The impact of the EU on Croatia’s economy

http://dianablogging.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/the-impact-of-eu-on-croatias-economy.html

Pronunciation Diary Part 2

With my second pronunciation diary entry I would like to explain what my strategy was for passing the pronunciation Part1 of the PC2.

First of all I made a list of all the words I mispronounced when I got recorded:

the

a

sizes

aluminum

pleasant

this

How to say prices in English?

Next, I opened the “Pronunciation Practice Page” and opened various links which seemed useful for a couple of my mistakes.

1. Working on the two “th” sounds [θ], [ð]

I opened “Rachel’s English Page” and listend very carefully to her explaining these two sounds in one of her videos. It helped me a lot and now I get the difference and hopefully I will never make this mistake again.

So here’s the link: http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/two-th-%CE%B8-%C3%B0-consonants

I really like the fact that there is a close-up of her mouth so you can study the movement of her lips, teeth and tongue. To me that was SO useful.

2. Working on the difference between the “s” and “z” sound

That was probably the hardest sound to learn for me. I struggled a lot with the “z”. So I went to a website called “BBC Learning English”. On a subpage I found very short clips explaining the different sounds. 

Link “z”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/con_voiced_7.shtml

Link “s”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/con_voiceless_7.shtml

Besides repeating the example words of these videos, I focused on my two problem words “sizes” and “pleasant”.

I repeated them like 60 times in order to pronounce them correctly. Well, that’s what it all is about! Practice till you dream of these words (btw that’s what happened to me).But it was well worth it and know I clearly know the difference and the correct pronunciation!

3. Working on “aluminum”.

I just listened to the pronunciation on “howjsay.com” and once again pronounced this word again and again. 

4. Working on the rest

I listened to the record of the text we had to read for Task 1. I checked the pronunciation of “the”, “a” and the correct way of saying numbers. Immediately got that.

5. TED

Actually, a couple of days ago I discovered a pretty amazing website called TED. You can watch stunning videos of people giving presentations on numerous interesting topics. One presentation lasts between 5 to 20 minutes. 

It’s perfect to work on your listening skills because these people are talking in English but with different accents as they come from the USA, Great Britain, Australia, India, Africa etc. I love it because the subjects they talk about are just brilliant.

So the slogan of TED is “Ideas worth spreading” which is just so accurate for the whole website. I am addicted to these presentations and spend hours watching them at night. I benefit of getting familiar with various topics (business, biology, stress management, thinking positive, diseases like turret syndrome and many many more!!) and of practicing my listening and pronunciation skills. It’s perfect!! 

Besides TED for English speaking countries, I found TED Paris which means I can use the same website for French as well. I’m thrilled!! :)

Here are some of my favorite talks on TED so far:

3 things I learned while my plane crashed: http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html

My name is John and I tried to end my life: http://www.ted.com/talks/jd_schramm.html

I got 99 problems … palsy is just one: http://www.ted.com/talks/maysoon_zayid_i_got_99_problems_palsy_is_just_one.html

My Vocabulary Notebook

Before I can actually start learning the requested vocabulary, I make lists of the different units using the google.doc and its spreadsheets. Therefore, Maria and I worked together and split up the units to share the amount of work.
One spreadsheet consist of five columns: English word, explanation, German translation, example sentence, further information.

After working out all the words, I print the spreadsheets and start learning them one by one. I decided to take one day for one unit. But before starting with a new one, I repeat the old one so that I can make sure I did not forget any meanings. If I cannot remember one word I mark it in green. The important collocations are marked in pink. 

I like this system as I force myself to repeat the words a lot which is really helpful.

My biggest problem, though, is learning the vocabulary at vocabulary.com. For me it just does not work out. I cannot learn sitting in front of a computer. I need the words printed so that I can mark with a pencil important details and other stuff. If there is enough time, I plan to go through all the words on vocabulary.com one day before the actual exam because I think this website is quite useful for me if I have already learned all words. 

Additionally, I started a real notebook where I write down all the difficult words I would like to remember and go through more often.

 

The "Pecha Kucha" Experience

When Mr. Newman first gave us the task to give a “Pecha Kucha” presentation, I was confused. I had never heard of such a thing before and I felt like this is going to be a really tough task.
Looking back now, I know I was right from the beginning, but still it was a great experience.

Preparation 

The first step, “finding a partner” was not difficult at all. I was sitting next to Maria and we did not even ask the other one to work together, we immediately started looking for a topic on the list. We are what others might call “a perfect match” when it comes to group work. We just get along so well and I love working with her.

Actually, “choosing the topic” was also fairly easy as I saw “Flemish in Brussels” on the list and wanted to talk about it right away. I fell in love with this city this summer. Maria was up for it too, so we had decided on it after two minutes.

