 2:00

Shall you need help or guidance with the material, please feel free to contact me or visit me during my office hours.

Good luck everyone! Make this semester your best one yet!

Latin abbreviations we still use in English

The Roman Empire was one of the most fascinating civilisations in history. With an area of +4 million km², it covered most of Europe (in addition to parts of Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East). The official language of the Empire was Latin, which was considered the language of the educated elite. Despite the fact that Latin is classified as an extinct or dead language today, it still lives through the Romance language such as Italian, Spanish and French. And even though English is not a Romance language, Latin still makes up to 30% of its vocabulary.

Since Latin was the language for science and education (while English was an everyday language), most of the English words we use in Academia today have been derived/borrowed from Latin. Because it would be extremely difficult to go through all Latin-derived words in English (approx 50500 words), I chose to list some of the most common abbreviations that we see and use on a daily basis and sometimes wonder their origin.

1. E.g. before examples

Have you ever wondered why the abbreviation for example is e.g. instead of something like e.x.? Yep, you guessed it! It comes from the Latin phrase "exempli gratia" meaning 'for the sake of example'


2. Is it 12 AM or PM?

Those two abbreviations have caused me a lot of trouble over the years 😩 The 'm' in both of them stands for "meridiem" which means before noon. The A in AM stands for "ante" which is a prefix meaning before. (see words antebellum and antedate). The P in PM, however, stands for "post" which is another prefix that means after and it is widely used in the English Language. Postpartum, exempli gratia😛, means after childbirth.

3. P.S. I love you

Completed a long letter (or sent a long text) and had a thought to add after? No problem! Just write P.S. under the text and add your thought. P.S. stands for "post scriptum". Post, like you already know, means after and scriptum means the writing, and together they mean 'that which comes after the writing'

P.S. 'P.S. I love you' is a movie worth watching

4. %Per cent%

Percentages are commonly used in both Academic and everyday contexts. Per cent (or percent) comes from the Latin phrase "per centum" which translates to 'for each hundred'. It is worth mentioning that the letter C in Latin is always pronounced as a /k/ sound (as in cat) so the word for hundred in Latin is pronounced KEN.TUM.


5. i.e.

This abbreviation is mostly used in Academic writing to explain your idea in another way or in other words. I.e. stands for "id est" which means 'that is'. Try not to confuse i.e. with e.g. The first is used for clarification while the latter is used for examples.

6. ...etc.

Can't think of more examples? Just add etc. and let us think there is more. Etc. stands for "et cētera" which means 'and the others'. ET.KAETE.RAH in Latin and ET.SETE.RAH in English is only used for inanimate objects and never for people. For people we used 'et al' instead.

Review Files For the Final

Dear students,

First of all, kudos to you for being able to attend lectures and take exams in Ramadan! I know it has not been easy.

To help you out with your final exam preparations, I have included links to some review files since we did not have enough time to go over them in class. Please do keep in mind that some of the questions are outdated and are no longer relevant to our curriculum so do not freak out :D

Kindly leave your questions in either a comment on this blogpost or a message on LMS.

Best of luck!

File #1: Generel Revision

File#2: Vocabulary and Grammar I

File#3: Vocabulary and Grammar II

File#4: Vocabulary

P.S. A mock version of the final exam is now available on LMS. You can access it following the same steps you would do for the MTA/final exam.

Quiz 2 Sample

Dear students,

To view a sample of Quiz 2 (theme four), click here!

Best of luck (:

Prepare for Quiz One: The Samples are Here!

Dear smart and very committed students,

     Do you remember those moments in your childhood when you got excited about a cookie box but

when you opened it, you found nothing but sewing equipments? I bet it did not feel good. Not knowing what to expect usually leads to either shock or disappointment and both are not nice feelings. Therefore, as your teacher, I try to shield you from such feelings and make sure that you are as prepared for your exams as you can ever be. And so now after I have written this long introduction, I leave you with a compilation of some of the quizzes that your fellow students from previous years had encountered. Enjoy! (P.S. Comment or LMS message me for answers).

Sample #1  
(This PDF file contains 2 exams)

Sample #2
(This Word file contains 1 exam)

Be sure to check LMS for further review material. 

Have fun studying! And remember to contact me when you have any questions. 

Spring Semester 2018! Welcome Back

Dear students, 

I would like to welcome all of you back to the spring semester! I hope the warm weather will inspire you to give it your best. Always remember that constant exposure to English (or any other language you're trying to learn/improve) is key to the learning process. Here's Frank Sinatra singing April in Paris to help you set the mood and tune your ears.

