Group Three Thursdays 10.30 – 12.00 Upper Intermediate,
Bibliothek, Gemeindehaus, Emmaus Gemeinde,
Onkel-Tom-Straße 80, 14169 Berlin
To find out what to do for next week, scroll to the bottom!
This is a group of people who are interested in all the usual things which will help them improve and remember their English. Some want to use their English travelling or talking to visitors, some need it for relatives-in-law and some…….
Homework for Thursday 21st March 2024 Group Three Brooklyn 14th March 24 vocab for next
Meeting March 21st : Group Three 21.3.24 Xmas excerpt Brooklyn Alison
After Easter, on Thursday April 4th, we will be talking about a first extract from Paul Harding’s The Other Eden, than was on the short list for the Booker Prize in 2024 and was recommended by the magazine Spotlight. I think the book is very stimulating.
On April 4th we will talk about the first four pages of this pdf : extracts penguin and india this other eden
Here is some help with the language Vocab. This other eden 1
For April 11th:
READ ALOUD part 1 READ ON , Feb 24
READ ALOUD part 2 READ ON Feb 24
On April 11th we will start to read aloud ourselves : J B Priestly, An Inspector Calls. This is an experiment and we’ll see how we get on.
On April 18th (and thereafter) we will continue to read aloud from J B Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’. We will start on that day on page 23 (The other four exchange bewildered and perturbed glances.) I expect we will finish talking about it on April 25th. It is interesting…..
On 18th April we read up to page 43 in in the EINFach Englisch edition and I expect that next week we’ll read to page 59 (near the bottom). We’ll only finish on May 2nd.
It seems that the reading aloud is an interesting experience and everybody has been reading very convincingly!
vocab so far – especially ‘offence’, ‘to offend’, ‘offensive’, ‘offender’
(I can offend you – beleidigen, but you can also offend against somebody and against a law…..so an offender = Straftäter)
remember : to blame = to say somebody else is at fault
blamieren = to disgrace
sneak – may be you know the word ‘sneak preview’. You are hoswn a bit of a film or a book before it is officially allowed. A ‘sneak’ in my life was a child who went to a teacher and told the teacher what some other child was doing wrong. Petzer. Basically the verb means schleichen.
Unfortunately we couldn’t start reading Olive Kitteridge as soon as I had hoped because not enough copies were avilable. Today we wound up Priestley’s An Inspector Calls ( Group Three 2nd May 2024 Winding up Priestly) So please read these texts below for May 16th, when we next meet.
Rushdie edited for Group Three My 16th 2024 , News in levels. Book bans.
Why we come : It was 2012 when I started to teach peers and I did read up some other people’s ideas about it. I also asked people when they started, why they were coming, but after a while I stopped – for various reasons. Perhaps it would be useful for us to talk about it? I started to make a questionnaire but I am not trained in that and I think I will ask you to deliberate with yourselves first.
You looked at the following questions and answered:
For for the stimulus or more for the English? 1: 6 for English
More for the content or more to use the language? 3 : 8 for the language
More for the brain or more for the soul? 7 : 2 for the brain
More to be able to communicate better with others in English or more to read, listen or watch English? 6 for communication
More for the once a week or more to use and think English (or the brain) during the week, too? 0 : 5 for during the week.
We are now reading ‘Olive Kitteridge’ by Elizabeth Strout. ISBN 9781849831550
On May 23rd we will talk about the story ‘A little burst’ (pages 74 – 91) It seems as though you have missed something, but it is a surprise start for all readers. A little Burst glossary
If you would like to think about special aspects beforehand or top write something, here are my ideas: Group Three A little Burst’ disc.
You might also enjoy somethng about the author and the book : O K in pop matters
On May 30th we will talk about ‘The Piano Player’ (unless this is too much all at once). Here is some help and some ideas: Group Three The Piano Player
I am on holiday until we meet on June 20th and I hope you will manage to read the first story : Pharmacy for that meeting. It’s quite long but is straight narrative (with one long flashback). Now you are already familiar with the characters it shold be easy to follow. Here is vocabulary help – and some thoughts but not many as you will want to think for yourselves first!
Possible writing tasks for ‘Pharmacy’.
Don’t read them until after you’ve read the story as they contain ‘spoilers’
In the story ‘Pharmacy’ various peoples’ diaries would probably be the most interesting? Olive’s jealousy? Jerry thinking about asking Denise to marry him? The active young Henry? Probably not the poor hunter who shot his friend. But He might write to somebody for advice?
It might also be interesting to know what Denise writes down of an evening about Henry Kitteridge when her own Henry is out with his schoolfriend.
Or what does Olive say to Jim about Denise (either when she’s happy or bereaved).
On June 20th we will meet at Kate’s : Juttastr 3. (Kate Kirstaedter, 14169, tel: 030 802 2255)
For June 27th you will read Incoming Tide : Incoming Tide – Reading and glossary
Writing about The Incoming Tide
Please read the first few pages a couple of times before you continue – perhaps pages 35 – 40 when Olive takes the stage, to give yourself the opportunity to think about what the story really seems to be about.
This week we’ll be reminding ourselves about if-clauses and how not to make them the German way:
If it rains I never going swimming. If it had rained yesterday I wouldn’t have gone swiming. If the sun shines tomorrow I will go swimming. If I had been wise when I was younger I would have learned to scuba-dive. If I had been wise when I was younger I would have…..
Probable: If you give me a choice I will…..
Less probable: If you gave me a choice I would ……..
What about you?
(It’s good to practice, starting with ‘If’, but of course there is no rule in real life.)
For July 4th we will be reading ‘Starving’ : Starving – Glossary and guidance.
Planning: Looking at the length of next week’s story (you’ll manage) and also the ones to follow I have come to a decision: for next week, Thursday 4th July, please do all read the story ‘Starving’ right through at least once. For the following week I will not ask you to read anything new. We will review the stories you have already read according to specific criteria. May be in that week some of you will also write something.
On July 11th we’ll look for all the linking factors in the five stories that we have already read, not to mention bringing our impression of Olive up to date. Would you call it a ‘novel’?
The next story, for the coming week, is ‘Different Road’ : Different Road