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Final Blog

YOUR STUDY HABITS
You have been doing the Language Development course one year. For the last semester, especially, we've practiced independent study. Independent study can often be more effective then studying in a class, because we can study at our own pace and focus on our own goals and interests. But if you don't have good study habits, you will be less effective.
Think about your study habits this semester. Copy and paste the following and answer: always / usually / seldom / never . You may add comments, if you like.

-Be ready, awake, and motivated
-Choose fun or interesting activities that are a little difficult (not too easy or way to diffucult)
-Preview the title or any picture to focus
-Try to listen or read once & then test yourself
-Listen or read many times to focus on any new language
-Focus only on common, useful words
-Review often (especially vocabulary)

SETTING NEW GOALS
Learners who make realistic goals and work hard to achieve them learn much faster. Please think of your goals and answer the following. Be specific.

-Have you made progress to reach your goals this year?
-Have your long-term goals for the future changed?
-How often do you plan to study on your own during vacation? During school time (next school year)?
-What are you going to study? NetAcademy/Web sites (Ferris Lab) /Books
-What skills are you going to study?

Remember you have until the end of January to continue your Independent Study Blog.

TOEFL-type questions

TOEFL (PBT) reading questions are usually one of the 5 types of questions.

Main Idea

Main Point

Details & examples

Vocabulary

Making inferences

Other:

· locating referrents (it, they, this, he, she, etc.)

· determining purpose

The answer choices are usually as follows:

-the right answers use different words with the same meaning

-the wrong answer using the same words

-an almost true answer

-a totally wrong answer

TOEFL STRATEGIES:

1. Understand organization of article

2. Be aware of the above question and answer types

3. Read title, headings, thesis, and topic sentences

4. Keep track of the time and don't leave any blank

5. If you running out of time, vocab questions may be quickest to answer

Independent study report

Please copy this and fill this out for each activity you do. (If you review an activity you already did, just enter the skill, site, level, & topic):



Skill: Site:

Level (if any): Topic:

Main point and/or Your Score (if any):

Key language points to review (words or rules):

Lesson Rating: :( :/ :I :)

Comments: (too easy / difficult / good level / interesting / boring / (not) effective)

_____________________________________

Do this once each study period:

Self-evaluation: * * * * *

Study time: minutes

Comments: (studied hard / hardly studied / concentrated / slept! / messed around / studied smartly / studied without thinking / studied intensively / reviewed / thought about my goals / thought about my progress)

Review Assignment - By Nov. 25

Today, we are almost halfway finished with the semester. Now you need to think about your goals once again and think if you had made progress.

1. Take a look at the goals you wrote at the beginning of the summer. Have they changed? If so, how? Why?

2. Do you think you are making progress this semester? How? If not, why?

3. Overall, what grade would you give yourself so far? (Are you studying enough? Are you studying smartly?)

_______________________________________________________________

I will comment on your blog, with your participation grade so far. This how I will grade.
(I will check your blog, NetAcademy2 data, and Blackboard data.)

-Are you studying at least one hour a week?
-Are you studying to meet your goals (skills, topics, focus)?
-Are you studying hard? (staying awake, try to choose fun activities)
-Are you studying smartly? (choosing a good level, listening/reading intensively, reviewing)
-Vocab: at least five words a week and good, useful words (not too technical or easy)

Adding your vocab list

It is very important you focus on new words and review them. In this class you need to focus on at least 5 words a week.

You need to make a vocab list on your blog so you can review, and I can see the words you are learning. I will make a personlized vocab test on 11-26. You will also get a participation score based on the number of words and difficulty of them -not too easy, not too technical (SVL 2-8).

1. Press the Customize button on the top-right of the screen (カスタマイズ)
2. Click "Add a Gadget" (ガジェットを追加)
3. Click "Text " (テキスト)
4. Add words from your blog and/or Tango Cho

Language learning review

If you want to improve your vocabulary and listening ability, you need to listen to the same clip many times and also focus on difficult parts. and words

Therefore, it is best to watch a short clip (2-5 minutes) and watch it many times and check the script, rather than watch the whole episode or movie once without reviewing.