SLŮNĚ Tutors and translators

BEFORE YOU WATCH1. Have you ever studied another language with a structured

learning system such as an on-line course, private tutor or a language school? Have you ever used an on-line learning community such as LiveMocha to support your study of a language? What was good about it? What things didn’t go so well? Would you like to try it again? Discuss.

2. How easily do learn another language? What kinds of things help you learn another language? What things hinder you? Besides learning another language, what are some of the benefits of communicating with people from another culture?

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a native speaker as a language teacher? Discuss.

4. Is there any foreign language you would like to learn in the future? What draws you to some languages over others?

Exercise 1

1. Slůně consists of two companies – a language school and translating company.

2. Slůně offers translation services but they have no interpreters.

3. Brazilian Portuguese used to be popular years ago, but Asian languages are number one these days.

4. The speaker thinks that the combination of an Asian language and English is especially good.

5. The speaker thinks that the best way to learn a language is to study or work abroad.

6. The speaker considers Skype a good opportunity to practise your language skills.

7. If you want to work for Slůně, you need to send in your CV both in English and in Czech.

WHILE YOU WATCH Exercise 2Are these statements TRUE or FALSE?

Listen and fill in the gaps

Exercise 3

Match the English expressions with their Czech equivalent

AFTER YOU WATCH Exercise 4

ROLE PLAY – TEACHING STRATEGIES1.Work in pairs. Prepare a five minute, mini-English lesson for your classmates instructing them about the details of a topic that you are interested in and want to elicit their support for one thing over another (e.g. sky diving vs. rock climbing, a musical group, vs. a local singer; a contemporary artist vs. a movie star; a cultural venue vs. a museum; a music klub vs. a squat; one mobile phone company over another, etc.

2.Use a particular grammatical structure and teach it through your topic: Present perfect tense, present perfect continuous, future perfect, future continuous tense, clauses of purpose, position of short adverbs in a sentence, use of the definite article with geographical terms.

Exercise 5

ROLE PLAY – PREPARATION

3. Prepare a strategy of presenting your topic through the grammatical rules to your classmates. Research more about the grammatical rules via the Internet, books, or ask your teacher for help.

As a team, decide how you will divide your roles during the mini lesson. Who will be responsible for what tasks? How will you ensure equality?

What other things must be considered before you start your presentation?

Exercise 5

ROLE PLAY – PRESENTATION

4. Pairs present their mini-lesson and its strategies.

5. Discuss what made the presentations successful or not. Besides the accuracy of the content, what other criteria and factors need to be taken into consideration? What made some presentations more interesting than others, which strategies worked the best, and which topics motivated you to find out or explore more about them.

6. What are your criteria for how something is engaging to you or not? Discuss your differences and your similarities. What role does your cultural background play in how you perceive different experiences?

Exercise 5

Exercise 6