Pecha Kucha Experience

I’ve never before heard of a presentation called “Pecha Kucha” until this semester, and I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot! I am usually extremely nervous when it comes to giving a presentation, especially when there is a native speaker in the audience. Because of this nervousness, I tend to speak really fast so that I swallow most of the words, or Iose track of what I prepared to say like when I had to give a presentation during the hot and stressful culture days last semester. However, this wasn’t the case this time (thank God!) and I felt really confident while delivering this special type of presentation. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I had more time to prepare it properly, or that I simply got to do it with my good friend Emina, which made this experience lots of fun for both of us. I was even more surprised to find out that our classmates thought the same thing! Apart from having noticed that we stupidly confused an Irish map with a Scottish one (again, really sorry about that!), most of them thought we were very fluent, self-confident and that our PowerPoint was very good and interesting as well. What can I say other than this feedback was really the icing on the cake.

From “Making of” to “the Product”

Well, after Emina and I decided to make the Irish language our topic, we met up twice (which wasn’t that much of extra work since we practically see each other every day), made an outline to see where this presentation was going, collected all the information we could find and started writing the transcript together. While doing that, we tried to make it as interesting and creative as possible, since this was the purpose of the whole Pecha Kucha thing, so we asked Fiona to record something in Irish for us, which she kindly agreed to do. After that, we agreed on dividing up the transcript in 40 sec. sessions so that it doesn’t get too boring. The PowerPoint was also done in no time, and we were left with nothing but practicing so that we don’t go over the 20 seconds per slide. This “rehearsing evening” was definitely the fun part!

After delivering the presentation, I got to just lie back and enjoy some of the other interesting Pecha Kucha’s. All in all, I was very much satisfied with our successful presentation and wouldn’t have changed anything if I could (well, expect for the Scottic map, of course ;)).

Pronunciation Diary #2

A Work in Progress

As mentioned in Part 1 of my Pronunciation Diary, I’ve been going through some blogs to look for some advice on how to really work on my pronunciation, since this is a huge area that requires a lot of time and practice. And so what better way to improve your pronunciation than by trying to actually find out where you’re doing it all wrong! I couldn’t agree more. Unless you have some idea about what exact mistakes you are making, you will not be able to work on these specific problems and keep on repeating them! Of course, you can spot them by doing some imitation exercises on YouTube, or by receiving feedback from your teachers on one of your latest presentations. However, I personally think that the best way of finding out what mistakes you tend to make is by recording yourself and giving it to a native speaker so that he/she can tell you exactly which sounds you need to work on.  

And this is exactly what I liked about the Pronunciation Diagnostic Exercise we had to do separately before Christmas break, even though I was skeptical at first. I have to admit it felt really weird recording myself and even weirder hearing it afterwards (do I really sound like that? Haha), but after getting over it and concentrating on my pronunciation, I actually heard the sounds I need to deal with and the words I need to practice more often. The feedback given was, of course, a great help for me to see that I, for instance, pronounced the words “library” and “Mediterranean” wrong.

After finding out my mistakes, I looked them up and started “youtubing” to work more on specific sounds like the “g” sound in “vegetables”. Also, as it turned out, I pronounced the word “aluminum” with a rather British accent, and I realized that I've indeed been pronouncing some words more British, probably because I've had been listening to more British teachers lately. As I cannot mix these two accents together (obviously), I looked for some videos to help me with this and stumbled upon another useful one from Rachel Smith, where she teams up with a British native speaker to explain some of the pronunciation differences between these two completely different accents. I personally think that this should be an important part of everyone’s pronunciation practice as you need to recognize these differences to avoid mixing them up and confuse people in the future. Here’s the link to the video:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIZ78RwhSPc

And here are two more channels/links I started using and will definitely keep checking out, in addition to Rachel Smith’s. I would really recommend you giving them a try:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc2Y7xxkp5s&feature=youtu.be : Amy Walker’s “How to do an American accent”. She is simply adorable! She has a soft and pleasant voice and I like her detailed explanations and comments as she pronounces the words.
2. http://www.engvid.com/topic/pronunciation/ : “engVid’s free pronunciation lessons”. A very nice website with several native speakers going through the different sounds (v vs. w,…) and giving tips on how to understand certain expressions by breaking them down into words etc. Really helpful + witty!

