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Newsletter Telekolleg MultiMedial.

*Quick Lerncheck

*Mathematik, Lektionen 1-3

*Programmvorschau

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Quick-Lerncheck Englisch    

Dear Telekolleg students,

Welcome to Telekolleg! I wish you all a wonderful time, lots of interesting experiences and, of course, lots of success in Telekolleg. You have begun a journey which will end with the Fachhochschulreife and you will be surprised at how quickly the time will go by. Some of you may have your doubts* (Zweifel) about whether* (ob) you will be successful, but believe me, if you work consistently* (beständig) and hard, you will reach your goal (Ziel)*. Just remember what Barack Obabama, the future president of the USA said: ‘YES WE CAN’ OK,OK, maybe he was talking about something else, but the statement* (Aussage) is still true for Telekolleg ! Every two weeks, I will write you a letter with some help on your journey. Today, in the first part of this letter I would like to give you some tips about learning English in Telekolleg.

TIP 1. DOSE (Dosieren) YOUR WORK. Learn a little every day. Let us take Arbeitsbogen 1-3 as an example. On Monday, you could read the text ‘Welcome Home’. The next day you could read the text again and do question 1. On Wednesday you could do the second exercise (questions 2 – 5) on Thursday maybe the next two exercises, and so on. In seven to nine days you will have the whole Arbeitsbogen ready. We can also dose texts. For example, you could read just one or two paragraphs of this letter today, another paragraph tomorrow and so on.

TIP 2. REPEAT ALL VOCABULARY, GRAMMAR AND TEXTS time and time again. At first you will need maybe five to ten minutes for this, but the more often you do this, the less time you will need to remember what was in the texts – maybe less than a minute for a text.

TIP 3. Underline with a marker important words and structures in the Telekolleg materials.

TIP 4. USE THE SPARE MOMENTS OF THE DAY FOR LEARNING. During the day, there are many times when we have nothing much to do: in the queue in the supermarket, when we are having a shower, when we are emptying (leeren) the dishwasher, when we are waiting for the traffic light to change to green, etc., etc., etc. We can use these few minutes to learn a few words in English or practise a structure. For example in the text ‘Welcome Home?’ Arbeitsbogen 1-3 we can read ‘he was running out of money’ (line 9). It is not difficult to think of many sentences with this expression. ‘At the end of the month I always RUN OUT OF MONEY.’ ‘On holiday last year we RAN OUT OF MONEY after two days.’ ‘My sister always RUNS OUT OF MONEY before the end of the month.’ etc. Maybe some words and expressions in this letter are new for you. We can put them into new sentences, as well* (auch): Barack Obama has REACHED HIS GOAL. I like tea and I like coffee, AS WELL. The bank manager made a STATEMENT about the financial crisis. I have my DOUBTS about WHETHER Mr Obama will have an easy time as President.

We can even take whole sentences and change them. In lines 10-11 we read: ‘Mark arrived in Perth and soon found a job in a bar. It wasn’t very interesting work but quite well paid.’ Can you reformulate these sentences to make true sentences for yourself and your family or friends? For me, my family and friends, for example I can say: ‘I arrived in Munich thirty-five years ago and soon found a job in an evening school. It was very interesting work and quite well paid.’ ‘My sister Sheila arrived in Ravenna, Italy and soon found a job in a dance school. It was very interesting work but it wasn’t well paid.’ ‘Fifteen years ago my sister Miriam arrived in Sheffield and soon found a job in a hospital. It was very interesting work and quite well paid.’ ‘In 1969, my friend Marshall found a job in a park. It wasn’t interesting work and it wasn’t well paid.’ With time these words and structures will then become part of your ACTIVE VOCABULARY.

Please do not forget, however, (jedoch) TIP 1: DOSE IT! Do not try to practise more than a few words or one structure in these few minutes.

TIP 5. If something is unclear, you will very probably (wahrscheinlich) find the answer to your questions in the Telekolleg materials. In particular I warmly recommend (empfehlen) HELPING HANDS. You can find the answers to most problems of grammar in this book together with exercises to help you practise the grammar problem. Please use the book as often as you can.

However, NEVER FORGET that your teachers in Telekolleg will be very happy to answer

all your questions – we are here to help you.

One of the good things about the English course in Telekolleg is that we repeat all the basic grammar and in my letters I shall discuss some of the important mistakes that many Germans make when they speak English. So, if you didn’t learn important things in your last school, or you weren’t in the preparatory class (Vorklasse) now is your chance to ‘fill in the gaps (die Lücken schliessen).Remember the Obama philosophy: YES WE CAN!

One of the important grammar items in Arbeitsbogen 1-3 is the difference between the present simple and the present continuous. Basically, as you can find out in HELPING HANDS, the difference is that we use the present continuous for something we are doing NOW: I’m sitting in front of my computer and I’m typing this letter NOW. We use the present simple for something we do regularly, every day, once a week, often, sometimes, etc. I swim once a year (but I’m not swimming now), My wife makes wonderful Spätzle (Unfortunately she isn’t making them now).

Mrs Simmonds: “Doctor, it’s terrible, My husband

b l o w s smoke rings every day.”

Doctor Jones: “That’s Ok, Mrs Simmonds. Many smokers d o that.”

Mrs Simmonds: “But my husband d o e s n ’ t s m o k e !”

“Tell me John, d o e s your horse s m o k e ?”

“No, of course my horse d o e s n ’ t s m o k e.”

“Oh dear, then something i s b u r n i n g in your stable (Pferdestall)

There are some verbs which we don’t use in the continuous e.g. ‘know’, ‘own/possess (besitzen)’, ‘love’’think’ (in the sense of ‘meinen’), ‘need’:

Bill (five years old) and his dad are in the Empire State Building in New York for the first time. They ‘ r e