Fourth semester (Spring 2024)

Artefact 4

I found out that when I watch British TV production my accent gets slightly better. I ascribe it to the fact that I am not that much distracted by GA accent and therefore do not have to put so much effort into deciding how to pronounce certain expressions.

This term I opted for series called Sherlock and Brave new world. Sherlock is a contemporary adaptation of the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the “consulting detective” Sherlock Holmes, excelling in the ability of deduction. He says about himself he is a high functioning sociopath, although I believe he is portrayed as an autist of some kind. What I like about the series is the ever-present English humour accented by Sherlocks lack of social intelligence.

The TV Series Brave new world turned out to be much more than I expected. Not only was it a great series to learn English, it also uncovered a whole other literary genre for me which is dystopian novel. So far, I had only known 1984.

As to my understanding of the pilot, I caught a solid 50% of the speech addressed to the passenger. I will have to fly again soon to test my listening further.

Second semester (2023)

I registered at British council to do some listening exercises, I chose this one because it relates to the one of the topics we did in Practical language B course, describing books. The level of exercise is C1 and there was no trouble for me to understand because the English was nice and clear. In preparative task students are given a few key expressions and they have to link them with explanation of the expression. In tasks following the listening, students are requiered to answer a few questions about the content of the interview, it’s a multiple choice exercise. I ended up making just one mistake.

The second artefact is the Outlander tv series based on the written series Outlander. As it’s a story about an English woman in Scotland, I find it useful not only in my studies of English but in learning GB accent and recognizing and understanding Scottish accent. At first, I didn’t get all the unknown Scottish expressions from the TV but it all became clear after reading the first book of the series.

An interview about two books

Outlander series