course

__**Course materials**__

The class aims to bring students up to an acceptable level in English (and French?) for translating current affairs stories in and out of French. To do this, we need to work on


 * 1) grammar and vocabulary (explicit learning)
 * 2) language use: listening, speaking, reading, writing (implicit learning)
 * 3) specific skills (translation practice - applying learning to translation)

1. Explicit learning (memorising grammar and vocabulary) a Grammar British Council [] (not very good; I do agree) English Zone [] (interactive) [] []

[|http://myesllab.wordpress.com] - links to links

b Vocabulary languageguide.org British Council [] [] [] [] [|languageguide.org]

c Dictionaries [] [] []

2. Implicit learning (reading or listening to English) elllo. [] [] Video. You can choose your level

[] Podcasts in english. You can choose your level

[] Listening. Business English Topics [] idem

[] Second Life English Blog. Is it relevant to our project?

3. Explicit and implicit (input with exercises)

British Council LearnEnglish Central - listening
 * stories [] (Listening stories; level:easy)
 * articles [] (listening articles; level: less easy)

BBC LearnEnglish: Words in the news []/

Choose some stuff for class, show how it can be used - online exercises, listening on iPods Assign stuff for outside work, in 228 or online - how can we keep track, keep people interested, communicate - wiki? blog? Facebook?

Links to check out (I don't find these three useful) [] - looks like audio or video with transcript, celeb topics, haven't checked level, may not be enough on here I checked this link and it's not really easy to navigate; the screen is too small;

Engish for All [] []

3. Translation Look at the translations on the whyte site, reformat to make easily available - on the wiki? On whyte site? Why don't we put first the whole text to translate, **then** the whole translation, **and then** we could work on each phrase separately and point out the difficulties... What do you think, shall we give it a try?

http://www.unice.fr/whyte/teach/tvg/sem1.html http://www.unice.fr/whyte/teach/tvg/sem2.html http://www.unice.fr/whyte/teach/tvg/0708 http://www.unice.fr/whyte/teach/tvg/sem2 http://www.unice.fr/whyte/teach/tvg/theme http://www.unice.fr/whyte/teach/tvg/version

Read through each translation to look for grammar points to flag - eg remember capitals for dates, simple past with point in time in past etc.

1. zero article - in headlines - with noncount or plural nouns in general contexts

2. definite article - with unique reference - with following relative clause

3. adjectives following a noun - use relative pronoun

4. capital letters - with nationalities - with days of week and months of year

5. numbers - point for comma and vice versa - specific versus general quantities (ten million people versus millions of people)

6. simple past versus present perfect - simple past in sentences with a point in time in past (date) - present perfect with current relevance (start of news article) and with 'since'

7. agreement of adjectives - no plural marker in general - no plural marker with collective nouns - the poor - no plural marker with pre-nominal constructions such as 'a 5-minute break'

8. adverb placement no intervening adverb between verb and direct object, unlike French Je bois vite mon café; *I drink quickly my coffee

9. common faux amis actual, actuel people, personnes

10. sentence-initial subordinate clause -> main clause conjoined with following clause

11. we could add the relative pronouns i.e. point out the difference between which and that...?

Description of problem: difference between French and English, with examples Statement of rule or strategy to follow Exercises to complete