24/Nov/08 TED.com

Today for my self study I watched lecture on TED.com which is relevant to my subject 'business'. The lecturer was from Bangladesh and an advocate of humanitarian tool business. You can see the meaning of humanitarian tool business from my notes about the lecture below.

As you probably know, Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries. In the countries one five-hundredth has a mobile phone. One day when the lecturer was a child, he needed to get a medicine from a doctor for his mother without calling the doctor beforehand. Arriving at the hospital, there was not anyone and he waited for the doctor all the afternoon but the doctor did not appear. With this example, the lecturer wanted to explain about productivity. The more they have mobile phones, the less they tend to waste of time like that case above.

Well, why do not they have enough mobile phones?
That is because lack of the power to buy them in poor countries. The reason why they lack of the power is that they do not have infrastructures for mobile phones; no credit checks, a few bank branches to collect bills, a few contact points for customer services.

On the other hand, however, the impact of installing mobile phone system in less GNP countries is huger than in more GNP countries. Therefore it is seen by the lecturer as a valuable investment to spread mobile phone over the countries.

Self-study for the seminar about media

In order to prepare for the seminar about media, I have read following articles. And they also had a good to increase vocabulary and collocations for academic writings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/04/comment.pressandpublishing

to filter out falsehood
One of main purposes of media is to filter out falsehood.

a conduit for propaganda
Media have become a conduit for propaganda of the political party.

Fleet Street
Current Fleet Street are filling with three times as much editorial space as they were in 1985.

feral child bully
There is usually a feral child bully in a class of a primary school.

feel heresy
It feels heresy for strict Christians not to go to the church on Sundays

http://www.ppu.org.uk/education/media_violence_survey-c.html

be reinforced by media content
The trend of violent behavior among children is reinforced by media content.


be on the rise(increasing now)
People who want to live in urban areas are on the rise in Japan.


with the advent of something

Communication has become easier over the last ten years with the advent of mobile phones.

Homework and sel-study 20/Nov/08

''diligent janitor''

For today's homework, I read the article about habits of TV programmes from the textbook. That is also useful to study collocation. I found four unfamiliar collocations below.

take it for granted that...
I take it for granted that they will get married.
I do not take it for granted that you listen to me.


be conscious of/that
I am conscious that there are some necessities to work on my pronunciation.


lazy janitor
The lazy janitor of that huge building has really gorgeous office which is not reflected his actual work.



For 2nd homework today

In almost all something to read, there must be unfamiliar words. Then we do not need to be panicked because we can guess what the word mean from the rest of the sentence. In order to get this skill, we need some training for that. And I did it in the article which Steve gave us in the class and the title was 'Political Campaigns and the media.'

a specific protocol; a unique procedure

definition of protocol: rule

Fiber-optic cable; something new and advanced cable

definition of fiber-optic:the science of technology of light transmission

digital compression; saving something by digital technique

definition of compression:to make something smalle, especially by pressing it

to be a rarity;to become reality
definition:to be unusual

a presumption;a thing which should be done

definition:when you belive something is true without and proof

disparities;gaps/differences

definition:inequalities

extract rationalizations

definition:to improve the way a business is organized, usually by getting rid of people

discretion of the publisher;opinion of the publisher

definition:when someone is careful not to cause embarrassment or attract too much attention,

especially by keeping something secret.

To obtain information for my essay about media, I read some articles below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2836157.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4403224.stm

My homework and self study

Today we also looked at how we can recognize better collocations in the new articles and how to increase my lists of new vocabulary with Steve. Here are four procedures to put new collocations in my brain: read through the article, use the dictionary to get the meaning, re-read the article twice or three times, have a chance to use them. These take long time to do but in total it is more meaningful to do four rules than just to read as many articles as I can.

Homework today is to do the exercise,which is 'In a paragraph of 50-100 words explain why television is seen as a medium of no importance', using collocations which we have studied in the morning class.

Here is my thought below.
Sheer quantity of people watch television for three or four hours a night. Watching television for those who spend their meaningful time sitting in front of their TVs is just two states; it turns on or off. Therefore TV programmes such as documentaries which seem better than other entertainment programmes also do not make any sense for them, even if gifted prople or diligent professionals make the programmes. They do not retain any information from what they watch on their televisions. This might be the reason why the media does not have any importance.


For my self study I watched some videos below which is connected to how to listen to lecture.
ABC news from podcasts.
Also I read articles on Daniel Trump watched the video about his success.

My self study

Today we focused on how we can increase vocabularies around our subjects. Steve told us that it is good way to read the same article closely twice or three times, paying attention to colloquial languages. Then for my self study I read two articles on media below and made vocabulary list.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23581255-details/Teenagers+who+watch+racy+TV+%27more+likely+to+get+pregnant%27/article.do

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391233-details/Are+TV+comedians+creating+a+generation+of+school+louts/article.do

After finishing above, I watched this video

http://www.wired.com/video/latest-videos/latest/1815816633/nintendo-dsi/2461960001

and listend to this radio programme. This radio proggrame had been about the recession which England is facing. Chair of local government association had been invited to this programme and explained that northern cities are better to address this crisis than London is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7732000/7732759.stm

As my self study

I found a really remarkable and interesting video on Internet. So I want to tell it to you.

