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Vance's Summer 2003 courses at the Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi

Some of the Oasis Achievers in the classroom

Orientation Lab Program Outline

http://pi2003orientation.blogspot.com has instructions for creating blogs and a lesson plan for using them.

Oasis Program Course Outline, July 19 - August 13, 2003

Dates not filled in yet are still posted at the blog: http://vance-pi.blogspot.com

Ahmed Ismail, Hasan Ali, Yaseen, Ahmed Hasan, Hassan Ismail, Khalifa Said, Mohammed Ghasab (standing), Saeed Al Bahri, Vance

Oasis Summer Program, Overview

Welcome to Vance's Advanced Oasis class at the Petroleum Institute

The goals of the class are to:

1. have fun
2. learn some English
3. learn a little about the Petroleum Institute

Here is the daily schedule:

• 09:00 - 10:30 classroom
• 10:30 - 11:00 - break
• 11:00 - 12:00 -computer lab 12:00 - have lunch, go home, rest, enjoy the rest of your day

Class plan for Saturday July 19, 2003:

09:00 - We've just met. Let's get to know each other.

• Name tents
• Grammatical questions answered

10:00 - Where do you come from?

Imagine that one of these will happen:

• ADNOC is going to create a new facility somewhere in the UAE.
• A (new factory or business) will be constructed somewhere in the UAE.
• A (sport or entertainment event) is going to take place somewhere in the UAE.

You have been asked to prepare a BID or PROPOSAL to convince the authorities to chose your home town.

We will

• look at Filamentality to see how to make the bid http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/
• look at Google to see how to find sites about your home town or province http://www.google.com

You will 'team up' with one or two classmates

• Decide on a PROJECT (factory, sport event)
• Decide what features of your home town will convince the authorities to chose your location
• Write these down and show the teacher. Put your names on the paper and don't lose it.

11:00 - computer lab

• Visit Filamentality and create your bid - http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/
• Use links to Google or other search engines to find sites to support your bid.
• Explain HOW these sites support your bid.
• Use the back space to change your site's appearance.
• Write the URL of your site and your ID and password on the paper and give it to the teacher.

Tomorrow, or when you are finished, you can show your bid to the class.

Class plan for Sunday July 20, 2003:

09:00 - Warm up activity

The Longest word

10:00 - Project

Convincing the authorities to choose your home town for an important event

Yesterday we created PROPOSALS in Filamentality

• We formed teams.
• Each team decided to propose an event
• Each team created proposals to convince the authorities to chose its location
• Each team looked at Google to find sites with information to support its proposal

Here are the pages that were created:

• A Proposal for Staging Chess in Texas by Vance Stevens
• Scuba Diving by Abdu Al-Salam, Essa, Mohammed Rashid, Hasan Al Marzooqi, Ahmad Ismail
• Oscars Awards In Dubai by Bader Hassan, Yousef Ali, Rashid Humaid, Ahmad Mohammad
• Horse racing in Dubai by Ahmed Hasan, Mohammed Ghaseb, Khalifa Saeed, Ail Khalifa
• Football championships by Saif Mohammad, Ahmed Khamis, Taher Al Amri, Juma Salem
• Squash in Dubai by Abdullah Al Junaibi, Abdullah Al Junaibi, Mohammed Saif, Ali Al Ammari
• Agriculture by Saieed Al Bahri, Nadeem, Adbulrahman Hassan, Hassan Al Amoudi, Saif Saeed
• Horse Racing by Ahmed, Hassan, Yaseen, Ali Mohammad, Ali Ahmad

Let's look at these and see how we can improve these proposals!
Now we need to work on this: Explain HOW these sites support your bid

11:00 - computer lab

Visit Filamentality at http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/

• Return to an Existing Project and use your name and password
• Basic Info: Include your names or a Team Name (click Hotlist)
• Use Customize Text to
  - change your Title from 'Hotlist on ...' to 'Proposal for Staging...'
  - change your Introduction to explain the purpose of your proposal
• Use Edit Links to make descriptive Titles of each link. Write descriptions that explain why this link supports your proposal
• Use Add Links to create at least three links using Google or other search engines to find sites to support your bid.

Tomorrow, we will have a CONTEST to determine the best proposal

Class plan for Monday July 21, 2003:

09:00 -

Read about home from Reward Intermediate (3)

What does the word "home" mean to you? How do you say the word in French? In Spanish? In your language? Although people usually know what the word means, it often has no exact translation. It's not surprising really, because the idea of home varies from country to country, and from person to person. A home is more than a roof and four walls. It's the cooking, eating, talking, playing and family living that go on inside which are important as well. And at home you usually feel safe and relaxed.

