Pecha Kucha

“Pecha what?“, this was my first thought when my classmates told me about this special form of presenting a topic. I could not come to class when Hendrik explained what PK (I love this abbreviation J) is and therefore it took me some days to find out that it is just an “ordinary” PowerPoint presentation. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed because I thought that Pecha Kucha needs a specific program. However, when I could not find a download link, I started to realize that PK needs no additional program.

Together with my presentation partner Sandra, I decided on the topic “Globish”. I had never heard of Globish before but what we found on the Internet sounded interesting.

After some discussions, we agreed not to do an ordinary presentation – for example we decided not to start with something like: “Hello and welcome to our presentation. Today we would like to tell you something about….” This was too boring for us. We thought that that a special presentation format deserves a special style of presenting.

We agreed on a dialogue, something like a discussion, to inform our audience as well as entertain them.
It was good fun to write the text but the best part of our PK presentation was when we had to choose pictures for our slides.

Unlike “normal” presentations, where you just tell your audience everything you know about the topic, we could not use a cheat sheet. Who uses cards in a conversation? “Hello, how are you?” “Hmm…, wait… ah…good, thank you!” Would be funny – but a bit awkward.

So we had to learn our text by heart, which was not really difficult and I have to admit that I enjoyed it J. The trickiest part was to time our dialogue so that we speak exactly 20 seconds per slide. Fortunately we had the genius idea to create a timer which ran backwards from 20 to zero. This little graphic was really helpful.

Although we had no plan at the beginning, and were not quite sure if we could manage this project, the presentation went really well and I think we both enjoyed it. This was one of the most funny presentations I ever did. Thanks to Sandra who was a great project partner!

Vocabulary Notebook

Hey!

It’s me againJ. When I was still in High school, I had an ordinary technique for studying vocabulary. I wrote the German word on the left, the English equivalent on the right side, then covered one side and tried to remember the translation of the words.

At university I realised that this system won’t work because our English teachers expected from the definition of the word and an example sentence to show that we know how to use it. At this time I discovered the website www.vocabulary.com and fell in love with itJ. After each PC I improved my studying technique a bit until I found the perfect method for me.

At first, I create a new vocabulary list and type in all of the words. Then I look at the Cambridge online dictionary for definitions. I do not use the definitions from vocabulary.com because they are often too long and too complicated for me and I find it difficult to remember them. When I have found a definition, I look for a “good” example sentence. The best example sentences are those where something exciting happens, e.g. when someone gets murdered or dies. This sounds brutal, I know, but I can comfort you: I am not violent or aggressive person. It is just easier to remember a word when you have a clear picture in your mind. My example sentence for the word “precipitate” was: “Susan’s death precipitated a family crisis.” This sentence is more powerful than the one I found in an online dictionary: “An invasion would certainly precipitate a political crisis.” 

If I have to learn 200 or more words, I need sentences that create strong and vivid pictures.

Sometimes the example sentences are not strong enough. If I cannot remember a word after I have revised it five or six times, I cut it out and put it in a plastic bowl. Here you can see a picture: (didn't work :(

I then pull the words out separately, repeat the words a few times in my head and think up an aide-memoire. Most of them are really stupid – but very helpful. My favourite aide-memoire this time was for the word “discern”, which means to see or recognize something. 

I imagined a person who is playing Frisbee with a disc (discern). Suddenly the disc gets stuck in a wall of fog and the person cannot see it anymore. This little story made it easy for me to remember the example sentence: “I could not discern the ... [ship, car, dog... à whatever] through the fog.

What do you think about my technique? Funny, stupid, weird??

Pronunciation diary 2.0

This is the second part of my pronunciation diary. Luckily the oral exam is over and I survived itJ. I would like to explain you my strategies for improving and practising my pronunciation skills.

Firstly, I took a closer look at Hendrik’s feedback from the pronunciation exercises we recorded in class and listened to the audio file again. I noticed that I often swallowed the last letter of a word – especially the “d” and “t” and that I mispronounced the words “that”, “this”, “there” – I said something like “det”, “dis”, “der”...
I found this BBC video (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/con_voiced_6.shtml) which really helped me to improve the sound ð – the sound you need for words like “that”, “there”...
The “BBC woman”, I do not know her name J, explains how to produce this specific sound and gives some examples. Surprisingly, I could hear a difference to my recording after I practised the sound a few times.

Another video I found on the website was about the differences between the voiced consonant “v” and the voiceless “f”. I was not aware that theses sounds are also tricky for me. Before I watched the BBC video I pronounced “v” and “f” the same in the middle of a word. For example the two words “believe” and “belief” sounded completely the same when I pronounced them because I did not think about it. “V” and “f” are still tricky for me and I need to work on them.

I also tried to look up the pronunciation of words I read in books. Normally, if I read a word and do not know how to pronounce it I just think “yeah, whatever” and continue reading. The last few weeks I typed most of the words into an online dictionary and listened to the pronunciation.

The moral of the story is that the exam is over, but the pronunciation practise is not J.

Why joining the EU was the best move Germany ever made

http://orsolyagabriella.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/group-work-germany.html