Story of Drive-Through ELF

I have written a story of the school. How it started and how it works. Mistakes have been corrected by Alianaluz, but it's totally my point of view. What is yours? Is there more to say about the school? It has been published as part of the IV Congress of CyberSociety 2009 (wow!) Story of Drive-Through ELF Homepage of the IV Congress of CyberSociety 2009 3 presentations written by Oweny about scripting in SL , designing teaching tools in SL and two examples of teaching tools.

Observers and Researchers

This is the notecard that is distributed to observers and researchers when they visit the infohub. Sometimes researchers ask question and distribute questionnaires without authorization and without introducing themselves as researchers. You don't have to answer them. Please tell someone at the school. RULES AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR RESEARCHERS AND OBSERVERS VISITING ESL SL (DRIVE-THROUGH-ESL) YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CONDUCT RESEARCHES, DISTRIBUTE QUESTIONNAIRES, OR CONTACT VISITORS, STUDENTS. IF SCHOOL STAFF IS PRESENT WHEN YOU VISIT THE SCHOOL, FOLLOW THEIR INSTRUCTIONS. OBSERVERS ARE ALLOWED TO ATTEND ONE CLASS FOR FREE. For instructions contact the Class Runner 30 minutes before class begins or go to http://www.drive-through-esl.info/school.html, for more information. Contact information can be found at the end of the notecard. If you are attending a lesson you are welcome to participate in class activities. DO NOT contact the teacher or students during the lesson. For assistance during class contact the class runner in IM. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT: * This is a private, commercial school. It is not a public place. * By conducting a research without authorization you might be breaking International Laws about Copyright Protection, violating Terms of Use and Community Standards of Second Life. * Your ignorance of the English language or Second Life, the general lack of understanding of the situation and context is NOT an excuse for violating these rules. * If you don't know what is going on, introduce yourself to school staff (class Runner, Help Team) and wait for his/her answer. * If no school staff is present, do not contact visitors. Information on how to contact school staff is noted at the end of the notecard. People come here to work or to learn English. If you talk to someone or if someone greets you ALWAYS introduce yourself as a researcher IMMEDIATELY. Staff members could be busy, you might be interrupting their work and disturbing the school's operations. Visitors might think you are part of the school staff and give you personal information you are not authorized to collect and use. Giovanni Tweak - owner e-mail gt@drive-through-esl.info Include: Organization (University, College, School, Marketing/Advertising Agencies, other) Research topic (be specific) Contact info of the teacher or supervisor Any other info or links that you think is relevant to introducing yourself and your organization. http://www.drive-through-esl.info/

New Classes: Tuesday and Thursday at 2am PST

2 new classes this week. Tuesday and Thursday at 2am PST. Both voice. New classes, new times. Not exactly new teacher. Monkicat Giha has taught at the school since the text-only days up to a year ago. She's back with a new computer. What time is 2am PST? It's early morning in South America. It's around lunch in Europe and North Africa and Middle East. It's afternoon or evening in Asia. Check what time it is for you HERE

New Classes Friday

Two new classes this week: Friday 4am PDT, Voice, Grammar Friday 1pm PDT, Text, Grammar Both classes will be taught by Pinkjeans Acker. The following week classes will be at their regular time: Friday 3am (Voice) and 12pm PDT

Time change

Here we go again. Back to Standard Time. Second Life time will change from PDT to PST next Sunday. Early in the morning the clock will go back one hour. If the time doesn't change in your country, classes will be one hour earlier than before in your local time. In some countries it has already changed, in others there is no time change. For a list of what goes on country by country click here

Week 43

Winter schedule: new Classes, new times and other changes Two more classes: Saturday and Sunday at 6am PDT. Monday: NEW format: 11am PDT: Business English Tuesday: 12pm PDT: Yanto is back. Verb tenses. Text only. Thursday: NEW class: 6am PDT: This is now a Text only class. Practical English. Recommended for beginners. Saturday: NEW class, NEW time: Voice: VOICE. Word Games. Exercises, practice, word games. Homonyms, homophones, word roots. Sunday: NEW time: Skype class: Flat Mates/International news in English Reading. Pronunciation. Comprehension

Week 37

10 classes this week: No excursion class this Friday 8am Thursday 7am PDT Voice class in Skype Saturday 4pm Song lyrics class Skype classes: Wed 4pm PDT, Thu 7am PDT Text classes: Tue 6am, Sun 8am Classes recommended for beginners: Tuesday, 6am PDT, Text, Seikatsu, Wednesday, 11am PDT, Voice, Inge (Flat Mates) Wednesday, 4pm PDT, Skype, Alianaluz (Reading, pronunciation) Sunday, 8am PDT, Text, Alianaluz, Story Writing Do you want to know what number a week is? http://www.epochconverter.com/epoch/weeknumbers.php

About Story Writing class.

