среда, 28 июля 2010 г.

I will have 3 English articles and 2 foreign language articles finished by Thursday, July 29.

I will send PJ my position and project outline for approval by July 31.

I'll have the pictures and music gathered by Aug. 1st.

I'll have a friend critique your project by Aug. 2nd.

I'll wrap up my presentation with iMovie by Aug. 4th

вторник, 27 июля 2010 г.

Hi, PJ,

Here is my plan on working on final presentation.

I will have al three sources by Saturday 31st.
By Monday 2nd I will have an outline which PJ supports.
By Thursday 4th I will find all pictures and music I need to use in presentation.
By Monday 9th I will have the presentation done in Imovie.

вторник, 20 июля 2010 г.

Hi,

I know I have problems with pronunciation. My accent is very strong and it's typical Russian one. My sounds are very "hard" pronounced and there are a lot of typical Russian mistakes in my speech. I think, there are problems with pronouncing "w", "t", "th" and "h".

So, I found for example such mistakes in "wanted" and "was" words wich I spell as "v" sound.
I reduce some sounds and for example in the word "coast" I say [kost] instead of [kohst].
"Grand Canoyon" is a huge problem with prounanciation in both words. Instead of ['kænjən] I say something oppositional, emphasising the second word's part and it's "a:" in the first part instead of "æ". And I say "a:" as well in "Grand", but it should be the same "æ" instead.
As for "t" is just different. In English it should be exhalation while pronouncing, but I say very hard "t".

вторник, 13 июля 2010 г.

Food and culture

There are very different cultures of cooking and eating habits in our class. So sometimes it's even hard to say what American food remindes you the home one.

For example, Annie likes spicy food and she hardly can find here, in the US, something similar to her food habbits. She thinks that American Chinese restaurants use too much sugur, so it makes food completely different from what she is used to eat. She has found once the sauce which was the same as in her home, but of cause it was made in China.

At the same time for Ximena it's easy to find something reminding about Chile. Just get vegetables and voila, you can cook something Chilian. Her favorite food is charquican which is possible to cook with meet or without.

As for cultrual ties both girls are agree that food can represent people. And Annie explains it very interesting. She says that people in her native town are very emotional, so she thinks that love to spicy food and such quality are related.

The knowledge about food which can come from the media or books is very important. That's how we can become more conscious consumers of food. It also can help to understand which food is more healthy for people in particular area. I believe that food which comes from the region you live in can be more useful for you than other.

понедельник, 12 июля 2010 г.

Food in Russia

It's hard to find something similar to the "Food. Inc" movie, which would tell about same problems in Russia. At the same time I believe that globalization influences to the processes of making food in Russia, even by importing food from other countries. And Russia imports a lot.

As a resurch company ID-Marketing mentions in its annual food industry survey, the import of different kind of foods in Russia is permanently growing. For example, import of meat grown in 2008 comparing to 2007 by 14.8%, of fish - by 1.2%. Import of vegetable oil grew also, and the number of it increased by 17.3% comparing to 2008. As for the coffee generally the import growed by 16% in recent years. There is completely different situation with the import of gramineae. For example, the import decreased by 61% in 2007, and by 41% in 2008.
The last crisis has changed a lot in food industry. During the first quarter of 2009 the import decreased by 33.2% in meat market, by 3.7% in chicken market, by 31% in vegetable oil.

Though the import is decreasing, I don't think it's really influence on the technology. It's the same process of concentration or centralization in all industries. It's a well known processe which is described by growing huge companies and displacement of small ones. So, it's the same in Russia. For example, "NMZHK" is one of the biggest companies in oil and fat production.

Finally, I would say that globalization makes the world smaller and multinational corporations come to many countries, unifying the processes of building industries, habbits of people and even culture. As a result it's really hard for small companies to compete with them in advertisment, marketing and producing the cheap food. That's why one way or another producing something in Russia can remind the same process in the US.

суббота, 10 июля 2010 г.

