This is the page for: Listening & Speaking 2, Fall 2010

(Course-related content will appear here in reverse chronological order: the newest things at the top of the page, and older posts toward the bottom.)

Challenges I Have Just Marked…

Hi there,

I have two piles of Challenges that I have graded, but which I can’t return at the moment since we don’t have any more classes. Please note: this is not a COMPLETE list of challenges: it is only the list of challenges that I have graded since last Tuesday. If your name is not on this list, don’t panic.

There are two groups of students on this list: those who completed Challenge #4 and submitted it by or on Tuesday last week, but who did not hear back from me, and those who completed Challenge #4 after Tuesday.  Those who submitted their Challenge for on or before our last day of class (14 Dec.) were eligible to submit a Challenge #5 today (Tuesday, 21 Dec.) but since I didn’t contact them, none have. I will therefore be accepting Challenge #5 submissions until 6pm on Wednesday. Dec. 22nd.

STUDENTS WHO COMPLETED CHALLENGE #4 ON OR BEFORE DEC. 14TH. (ELIGIBLE TO SUBMIT CHALLENGE #5 ON WEDNESDAY.)

STUDENTS WHO COMPLETED (AND SUCCEEDED IN FULFILLING) CHALLENGE #4 AFTER DEC. 14TH. (NOT ELIGIBLE TO SUBMIT CHALLENGE #5 ON WEDNESDAY.)

Your Challenge #4 writeups will be left in the office with all of the other homework I have to return to you. (I forgot to recommence handing it out during the busy chatting of the last day of class.)

I am now working through your self-evalulations, but will likely only manage to calculate and upload your grades early next week, around the deadline. In any case, have a nice Christmas in the meantime!

Last Student-Led Discussion Feedback, Vote, and Our Last Class

OUR LAST DISCUSSION

First things first: our final class will be held on the afternoon of 14 December. If you have not already handed in your Final Self-Evaluation, then you must hand it in on Tuesday. On that day, we will have one final discussion.

The topic of that discussion will be the Wikileaks website and the scandal surrounding it. This topic was submitted by two students, YoungDae Won and Minjae Ma. Here is what they wrote (along with the websites they suggested students review before the discussion):

Minjae wrote:

How difficult [it is for] people [to] follow through [on] what they believe

I read this article a few months ago. Julian Assange is an Australian journalist, publisher and internet activist. He is best known as the spokesperson and editor-in-chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Throughout his website WikiLeaks, he released many classified documents against America. I think it is really hard for people to follow through what they believe. I just want to talk about this, because we sometimes will face this moment whether it’s big or not.

Please note the link at the beginning of her comment, which is the article she recommends.

YoungDae wrote:

Regarding WikiLeaks, how much of  the freedom of speech and of the press be available?

Recently, the approach in information has been regarded as ‘a far simple’ matter than that of the past. This year, three unavailable documents were made open to the public via the WikiLeaks site, and controversies are rising under the subject whether such ‘whistleblowing’ should be allowed in the IT society concerning the boundaries of  ’freedom of speech and of the press’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks

To their comments, I will note a very interesting article by Glenn Greenwald that asks the question why so many American politicians (both left-wing and right-wing alike) hate Wikileaks so much… but also why the American media also hates it.  I ask that you check out both the Korea Herald article Minjae recommends, the Wikipedia page that YoungDae recommends, and the Greenwald article I’ve linked up above.

Be ready to discuss Wikileaks from any number of points of view. We will split into two groups, like a normal group discussion, but the groups will have no leaders. You are not required to submit a post-discussion writeup for this discussion.

FEEDBACK

Here is where you can provide feedback for  our final student-led discussions. I am hoping to provide feedback to all students on Tuesday, so please make an effort to fill out this poll as soon as possible.

For Leaders:

For Participants:

VOTE WHILE YOU STILL CAN

Not everyone has voted in terms of which plan is best for getting 100 million won in 3 hours. Please vote in this poll while you still can.

(Note that voting counts as a piece of homework. I will be closing the poll to responses in the next few days, so hurry it up!)

HOMEWORK

By the way, since I have gotten a number of inquiries: it seems I forgot to tell the class about the Midterm Self-Evaluation, so we will drop that from our grading regimen and completion of the Final Self-Evaluation  will count for both. You may hand this in anytime before the end of our last class on Tuesday, 14 December.

