Week 3 - my dream job

Listen to this voicethread, and then record your message. You can also leave a comment bellow.

It is funny now to think about my dream job. I clearly remember I wanted to be a letter carrier when I was young. Of course that was many years ago, when people still wrote letters and had to buy stamps to send them. I thought letter carriers brought happiness to people through the letters they delivered. But it didn't last long, and soon I had a different dream job.

My next dream job was to be a truck driver. I imagined I would be able to travel all the time, and that it would be great to know different places every day. Well, that dream did not last long either.

Then I decided I wanted to be the owner of a newsstand. This was kind of a selfish job, because what I really wanted was to have access to all kinds of magazines possible, without having to buy them. I still laugh about this dream nowadays.

Then a few years later I went to high school, decided to be an engineer, and I ended up being an architect. But my dream job is the one I have now. I found out I love teaching, and that it is in my blood. I like the challenge of helping people learn and improve.

And you, what was, or is, your dream job?

Week 3 - working at Googleplex

Here's a different video about the Googleplex.

After watching the videos, leave a comment answering some of the questions below.

• What are some perks given to Google employees?
• What is Google getting in return for its employee benefits program?
• Can you think of any drawback in this kind of Human Resources management policy?
• Can what Google has done to their employees be done at your place of work?
• Would it be viable? Why? Why not?
• Why would you like (or not like) to work for Google?

Don't forget to comment on your classmates' answers too.

First Online Meeting

In our first online meeting we talked about:

• course expectations
• the difference between listening for gist and listening for details
• what we can do to improve our listening skills
• the importance of acquiring vocabulary
• the importance of pronunciation for listening

What can we do to improve our listening skills?

The answer is practice, practice and practice. We have to try to be in contact with the language as much as possible. Suggestions were made:

• listen to music and learn the lyrics
• watch movies with subtitles in English
• listen to online radios (www.shoutcast.com is a good start)
• do listening exercises online (www.elllo.org and www.esl-lab.com contain hundreds of listening exercises, from easy to difficult)

How can we improve our vocabulary?

It is important to increase our vocabulary because we cannot recognize a word in a listening segment if we have not come across this word before. The best way to gain vocabulary is by reading. We can read books, magazines, articles, internet sites and newspapers, for example. But it is important to learn the word and its correct pronunciation, so that we can associate them. Dictionaries (paper and online) can help us with the pronunciation.

• newspapers / news sites (www.nytimes.com, www.cnn.com)
• e-books (www.planetebook.com)
• comics (www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/comics.htm)
• lyrics ('google' the name of the song + lyrics)

Pronunciation x listening

One of the most important topics we discussed was pronunciation. It is important to know how to pronounce words correctly so that we are able to recognize them when we hear them. We also talked about how to use dictionaries to also learn how to pronounce words, using the phonetic symbols that come with the dictionary. Each dictionary brings a table with the key to the pronunciation symbols used. Take a look at the resources below.

• online dictionaries (www.thefreedictionary.com, www.answers.com)
• phonetic chart
• pronunciation videos (www.youtube.com)

Week 1 - video discussion

After having watched both videos about language learning, it is now time to reflect upon them. You can watch the videos again here.





Read the questions below, choose at least two of them, and write your reflections in the comments area.

• How did you start learning English? Did you find it easy or difficult?
• Do you agree with Fernando's opinion (first video)? Why or why not?
• Do you think it is possible to live in another country without speaking its language? Explain.
• Do you agree with Donna and Darryl (second video)? Why or why not?
  
• How important is it to you to be able to speak a second language?