I'm interested in media not just because I'm a journalist, but I'm a journalist who covers media. It's like a circle, where all my life in recent years has been about journalism and journalists. Most of my friends are journalists, I'm a journalist covering journalism in Russia. And it's interesting that as a main part of my job I have to deal with editors-in-chief, who are actually my ex-bosses or probably future ones. I find it quite unusual :-)

As a final project I would like to discover differences in particular areas of the US journalism. I have a lot of concerns about freedom of the speech, but it's too big topic to cover in the 5-minute presentation and to go there really deep. That's why I would prefer to concentrate just on the one of the aspects refering to the freedom of the speech.
For now I'm thinking about writing the project which would compare slander, diffamation and liable problems in the US and in Russia. It looks very interesting for me, cause law system in general is completely different in both countries, and it;s competely different in the particular area. For example, Russia has a Criminal Code where exists an article about criminal penalty for slander. Shamelessly, it could be a prison for journalists just for their articles or TV pieces!

So I could do research about this area, to look for some histiorical and recent examples and then I would write about my opinion, which I already have. I completely disagree with the idea that the person can be punished for the words he says or writes.

I will look for the articles explaining the Russian and US situations in this field by googling. I also know Media Law and Policy Institute in Russia which professionaly is interested in the field, so I could go to their web-site and to find out if they have some resurches in the same field. I will borrow the law book from PJ and also will try to be creative in pictures choice by googling it. I've not decied yet if to choose PowerPoint or I-movie. I've done presentations in PP, so probably it willbe more challenging to use the new program for me, but I will later shoudl be needed a technical advice. I think to start some resurch on the next week. Hope the presentation will be good.

пятница, 9 июля 2010 г.

I'm interested in media not just because I'm a journalist, but I'm a journalist who covers media. It's like a circle, where all my life in recent years has been about journalism and journalists. Most of my friends are journalists, I'm a journalist covering journalism in Russia. And it's interesting that as a main part of my job I have to deal with editors-in-chief, who are actually my ex-bosses or probably future ones. I find it quite unusual :-)

As a final project I would like to recover differences in particular areas of the US journalism. For now I'm thinking about writing the project which would cover legislative issues of slander and diffamation in the US and Russia. It's quite interesting for me, cause it's completely different. The law system is completely different from the US, and there is a Criminal Code in Russia which says about criminal penalty for slander. Shamelessly, it could be a prison!

So I could do research about this area, to look for some histiorical and recent examples and then I would write about my opinion, which I already have. I completely disagree with the idea that the person can be punished for the words he says or writes.

I will look for the articles explaining the Russian and US situations in this field, will try to be creative in pictures choice and hope the presentation will be good.

вторник, 6 июля 2010 г.

The last crisis was the worldwide one, so it hasn't happend just in the US. it's a very hard time for many countries, including the country where I came from. There is also bad situation with the unemployment in Russia, and let me show you some figures I've found.

According to the national bureau of statistics "Rosstat", the number of working people in the country stands at 53 percent or 75,8 millions people. There are 92,7% of them who were involved in economics in May of 2010, and 7,3% were looking for a job. State's labor registry office says, that there are two million people who are registered as unemlployed in Russia.

I believe, that the figure should be more in a reality. First of all, I don't trust official figures just because officials in Russia not work very good, and usually they try to minimize the problem. The second point is that not all Russians would go to register themself as unemployed. I'm sure, that a lot of people would better try to find job and survive instead of registering. Sometimes it's a last thing people do. I'm sure, thet lot of people would feel embarassing to register themself in such statistics.

Another figure demonstrate the level of crisis as well. Officials say that in May of 2010 the number of people who had been dismissed was higher than the number of people who has been hired, and the discrepancy equals to 39,5 thousand people. At the same time it's a little bit less comparing to the April figures.

Finally I would say, that in spite of that taff information there it could be the reason for some optimism. The unemployment is less than in 2009 (it was 8,5% last year), and the difference between numbers of dismissed people and hired ones less as well. Compare with 43 500 people, such a number was fixed during first four months of the 2010.

среда, 30 июня 2010 г.

Hi there,

I think, it could be very different ways to reach your goals in English, but first of all you need to see them.

Ok. I have a problem with relative clauses and time frames. What I can do with time frames? When I read grammar rules it seems I understand when I have to use those frames, but when I use them I do a lot of mistakes. I think, if nobody corrects me, it should be hard to understand what I'm doing wrong, so I have to just leave it and continue reading, wishing at the same time that it will be changed somehow.

At the same time I can focus on relative clauses, so I have o read the grammar books and have to ask PJ about the right one. I can do some exsesises in those textbooks. I can also continue reading and watching American movies and pay attention to the usage of clauses. Doing so I can mesure if I began to do it correct by using them, so I need PJ to tell me if it was correct use.

