summary of the 3rd english lesson

We sit here, still in our class rooms, 10 minutes before the end of the lessons will arrive and we will be free to go into our weekend...But before that: We must summarize the lesson.

First of all, I came late (quite late today), that is also the reason, why my summary could be a little shorter than the others! :-) We discussed an article about behaviour of oiling and mining companies and the ethical factors on certain questions out of the book, that we were discussing in the group.

Aftwards we heard a listening about launching a product which due to consumer complaintes had resulted in a desaster -- and again we reviewed the topic under the question of ethic. Then we had to went around and asked each other after the meaning of certain words, which are not so clear for us. The colleague had to explain it TO us.

Important lesson learned: You always say "explain TO me" or "explain TO us", not only "explain me".

Finally Martin gave us a test on times: we had to fill in the correct times into a story. The main focus were the "past-tenses" (as past simple, past simple continous, past perfect ..). What I have recognized: I definitly will review the tenses again at home. Basically I have a quite good feeling for tenses, and during school I learned them intensivly. From that that time I still use my knowledge, but it is not the best any more. I will review that!

Homework is:
To find the song "she hates me" from Puddle of Mudd, because the songtext has very good tense-examples, when to use past simple, past perfect simple, past continouse etc.

Mr. Verzetnisch and the dilemma of answering a difficult question

The 2nd part of the homework was to think of the question, if it is ethical for President Verzetnitsch to claim termination gratuity?

To understand this question or part of the homework, here a short overview of the facts:
Mr. Verzetnisch himself was nearly 20 years the president of the labour union of Austria. In the year 2006 a scandal popped up, that in the year 2000 the BAWAG bank had very big financial problems and for this reason certain fonds were mortgaged by Mr. Verzetnisch in the name of the ÖGB (the austrian labour union), which he did together with Günther Weninger the chairman of the board of representatives. Because this mortgage was discreeted, the resulting commitment never took place. At the moment the shares of the mortgage were planned to get rebuyed, the BAWAG again came into big financial problems, because the value of these shares were far to high, because the missed commitment in the past.

After this information, finally Mr. Verzetnisch abdicated on the 27th of March and on the 30th of April he was stacked by his follower Mr. Hundstorfer.

The discussion now is:
Mr. Verzetnisch requests a termination gratuity 865.000 Euros of the ÖGB, with the main jurisdictual argument, that the instant dismissal came too late by Mr. Hundstorfer, so that the request of the termination gratuity is lawful.

Among these facts, there should also be 2 facts taken into account before telling my personal opinion:

• With, or without the termination gratuity of the ÖGB, Mr. Verzetnisch gets the "Abgeordneten-Pension" of about 4000 Euro
• Because of the instant dismissal. Mr. Verzetnisch does not get the compensation by the ÖGB
• Mr. Verzetnisch will not get the pension of 3500 Euro
  

The jurisdictional question is:
At an instant dismissal of an employee, there must be a very important reason AND this reason must be told to the employee immediately. Which did not take place!

My personal opinion:

Here it must be differentiated between the facts accoring to the law, and the personal opinion. There are certain rules and laws in the austrian law, that every judge has to follow. After this law Ex-President V. will probably win this court procedure, simply due to the fact that Mr. Hundstorfer really told this reason for the instant dismissal too late. Mr. Hundstorfer According to this fact, the judge has to follow the law. Mr. Hundstorfer stated a few arguments, why this had happened (e.g. less sleep at these days, stress by the media..etc), but still there is one fact: There has been an instant dismissal taken place. Every employer must know the rules how to stack an employee BEFORE doing it, and cannot wonder, if something has been forgotten, that the employee uses his right in front of the court.


This is the jursdictional fact, according to the law, which must take place. The other view is the ethical view (which is totally different from a jurisdictional point of view, or the jurisdictional facts):

The amounts we are all talking here about (an early-pension of 4000 euro in any case, a probably termination gratuity of 865.000 euros), this is the first point. An average employee earns about 2500 until 3000 euros, and probably many of the employees also have children, and both parents have to work. As the president of the Labour Union, which is the Union for employees, which has (or should have) the goal to watch and save the rights of employees and to guarantee a fair proportion between employee and employer, it is funny to see that this president fights for an incredible high amount of termination graduity, where most of the parents (which are 2 people) does not earn such a high amount for a whole family. For me this is an intersting question, but also a funny fact!?

I am not a specialst in law, but I do not understand, why Mr. V. tries to get 865.000 euros, if the actual amoung of gratuity is lawer..? But in any case I wonder, what Mr. V. thinks or beleives in, to follow a job as the leader of labour union, and then, after a scandal (where he was mostly involved), fights for such an amount (also: the labour union is an association which earns money by the members of the association).

Still, for me the fact of being a president of a labour union and fighting this fight now is the most interesting fact in this discussion, which I cannot answer so far. Such a man, which he surely is, must be very ambitous in his plans, this is for sure -- but ambitous does not always have positive sides, and can end-up in very egoistic and single-way strategies.

New Term, new situation

The new term has started, actually 2 weeks ago, but today I have the first time real time to post this first blog. This following post was basically the homework for last week, but I did not have time (as mentioned), so I simply do it today.

