MAG Students Last Class/Exam

My appologies for the unexpected absence the last class, I had a personal problem to attend to.

For anyone seeking their exam, they will be available at my office. Simply e-mail me and we can arrange a time.

February 14 - Tourism Marketing

With technology advancing quicker each day, every current student should consider how technology will affect their future job. Every hiring company is looking for someone who is not only capable of using the internet (as most people in first-world countries have a good understanding of how to use it), but also for people who are able to market on the internet. Whether it is by creating a website or blog, promoting your product through social networks or events, or creating an advertising campaign, you will probably be asked in the future to help a company with their presence on the internet.

I decided to show a few examples of award winning campaigns, that even included viral videos. Although these campaigns usually have a large budget (a lot of money to spend), the idea is what counts here. If you have a good idea, you won't need to spend a lot of money to get people talking about your product.

Travelocity Traveling Gnome
http://www.effie.org/winners/showcase/2011/4842

Montana: There's Nothing Here
http://www.effie.org/winners/showcase/2011/5132

Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
http://www.effie.org/winners/showcase/2011/4883

Jameson: Taste Above All Else
http://www.effie.org/winners/showcase/2011/5307

The new North American Finalists will be posted next week on the Effie site.

February 7th & 10th

Tuesday we had class as usual despite the weather. We did an activity based on speed dating and each student developed a character that was looking for a romantic partner. Each student spoke with another student as if on a speed date of 2 - 3 minutes in length. At the end of the class each student was asked to select their preferred date. This is a good oral practice and vocabulary builder.

Friday, we were to have a quiz but it was moved to today, the 14th of February. In Groups 1 and 3, we played a type of trivia game and in Group 2, we played an English version of Times Up.

This week consisted of both in class activities, so there is nothing to make up if you were not in class. However, if you have questions about either activity, feel free to contact me.

Week of January 31 – February 3rd

This week I handed back corrections on any CVs I received, printed or e-mailed. I gave some feed-back based on common mistakes I saw on Tuesday. I then reviewed some basic grammar on the past tense, in the simple and continuous form. The problem is there are many irregular verbs which do not follow a specific rule for conjugation in the past. For a more complete list of frequently used irregular verbs, check out this list.

I then assigned each student to write me a story of at least 10 sentences in length. The subject of the story was to be about a time you encountered a problem at work or while traveling. This was to help you prepare for the question in an English interview of, "Tell me about a time you solved a problem at work and how you did it." Also, many of us enjoy telling stories about a time when something went wrong for us, and so it's good practice to tell stories you frequently tell in your native language in English. I gave the rest of the class to work on this.

Today, we read those stories out loud. I finished the class with a a short exercise on the comparative and superlative adjective forms. Some adjectives use the word 'more' in front of them in the comparative, while others use the ending '-er' or '-ier' if the adjective finished with a 'y'. In general, the superlative follows the comparative model, but uses 'most', '-est', and '-iest' instead. I asked each student to pick three examples from each of the following topics- Cities, Music, Books, Films, Food, Sports, etc. Each student was to come up with comparative and superlative sentences talking about each topic.

Example: Music - David Guetta, Johnny Hallyday, and Serge Gainsbourg.

David Guetta is more popular than Johnny Hallyday (comparative), but Serge Gainsbourg is the best French music icon. (superlative)