I probably cannot get the understanding how correctly to do requests to provide information for my professional needs, so I have to leave that goal and chose another one. I've been told that I have problems with articles, so I need to work on them. The way can be similar as for the forst goal. To read grammar, to practice it doing exercises and to keep getting English as much as it possible, from TV, radio, internet, etc.

At last I can say about the third goal which is to improve better dictionary. So I can pick up 10 words I liked weekly and I think could be useful. Then I can publish them in this blog, providing some additional information: meaning, translation, synonims and antonyms and the example sentence as well.

I think those goals are possible to reach and they can be very helpful with my roman with English.

How to get my goals

There are several ways to reach a goal.

As for grammar field. You can read grammar textbooks but still be not be able to use correct grammar while you are speaking. I'm sure I have to reread all rules in which I don't feel myelf comfortable, but at the same time I need to be said about mistakes in my speeches and in blogs. I think I need it as much as possible. Sometimes it would be helpful to say me why it's better to say so-and-so. I've noticed that a lot of American teachers don't really feel comfortable to tell students about their mistakes. I guess, they try not to offend students. But that's why students keep doing mistakes all the time! We are here to learn. I'm sure, that the learning process needs that kinf of feed-back.

I know for sure that I also have to keep reading as much as possible and auditing, but I guess the second one should be less for those purposes. So, careful reading should help a lot.

I don't know how I can get the purpose to learn how to write requests about providing information if not ot be learned how to do it. I think I need some special knowledge about it. It can include knowledges how to address the letter, how to make sentances, how to finish it and mostly what is the best way of asking about it. Usually if you have no insiders at the company you would deal with public relations departments, so I need to know how to deal with them.

As for the third goal to know new words the reading is unlimited resource for it. I think, some quizes at school also might be very helpful for that purpose.

понедельник, 28 июня 2010 г.

My roman with English

I have a very long roman with English. And it's not an easy one, so I still don't feel good while I use it.

I have been studying English for a long time at school, for 6 years. And I was a good student; so good that after the 10th grade I went to the courses for people who would like to study English at the University as their major and was the best one among them, as I had been told by teacher. There are 11 grades in Russian school, so I had one more year to study English in the high school. It was clear I had a chance to pass exams to become a student at the language institute. But I went to another area, to the faculty of journalism.

So I continued to study English at the University, at the faculty of journalism. And I don't think the classes were good. We took articles from the English paper called Moscow times and translated it, and it was for a long period. We had no practice. We didn't listen to radio or watched TV, we had never seen the native speaker. We didn't talk much, at all. There were some rare forigners in my life whom I spoke with. That's it.

By the way, I think, the system of language education in Russia seems at least very strange. People can spend years on studying it but to have problems just with chatting with the native speaker. They can't communicate! I'm not telling the same about institutes where English is a major but in general high educated persons might write in their CV that they can read English texts "with a dictionary".

And it was America which helped me a lot to improve English. I was here in summer programs in 1999 and 2000. And after that it was silence for years. Me and English lost each other. I didn't know people who speak English and had no chance to use it at my work. I took some tutor's classes as well but I've got a complex from her to speak it. She always told me that "nobody needs my bad English", so I began to scare to do mistakes. that meant I scared to speak at all.

So when I've got the journalist fellowship in Michigan University last year I was completely unhappy with my English before coming. We could audit any classes at the University but it was a limit of English, so I couldn't take as many English as I wished.

For the whole life English was my dream. I always imagining myself as a successful woman in connection with the perfect English. But I spend a lot of time and money and haven't reached the goal yet. I don't know, if it would ever be possible for me to be perfect in English but I really want too!

So I have some particular tasks to reach to fill myself closer to my general goal. After two sessions here I would like to understand clearly time frames and be possible to do for example "if" or other difficult sentences without grammar mistakes. I want to be able to write information requests for my job or requests to do the interview in different countries and to be replied successfully. I want to enhance dictionary as much as it possible and be able to use those new words in a real life. I think, I need at least 30 words weekly to learn in your class.

My roman is at the height of, I can speak, read, listen to it, and hope I'll do, I will, some visible progress. But will I reach the goal at the end of the program? I don't know.