But it's not just that homes look different in different countries, they also contain different things and reveal different attitudes and needs. For example, in cold northern Europe, there's a fire in the living room or kitchen and all the chairs face it. In the south, where the sun shines a lot and it's more important to keep the heat out, there are small windows, cool stone floors and often no carpets. We asked some people about their homes.

• we mapped the paragraph by copying to word, increasing font size for projection, slicing up text in display
• We discussed the comments made by others about their homes
• Review articles use
• We wrote 4 sentences for item #3, corrected some in class

We will do Robert Frost poem on Death of the Hired Hand tomorrow

Students took "15 min break" from 10 to 10:30

Students pair and interview each other. Prepare a draft called "My Friend"

You must interview your partner.

On your paper, write down

• his name and where he comes from.
• Three things he likes.
• Three things he doesn't like.
• What he hopes to accomplish or achieve at the Petroleum Institute this summer.
• What he wants to be five years from now. AND WHY?

11:00 - computer lab

• Go to Lab and, in pairs at the computer, collaboratively write about each other.
• Save your work in the students' area ...

Where this is going -

• Soon, we'll take pictures in class
• We'll create web pages that match pictures with friends' essays.
• We'll create pages at http://www.blogger.com and link to things that interest you.
• Blogs can be linked to Filamentality hotlinks pages.

Class plan for Tuesday July 22, 2003:

09:00 - 10:40

Finish 'Home Rules' from Reward Intermediate (3) Reading and Vocabulary extracts:

Read these short extracts and decide what the expressions with 'home' mean in these contexts:

1. I was born in Northern Ireland but I came over to England to do my training - I'm a nurse. England's all right, I suppose, but I like to go home every now and then.
2. My gran lived on her own for a bit after grandad died. But she's getting on a bit now - she's 84, actually - so she moved into a home last year. She's looked after there so my parents don't have to worry about her so much.
3. I'm quite happy to stay at home most evenings. I'm out at work all day so I'm in no hurry to go out in the evenings as well.
4. My brother's football-mad. He's a Manchester United supporter and he's got all the players' autographs. He goes to all their matches when they're playing at home and even goes to some of the away ones.
5. My flat seems to get smaller as teh years go on. I've got so many things now and I never seem to be able to find a home for them.
6. A male friend of mine is an absolutely wonderful cook. He mades the most fantastci pasta dishes you can imagine. He's really at home in the kitchen.
7. When I worked in Germany as an au pair, I had a great time. Teh family I worked for were very nice and they treated me like one of them. It was really a home away from home.

Relate these extracts to concordance output on 'home' (sort left) from the Hong Kong VLC concordancer: http://www.edict.com.hk/concordance/WWWConcappE.htm

Reading for pleasure: American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)

The Death of the Hired Hand

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in"

• Summary of the poem: http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/frost11779-des-.html
• Full text of the poem: http://www.bartleby.com/118/3.html

Pictures of Robert Frost

• Robert Frost on the web: http://www.amherstcommon.com/walking_tour/frost.html
• Robert Frost Web Page: http://www.robertfrost.org/indexgood.html
• Frost in 1936: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/frost.htm

Let's correct some of our papers from yesterday:

- We'll look in the Students-101 folder and pull a few papers out.

10:40-11:00 - Break

11:00 - noon - computer lab

We can work on -

• Developing pages at http://www.blogger.com with self-introductions
• Developing friends' essays and linking to friends' blogs.
• Linking blogs to our first Filamentality hotlinks pages
• Taking pictures in class

Class plan for Wednesday July 23, 2003:

09:00 -

Warm up:

Visit this site: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/2752/9ppl.html

• Write 9 sentences giving the location of the people hidden in the picture. Use 'There is' and prepositions of place.

Writing:

In pairs or triads, correct work from blogs and other writing

Demonstration:

• Editing blogs
• Finding pictures and links putting them in your Template

Changing your Template

Find this place ...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Add things to your sidebar here.
Use the format:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Take notes on what your teacher tells you or find the file in Students-101 / Vance / change_template.txt

In the Lab -

• Make changes to your blogs
• Find pictures or links and put them in your blogs
• Spare time? Play Mind Game with someone

There's more here: http://vance-pi.blogspot.com

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For comments, suggestions, or further information on this page, contact Vance Stevens, page webmaster.

August 11, 2003