I did a pretty good start as I started looking for some information the very day. I found some interesting facts on the internet and together with Maria, we opened a google.doc (I love google.docs by the way – so thank you so much for showing us this life-saving invention!) and paste in all the stuff we found.

Admittedly, for the next couple of weeks I had not had enough time to do some research. So I started to get nervous. The “Pecha Kucha” presentation really stuck in my gizzard. I started wondering why? It turned out that the time pressure is the hardest part to deal with. Normally, I do not have any problems with preparing a presentation. I even stopped being really nervous before I give one. But with “Pecha Kucha” anything was different.

Mr. Newman recommended finding a student on the ITAT coming from Brussels and ask them to give us some first-hand information. This was a great idea but the realization turned out to be difficult. After sending several emails, posting in Facebook and hoping for answers, we finally found Pauline with the help of three people. This girl was amazing! She comes from Brussels and one of the most charming people I know. She was up for helping us and was a real support for this presentation.

As the deadline for the presentation came closer, Maria and I finally managed to give our presentation a structure. I started to totally get into this topic and had a lot of fun browsing the Internet to find out more about this beautiful city and its relation to languages. It is SO interesting!

After we had enough information we decided to write the tape script and the interview on one day. We spend I think nearly ten hours continuously on this task. We wanted the timing to be absolutely perfect, so we took the time after every sentence and slide. Tell you what! That was a lot of work! By the end of the day, I knew my whole part just by repeating it so many times. 

For the slides of the presentation, we also spend one day. We really got creative and gave some of the slides a personal touch. We even created our one images. That was really fun and we had a good laugh while preparing them. 

Presenting

As I already mentioned above, I was so nervous before this presentation because of the time pressure. I am a perfectionist, so I wanted it to be absolutely perfect.

When I finally started speaking the nervousness seemed all gone. I enjoyed talking about this interesting topic and thought we put a really informative presentation together – at least I hope so.

Feedback of other students

A vast majority of students mentioned our timing was perfect and that they found our presentation informative and liked our slides and the interview a lot. I am more than happy about that!

Concerning my performance, they wrote that I spoke freely which they liked and that my pronunciation was really good. 

The criticism they voiced was the fact that I spoke so quickly. I have to admit, I know I do that but not because I am so nervous but simply because I always speak very fast. I have to work on that. But for this particular presentation I would like to defend myself a little bit. If I had spoken more slowly, the timing would have been a mess. We really tried to shorten down my part but it was not possible, we did our best. But if I would have left out some parts nobody would have been able to follow. And people mentioned that it was clearly explained and easy to follow.

Nevertheless, I promise to work on this point as I want to be able to give great presentations. :)

Personal Feedback on “Pecha Kucha”

I think this an experience everyone should have once in their life. You learn a lot about time management and how to sort out unnecessary information.

Although it put me under a lot of pressure, I would probably do it again because if you put a lot effort in it, it works out and you can be proud of yourself. I like that! :)

Before & After Analysis: Europe already has one foot in 'Japanese' deflation grave

Version 1:

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 analyses Europe’s deflation crises which increases debts.

According to Evans-Pritchard, deflation has often been seen by governments as a benign solution to escape crisis, but it is actually a policy error which leads to rocketing national and private debt ratios as can be seen along with the example of Japan. If total debt exceeds 300pc of GDP, deflation becomes lethal which is currently true for most of Western Europe’s countries and even Germany is at risk. Mr. Evans-Pritchard warns of a runaway debt in which Italy and Spain maybe pushed if the current downward trend remains.  

Furthermore, he emphasizes that the ECB should increas the inflation rate to 2pc as a possible way out of the current impasse. Another solution to stop the crisis could be that France, Italy, Spain and Club Med allies gang up in the ECB’s governing council against Germany and dictate terms. But as these states seem terrified that Germany might leave the EMU, they only hope for a global growth to improve the situation. Clearly, this is not a grown-up policy.

Basically Mr. Evans-Pritchard warns of deflation as a false friend making the problem only worse.

Correction:

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 analyses Europe’s deflation crises which increases debts.

According to Evans-Pritchard, deflation is actually a policy error which leads to rocketing national and private debt ratios as can be seen in Japan. If total debt exceeds 300pc of GDP, deflation becomes lethal which is currently true for most of Western Europe’s countries and even Germany is at risk. Mr. Evans-Pritchard warns of a runaway debt in which Italy and Spain may be pushed if the current downward trend remains. 

Furthermore, he emphasizes that the ECB should increase the inflation rate to 2pc as a possible way out of the current impasse. Another solution to stop the crisis could be that the Club Med allies cooperate in the ECB’s governing council to work against Germany and dictate terms. But as these states seem terrified that Germany might leave the EMU, they only hope for a global growth to improve the situation. Clearly, this is not a grown-up policy. 

Mr. Evans-Pritchard warns of deflation as a false friend making the problem only worse.