English Conversation

Leader: Mandi Ashmore

english@ iwc-lausanne. org

    We meet on Mondays at 14：30 at the IWC clubhouse. We chat for about an hour and discuss everything. Mandi asks “students” to contact her on Monday to confirm the class as sometimes she needs to cancel for various reasons or occasionally she may choose to hold the class at a different venue(举办地点) or at an earlier time for us to be able to have lunch together.

French Conversation, Advanced Beginner

Leader: Marielle Sulmoni

frenchconvo@ iwc-lausanne. org

    I'm French (born in Bordeaux) and Swiss by marriage. I hold an advanced beginners' French conversation class on Tuesday afternoons from 14：30 - 16：00. We meet weekly at the clubhouse in a friendly atmosphere. I hope to help you use your knowledge of French, allowing you to speak with no fear of making mistakes, which in time will become fewer and fewer.

French Language Lab, Beginner

Leader: Maija Remlinger

frenchlab@ iwc-lausanne. org

    The group meets on Thursday afternoons from 15：00－16：30 at the clubhouse. The first half of the class is devoted to reading out loud from the book “Easy French Reader”, working on pronunciation and phrasing. During the second half, we listen to audio recordings from “New French with Ease” and work on oral comprehension.

French Conversation, Advanced

Leader: Juliette Brull

french@ iwc-lausanne, org

    We meet every Tuesday at the IWC clubhouse from 9：30－11：00. Most of our time is devoted to very lively discussions about current events and various topics. We also read a book written by a French author and sometimes we see a French movie.

    Have your parents ever inspected your room to see if you cleaned it properly? Imagine having your entire houses, garage, and yard inspected at any time -- with no warning. Inspections were a regular part of lighthouse (灯塔) living, and a keeper's reputation depended on results. A few times each year, an inspector arrived to look over the entire light station. The inspections were supposed to be a surprise, but keeper sometimes had advance notice.

    Once lighthouses had telephones, keepers would call each other to warn that the inspector was approaching. After boats began flying special flags noting the inspector aboard, the keeper's family made it a game to see who could notice the boat first. As soon as someone spotted the boat, everyone would do last-minute tidying and change into fancy clothes. The keeper then scurried to put on his dress uniform and cap. Children of keepers remember inspectors wearing white gloves to run their fingers over door frames and windowsills looking for dust.

    Despite the serious nature of inspections, they resulted in some funny moments. Betty Byrnes remembered when her mother did not have time to wash all the dishes before an inspection. At the time, people did not have dishwashers in their homes. In an effort to clean up quickly, Mrs. Byrnes tossed all the dishes into a big bread pan, covered them with a cloth and stuck them in the oven. If the inspector opened the oven door, it would look like bread was baking. he never did.

    One day, Glenn Furst's mother put oil on the kitchen floor just before the inspector entered their house. Like floor wax, the oil made the floors shiny and helped protect the wood. This time, though, she used a little too much oil. When the inspector extended his hand to greet Glenn's mother, he slipped on the freshly oiled surface. "He came across that floor waving his arms like a young bird attempting its first flight," Glenn late wrote. After he steadied himself, he shook Glenn's mother's hand, and the inspection continued as though nothing had happened.

    We've all heard the saying: practice makes prefect! In other words, acquiring skills takes time and effort. But how exactly does one go about learning a complex subject such as tennis, calculus, or even how to play the violin? An age-old answer is: practice one skill at a time. A beginning pianist might rehearse scales(音阶) before chords(和弦). A young tennis player practices the forehand before the backhand. Learning researchers call this “blocking”， and because it is common and easy to schedule, blocking is dominant in schools, training programs, and other settings.

    However another strategy promises improved results. Enter “interleaving”， a largely unheard-of technique that is catching the attention of  cognitive(认知) psychologists and neuroscientists. Blocking involves practicing one skill at a time before the next (for example, “skill A” before “skill B” and so on, forming the pattern “AAABBBCCC”), while in interleaving one mixes practice on several related skills together (forming for example the pattern “ABCABCABC”).

    Over the past four decades, a small but growing body of research has found that interleaving often outperforms blocking for a variety of subjects, including sports and category learning. Yet there have been almost no studies of the technique in unplanned, real world settings-until recently. New research in schools finds that interleaving produces dramatic and long-lasting benefits for an essential skill: math. Not only does this finding have the potential to transform how math is taught, it may also change how people learn more generally.

    Researches are now working to understand why interleaving produces such impressive results. One important explanation is that it improves the brain's ability to tell apart between concepts. With blocking, once you know what solution to use, or movement to do, the hard part is over. With interleaving, each practice attempt is different from the last, so rote(死记硬背) responses don't work. Instead, your brain must continuously focus on searching for different solutions. That process can improve your ability to learn critical features of skills and concepts, which then better enables you to select and produce the correct response.

    A second explanation is that interleaving strengthens memory associations. With blocking, a single strategy，temporarily held in short-term memory, is sufficient. That's not the case with interleaving-the correct solution changes from one practice attempt to the next. As a result, your brain is continually engaged at regaining different responses and bringing them into short-term memory. Repeating that process can strengthen neural connections between different tasks and correct responses, which improves learning.

    Both of these accounts imply that increased effort during training, either to discriminate correct responses or to strengthen them, is needed when interleaving is used. This corresponds to a potential drawback of the technique, namely that the learning process often feels more gradual and difficult in the beginning. However, that added effort can have better, longer-lasting results.

    Many children are interested in dinosaurs (恐龙). If you have a child who loves dinosaurs, then here is some good news for you. There is an exhibition of dinosaurs at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Wembley, Albert A. You can plan a family road trip there. Give your child a surprise and you'll enjoy your time there as a family.

    Sitting just 19 kilometers west of Grande Prairie, the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum was opened in 2015 and has collections that include fossils（化石）of sea animals, art works from different dinosaurs, a large family theater, as well as an outdoor discovery fossil walk, a large outdoor playground and the onsite Dine-O-Saur restaurant. Experience the dinosaurs' world like never before as you watch dinosaurs coming alive in movies. Learn about how these animals lived and breathed.

    You can check out Dinosaurs Unearthed and all of the other exciting exhibitions at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum on the following days/ time periods:

    September 1st—May 31st:

    Tuesday—Sunday 10: 00 a. m. — 6: 00 p. m.

    Closed on Mondays

    June 1st—August 31st:

    Saturday—Monday 10: 00 a. m. — 6: 00 p. m.

    Tuesday—Friday 10: 00 a. m. — 8: 00 p. m.

    Admission (门票):

    Adults: $ 14 each

    Seniors (65+): $ 11 each

    Students (with ID) and children (5—17): $7 each

    Children under 5: free

    Family (2 adults and up to 4 children): $40

    If you want to see a National Geographic film or a full-length film during your visit, it is an extra $2— $4.

    For more information, please visit the museum's website at www.dinomuseum.ca.

    Have you ever heard a rumor spread around by students at your school? Rumors, like fake news, can often misinform individuals and lead them to believe false information.

    In an attempt to settle this problem, the country of Singapore has passed a bill that bans companies and individuals from publishing false information online.

    This law, known as The Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill, has caused a public outcry (强烈的抗议), as the government has been given the power to remove content that it considers inaccurate or against the public's interest.

    Since Singapore's citizens are part of different racial and religious groups, the government fears that rumors or fake news can increase tensions within an already small country.

    With the new law coming into effect, Singapore's government now has the authority to monitor news sites, social media platforms, and other databases of information to determine whether the content is falsified. The government can order for the removal of fake news, and publishers of this information can receive prison time and fines up to one million Singapore dollars!

    Critics fear that the bill threatens their freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Since national issues and world news are generally discussed on online platforms, many are concerned that this new bill will prevent individuals from talking freely and having healthy conversations.

    Several companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, have offices situated in Singapore, meaning that the new law will affect their company operations. Social media companies in Singapore could face a decline in activity, as users may fear posting their opinions and being punished by the government.

    Others are concerned that the law does not clearly state what a "false statement" is. Such an ambiguity might allow the government to misuse their power, even though the intention is to curtail the mow of false information and rumors throughout Singapore.

    This law does give rise to several concerns related to freedom and privacy and it will be interesting to see what Singapore's government will do to deal with this problem.

    To find out how the name Canada came about we must go back to the 16th century. At that time, the French dreamed of discovering and controlling more land, of expanding(扩大) trade beyond their borders and of spreading their beliefs across the world. In 1535, Francois I, king of France, ordered a navigator(航海家) named Jacques Cartier to explore the New World and search for a way to India.

    Carrier first arrived at the gulf of the St. Lawrence, which he intended (打算) to explore. He did not know what to expect but he hoped that this gulf was just an arm of the ocean between two islands. If it was, he would soon be on his way to the Far East. So he sailed upstream along the St. Lawrence River. However, instead of reaching Asia he arrived at Quebec or Standalone, as the Indians called it. It was at this point that the term "Canada" entered the country's history. Apparently the word "Canada" came from an India word" kanata", which means community or village. Cartier first used it when he referred to Standalone or Quebec. What a huge "village" Canada is!