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

Progress news

Hey guys!

I am sure you are interested in my academic paper’s progressJ. I’ve got good news for you: it’s getting ahead.

I followed some of the useful tips and strategies we learned at the “Proseminar-Tutorium”: You do not have to begin with the first topic – start wherever you want. I began with something I am really interested in – how organic farming influences the soil and the biodiversity. For this reason, I visited the official EU website for organic farming and also watched some videos on YouTube. I wasn’t aware that more than 75,000 plants are considered edible for humans. Nevertheless, the majority of Western food is made from 12 plants and 14 animal species. For this reason, over the last 100 years about three quarters of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost. This fact really surprised me and I knew that I had to put this in my paper.

What else? I started with the chapters “the organic farming logo” and “impacts of organic farming on animals”. These are also some pretty interesting topics. I also looked at Hendriks feedback and his corrections and can promise you – I won’t & can’t be idle over the Christmas holidays. There is still much text to be written and many corrections to be made.

Happy Xmas everyone!

Look, it's snowing!! (Thanks to my brother who did this :))

Advertisement - Part 1

To quote Jerry Della Femina: “Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on”. Advertisements are something I am really interested in. We can find them nearly everywhere – conscious or unconscious. I am particularly interested in how advertisements can influence our shopping behaviour. In this first part of my post you will read about some tricks and techniques that are used to make us buy.
So, what is important?     

1. Colour: Image sausages in green skin or vegetables in a pink packaging. Would you buy them? It is really important that the colour matches with the image of the product. Euro-Disney had to change its initial colour (violet) because the visitors didn’t like it. They said that it looked rather depressing. It is also crucial that the colour matches with the target group. An insurance company should avoid using bright colours such as pink or purple and use “serious” ones instead, for example grey, black or blue. Regarding the target group it is also important that advertisements fit to the age group. Young people like colourful advertisements whereas most elderly people want serious ones.
2. Brand names: International companies have to be very careful with their product names. The perfume “Irish Mist” wouldn’t be very successful in the German-spoken region and the coffee-company “Tchibo” would better not export to Japan. “Tchibo” is the Japanese word for suicide. Would you like to sit in a café and be reminded of death all the time?
3. Price: You probably have never thought about what a TV commercial costs but this is one of the most important factors for companies which would like to advertise their products in the media. The prices for TV advertisements differ according to the day and the month they are broadcasted. Here some data I found online:

a.      Before series – May – Monday – 22:00 à € 360/second

b.      Before late-night-movie – January – Monday – 23:25 à € 65/second

Pretty interesting, isn’t it? Out of interest I timed a AUDI commercial (the one with Marcel Hirscher). I watched in the evening before a series à it was 31 seconds long à 31*360= € 11,160.

More than € 11,000 for a short spot like this!

You think that’s expensive? It’s not – compared with American Superbowl ads. A 30-second-spot is about $ 2,700,000. The American brewing company “Anheuser Busch” spent about $ 300,000,000 over the last 20 years on Superbowl advertisements.

Manipulation in supermarkets

1.      Packaging: Colour and layout are very important. Small amounts are often in a beautiful (and expensive) gift package.

2.      Time: Have you ever noticed that there is no clock in supermarkets? This is because you should not get stressed.

3.      Stopper: In every supermarket you will find shelves full of sweets for children. Their aim is to make the waiting time sweeter.

4.      Placing: Most people are right-handed and so they turn more likely to the right than to the left. Advertising experts know that and put the more expensive products on this side.

5.      Height: Another important factor is height because “eye-level is buy level”. The most expensive products are always at eye level, so if you want to save money, look at the bottom or top of the shelf. All products that are aimed for kids are usually at kid level to catch their eye as well.

6.      Course: This can’t be find in every supermarket but many structure their aisles anticlockwise to encourage their customers to stay longer.

To be continued...

Group work analysis

http://orsolyagabriella.blogspot.co.at/2013/11/group-work-analysis-eu-citizenship.html