Also remember that the purpose of learning new information is to make you a better person, not to pass the exam . Stop worrying about grades and exams because that is a waste of time and it will prevent you from seeing the bigger picture and have fun instead!

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------

Office Hours

Feel free to visit me in my office at any of the following times:

Saturday

1:15 to 2:15

Wednesday 

8:15 to 8:45

Thursday 

8:15 to 8:45

-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------

Good luck rocking it this semester!

Office hours for the second session

Dear students,

Congratulations on passing EL098 and welcome back to the second session! EL099 is much more fun and enjoyable and I am sure you will have a great time. If you are repeating EL099, I hope that you can find the strength to exert more effort this time. Work hard now and I promise it will pay off later in your academic journey and your career after that.

If you ever feel that you need help outside the classroom, you are more than welcome to visit me during my office hours. I will be in my office on:

Saturdays, from 1 pm  to 2 pm.

Wednesdays, from 8:30 am to 9 am

Thursdays, from 8:30 am to 9 am

Also, do not hesitate to send me messages on LMS or leave a comment on this blog. I always reply to your messages :D

Best of luck,
Ms. Tasneem Solie

Monday, November 5th 2017: A Day at the Library

     Last Monday, I took my students for a visit to the AOU Library in an attempt to get them to start reading and try to spread the Hermioneish attitude towards libraries (the 'when in doubt, go to the library' attitude). On that day, my eyes were opened to a very important truth. During her graceful visit to my class as a guest speaker, Nada Faris, the amazing writer and performance poet said something that made me think. "We are what we attack" she said and I started to think that when a person condemns an idea or a belief, it does not necessarily mean they are not guilty of it. So before you attack an idea, look within yourself and check if you are 100% free of what you are attacking, and then maybe you can call yourself a feminist,  human rights activist... etc.

     That was not all. Nada's attendance of my class and her speech to my students about 'Why We Should Read' was beyond remarkable. It was truly an inspiration. She raised valid points, which she excellently supported with vivid examples. She talked about how the lives of prominent leaders like Jamal Abdul-Naser and Joseph Stalin were affected by books they encountered at a certain age and how one work of literature had enough power to start the civil war. Nada also ended with a captivating performance of one of her poems. 

     I was extremely happy to see my students engage in such an enriching discussion. I was even happier when I was told by some of them that they had never felt more inspired to read. I had a feeling of immense pride and satisfaction seeing my students browse through the bookshelves, looking for a point to start.

     Finally, I would like to thank everyone who supported me and was kind enough to attend my class: my supervisor, Mr. Khaldoon Mohamed Nur Said, my teacher and colleague Ms. Fatima Fayez, our librarian Mr. Atef, AOU Public Relations (thank you for the photos), my friends Reham, Raniya, and Sundos, and the girls from the writing session. I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to Nada Faris for her amazing participation and her generosity. And mostly, thank you guys, my wonderful students, for making this a memorable day.

P.S. I know I should have posted this earlier but I was waiting for the good photos :D Here are some, enjoy! :p

 And remember to keep your friends close and your books closer;)

Instrumentally Yours: Learn English with Songs #2

Hey there again,

Saturday is a great day. The roads are clear and long car rides can actually be enjoyed. My mood was highly influenced by the peacefulness of today; thus I chose a soothing tune, hoping it will help you calm down, relax and enjoy the remainder of your  Saturday.

This song is by one of my favorite artists, Bruce Springsteen, who has a very unique voice and whose songs are always inspirational and moving. The song that I am about to share with you is one that he wrote shortly before his wedding to his current wife, Patti. It is, indeed, one of the top love songs he's ever written. My favorite thing about this song is that it's slow, so the words are easy to be heard, allowing you to enjoy the beauty of the lyrics. I really hope you like this song as much as I do. The name of the song is 'Book of Dreams'

Lyrics

I'm standing in the backyard 
Listening to the party inside 
Tonight I'm drinkin' in the forgiveness 
This life provides 
The scars we carry remain but the pain slips away it seems 
Oh won't you baby be in my book of dreams
 
I'm watchin' you through the window 
With your girlfriends from back home 
You're showin' off your dress 
There's laughter and a toast 
From your daddy to the prettiest bride he's ever seen 
Oh won't you baby be in my book of dreams 

In the darkness my fingers slip across your skin 
I feel your sweet reply 
The room fades away and suddenly I'm way up high 
Just holdin' you to me 
As through the window the moonlight streams 
Oh won't you baby be in my book of dreams 
Now the ritual begins 
'Neath the wedding garland we meet as strangers 
The dance floor is alive with beauty 
Mystery and danger 
We dance out 'neath the stars' ancient light into the darkening trees 
Oh won't you baby be in my book of dreams.

