WEEK 1 ( 3-7 FEBRUARY) & WEEK 2 (10-14 FEBRUARY)

Dear C05 Students,

Congratulation! Now, you are a member of ITU FamilyJ After you have proved that your English is proficient enough, you will be able to start the education in your departments, attend student-exchange programs, do research, and the like.

It is great to have lessons with you. It must be a bit confusing for you since you have so many lessons and teachers each week. What I see is that you are self-motivated, which is curicial while learning English. Since we do not have a class picture, I have not uploaded one yet. but will take your pictures and upload them to our blog. Well... Let me explain why I decided to open this blog. To be honest, there are so many reasons:

•  Since you are a tech-savvy, I thought you may use interactive tools easily.
• Due to my workload, I have limited time, so this blog may be a great help to stay in touch with you.
• Your strenght: You know grammar by heart. You remember every single rule indeed.Yet, you need  variety and practice. The assignments and suggested activities will help you improve your English.
• I hope by means of the activities on our blog, you will be able see your streghts and weaknesses.
• I have taken some online courses provided by Oregon University, and the British Council. I believe that if I put into practice whahtever I know, it will be helpful to improve your English.  

What is our class profile?

As you know your level is Intermediate, which means you are able to express yourselves  clearly despite the limited lexical knowledge and  minor grammar mistakes. You are almost adults (17+) and eager to start and complete your academic career. There are 23 students in the class, and most of you are not from Istanbul.

What is the setting?
Thank you for choosing Istanbul Technical University (ITU), where we provide a one-year intensive English program for our students before they start their faculty. It is such a crowded school. We run two different preparatory programs; one for the ones who will study at ITU, and the other for the ones who will study both at ITU and a sister school in the USA.

Apart from preparatory programs, we also have English lessons for Continuous Education Program called SEM shortly. Our classrooms are equipped with a projector and sound system. We do have wireless internet in the whole building. You can use our computer lab, writing center, dining hall, medical center, parking lot, service buses, and library whenever you need.  As part of school facilities, you may also use the health club on the main campus.

 You are so lucky to be in the heart of Istanbul. The location is amazing, you can go everywhere easily or enjoy the historic building.

What are the course goals?

As we all know you are required to prove that your English level is eligible enough. Thus, we offer you an intensive program till June. That is, in total you have 8 months. At the end, you may take our national exam or an international exam. Your priority might be passing one of the exams, yet remember that you need to use English efficiently in your career and social life.

My course is Writing, yet I would like to remind you that writing exists in every skill. Thus, we will do various integrated activities using our knowledge.

The main goal of this course is to help you produce free and academic writing, making use of process approaches, rhetorical devices, and given frameworks

What do you need?We provide all the materials including books and handouts. What you need to do is to follow lessons and complete assignments. If you need additional source, please feel free to use our library or ask for help. I have already provided plenty of activities. If you have not tried them yet, in spite of the deadlines, you can start to explore them.

Best

Class Teacher Hacer Şivil

PS: Please click on our Wallwisher/Padlet below and write how you feel today. You may upload images, videos or anything else you wish.  





What we have learnt so far....

Dear All!

I will do my best to give the summary of each week and to help you practice more. You just need to click on the highlighted words or  phrases. You are more than welcome if you post your assignments here.

This week, we have focused on different types of sentences and try to extend sentences.

Lets' have a look at a simple sentence and do our best to extend it. Click on the highlihted sentence ans see how it is expanded.

I made tea

Besides, we have had a chance to practice coordinators: and, so, for,, but, yet, nor (FANBOYS).

Hope you have learnt how to connect sentences using sentence connectors and complete simple sentences with sentence connectors.

Have a look at the list for the help.

1) Coordinators

Coordinators (and, but, so, or, nor, for*, yet*) connect elements of equal importance.

S + V , but S + V S + V and V S or S + V N and N Adj. and Adj. Phrase and Phrase Can be used in a series: A, B, C, or D

(A comma is normally used.) (No comma is necessary.)

 

Examples: He drinks coffee, but she drinks tea.

(S + V , coordinator S +V)

Gary lives in Ohio, and Deana lives in Michigan.
She loves to dance, so she bought a studio.
You could buy a car, or you could put the money in the bank.
When there is a new subject and verb, a comma is used before (not after) the coordinator.
I hate to sing but, I love to dance. (Incorrect)
I hate to sing, but I love to dance. (Correct)

John and George both play football. Paul listens to music and reads books. John, Paul, George, and Harry are classmates.

(two subjects) (two verbs) (series)

*For is also commonly used as a preposition. Yet can sometimes be used as an adverb.


2) Subordinators

Subordinators are linking words that are used to join clauses together. They are used at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence. A clause is a group of words that must contain a subject and predicate. There are two types of clauses:

• independent clauses - these can stand alone as a sentence by themselves
• dependent clauses - these make no sense by themselves.

Example

Common Subordinators

Below are some examples of commonly used subordinators.

Comparison & Contrast	Cause / effect	Time
Although Though Even though While Whereas	Since So that Because	After When Until Whenever Before
Possibility	Place & manner
if as if whether unless	Wherever Where How

3) Sentence connectors

Sentence connectors are used to link ideas from one sentence to the next and to give paragraphs coherence. Sentence connectors perform different functions and are placed at the beginning of a sentence. They are used to introduce, order, contrast, sequence ideas, theory, data etc. The following table lists useful connectors.

 Useful Sentence Connectors

Logical / sequential order Firstly, secondly, thirdly etc Next, last, finally In addition Furthermore Also At present / presently	Order of importance Most / more importantly Most significantly Above all Primarily It is essential / essentially
Contrast However On the other hand On the contrary By (in) comparison In contrast	Result As a result As a consequence Therefore Thus Consequently Hence
Comparison Similarily Likewise Also	Reason The cause of The reason for



As for the homework,  please go over what we have learnt and complete pages on 11,12, 15, and 17.

Best

Hacer Şivil