Check Your Blogs, Please!

If you get this late Friday night or early Saturday morning, I've commented on all of your blogs and scored them. Check in the comments section of your last post. If you have any questions or comments we can talk in class tomorrow. Until then, sleep well and dream of how great your final presentation will be!

Final Homework Assignment: Blog Self-Evaluation

Hello! For your final blog post (once you've finished all your required posts!) I'd like you to do a blog self-evaluation, much like we did in AP-5. The only difference besides the topics is that this time I'd like you to remember that your blog is 50% of your final grade, since it's replacing the "journal" grade in your evaluation. So both the posts and this evaluation are important. I will take your input into account when grading your journals, so please give your evaluation the attention it deserves.

I'll post the assignment here (yes, it's very similar to the last one from AP-5). Also, any blog additions or changes you want to make need to be made by Friday at noon at the latest, so I can take your comments into account before our class. Like before, I'd like you to be honest, so if you'd prefer not to post this to your blog, that's OK; you can send it to me by email instead.

For your self-assessment, write a couple of sentences about each of your posts, including a score for each on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest). You should take into consideration first of all your English use (Vocabulary, Grammar, Mechanics, etc.), as well as your promptness, completeness, and your interaction with your group partners and their blogs.

You had 5 assignments, so you'll have to write your comments for the 5 posts. To remind you, they were:

(click on each description for a link to the assignment)

Assignment 1: Questions about American and Costa Rican culture

Assignment 2: Linking behaviors to cultural values

Assignment 3: Describing your own personal culture

Assignment 4: Paragraphs combining multiple answers

Assignment 5: Culture shock questions

For example, you could say:

Assignment 2: 7/10. I feel that I could have done job with this post, since I posted it late and my answers were a bit incomplete. I only identified two behaviors, and they weren't concrete. But after my classmates commented and said that they needed to be concrete, I changed my post and tried to make it a little better.

So, do that 5 times, and you should be fine. Remember that you can also email me this assignment if you feel uncomfortable posting it to your blog. You can also take this opportunity to give me feedback about any aspect related to the class.

That's it for now. Thanks for giving me a nice class to look forward to on Saturday mornings. I hope that you learned something new, improved your English, and enjoyed the class. See you on Saturday, and don't forget to prepare your final presentations!

Third Wheel

I found this comic on the internet yesterday, and I thought I'd share it with you since we were talking about the idea of the "third wheel" in class last Saturday:

Have a good day!

Week 6 Homework and Final Presentation Note

Trivia: Where was this picture taken? First to answer in the comments section gets a prize.

Since we talked about Culture Shock this week, your blog assignment is to answer these questions:

A. What do you know about culture shock? Have you ever experienced it or known anyone who has? How do you think you personally would deal with culture shock?

B. What advice would you give to a friend suffering from culture shock?

C. What personality traits do you think could help prevent culture shock?

D. What variables might make culture shock more or less severe?

Like before, please don't just list the questions and the answers, but try to combine your responses into a coherent paragraph or two. If you have any questions, please tell me.

Also, your final presentation will be during our last class (September 3rd). I'll give you some suggested topics today so you can think a bit about what you'd like to do. You can also tell me if you have a different presentation idea related to culture and/or communication. You can work alone or in a group, as long as your presentation follows the guidelines (it must involve the class in some way, for example; you all did a good job on your first presentation with this aspect). 

TWO SUGGESTED TOPICS:

A. Role-play a conflict based on cultural values. Then, lead a class discussion that interprets the situation and comes up with potential solutions.

B. Through an interactive demonstration of some sort, highlight your own values (whether they’re personal, cultural, or universal) and/or have your classmates demonstrate their values.

If you have a good reason for wanting to do your presentation this coming weekend (August 27th), you can send me a message and we can possibly work out something. Like I said in class, though, I'd prefer to do all the presentations in our final class, so that it won't seem like we're constantly doing presentations.

That's it for now. Have a good week, and see you on Saturday!

Week 5 Homework

As a reminder, your homework this week is to respond to at least 4 of the questions we used in our warm-up in our last class. Instead of just posting questions and answers, try to combine two or more of them into a coherent paragraph.

If you've lost your paper, the questions were:

1. How did you “get” your name?

2. Who named you? Why did they choose your name?

3. Do you like your name? Why, why not?

4. What do you know about naming customs in other countries?

5. Does your name mean anything?

6. If you had children, what would you name them?

7. If you had to invent a name for your alter-ego, what would you choose?

8. What is a tradition that your family—and only your family—has?

9. Do you think that you are more of an individual or group-oriented person?

10. Do you think that people are essentially good or essentially bad?

11. Do you value practical or beautiful things more? Why?

12. Have you ever felt homesick? Where and why? Or why not?

13. If you could only listen to one musical group for a month, who would you choose?

So, there's plenty to choose from! Have a great week, and I'll see you on Saturday!

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

Guys (and Girl), 

As we discussed in our first class, your blog replaces the "journal" grade on the syllabus, and as a result will count as 

50% 

of your final grade. If I knew more about HTML, I'd find a way to make that "50%" spin around, flash, and shoot fireworks, but I don't, so I made it super-big so you don't miss it!

I don't want to see your grades massacred because of this, so be sure to update your blogs!

