Monday, May 31, 2010

Class notes for May 31

Today I collected your questions about Children of Japan.

We did a new listening exercise (dated May 27) from the VOA about privacy issues of Facebook and Google. If you would like to review the article, it is here.

I had a plan to compare the Children of Japan with other films about Japan made during wartime, between 1942 and 1946, as attitudes toward Japan and Japanese-Americans went through many changes, mostly negative. However, I think that is a little depressing for you. I've decided it will be better for you to search through the Prelinger Archive for yourself and see what you can find. There are films about defending yourself from atomic attack, Felix the Cat animations from the 1920s, Betty Boop, cigarettes, commercials through the decades, police training films, bicycle safety films, instructional films about communism, dating, and manners, and so on. There are even horror films in the public domain. Some of them are long. Look around! Find something interesting. Browse the tag cloud!

Homework:
Pick a film from the Prelinger Archive
http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger
and make some questions about it.
Try to make 10 questions.
Include the URL (http://www.........)
Make an electronic document
(rtf, doc, docx, txt) to submit.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Children of Japan!

Hello! Here is today's 1940-1941 movie from the Prelinger Film Collection.

It is called Children of Japan, and you can see it at the Prelinger Archive.

Here are my questions and the task: Make your own questions AND ANSWERS!

Who
Who are the people in the film?
Who made the film?

What
What is the film about?
>Make your own question _____________________________________
and answer!_______________________________________________

Where
Where does the film take place?
>Make your own question _____________________________________
and answer!_______________________________________________

When
When was the film made?
>Make your own question _____________________________________
and answer!_______________________________________________

Why
Why was this film made?
>Make your own question _____________________________________
and answer!_______________________________________________

How
How does this film show Japanese culture?
>Make your own question _____________________________________
and answer!_______________________________________________

What other thoughts do you have about the physical, intellectual, or spiritual aspects of the film?

Write your questions and answers as homework for May 31st!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Academic Listening (without iTunes U)

additional links:

Academic Earth
http://academicearth.org/
http://academicearth.org/courses/nonviolence-from-gandhi-to-martin-luther-king


News item introducing OpenCourseware
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07322/834852-298.stm

MIT

Free Media Activity

Using Free Media

For each of the sites below, answer the questions below.
Create a document and save your notes and answers there. I will collect it later.


1. Have you ever heard of this site before?

2. Have you ever visited this site before?

3. What kind of content can you find on this site? Describe the site.

4. How could this site/resource be used to study English?

5. How useful do you think this site is?

When you finish getting an overview of these sites, answer these questions:

6. Which of the sites do you think are most interesting? Which would/could you use to study English?

7. Which site do you think is least useful? Why?

8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a textbook versus internet media?

9. Do you think movies are useful for improving your English listening?

10. Do you think music is useful for improving your English listening?


Here is a list of some free media sites.

Audio Sources

USF Lit2Go http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

VOA http://www1.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/

BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

UCBerkeley http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php

Stanford U. http://itunes.stanford.edu/rss.html

Librivox http://librivox.org/
http://www.archive.org/details/librivoxaudio

Audio Books and Poetry http://www.archive.org/details/audio_bookspoetry

Presidential Recordings http://www.archive.org/details/presidential_recordings

Barack Obama Audiobooks, Presidential address
(audiobooks are not free, but I have them)


Audio-visual sources

Moving Images http://www.archive.org/details/movies

Prelinger Archive http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger

Film/Video

Classic Cinema Online http://www.classiccinemaonline.com/1/index.php

The Corporation http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=46

YouTube http://www.youtube.com

DVDs (not a website)

Fictional movies

Documentaries


Movie Scripts



Monday, May 10, 2010

Fourth Class

I returned The Iceman quiz and explained the results. Then we listened to an audio from the VOA: Trying to Renew Trust in the 'Made In China' Label. I had a worksheet based on the listening. We didn't completely finish it, so I assigned READING COMPREHENSION and SUMMARY as homework.