English Language and Literature Exam date - at last

Our Professors and Assistant Professors finally announced the date of English Literature up to 1500 exam. At  last. They actually announced two dates – 29^th June and 13^th July. That was one exam that I carried over to the second year, and according to the new rules and regulations, students cannot take the exams in the current year until they pass all exams they from the previous year.  For me, that was a major obstacle to take many other exams. I do hope that I will take the exam and we’ll see what the outcome is. Finally, some good news.

Learning English – sometimes fun

I’ve noticed that some of my colleagues blogged about learning English through music. I think that is absolutely one of the easiest way to pick up and expend English vocabulary.  I really learnt lots of things through music, especially when I was a high school student. Since there was no internet back then, we had some trouble trying to figure out lyrics of the songs we listened to. Nowadays, fortunately, all of them are accessible. The other relatively easy way of picking up English vocabulary and phrases is watching movies. The great advantage of this is that you can also learn the correct pronunciation of words. Therefore, learning does not always have to be boring and tiring. Sometimes it’s really fun.

Crossword puzzles

What I really want to do is to be able to solve a crossword puzzle in English. On occasions, crossword puzzles are difficult to do in your mother tongue, let alone in the foreign language. There are numerous sites offering crossword puzzles, but they really seem too difficult to deal with. On the other hand, they are very useful to expend the vocabulary, learn different synonyms, antonyms, idioms etc. One of those sites is:  http://www.boatloadpuzzles.com/playcrossword.

Problems with electives and some other courses

This year we have been encountering several problems and we are approaching the end of the semester.

First we had a problem with elective courses. We are obliged to choose two electives. However, we have certain limitations and obstacles in terms of not being offered enough electives to choose from. For example, this year we were offered the German language II (which one cannot take if did not have the German language I in the first semester), History of BiH II (which presumably could not be taken as an elective if one did not previously take  History of BiH I, Arabic Language II (naturally not available if Arabic Language I was not taken previously) and Inter-Cultural Understanding and Human Rights (course available for six students only). So some of us were really “between a rock and a hard place” in that regard.

Secondly, we really have a problem with this English Literature up to 1500 course. Exam dates for other courses have already been designated and this is the only course we still don’t have the exam date for. I do hope it will be designated soon.

English learning web-pages

The page that I use quite often is http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/. It really offers a variety of fields that will help one improve his/her English command. It contains grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and even quizzes to check your knowledge. The pronunciation I found very useful for our last year’s Phonetics and Phonology courses because it contains some pronunciation tips as well as a reference to the so-called “connected speech”.

The online dictionary that I use most often is  http://dictionary.cambridge.org. I like it because it has use examples of every word contained in the dictionary as well as idioms, phrasal verbs etc. It was rather helpful to me on many occasions.  

Obligatory reading

This week I’ve learned from my colleagues that there is a chance of writing the presentation for our English novel of the 18^th century class. In that class, this year we will be talking about several novels such as: Wuthering Heights, Robinson Crusoe, Pride and Prejudice and Great Expectations. There is a possibility  for us to pick one of those novels and to do the presentation about it. We can write about the particular novel in general or we can pick a specific subject and explain how that subject is depicted in the novel that we have chosen. One of the subjects that I would like to write about is the “Role of women in the society”, especially in the time context given in the aforementioned novels. I have not made my choice yet when it comes to novels, but I am thinking to choose “Pride and Prejudice”. I will certainly have to consult with the Assistant Professor about both the subject as well as the novel.

Visit to Mostar

This week, or to be more precise on Monday, I was visiting Mostar. I took a day off from work to check what was going on at the University and, of course, to visit some friends.  

There was nothing special that I learned from University. Our main problem still remains this year’s electives. I specifically have a problem with the second one, because the first elective – German Language - I already chose, but there is still no option for the second elective. I do hope that the professors will make a decision as soon as possible so that I can apply for it.

The second issue I was hoping to be resolved was the exams that we carried over from the past year. In my case it is English Literature up to 1500. We still do not know whether there will be an April exam term or not. I hope they will allow us to apply for and take that exam in April. I also attended classes that we had on that day.

I will have to come to Mostar soon again, probably sometime in April, because there is a presentation that I would have to deliver in our Civilization of the USA class.

 

Best,
Draga

Dear all

Even though I am aware that this blog has to be about our courses and our Department,   I really have no idea what to write about. I am really short of ideas and inspiration. Therefore,  I have to emphasize that it would be much better to have a topic assigned by our Morphosyntax teacher as it was the case in the last semester. I can write about problems we are facing – such as lack of teachers, lack of motivation, lack of modern equipment, no decision about electives yet etc., but I am sure that everyone is aware of those problems and it would be just for the sake of writing.

So this post would be my appeal to our Morphosyntax teacher to assign us a topic to write about. That will give us the opportunity to compare our opinions about the same issues and might be helpful for finding  solutions to at least some of those problems. 

Regards from Sarajevo!

Draga  

Dear robbers

Robbing anything is a really lousy thing to do but robbing our poor University premises is lowest of the low. I did not know that it took place since I am not in Mostar anymore but when my colleagues told me that a robbery had been perpetrated on our University premises and that our projector had been stolen, I was really speechless. I really wonder what kind of sick mind could come up with such an idea and what is next? Schools, kindergartens, hospitals?  Bear in mind that your children may go to the very same University one day and that they and their professors may find themselves in the same situation if somebody robs the University then.      

Just to say hello.

Hello everyone. This is my first blog ever. You are all welcome to comment on any posts that may appear in the future. Thank you. Best. Draga