After going through almost all links on the Pronunciation Practice Page, I can tell that these three are most definitely my favorite ones. Of course, this is just the beginning of this practice, and just because there are only two parts of this Pronunciation Diary, that doesn’t mean that I won’t keep working on my pronunciation afterwards. I am well aware of the fact that my accent is nowhere near as perfect; however, I wish to have a good accent by the time I finish my studies, and as I have come to realize, this can only be achieved by continuous practice and work...which I am willing to put into.

I am really looking forward to working further on my pronunciation during the semester break (that is, after surviving exam weeks) and I hope I haven’t bored you to death with this diary :)  

Pronunciation Diary #1

Well, to be perfectly honest, I haven’t really been giving my English pronunciation much thought or effort, probably because I always thought it would come in “naturally” with time, and especially after spending an extended period of time in an English-speaking country. Or maybe it doesn’t seem to be that big of an issue now, because we are always very busy with the never-ending writing tasks we have to focus on, which seem to be more important than ever. However, since good pronunciation is not only a big part of my English course this semester but also essential for people to understand me (and not make fun of me), I have decided to start working actively on my English during Christmas break, using some links from the Pronunciation Practice Page but also by reading some blogs on HOW to improve it.

Definitely American, however…

But first I would like to mention that even though I chose to sound more like an American, which I am trying to do by imitating native speakers I see on television or the Internet, I absolutely loooove British accents!! There is something about these accents that makes you melt and wanting just to be able to talk like these people. Of course, not all of them have this beautifully British accent…but check this guy out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqyi-165QR4 ; couldn’t you just listen to him all day long *sigh*? Anyways, what I am trying to say is that I would have very much loved to acquire such an accent, but I feel that it is not such a good idea to imitate British accents if you’re not a native speaker, as it will come out rather forced and “fake”.

What I have been doing so far

So, as already mentioned, pretty much all I have been doing for my pronunciation is simply imitating the way some of my favorite Americans (mostly actors/actresses and people on YouTube) speak. Also, when I come across a rather difficult word, I immediately look it up to see how it is pronounced correctly so that I don’t end up getting used to pronouncing it wrong for a longer time and not being able to “recover” from it. I have been using sites like howjsay.com, macmillandictionary.com, or sometimes just typing in the word into YouTube to actually SEE how natives pronounce it. Apart from that, I guess I can say I am quite lucky to have an American friend who lives in Vienna and who hates speaking German so that we usually end up talking a lot in English, which he enjoys, of course, as he gets to correct me.

Let’s get this started!

However, something I have definitely been lacking is practice, practice, practice! There is surely no way around it, so I might as well start now:

1. I started with practicing the voiced and unvoiced TH sounds (three/thin/teeth vs. this/these/worthy) by going to Rachel Smith’s channel and also the BBC website. This woman really knows what she is doing! Even though I were familiar with these sounds, it was fun practicing them out loud and being aware of the position of the mouth. For me, these sounds are certainly no piece of cake as you sometimes tend to pronounce them incorrectly when being nervous or talking too fast. Also, when the word is unstressed like in “What’s in THE car?” you pronounce it only with your teeth closed…I have never really paid attention to that fact; very interesting, though!
2. http://www.manythings.org/b/e/5078/ : This video on how the word “often” is pronounced was really interesting since I’ve always wondered whether to say it with “t” or not, and as it turned out: both ways are acceptable!! Unlike words like “soften” and “listen”, you can pronounce “often” with a t, but I have to say I will try to stick with the version without the “t” as it sound much more “American” to me.
3. http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/sound-native-speaker : I really enjoyed this video with the Ben Franklin and especially the imitation exercise. When you break it down like this, you start to get a good handle on how the words are pronounced in connection to other words. I repeated it quite often (pronounced without the “t”) until my sister told me it’s getting ridiculous…

So, that’s it for today! I have to say it’s really interesting and fun once you get started and try to find things interesting (cf. Henry:)). 

Before/after

Summary of ‘Europe already has on foot in ‘Japanese’ deflation grave’

Before:

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 discusses deflation and its disastrous effects on debt-ridden European countries.