The title is ''Paralyzed people control computers with their minds.''

In this video, the most advanced computers, which help paralyzed people communicate with others, is introduced. If you are interested in that, let's have a look at the link below.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/video-paralyzed.html

About Professor Zizek, I watched this.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=EzM8tqjmCU8

For my self-study I read them and watched them.

http://www.wired.com/video/science

http://www.wired.com/video/virgin-galactic-2/1813573892

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/11/intel-launches.html

New class started

Today we had a look at the general habits of British people which are based on the survey in Simon's class. Here are top 3 habits; talking about the weather, watching soap operas(TV programmes which never finish), getting drunk. After taking this class, I found it interesting to think about the Habits of Japanese people. So there are some tips of them which I can suppose.

1. not saying 'NO': When Japanese are asked to do something by others, they usually don't say 'no.' They try to avoid the direct way in which they say NO. When they can't do a favour from someone, they use the different way; Sorry, I really want to give you my favour but I'm busy. I am so sorry.


2. passive: This habit is caused by mainly Japanese educational system. A teacher gets the students quiet so as it is easier to teach in a class. Recently over 50% of Japanese have been educated from primary school to university. It is calculated that they have taken education under this system for 16 years. From this point,when they start to work, the same thing happens. It seems to be better that if there are any bosses of them, Japanese keep to be quiet until the bosses finish saying something.

Two habits above are often seen as negative ones, but I can't strongly agree with this. They are also good aspects which Japanese culture has in my opinion. The key about this is if they can see the habits as Japanese habits, not as the universal ones. In other words, to accept that there are other different cultures and human behaviour is important.

Just for my memory

Unemployment hits seven-year high

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23374618-details/Unemployment+hits+seven-year+high/article.do

141,000 people were made redundant(fired)

a seven-year high=the highest in the last seven years
a 165-year low

What I have done for my self-study in the third week

This week I have kept focusing on exercises of my listening. So I have done some exercises below this week.

1. watched 24 season 6



2. watched i player; Credit Crunch which was recommended by my teacher



3. studied collocations by reading Guaurdian newspaper online; especially this week, the US election was hot issue, so I have read several articles about it.

details are on my other posts if you are interested in it, have a look at them.

Thank you for reading.

Japanese teenager's behavior

In Japan boys and girls are pretty much the same in what they do. Both of them go to club, karaoke and cinema, drink. Although it is thought that boys and girls are treated in some areas, smoking for women is seen more badly than it for men. One explanation for this might be that women will be pregnant and smoking is thought to be bad for their body.


As regards time, there are some differences between them especially from views of their parents. It would be apparent that parents are stricter with their daughters than their sons. When boys become university students, most of them are allowed to go out all the night under a condition that they tell their parents where they go and what they do there. Girls, however, are usually not allowed to meet their friends after 12:00 a.m. even if they do explain it to their parents. For this reason, girls go back to their house before public transports are closed, whereas boys stay with their friends at their friend’s house, karaoke or internet café after they are closed.

These differences are obviously derived from the aspect of safeness but recently more and more girls have been out during the night. This trend is sometimes connected to some crimes.

My country Japan

It is mentioned that Japan is a great deal safer than other European countries and US. Since I came to London, actually I have found it safe. Nowadays, however, unfortunately it is not as safe as it was 20 years ago. You can read articles about car accidents almost every day on Newspaper. In addition, atrocious crimes which are beyond people's imagines have been increasing over the last 10 years. Allegedly, stresses of people who suffer from problems of their lives cause this kind of crimes.

In terms of cleanliness in Japan, it is far cleaner than other countries. Compared to how it was two decades ago, there is no change or it is cleaner than it was in places in which they are visible, but there must be changes in places in which they are invisible, for example in the air, according to some surveys. It is thought that it is because more and more cars are running on streets night and day.

Obama McCain

Today in my class we talked about the election of the United States. Then I realised I do not know about it well. So for today's self-study, I watched some videos and read some articles which were connected to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/oliverburkemanblog/2008/nov/04/uselections2008-barackobama

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/04/advertising-uselections2008

collocations from this article

verb + preposition

to run with the strapline ''Let the issues be the issue''

to bid to become the first black president

noun + noun

party's tenure(duration which one political party works in White House)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/04/barack-obama-grandmother-madelyn-dunham

cornerstone(base) of my family

to offer his condolence to Obama's family

profound(deep) impact

ovarian cancer

to pour something into someone

clerical job(a job which is relating to work done in an office)