Sunday, July 25, 2010

making the best of it

Making the best of things that might seem like a pain
Have you been asked to present your work for the University Open Day ? 
 Is your reaction: 

Open day... groan.............
 
to make the most of Open Day for YOURSELF:
  1. - come to open day and exhibit your project, jazz it up.
  2. - take photos of yourself surrounded by eager young innocent Engineering students of the future...
  3. - keep proof your having participated.
 
add photos of yourself and proof from 2. 3. above to your CV and show to future employers at interviews.
 
Goes down REALLY WELL !!!
 
Optional extra: follow the advice on:
 
 
and add your Open Day material to the site.
 
NB: instead of Open Day you can substitute any number of similar events.... be creative...
 
cheers
 
Heiko
 
 

Monday, July 19, 2010

improving your English HOW TO

how do I improve my English ?
Simple: Do two things: 

First:   Take your writing or your speaking: 
identify the ONE key error that you make most of the time. 

Then fix that. Concentrate on it until you have mastered it. Just that ONE thing. 

It may be something simple like: 
  • confusing "is" with "was" 
  • confusing "a" with "the"
  • putting "the" in front of people's names e.g. "The Peter"
  • mixing up plural and singlar e.g.   "He took two apple.... "
  • whatever it is that is YOUR MOST common error.
  •  
     
The most common mistake is the pink half of the pie chart. If you fix that your HALF of all your mistakes are gone.

Second:   Read.

When I say read I don't mean read something so you get better at writing, don't read in the way you do training at a Gym or take medicine. Read what you ENJOY in English.
Read romance, fiction, thriller, detective novels .... it does not matter what you read, but only ONE thing matters: you ENJOY it, really truly enjoy the book.

That is all you need to do. Enjoyment is the best way to learn, anything.

Remember it does NOT matter what you read, (in English) as long as you LIKE it.
Enjoy it.


Question: My problem is I am only interested about the story. I never notice the phrase use, vocab and grammar bla bla bla.

I like reading but I don't know how reading can make better writing?

Answer: It does. It is not obvious HOW that happens. You don't have to take conscious note of the grammar, it just seeps into you, you get it through exposure and repetition... the same reason businesses spend millions, billions of dollars on advertising: it works, not consciously but it works somehow.

So: Reading makes you better at writing.
Not fast, and not in an obvious way.
But you will find that all good writers are great readers.



************************************
for TEACHERS:
I used to correct my students English, they would sometimes look at it but usually just say "oh nice, thanks" and file it away.

So from my students I leart to something different:
- I highlight the word, or space between words where the correction is required. but I don't correct it.
I ask the student to correct it herself.