Story Writing class runs on Sundays at 8am PDT. It's a text-only class. Next Story Writing class will be Sunday, 16 August. You can read the last story here. Next time we'll pick up from there. There is no need to read the previous installments to join Story Writing class. ESL Group Story Writing Class Instructions Hello, welcome to the ESL writing-a-short-story class. Before we proceed with our activity, please click the “Local Chat” button located in the lower left corner of your screen. This will display a History of everything that has been typed today and will help you easily follow along with the class activity. During this activity, we will write a short story as a group. Everyone will participate. Each of us will take turns composing one or two sentences at a time. This activity will take us one hour, and we will each get a few turns as we go around in a clock-wise fashion to complete the story. After you have typed your sentence(s) into the chat bar, type “next” so that the person to your right knows to enter his/her sentence(s) to continue the story after you. If you are not ready to type in your contribution to the story when it is your turn, type “pass.” That will alert the next person to continue without waiting for your contribution. You may enter your writing during the next round when your turn comes up again. After you have entered your writing into the chat bar, I will correct any errors. You will see an * in front of the corrections. If you have any questions about the correction, please ask them. Please do not be afraid of making any errors as the whole class is here to learn and often more is learned from an error! Once the person in front of you has typed in his/her sentences, and I am in the process of correcting, please start preparing yours for reading. I will alert you a few minutes before we come to the end of the story, so that the last person in the group can think of a good ending. If you have any questions during this activity, you do not have to wait until the end of the class to ask them. Please feel free to ask questions at any time during the class. Does anyone have any questions before we start? Okay, let's begin! (Teacher now writes two or three opening lines for the story.) Content created by Petra Paster October 2, 2007 Revision by Lylou Despres Updated Feb 2008 Revisions by Alianaluz Rivera Updated December 31, 2008

ESL Group Story Writing Class July 26, 2009

ESL Group Story Writing Class July 26, 2009 Just when I thought life couldn’t get any stranger, I met Pirot, a blind old man who had an amazing gift. You couldn't tell what his gift was by looking at him; he was a short elderly man with long white hair and dark glasses that covered his vacant eyes. He passed the gift to me and said: "Hi, little girl, do not be sad, this is for you." I couldn't wait to open it up, but I had to go home right away. I was astonished by this old man Pirot who made me feel like the luckiest person in the world. I had never won anything before in my life other than a little action man that came with my McDonalds Happybox. Pirot told me to open the gift. He said that I will have time to go home later. A time-piece was in the box, but not just a regular time-piece, with it, I could travel in the past or in the future. I had my doubts, so I asked my grandfather about it; he was as old as the old man who gave me the gift. He told me that time machines were not a big deal. All you needed was to put time in a bottle and squeeze hard, like ketchup. The problem was coming back. This is why we don't hear much about it. That scared me a little, because I wanted to travel into the future (or into the past) but now I was afraid that I might not be able to return to the present! I decided to go back to the old blind man and ask him about it. I asked him if what my grandfather said was true. He said, “Yes, you can only use it to go to one world, if you choose that one, you will lose this one. Then I asked him if he was from another time. He didn’t say much about it. It was as if he wasn’t happy talking about it. I decided to try the time machine. Recently, I didn't do well on my English exam and I wanted to try to pass it again. Then I went back just 5 minutes before the exam. I was in class with the others students. I was thinking that maybe my grandfather had been to another time and had come back or maybe he came from another time. Then they called my name for the English text, just like the other time... It was eerie. It was only then that I realized I had not taken more time to study. I was so disappointed when I failed that I didn't even check my mistakes. The teacher asked me if I was OK because I looked so pale. I nodded "yes" and hurried out of the classroom. I headed straight for my grandfather's house. I nodded "yes" and hurried out of the classroom. I headed straight for my grandfather's house. I ran very fast, but it seemed that I could not reach my grandfather's house. "Where are you my grandpa, how can I find you?" Then I thought to myself: "Man! You have the power of time in your pockets! You shouldn’t be wondering about English exams and getting to your grandpa." So I took the box that contained the piece of time and decided to go to December 25th, 1900 because I remembered my grandfather received a time machine like mine back then. I found my grandfather's house and watched from outside his window. "Stop grandpa!" I cried out. He turned to me and had an astonished look on his face. That’s when I realized I was naked. My clothes had not been transported in time. He came out of the door. The neighbors came out to see what was happening as well. I guess someone had called the police. I grabbed frantically at the button on my watch. I didn't care where it would take me. I didn't care if I could never return to the present. I just wanted to hide my naked butt from my grandpa and his neighbors! I pressed the button and wound up somewhere in the year 79,000… Suddenly, I was in a very strange place. You could not image what it was like, but I forgot that I was still naked. So I looked around the corner and I saw the strangest thing I had ever seen in my life. There were lots and lots of naked people with watches like mine. I didn’t know if I should stay there with other time travelers. I recognized one of them. It was Pirot. I called him and asked him to help me. "oh ai" typed Pirot. “Au az u zot ire?" "What?" I said? "Uat uat ?" he answered. At this point I had no idea how to go on. It's enough" said the teacher. You've made a few mistakes. Please try to correct them. You've passes the test.” That's when I realized that this had all been a DAYDREAM. I was in my class standing at my professor's desk with my graded paper in my hand. I was so relieved to realize that not only had I passed my text but also I had never traveled in time. But just as I was ready to put it all out of my mind, I glanced down and saw a strange watch on my wrist…

Week 29

12 Classes this week. 1 New class: Wednesday 6am PDT. Voice. Giovanni. Reading, comprehension. 1 new time: Story writing class (Sunday) is now at 8am PDT (it was at 12pm PDT) 4 Classes recommeneded for beginners: Tuesday 6am PDT. Text. Seikatsu. Drive-Through ESL Wednesday 11am PDT. Voice. Inge. Flat Mates Wednesday 4pm PDT. Skype. Alianaluz. Reading, pronunciation, comprehension. Thursday 10am PDT. Voice. EagleEye. Vocabulary, idioms Please note: Monday 4pm PDT (VOICE) will starts at 4:10pm PDT Wednesday 4pm PDT (SKYPE) will starts at 4:10pm PDT