Sincerely,

Ryan

Week 4 Homework

Hello! I hope you had a good weekend. This week's homework is not very complicated but it does require some thought and reflection. I'd like you to talk about your own, personal "culture." 

First of all, please define culture in your own terms. Then identify and explain at least 4 aspects or characteristics of your personal culture. You can mention values or behaviors that we've talked about in class, or you can go in a different direction if you wish.

That's the homework. If you've still got to give your presentation, please be prepared on Saturday. To all the people who presented last Saturday: nice work!

If you're behind on your other blog posts, you need to do them this week also, and to be sure to comment on your partner's blog posts. As before, if he/she hasn't posted yet, you can comment on a different classmate's blog.

Good luck, and please tell me if you have any questions. Have a nice week, and see you on Saturday!

One More Thing...

Also, don't forget to bring your "cultural artifact" to class on Saturday. Remember that it needs to be a physical object from a different culture (ie, not Costa Rican), and it needs to represent another culture. You should be prepared to explain how/why it represents that other culture. Also, try to keep it a secret! 

Thanks, and see you on Saturday!

Presentation Notes and Homework for Week 3

I can read cats' thoughts.
This one's thinking, "Where's my friend Juan Miguel??"

Hello everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. Here's your reminder about both the presentation this coming Saturday, as well as your blog homework for this week.

Mid-Term Presentation:

The two main guidelines for the presentation are that it needs to be related to culture and that it needs to get your audience involved somehow. Your classmates don't need to be singing and dancing during your whole presentation, but you should have something that draws your audience in and allows them to participate, instead of just passively listening to you talk for 5-10 minutes. Try to make it relevant and interesting to you and your classmates, and you should do fine.

I know we went over a few possible topics in class, but here they are again, in case you still need to choose a topic:

-Culture shock and how to survive it

-Advice on what to expect for a foreigner coming to Costa Rica

-Advice on what to expect for a Costa Rican doing business with foreigners

-Advice on what to expect for a Costa Rican going to live/study in another country

-Design a program to explain your culture to a foreigner

-Design a program to help people understand culturally-influenced behavior

Blog Homework

You had a week off for your blog homework, so this should be your second post (Most of you have done the week 1 homework, but if you've not yet, please do it now).

Since we talked about how our values influence our behavior, your assignment this week is to observe three value-influenced behaviors this week and report on them. Notice that I wrote the word "observe" in italicized bold print. That's important, because I want you to find three concrete, real, specific actions or behaviors to report on. So, no "if's" or "when's" or other theoretical situations. You can observe behaviors from Costa Ricans or people from other cultures (you can possibly even find them on TV or the internet if you follow international news or shows).
For each action, I want you to describe what the behavior was and what cultural value you think may have influenced the person to behave in the way he or she did. Please be specific on both of these points, or I'll leave annoying comments on your blogs asking you for more information!

Speaking of annoying comments, I'll be commenting on your blogs, and if there's a question or a suggestion in my comment, please respond to it. I'd also like you to comment on some classmates' blogs from week 1. Your partners are:

Ronald-Gaby 

Ricardo-Felipe  

Juan Miguel-Esteban  

Juan José-Alejandro

You can also comment on this week's homework if you want. If your partner hasn't posted his/her homework from week 1, choose a different classmate and comment on his/her blog.

If you have any questions about any of this, please tell me. Also, if you need any resources for your presentation, tell me as soon as possible.

Thanks, and have a great week!

Week 1 Homework

I built this thing but I'm not sure what it is or what it's supposed to do. Any suggestions?

Hello! I hope you're having--or had, depending on when you read this--a nice break! Here's your blog homework assignment for week 1:

You need to write a few paragraphs responding to the discussion questions we had in our first class. You can and should combine some of your responses together, making sure that your answers are clear and coherent. Remember that the blog is 50% of your final class grade, since it will be considered your "journal" for this class. Accordingly, please pay close attention to your English usage, punctuation, spelling, and clarity. You should dedicate some time and thought to each of your blog entries.

The questions you should respond to are:

-Why is culture important in studying language?

-What aspects of your culture are most interesting for foreigners?

-What aspects of your culture are most challenging for foreigners?

-What do you like best/least about American culture?

-What do you like best/least about Costa Rican culture?

-What would you change about Costa Rican culture if you had the chance?

So, if you have any questions or problems you can contact me through the comments or send me an email. Have a good time with Gina, who'll substitute teach your class on July 23rd. I'll see you all again on the 30th. Take care!

Continents

We were talking about this a bit in class today. If you click on the map, you can see different ways that different countries divide the continents. So according to some, there are only 4 continents!

You can read more on this Wikipedia page if you're interested.

I'll post your homework within a day or two, but don't worry about it yet--you're on vacation!

A New AP-6 Class!

Hello everyone, and welcome to AP-6! As you can maybe see, I've already used this blog address for a previous class. It's not as fancy as the AP-5 blog, but at least it's cozy. In any case, this is a convenient and easy to remember address, so it's probably easiest to just keep it. I'll be posting your homework assignments, comments, and links on this blog. I'll also have all the students' blogs in a tab on the right, once I have a complete class list.

As always, you can also check out my language learning blog, Sitzman ABC, for more links, tips, and other information related to English and learning languages.

Again, welcome, and if there's anything I can do to help you improve your English during this course, please tell me!

-Ryan