An interesting article on Obama's speeches

Now that the course is finished, exams are over and you are all relaxing ;-) I thought you might find this article from Foreign Policy on Obama's speeches interesting to read.

Final evaluations

Dear all,

Sorry about the delay with your marks - it has taken me a while to get all your work together and have a global overview of your work to evaluate you - but I finally have and you'll find your marks here on this page. and also information for registering.

Thank you for your participation in the course, I hope you got something out of it.
I'd like to have some feedback from you in order to be able to improve the course next year - so I'd be grateful if you could complete this evaluation form for me, it is anonymous. It is based on the questionnaire that student reps provided us with a few years ago and I have added a few questions.

Thanks again, and see you for registration.

Francesca

Links to essay writing

IELTS
Purdue Writing Lab
Paragraphing

Regarding what happened in Paris, here are some links to the articles from the quiz exercise, expressing a diversity of viewpoints: 
We are not all Charlie
The gunmen in Paris attacked more than a Muslim-baiting magazine
Deadly attack on satirical magazine in Paris

Terror attack on Paris Newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, kills 12

Guest speaker on Friday - Francis Rolt

On Friday at 8.45 we will have a guest speaker, Francis Rolt from Radio for Peace Building. He has extensive experience of working with media for conflict transformation, and he has worked with international organizations such as Search for Common Ground, UNICEF and the BBC .  Please read up about him and the work he does, and prepare some questions for him. The title of his talk is Media Works: from building peace to countering violent extremism, and in light of what happened in Paris today I think it will be very interesting to hear what he has to say.

Here is a quiz on Headlines from web news sources yesterday

Participants and processes

Today in class we looked at how we can analyse texts by looking at participants and processes, voice, and the use of nominalisation.

Participants and processes from Francesca Helm

We briefly analysed this article about Shell in the Niger Delta
Tomorrow we will compare it with a Greenpeace article on Shell and Niger Delta. Then I will test your critical skills by asking you to analyse this video: We are sorry

Homework:
1. Academic Essay:

What are some of the causes and effects of the spread of the English language across the world?

Write an essay of about 1500 words on this topic, making reference to the texts we have read and any other information you may find. Remember to organize your thoughts into PARAGRAPHS, with a topic sentence for each paragraph. Also remember this is an academic piece of writing, so it should have a formal register and use academic vocabulary.

2. Blogs:

Write another post for your blog, and also read some other students' blogs and post a comment on at least one other blog.