Muhammad Zaki bin Abdullah

ELTC Journal

Week 1
The first thing that I do was to introduce myself to my classmates and get to know
each other names. It was so difficult to remember each my classmates but the
lecturer, Miss Elizabeth Price, helped us know each other well by switching partners
in each activities we do. I have learned about academic titles, which I have used a
few times to email my lecturers and some other people. I have also learned about
formalities in any situation for example, when I am with my friends of friends, I just
call them by their last name and if they are close to me, I will call them with their first
name. No need for titles. One of my chemistry lecturer told me that it is ok to call him
by his first or last name and he did not care it I include his academic titles or not.
That makes him a little bit friendlier and closer to me. The last thing that we
discussed was about a text of dialogue when people bump into each other. The text
taught us how to greet each other when we meet and to ask about how someone is
doing.
Week 2
We were told to speak a lot during classes and to practice phrases with different
intonation which make the phrases have different meaning. Miss Price played a track
and we need to listen to the conversation from the handouts given in week 1. After
that, we did some exercise about the 3 conversation we listened to in the same
handout. I have got a deeper understanding on the ways a conversation can go like
how to keep the conversation going and how to end the conversation. I also learned
a little about referencing the authors of contents. Then, we played some speaking
game called the opinion Olympics, which consist of a board and dice with coins
represents each people in the group. We need to roll the dice and the pieces will
land on squares that tell us to give opinion with reason on a subject, and to agree or
disagree with the opinion given. I find myself more confident to argue on something I
do not agree with and to give some opinion.
Week 3
The class starts with the lesson about sending emails. We learned the how the
subjects of an email is acceptable or unacceptable and why is it so. Miss Price told
us that an acceptable email subject will make our email more likely to be read by the
receiver. The subject need to be simple and contain the main focus of why the email
is sent. The first thing that we need to type in the email content is the salutations and
title of the receiver, for example Hello Professor John, with the last name of the
receiver. We do not need to put any identification in the beginning of the email
because we put our name at the end of the email. Then, we were taught about
formalities in requesting and offering to someone. In a formal situation, we use words
that are not sound demanding to people like could for can and would for will.

Week 5
Muhammad Zaki bin Abdullah

We were introduced to another game called grammar gym. Grammar gym is a game
where the groups build sentences using the nouns and verbs given on pieces of
paper. There were only one place in a specific sentence for each of the verb and
nouns so we need to discuss which positive or negative verb need to be used I
specific tenses. This game is quite easy if we have a good grip of grammar and it is
the best way to practice different types of verbs. After that, we need to pair everyday
expressions in the most suitable way they can. We were told to interrupt opinions
with the stuff we had learned on week 2, where we need to agree or disagree to the
combination of the everyday expressions. Finally, we were exposed to the phrases
with the word piss in the UK slang and some in American slang. Some of them I had
known for a long time ago from movies and television. The UK and American slang
are quite different in meaning of phrases.
Week 6
Miss Price told us to draw circles within circles and to put the name of the person
who means the most to us in the most centre of the circles. The less close I am from
the person, their position will become more towards the outside. She told us to
compare the drawing containing 6 circles within circles of five years ago with the
present one. Mine is not different at all. We learned some phrasal verbs in a
relationship which I am sure I know and use sometimes for example to keep in
touch and to move away. We discussed in groups about different stages in a
relationship in our own country and I saw the large difference while comparing my
groupmates country with mine. We were given two short text about the grammar
rules of phrasal verb. One of the text was a lot easier to understand than the other.
The climax of the class was the listening practice using the popular song I Will
Survive by Gloria Gaynor. Miss Price gave us the lyrics sheet but with blank spaces
to fill while listening. It was an interesting activity and help us to understand fast
conversation.
Week 7
We discussed about power. How does someone obtain power and how will it affects
the people and the world. Power is one of the sensitive topic that people avoid to talk
about. Miss Price showed us a video called TedEd. It was a video with ted talks
about anything but the one we watched was about power. After the video, I have got
a better understanding about power and how to gain and use it at my will. Next we
discussed about anagrams, words made up of rearrangement of the alphabet of
another word. An example of anagram is the word anagram itself, that can be
rearranged into nag a ram when put into Google search engine. The last thing that
we learned that day was idioms on wealth and poverty. I read the article and I found
how similar my life is with the person described in the article. I also learned the
meaning of some of the new idioms new to me like in arrears in and have more
money than sense.

Week 8
Muhammad Zaki bin Abdullah

We started with a game where the students were divided into 2 groups and compete
to fill in the alphabet from A to Z on the whiteboard with words that relate to
medicine, which was the sensitive topic of this week. My team lost to the other team
but at least I learned some new words. Then Miss Price told us to discuss on the
subject given by her which have something about medicine and some of the topic
are related to the girl I discussed with, for example the subject about the insurance
on people who chose to consume alcohol and inflicted with ailments because of it. I
totally agree that there was no insurance for those people but the girl disagree and
she gave a good reason about her choice. We were then given an article about the
right words for the right symptom of medical condition like bruise and lumps. Some
of them were new to me like rheumatism and hypochondriac which means problems
in joints and people who are always anxious about their heath respectively.
Week 9
There was a few people who attended the class but the class continue as usual. We
talked about the problems we have in our various type of accommodation like a
broken window, and how do we solve it. There are some phrases that relate to how
seriously we take action on the problem like to fanny about and to take the bull by
the horns. The phrase that define me is to procrastinate as I always leave my work
to the last minute. I hope I can change that. We done a lot of exercise about the
words that we use when a certain type of problem in our life occur and what word do
we use when we make it right. We also done a listening practice using a cassette
player. The player works incredibly well despite its old age and the clear sound
amuse me. The cassette was about the conversation of some customers about the
item they have bought and have problem with. The last exercise about critics choice
of some time out activity that Miss Price gave us was very challenging. The article
contain compound adjective which are interesting to use in writing.