Comments

I have been writing comments on your blogs. I would like you to respond to my comments, especially when I ask you a question in a comment.

Also, it is your responsibility to make sure that you understand what I have written in my comments. If you do not understand what I mean by something I have written in a comment to you, ask me.

Attendance and study outside of class

Today it is raining very hard. I understand that it may be difficult for some of you to come to class today. However, this morning I was surprised to find that no one (not even one person) wrote anything on his or her blog over the past week; the only new posts were those made during class last week.

There are two things that I would like to say about studying outside of class and about attendance. First, I hope that everyone understands that I do not consider merely coming to class once a week and doing a little bit of study during class time to be sufficient. You should be studying at least a couple of hours outside of class each week in addition to your study in class. Second, attendance in class has been poor. Even those of you who come to class are often coming late and/or watching YouTube or doing other things that are unrelated to this class during class time. I am afraid that the combination of poor attendance and failure to study outside of class will cause some of you to fail this class.

I understand that today is somewhat special because of the bad weather but, overall, I think most of you need to study much harder in this class. Please understand that your blogs must reflect regular study if you wish to get credit for this class and particularly if you want to get a good grade.

Easy class?

Today, relatively few people have come to class. In this class, if you work hard on your blog outside of class you can get a good grade -- even if you miss several classes. I expect everyone to work in and out of class. Your blog should reflect about three hours of study per week. So, if you miss class, you should be spending an extra 90 minutes outside of class. Since I expect about three hours of study per week, you may not pass the class even if you come regularly. You need to study outside of class too.

An example of good work

Click here to see a good example of work by a student who read about sports. This student has included a link to the article he read.

Another excellent example

Please click here to see an example of an assignment that has been done very well. The only thing this student has forgotten to do is to include a link to the web page she was reading. She wrote the title of the book (Robinson Crusoe for Children) but did not include a link. Click here to see the chapter of the book that she was reading. By the way, I have link to the text and audio of this book on the right side of this blog.

Lang-8.com

Yesterday, I learned about a site called Lang-8.com. If you would like to have native speakers check your English, have a look!

Excellent work

Please click here to see an excellent example of the kind of work I would like for you to do in this class.