If there is any homework up to or including the discussion write-up for “The Myth of the Teen Brain” which I have no t returned to you, please reprint it and submit it to my mailbox in IH341 before Tuesday. If I have a duplicate, it’s no problem, but if I have misplaced your work, the reprinted version will be graded during the exam period.

Your work will be available for pickup at the office (IH341) after the end of the exam and grading period.

There is no writeup for the exercise we did in class on 7th December (but you should vote in the poll above); likewise, there will be no write-up required for our discussion of 14th December.

Vote for the Best Plan for Tuesday’s Exercise!

I told you I’d post a form where you can vote for the best plan for Tuesday’s Exercise, “I Need 100 Million Won in Three Hours!” Here it is:

For Next Week

FEEDBACK:

Here are the feedback polls for the discussions on 2 December:

For Discussion Leaders:

For Discussion Participants:

I’m splitting the discussion leaders into three separate polls. Please only give feedback for the two discussions in which you participated:

SUGGEST A TOPIC FOR 14 DECEMBER:

Next, I’ve changed my mind in terms of your homework about suggesting a topic for the class discussion on 14 December (our last meeting). Instead of handing in a bunch of pieces of paper, I’ve created another poll. You can suggest discussion topics (and a link to some content online that can be used to start the discussion) here. Your deadline for suggesting a topic is 9:00 am on 7 December 2010.

NEXT WEEK’S DISCUSSION:

Finally, I have decided on a topic for our discussion next week (Tuesday, 7 December). However, the exercise is something I cannot announce ahead of time. I have decided instead to go with a creative thinking project, in which you must work with a group in a very short time to “solve a problem.”

However, if you would like inspiration, I recommend watching the 19998 German film LOLA RENNT (known in English as RUN LOLA RUN). Here’s a trailer:

It’s a great movie, and it might be useful to watch it before our next discussion. If you are very, very cheap or lazy, there’s a version of the film someone has posted illegally to Youtube (with English subtitles, as a playlist which, as far as I can tell, looks pretty complete). But it’s really a brilliant film, and I recommend watching it on a bigger screen, with better quality resolution, if you really want to enjoy it.

And now, I’m going to leave  you to ponder the mystery of what we’ll be discussing next Tuesday. Have a nice weekend!

Feedback for 25 November & Next Week’s Tuesday Class

Hi folks,

(EDIT: Sorry this is “late”: I actually published this post as promised, but forgot to put it in the right catergory, so it didn’t show up on the class page. Argh!)

Here are the feedback polls for the student-led discussions on Nov. 25th.

For Discussion Leaders:

For Discussion Participants:

As for class next week, we will continue the discussion of Dr. Fish’s article which we began last week. So be ready to talk more about elements in the article that you didn’t discuss last time, and maybe bring a few questions you’d like to discuss after rereading the article! Reemmber, after this discussion, you will need to submit a written response to me.

Feedback for 18 November

Sorry these polls are late–a lot of things happened last week/weekend.

PARTICIPANTS:

FOR LEADERS ONLY:

Evaluations for Student Led Discussions (11 Nov. 2010)

Discussion Leaders:

Discussion Participants:

Readings for Discussions

Here are some readings for upcoming class discussions:

Feedback Time

Hey folks,

We’ve been having a lot of student-led discussions. Here are the polls for providing feedback to your classmates!

FOR LEADERS:

FOR PARTICIPANTS:

Please check back in a day or two for the article I’ll be uploading for discussion on Nov. 9th.

Article, Feedback, Upcoming Discussions

ARTICLE FOR DISCUSSION:

One more time, here’s  a text on the issue we’re going to discuss in the afternoon (12pm-1pm) on 2 November 2010:

After this discussion, please submit a 500-word response to what your group discusses.

FEEDBACK FOR THE DISCUSSION OF 28 OCT. 2010:

For Discussion Leaders:

For Discussion Participants:

UPCOMING DISCUSSIONS:

We have student-led discussions on Tuesday evening and on Thursday afternoon. I am waiting for emails to confirm the topics of the discussions on Tuesday evening. The topics for 4 Nov. will be announced on 2 Nov, in our afternoon class.

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