More on Lyrics

1. Ritual: is a ceremony or a series of actions performed regularly. For example, my Friday night ritual is to wake up at noon, order pizza and watch a movie.

2. Garland: Hanging decorations

floral garland

Instrumentally Yours: Learn English with Songs

Dear students,

Believe it or not, attending classes and doing homework will not enable you to communicate in English; Studying English, learning its grammar and memorising new words might help with your everyday use of English but are certainly not enough simply because language is much more than putting words together in a certain grammatical order. Language is a representation of what its speakers think and how they perceive the world and that is one reason why the world looks different in different languages. Have you ever wondered why using the moon as a metaphor for beauty is completely acceptable in Arabic but sounds odd and unfamiliar in English?

So, to be able to communicate using a certain language, you must learn about the culture it originated from and see the world from the perspective of its own speakers. For that reason, you should not depend solely on books and dictionaries to learn a language. Read books, travel, watch movies or simply, listen to music. 

Songs, while having the powerful and magical ability to change your mood and cling to your memories, encapsulate many cultural values and attitudes. They are also a very convenient way to stay in touch with the language while improving your vocabulary at the same time. 

Because of that, I decided to start sharing some of my favorite songs that have great and profound lyrics, in addition to being catchy. Every week, I will post a song along with its lyrics and a short comment. All you have to do is listen to it once while reading the lyrics, translate the difficult words and put it on repeat until it makes you puke :D

The song that I would like to initiate this series with is Heaven by an underrated rock band named Warrant. It is a song about being devoted to the person you love regardless of what others think. It came out almost 30 years ago in 1989.

Lyrics

I've got a picture of your house
And you're standing by the door.
It's black and white and faded,
And it's looking pretty worn.
See the factory that I worked
Silhouetted in the back.
The memories are gray but man they're really coming back.

I don't need to be the king of the world
As long as i'm the hero of this little girl

Heaven isn't too far away
Closer to it everyday 
No matter what your friends might say

How I love the way you move
And the sparkle in your eyes
There's a color deep inside them
Like blue suburban skies
When I come home late at night
And you're in bed asleep
I wrap my arms around you
So I can feel you breathe

I dont need to be a superman
As long as you will always be my biggest fan

Heaven isn't too far away
Closer to it everyday (Ah, ah)
No matter what your friends might say
We'll find our way, yeah

Now the lights are going out,
Along the boulevard
Memories come rushing back and makes it pretty hard
I've got nowhere left to go
And no one really cares
I don't know what to do
But I'm never giving up on you.

Heaven isn't too far away
Closer to it every day
ohhhh ohhh
No matter what your friends say
I know we're gonna find a way

(Heaven)

Whoah, oohh, ohhh
Whoah, oohh, ohhh

(Heaven)

It's not too far away
Whoah, oohh, ohhh
Yeah yeah yeah

More on lyrics

1. What is a Silhouette? 

According to Dictionary.com, a silhouette is "the dark shape and outline of someone or something visible against a lighter background, especially in dim light." 

Elephants silhouetted against sunset sky

2. Pictures looking worn?

A worn-out photo is a photo so old it looks damaged and shabby. We also use worn-out to describe other items like shoes, bags and other articles of clothing. We can sometimes say 'you look worn out' to someone who looks tired or exhausted.

Worn out dog

A worn-out photograph

until next week,

Keep rocking! \m/

Important Times and Dates

Dearest students,

I hope you are having fun with EL099 so far. This post is just a reminder of the most important times and dates that you should know.

1. My office hours

I have two office hours every week

on Saturday from 8:00 am to 9:00 am
on Wednesday from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Please feel free to visit me at any of those times to discuss your homework, writing, or anything that you do not understand. If non of the timings listed above is suitable for you, please contact me via LMS to agree on another day/time.

2. Your exams:

Quiz 1 (10 marks): The first quiz (as was announced in the classroom) will be on Wednesday, October 11th, 2017.
It will cover themes one and two. Quizzes will be done during your class and will take one hour and 15 minutes only.

Midterm (30 marks): The date and timing for the midterm have not been announced yet; however, it will probably be during the fourth week (October 14 to October 17th). It will cover themes one, two and three and the exam duration is 1 and a half hours.

Quiz 2 (10 marks): The second quiz will take place on Wednesday, November 1st, 2017. It will cover themes four and five. Quizzes will be done during your class and will take one hour and 15 minutes only.

