It has been a pleaure working with you all this term. Congratulations on your progress. I'm proud of you -- and you should all be proud of yourselves, too!
Have a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year!
-- Kristi Reyes
This is the blog for students in the ESL Level 5 evening class at MiraCosta College, Oceanside, CA.
This term (October - December 2008) my evening Noncredit ESL Level 5 class at MiraCosta College Community Learning Center worked on scripts from a movie scene with team members. They were recorded twice -- once at the beginning of the term and again approximately five weeks later -- in the class "Speaking with the Stars" competition. More information. We definitely had a good laugh viewing the students' work! We're sure you will, too...

For this final week, we practiced modals of advice (should, ought to, had better). The textbook exercises and readings were about etiquette. Here is the online quiz we took on business etiquette.
Final Computer Assignment: Advice Comic Strip
You will use the dialog to make a comic strip that we will post here on the class blog.
It is OK to use humor, drama, spice – anything that will make the dialog interesting!!
Possible situations:
In the computer lab, use one of the following websites to dramatize your dialog. The instructor will demonstrate in class and give you the logins and passwords.
Comeeko http://www.comeeko.com
Comiqs http://comiqs.com
Toondoo http://www.toondo.com
Pixton http://pixton.com/
Another Site to Visit (Learn about the Mayflower, the Daily Life of the Pilgrims, and the Thanksgiving Feast).
Have a Happy Turkey Day!
Grammar
Practice Comparative and Superlative Adjectives with the following Web sites:
Review Only (reading)
Comparatives and Superlatives (type correct form)
Comparatives and Superlatives (choose correct spelling)
Comparatives and Superlatives (typing)
Comparatives and Superlatives (spelling)Comparatives and Superlatives (choose correct form)


This week we will begin our "Speaking with the Stars" project. For this assignment, students will choose a movie clip and be videotaped reciting the script of a short scene from the clip by our CLC librarian/videographer Richard Ma. Students will get feedback on their pronunciation, stress, intonation, volume, etc., over the coming weeks as they perfect their roles.Here are the video clips to view, listen to, and practice with:
“Mi Corazon” scene from Beverly Hills Chihuahua
“G’day, mate” scene from Dumb and Dumber
“Chucho and father fight” scene from Mi Famila *Warning: Scene contains strong language.
“I’ll be back” from Terminator
““Empty Seat” scene from Spider Man 2
“There’s a Hero in all of Us” scene from Spider Man
“Take Care of our Kids” scene from War of the Worlds
“Yu” scene from Rush Hour 3
Students will practice the scripts, available (with more information about the project) at Video Projects to Teach Oral Skills.
For grammar, we will focus on past tense. Below is the PowerPoint for practicing pronunciation of regular verbs in past. Also is the PowerPoint of some of the most common irregular verbs in past tense.
Here are links to online exercises for practicing past tense: