In, on, at...

On January 22 we talked about prepositions. Here's a simple "rule of thumb" about the prepositions of time:

Reeta, who has a brain for mathematics, came up with these formulas:

in  m

on = d

(m = month, d = day)

Do these formulas help you remember the rules?

Lesson 22 January 2014

Happy New Year to everyone! This was our first lesson this year, so it took some time to talk about what we did during the Christmas holidays and how our studies are going.

All the groups had been working on their Google presentations, and they presented the drafts to the rest of the class. We heard presentations about English studies, hobbies, Finnish seasons and Finnish culture. All the presentations were really interesting, and it would be great if all participants could present something when we travel to Turkey in March.

We also devoted some time to language problems, especially the use of prepositions in English, which is one of the hardest things for a Finnish speaker to learn. I'll make a separate posting about the prepositions of time, which was one of the problems we discussed.

During the next period, the groups will continue to study English according to their plan and work on their presentations.

Remember to keep your blogs updated!

Google Drive

Here is how you can start a joint presentation using Google Drive:

Class on 27 November

We met for the last time this year on Wednesday, 27 November. The topics were:

• Group discussions: What was your plan during the past four weeks? What did you do and what did you learn? Which tools have you used and how do you feel about them? Each group selected a "secretary" who wrote down the group's opinions and reported back to the class.
• We learned to use Skype for group discussions
• Reeta told us how to make a joint presentation using Google Drive.
• Groups made a working plan for the next two months.  One of the tasks for all groups is to start a joint presentation about their chosen topic.  Next time we will hopefully see some of them.
• Next lesson will be on January 22, 2014.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody!

Quizlet

You can access the Quizlet application via this link: http://quizlet.com

• Log in with your Google ID
• Browse ready-made exercises or
• Create your own exercise (instructions below and on the Instructions page)
• If you have joined the "Improve Your English with PEOPLE" class, it is visible in the left-hand column. There you will find all the exercises done by class members and added to the class.
• If you are not yet a member, you can click "Join or create a class", type the class name and click "Join".

Instructions:

Meeting on 30 October

The course met again yesterday, 30 October.  We discussed what the participants had done in the four-week period between meetings. The groups made learning plans for the next four weeks and posted them in their group blogs. Some work needed to be done on the blogs, so groups concentrated on that for a while.

There were requests to discuss the use of Skype and Google Drive for group meetings and collaboration, so we briefly looked at those.  Johanna and Reeta also presented a free online tool for vocabulary work: http://quizlet.com.

Homework:

• Continue studying according to your group's plan
• Study the use of Quizlet and try to make a vocabulary exercise. Add your exercise to the "Improve Your English with PEOPLE" class. The instructions for Quizlet are on the "Instructions" page in the course blog.

Join our class in Quizlet!

I have created a class for us in Quizlet. This will make it easy to share vocabulary exercises with other class members. Try it!

You can join the class via this link:
http://quizlet.com/join/PVqVbke2V