If you’re curious, here was the post I’d prepared. We didn’t use this material as I thought the resources’ quality was mediocre, biased, and only narrowly relates to Europe. Thus this is going in the ‘uncategorized’ category.

From The Daily Green:

Study: Alcohol Sin Taxes Work
Evidence that plastic bag taxes, gas guzzler taxes, junk food taxes or other eco-sin taxes may be an effective way to improve environmental conditions. Should we have more eco-sin taxes?

***
Are sin taxes fair to the public? If their proposed aim in several US states is to raise money for public schools, is the goal being met? From Preschool Matters, a national (US) journal of early education:

More States Find Virtue In ‘Sin Taxes’, New Way to Pay for Early Education
Tobacco, Gambling, Beer and Wine Are Easy Targets, But Critics Are Beginning to Question Whether Such Taxes Are a Reliable Source of Revenue—Or Even Fair

Thanks to Maria’s quick work. It seems the podcast link sin’t working for her, it works on my computer but perhaps it is because I got the link from the host page itself. Here it is:

Are organic foods more nutritious?
Excellence in Nutrition Research and Practice
Dr. Alan Dangour discusses his recent AJCN study on organic foods, which received a staggering amount of media attention this summer. Read the article.

Click on ‘Dr. Alan Dangour’ to be redirected to the podcast site. Remember, he discusses his research fidnings 2/3s of the way into the podcast.

‘Read the article’ !!! Unfortunately if you click on that link you will be prompted to pay for the access to the academic article, so in hopes of avoiding confusion I didn’t post the host page. Well, good intentions, hey?

Maria pointed out in class that you can edit out the rest with the freeware, Audacity which is available in FR, EN, and several other languages if you Google it directly. (I was directed to the FR site even though I clicked on an English link in Google.)

UK Food Standards Agency: organic not healthier. Reactions from the press and blogosphere.

Choose two articles from either the Press or Blogs list. Feel free to choose both from one list, or one from each. Please print your articles for reference and bring them to class.

Podcast: Are organic foods more healthful than standard foods? Dr Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, author of a highly controversial study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition discusses with the American Society for Nutrition (in a telephone interview?). About 2/3s into the interview, Dr Dangour tells us of his findings on the value of organic food. The initial segment is rather technical, on the research methodology of the study.

Change of plan! To reduce your homework load, we’ll watch this video in class: France 24-International hosts a debate: Organic food–not so wholesome? (14:42)

More information on a related topic? The European Commission’s (English langauge) Organic farming website

Finally, some fun stuff. Would you try at least one or two of these questionnaires for the next class? A few sites have a page to print out at the end for more detailed info on the profile the answers suggested. I don’t remember which sites offer that service, if you use one that does would you reply to this post and let us know which one did?

A university-based Learning Styles Inventory. Here’s another from another university.

Abiator’s Learning Styles Inventories (with two options in the left column, and an assessment for multiple intelligences). By the way, learning styles are still under scientific debate. You’ll see that if you find some websites that say there are 5 learning styles, and others that say there are 7.

Free learning styles inventory but be brave, it has 70 questions(!) The side menu has more information on learning styles, if you’re curious.

Curious about learning styles? 60-second lecture on learning styles from the Academic Success Center at University of South Carolina (USA) . Transcript for those not familar with a Southern American accent: go to the home page and click on ‘Learning styles handout’ for the PDF file.

The VARK Questionnaire to discover your learning style; incidentally a version for people aged 12-18 if you know a young curious anglophone

Are you more left-brain or right-brain? Check with either this university’s Brain Hemisphere Dominance Test or try this one: Brain Hemisphere Dominance Test. Here’s another one, but I haven’t tried it.

By the way, I tried these tests at one time or another, some months ago, some years ago. Occasionally a test gets so popular that the website starts to charge people to get their results, with no warning before you take the test. For example, two years ago my students told me this very good Learning Styles test now charges people to get their results. It’s rather frustating. Would you reply here if you are asked to pay anything, or if it asks for your personal information? Then I will remove it from my list. There are so many free and anonymous tests out there for these subjects, if you’re asked to pay, don’t! (Unless you want to, of course.)

We’ll talk about the past in our upcoming class at the end of September on Urban Living (see previous post). To prepare for this, you might want to brush up on (refresh your memory on) the present perfect and past simple from another previous blog post, as well as the past continuous and past perfect which are here. All of these forms are from the Level 5 class, and were practiced again in Level 6. If this isn’t enough info, feel free to search for more by using search terms such as ‘(grammar target) esl (quiz / exercise / game)’ so you will find resources directed at English language learners, rather than graduate students of English discussing sophisticated topics in grammar. Find something good? Please post it as a comment!

What is the past continuous?
It’s also known as the ‘past progressive’

Easy dialog(ue) exercise and another one

The past perfect illustrated with cartoons What is the past perfect? It’s the past before the past; when you want to express a past action that is two steps in the past. ‘Huh?’ Think of yesterday as Past #1, and the day before yesterday as Past #2: the past before the past. You’d use the past perfect to express Past #2. It’s easy to remember in fact if you look at the formation of the simple past, which is marked once in the past:
‘I go’ (marked in the present) versus ‘I went’ (marked for the past) versus ‘I had gone’ (marked *twice* in the past: the auxilliary verb of ‘had’ is in the past, and one uses the part participle as marker #2)

Practice forming the past perfect with What a Night: Police Incidents ESL Quiz

From the Renewable Energy podcast, tune in to Smarter Grids, Smarter Cities, and Common-Sense Planning to the third segment in the podcast, on Stockholm’s city planning measures to for a cleaner, greener city. It begins at 7 minutes 58 seconds on the podcast timer. No transcript.

Greening the Psyche from All in the Mind on Australia National Radio. Pay particular attention to the middle segment (isn’t it always the middle segment?), an interview with Dr Francis Kuo, who describes the relaxing effect of greenery on the psyche. (It’s about halfway down the transcript page.) Her research suggests that modifying grey urban areas to incorporate more nature can actually reduce crime.

In local news, the International Herald Tribune reports on the Berlaymonster, and redesigning the European Quarter. Print out & read, use your dictionary (paper or online version) for new words.

Here’s a list of useful sites, most with online games or quizzes. They’re not listed in any order of preference, pick and choose for yourself.

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/pperf.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses_present-perfect-continuous_quiz.htm

http://a4esl.org/q/f/z/zz29bms.htm (click Start to begin the Flash player game)

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html (games at the bottom)

http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blpresperfect.htm

Before our next class on Wednesday 23 September, listen to these clips from the Science Show, Radio National Australia.

You can listen to them directly on your computer at work or at home if you have one, or you could download them to an .mp3 device like an iPod, a recent mobile phone or PDA with .mp3 capability.

Wave power for Scotland

Click ’show transcript’. As this is a 2007 show, there isn’t a direct link to the listening segment, it’s from approximately minutes 32 – 39. Click on ‘download audio’ and fast-forward a little more than halfway through to find the program. My Mac home computer uses Quicktime audio player and I can’t see the timer as you might be able to on Real Player or Windows Media Player. The segment is directly after hearing an old recording of an astronomer speaking.

New wave technology a potential major source of energy similarly, click to show the transcript and on the speaker icon to listen. This 2008 podcast has a direct link to the specific segment of the show.

Here’s one game and another, as well as some additional grammar information on the prepositions for, during, while.