Evans-Pritchard states that deflation currently appears to be insignificant in “low-debt” countries, such as Spain and Italy. However, as the debt ratio proceeds to rise over 300pc of GDB and inflation recently dropped to 0.9pc within the eurozone, causing a gradual fall in prices, these countries will soon be fully affected by deflation and, consequently, face a debt crisis.   

According to the article, this deflationary tendency pushes countries into a “runaway debt trajectory” that is impossible to acquit. These countries are faced with two options to prevent this predicament: Either implementing an austerity policy or increasing the inflation rate to ensure economic growth. Both solutions, however, seem to be doomed to fail as politicians do not make efforts to cut spending, and Germany refuses to cooperate to drift up inflation, simply because the country benefits from declining inflation.

The author believes that the best solution is for Italy, Spain, France and Club Med to join forces and persuade Germany to keep inflation high enough to avert deflation, as it will inevitably result in a “Japanese deflation grave” for all European countries. 

200 WORDS, NOT INCLUDING TITLE

After:

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 discusses deflation and its disastrous effects on debt-ridden European countries.

Evans-Pritchard states that deflation currently appears to be insignificant in “low-debt” countries, such as Spain and Italy. However, as the debt ratio proceeds to rise over 300pc of GDP and inflation recently dropped to 0.9pc within the eurozone, causing a gradual fall in prices, these countries will soon be fully affected by deflation and, consequently, face a debt crisis.   

According to the article, this deflationary tendency pushes countries into a “runaway debt trajectory” that is impossible to escape. These countries are faced with two options to prevent this predicament: Either implementing an austerity policy or increasing the inflation rate to ensure economic growth. Both solutions, however, seem to be doomed to fail as politicians do not make efforts to cut spending, and Germany refuses to cooperate to drift up inflation, simply because the country benefits from declining inflation.

The author believes that the best solution is for Club Med to join forces and persuade Germany to keep inflation high enough to avert deflation, as it will inevitably result in a “Japanese deflation grave” for all European countries. 

196 WORDS, NOT INCLUDING TITLE

My Academic Paper and I

Honestly, I have to admit that I haven’t had a lot of time lately to start yet with my academic paper. There are so many other projects for the other courses to focus on until Christmas break that I have decided to put it off to when I have more time, which will be during Christmas break (hopefully). However, the office hour has been extremely helpful since it enlightened me as to how I can structure my paper and that I should come up with a question to help me see where this paper is going. Not having a real focus was a major problem for me, because there were so many aspects you could write about on the topic “Egypt and the EU”, and so I ended up being really demotivated until we cleared this up during office hour. Although there aren't a lot of sources about this topic, I could find some interesting (and hopefully reliable as well) ones and I hope to start as soon as all the pre-Christmasy stress is over. 

My critique on an anonymous summary

Summary of Europe already has one foot in 'Japanese' deflation grave

In The Telegraph of October 23, 2013, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warns against deflation.

Over the last three months, inflation has dropped in several EU countries, leading the eurozone towards a Japanese-style deflation. Such sustained deflation is destructive to economies since debt dynamics are sensitive to changes in inflation. The current development risks pushing Italy and Spain into runaway debt.

Europe’s debt crisis strategy forces indebted states to cut wages to be able to compete with Germany. However, Europe’s policy regime does this without stimulating economic growth. Despite economy measures, the debts of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland have risen over the past two years. Private debts have also risen since the crisis began and businesses had to spend their liquid assets. Thus, imposing fiscal cuts is a self-defeating policy.

The solution to this economic climate is an inflation of at least two percent. However, the ECB is doing nothing to ensure this, as it is biased towards Germany, which is against inflation due to its strong economy.

The author recommends that the countries in need of inflation cooperate in the ECB’s governing council. They should assert themselves and call Germany’s bluff of walking out of the eurozone.

My comment:

Apart from the highlighted word (economic instead of economy), I can not see anything wrong with this summary; it is grammatically as well as textually well-written. The student: 

• seems to have understood the main points of the text, 
• wrote a good and concise introduction and conclusion,
• avoided redundancy, 
• used a good range of vocabulary,
• stuck to the facts and remained impersonal, 
• and was consistent register-wise.

All in all, a well-written, on-point, and coherent summary. 

Basic information on the European Union

Original Paragraph
As we started talking about the EU in this week’s class, I realized, there are a few facts every EU citizen needs to know about the European Union, if only vaguely. The EU was established after the Second World War, in 1958, under the name of “European Economic Community” (EEC), aiming to create an economic interdependence between Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in order to steer clear of future conflicts. Over the years, the EEC grew into more than being just an economic union between the founding six countries, and thus the name change in 1993, from EEC to EU. The EU currently comprises 28 European countries (Austria joining in 1995), with its political center in Brussels, and has 24 official and working languages. These member states are all united economically as well as politically, and for some countries the EU membership meant a great economic transformation, such as for Ireland when joining in 1973. There are five main organizations managing the EU, namely European Commission, European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, each responsible for certain tasks, e.g. legislation. In conclusion, there is considerably more to say and know about the EU; however, that should be sufficient to begin with. 
[210 words]   

Feedback summary 1
I (almost) always like receiving feedback on my writing, because you can see which areas need improvement and which errors can be easily avoided in future writings. In spite of some errors, my group-mates liked my paragraph and how it was organized (good topic sentence, supporting sentences and concluding sentence). One thing they thought would be better to write is "...and thus the name change from EEC to EU in 1993.". They also suggested to find out if 'European Commission' and 'European Parliament' is written with or without an article, and perhaps to shorten the paragraph slightly.

Rewritten Paragraph
As we started talking about the EU in this week’s class, I realized, there are a few facts every EU citizen needs to know about the European Union, if only vaguely. The EU was established after the Second World War, in 1958, under the name of “European Economic Community” (EEC), aiming to create an economic interdependence between Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in order to steer clear of future conflicts. Over the years, the EEC grew into more than being just an economic union between the founding six countries, and thus the name change from EEC to EU in 1993. The EU currently comprises 28 European countries (Austria joining in 1995), with its political center in Brussels, and has 24 official and working languages. These member states are all united economically as well as politically, and for some countries the EU membership meant a great economic transformation, such as for Ireland when joining in 1973. There are five main organizations managing the EU, namely European Commission, European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, each responsible for certain tasks, e.g. legislation. In conclusion, there is considerably more to know about the EU; however, that should be sufficient to begin with. 
[208 words]

Feedback summary 2 
This time, two other classmates looked at my paragraph and they liked my use of vocabulary and thought it was cohesive as well. The problem with whether to put the article "the" before every single organizations also became clear: You put it either before the first or before every single one, and I decided to place only one "the" before the first organization so as not to sound too repetitive. 

Final draft 
As we started talking about the EU in this week’s class, I realized, there are a few facts every EU citizen needs to know about the European Union, if only vaguely. The EU was established after the Second World War, in 1958, under the name of “European Economic Community” (EEC), aiming to create an economic interdependence between Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in order to steer clear of future conflicts. Over the years, the EEC grew into more than being just an economic union between the founding six countries, and thus the name change from EEC to EU in 1993. The EU currently comprises 28 European countries (Austria joining in 1995), with its political center in Brussels, and has 24 official and working languages. These member states are all united economically as well as politically, and for some countries the EU membership meant a great economic transformation, such as for Ireland when joining in 1973. There are five main organizations managing the EU, namely the European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe, Council of the European Union, and European Council, each responsible for certain tasks, e.g. legislation. In conclusion, there is considerably more to know about the EU; however, that should be sufficient to begin with.
[206 words]

Final draft 2
As we started talking about the European Union (EU) in this week’s class, I realized there are a few facts every EU citizen needs to know about the European Union, if only vaguely. The EU was established after the Second World War, in 1958, as the “European Economic Community” (EEC), with the aim of creating an economic interdependence between Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in order to steer clear of future conflicts. Over the years, the EEC grew to be more than simply an economic union between the founding six countries, and thus the name change from EEC to European Union in 1993. The EU currently comprises 28 European countries, with its political center in Brussels, and has 24 official and working languages. These member states are all united economically as well as politically, and for some countries EU membership has meant a great economic transformation. Some of the main organizations which are managing the EU are the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, each responsible for certain tasks, e.g. legislation and setting the EU’s political direction. There is considerably more to know about the EU; however, every person living within the EU should have a basic knowledge of it.

[210 words]