Final (50 marks): The date and timing for the final have not been announced either but it is expected to around mid-November. The final exam covers all five themes and will last for two hours.

All exams include four sections: Reading, Grammar, Vocabulary and Writing.


3. Extra review class:

The first qui Please note that I will be giving an extra review class on Tuesday October 10th from 10 to 12 in room #GE109. Your attendance is very much appreciated.

Best of luck 
And thank you for your kind World Teachers' Day messages <3

Happy New Semester! 2017/2018

Dearest students,

I am very delighted to welcome you back to university today. I was too excited last night I barely got any sleep! It's the freshness and newness that September brings at the beginning of every Academic year.

I sincerely hope that you can draw the much-needed positive energy  from this fresh the excitement that fills the September air. Go to classes with a big smile on your face. Catch up with your friends and let all your worries and concerns fade away. You are here to learn and be a better person and for that only, you should be proud and happy.

Wishing you the best of luck in the world,
Hoping you will have a very productive year,

Best wishes,
Ms. Tasneem Solie

Final Grammar and Vocabulary Review Questions

It's almost time! Fight on a little longer and all your time and effort will be met with success, Inshallah. 

For Grammar, check the following list while studying:

Theme One
•Present simple tense•Past simple tense•Imperative sentences•Gerunds (with verbs like love, hate,…)•Infinitives (want, hope, promise,…)

Theme Two
•Present time and past time indicators.
•Present simple to describe people
•Modals: Can, should
•Adverbs of frequency
•Short introductions
•Everybody / somebody / nobody / anybody

Theme Three
•Must and have to
•Would like and want.
•Simple present passive.
•Using so and because

Theme Four
•Demonstratives
•Introductory phrases (reordering words)
•Simple past passive.
•Giving examples
•So, very and too
•Less vs. fewer
•Prepositions.
•Comparatives and superlatives
•Articles

Theme Five
•Quantifiers
•Because and so
•X is used for (verb+ing)



Click here to download grammar and vocabulary review questions

Click here to download vocabulary review question

Click here to download vocabulary and grammar review questions 2

Click here for general review

MTA Review for the Smartest of Students

Dear smart students reading this blogpost,


I hope you're having a fun and smooth time preparing for your midterm (which in case you didn't know is this Saturday from 11 am to 12:30 pm and will include reading, grammar, spelling and writing questions from themes 1, 2 and 3).

Please do not be discouraged if you got a low grade on your first quiz. You can always work harder and compensate in the midterm.

How can you prepare for the midterm exam?

First, study grammar:

Grammar is one pf the most important components of any language exam and it's a big part of the writing question as well. There are some grammar topics in each theme and it's of the utmost importance for you do know and practice all of them. There is a very useful grammar reference on page 179 of your student book which includes the grammar topics discussed in each of the five themes. Take a quick look through it before studying.

Grammar Topics Checklist (by themes)

Theme 1:

•Present simple tense

•Past simple tense

•Imperative sentences

•Gerunds (with verbs like love, hate,…)

•Infinitives (want, hope, promise,…)

Theme 2:

•Present time and past time indicators.

•Present simple to describe people

•Modals: Can, should

•Adverbs of frequency

•Short introductions

•Everybody / somebody / nobody / anybody

Theme 3:

•Must and have to

•Would like and want.

•Simple present passive.

•Using so and because.

Second, review vocabulary and definitions:

Most students find it hard to memorise the huge number of new words that the book contains and that's why you should study vocabulary as soon as you finish the lesson. However, I am sure most of you do not do that for the same reason you keep hitting the snooze button 5 times every morning. So my advice to you, lazy friends, is to focus on the difficult words and the definitions in the book in order to have a basic foundation. Remember also that spelling is crucially important. 

The vocabulary section will most likely include a) definitions, b) opposites and c) filling in with a suitable word.

To exercise your vocabulary, CLICK HERE

Thirdly, writing:

After you understand grammar and review key vocabulary, it is time to test the most important productive skill: writing. Be sure to implement good and correct ideas, adequate spelling, general understanding of key grammar rules and basic punctuation rules. 

Please DO NOT plagiarise (memorise or copy) sentences or paragraphs from the Internet. Doing so will probably lead to failing the course, suspension or expulsion from the university. Stay away from trouble!

The writing section may include another question such as reordering words to get a meaningful sentence. CLICK HERE to see an example

Hope to see you on Saturday,

Stay smart! B)

Ms. Tasneem Solie