When I arrived in the UK I knew English, but honestly it felt like I didn’t! British English is slightly different than the American English we learn at school and by adding the accent it can be difficult to understand at first. Nevertheless, this shouldn’t scare you because you will be surprised how fast you will adjust.
Just to give you a heads up, here is a cheat sheet that you might want to learn before coming to the UK.
Mira from Bulgaria
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Do you fancy a cuppa? - Sorry, what did you say?
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
More about Coventry
As you look
to make your decision on coming to Coventry University, you might have done
extra research into what the university campus consists of in terms of the
buildings and other infrastructure. You might also have looked on Google Maps
or IOS maps using the street view function to look around your prospective
campus and the city. If not, do not worry!
I never get
tired of too many pictures as I feel having a knowledge of your surroundings,
especially through images, never hurts. I for one did not have as many photos
of my prospective campus and ended up constantly looking around and doing more research
than I had expected.
To help you
in making your decision, I have decided to present to you a sideshow of a few
places on campus and some Coventry landmarks that will help you find your way
around so you know this place even before you are here.
Trust me,
it does help.
Peace.
Jerome from Ghana
Studying BA
Communications, Culture and Media
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
The MexCo Intercultural Exchange Project
Hi everyone,
If you are interested
and you want to be involved in university life, the university can offer you
many intercultural activities and experiences. As I’ve told you before, I just
can’t sit around and do nothing so when the opportunity came to me, I joined
the MexCo Project. And I wasn’t
alone. With 5 other students, we worked as a team – spending time to get to
know each other and trying to complete our task. We had a great time and we talked
to many Mexican students – I’m already planning my trip there. Don’t forget to
take a look at the pictures below.
Have I got your attention yet? If so, let me tell you more
about the MexCo Project. It was part of the module 100DEL Introduction to Studying English and Languages at University
and a team of staff from DEL (Department of English and Languages) worked
together to make this project happen. They got our attention from the beginning by
pointing out the most important thing: we’ll have the opportunity to learn
about the Mexican culture and society directly from the source.
And it was like this:
First we chatted with students from Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México – they presented themselves, their city and
they showed us pictures from their favourite national holiday, and we replied
by describing our university, the city of Coventry and anything that the
Mexican students wanted to know about the UK. I became good friends with a girl
– Grecia Cristobal, and I was really happy when she accepted my invitation to
talk to our group on Skype. We discussed for about an hour many subjects, from
the way the weather is in our countries to specific modules from university. I
enjoyed every second of it. Secondly, our group had to create interactive
guides to Coventry and Coventry University for the students from Mexico, using
the e-portfolio Mahara (http://mahara.coventry.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=12549) . We put together a guide which includes
topics such as: the history of Coventry, the student life at Coventry
University. We tried to equally divide our work, therefore every topic was
written by one of the team members. We met twice a week to discuss our progress
and we kept a group journal in order to prepare ourselves for the next task –
the group presentation. Once the guide was done, every team member wrote their
part for the presentation which I carefully put together in a Prezi presentation (http://prezi.com/tdbl-bgw-qhg/mexco-life-in-coventry/).
The entire experience was great, it helped me to improve my
relationship with other students, to learn more about the Mexican culture and
society, to make friends abroad, it helped me to practice my Spanish language
skills even more, and I gained experience for future projects. It was a very
good project and I would do it all over again if I would have the chance. I
have to thank the team of DEL staff: Dr Marina Orsini-Jones (Italian), Elwyn Lloyd (Welsh), Zoe Gazeley (English), Gwenola
Bescond (French), Inmaculada Gonzalez (Spanish), and Holly Vass (American) - a
truly international team for giving us the opportunity to participate at this
project. And the Mexican tutors: Felipe Bustos and Beatriz Vera Lopez, who did
an amazing job. So when at Coventry, don’t just stand there looking at people,
try to get involved!
Until next time,
Irina Griga, English and Spanish student.
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