So here the first part, firstly I also did an "Ethical Orientation questionnaire" [http://www.ethicsandbusiness.org/stylequiz.htm], that Martin gave us for homework and to comment it. The quiz asks questions after certain situations in life, how I would react.

Questions e.g. are
1. Which is worse?
hurting someone's feelings by telling the truth
telling a lie and protecting their feelings

2. Which is the worse mistake?
to make exceptions too freely
to apply rules too rigidly

3. Which is it worse to be?
unmerci
unfair

The quiz differentiates between the Ethic of Justic and the Ethic of care, and here is now my result.

C Score: 7 J Score: 2

The description for each "Ethic" is:

Ethic of Justice:
People who prefer this style see ethical dilemmas as involving primarily a conflict of rights that can be solved by the impartial application of some general principlePeople with this style try to be objective and fair, hoping to make a decision according to some standard that's "higher" than any specific individual's interests. The disadvantage of this approach is that people who rely on it might lose sight of the immediate interests of particular individuals

Ethic of care:
An "ethic of care or responsibility" is founded on a sense of responsibility to reduce actual harm or suffering. For these people, moral dilemmas generally involve a conflict of duties or responsibilities

My Opinion:
The result is quite true, that I more often pay attention to peoples attitude or the problem of human, instead of reacting after rules or laws. For me the human is more important than any rules, but honestly: Since a very long time, I cannot remember that I ever faced rules without any doubt or negativ touch!

But on the other hand:
The test has 10 questions, I am also not very sure, if this qualifies the test to final result on this topic -- if someone is more ethica in justice or care...

last English lesson before final Test for this Semester

This will be the last review for this semester, because in the next english lesson it will be the final exam, and I think I will not post the review of that lesson, as far as everybody can imagine and probably also knows, what experiences exist during an exam. So if everything runs fine, my next post into this blog is after summer, starting the 3rd semester!

But now the review of today:
We were reading an article of "motivating high calibre staff", which mainly explains the role of high performancers in a company, the definition of high performers and what are the advantages of high performares but also how to keep them in a company. After that a short discussion of what we think about high performers within the group started. Besides we learned 2 main keywords as binding words in a text, and now we shall the summarize of the discussion using these 2 keywords:

During the discussion about the article Jürgen says that social skills are not the main character of a high performer compared to a "normal" worker, but the know-how itself. The Know how of a high performer is the most important skill, and also the skill, which makes him to a high performer.
However I argumented a little bit different and thinks that the difference between a worker and a high performer ARE the social skills -- no the know how itself (but of course they have a knowledge of the company).
Above all I can summarize that those two opinions exist and also the group splittet up into those 2 opinions.

Some vocabulary:
to give a presentation
--> he gave an entertaining presentation

to hold a meeting
--> he held a meeting on dotcoms

Homework:
No homework!! :-)

Final words in the 2nd Semester:
So this was it -- the last post for this semester! I hopefully will pass all the left exams, so that my next post really will stand here in the 3rd semester! A few people have left us during the 2nd semster, so that the count of our class went from originally 40 people down to 29, and still the most exams are outstanding! But lets see..I will again cross my fingers (as I did so often during the last year :-))!

I am very looking forward to the summertime and FH-Break, I think everybody needs that after the first year! Altough, as our maths-tutor once also said, the 2nd semester (for me) passed more quickly over than the first semester. Some people were more motivated in the first semster, than during the 2nd semester, which was in my case just the other way around -- but still: I also need the summerbreak!


So: Bye Bye... have a very nice summertime!!

Review of another English lesson

Here now a short overview of our English lesson:

Bob had a wonderful and good presentation of how creating questions in English;

E.g.
The short question: Who are those people?
changing that in a long question, the verb and nound is switched: I do not know, who those people are!

Within this presentation, one big question popped up: The behaviour of the reported speech. One important fact there exists: if one sentence is written down as a direct speech, the reported speech is always one tense back.

Which means normally:
Clara says "I leave now" --> reported speech: Clara said, that she left. But I know, that there is another rule, when the reported speech is in the same tense, than the direct speech. I will look that up and post it here as well then.

Then we reviewed a text out of the chapter "Trade" with the topic "fair trade"!

A few new vocabulary we also did, I repeat them here:
Application forms:

• incomplete --> e.g. the formular filled out is inclompete
• unclompete --> e.g. my picture is unclompete -- or also unfinished
• blank --> e.g. the piece of paper is blank
• empty --> e.g. my purse is empty
• unfinished --> e.g. the test is unfinished, because I was running out of time

the difference between
tariff --> in conclusion with money
quota --> the amount of something

other Vocabulary:
commodity --> the exact translation is "Rohstoff"

prosperity --> "Wohlstand" and the adjectiv is: "to be prosperess"
poverty --> "Armut"

If two people meet and one says " I haven't seen you for a long time, you got prosperess", in this context, it means: that someony got a bigger belly! Funny expression, and I will defenitely remember that!

After that we got the homework for the next time:
p. 85/A,B

At the beginning Martin checked, if everybody has bought his books, where everybody will write the phrases and vocabularies and all interesting things, that we do in class, into it. Interesting fact is, that everybody got his/her books, including me, because I always have my Kollegblock with me, and at home I collect them in a map. Roland even though plans to buy 4 books, to write in one the vocabularies, in the other the grammar parts, into the third the phrases etc.

What we did today:

• started a new chapter: Employment.

• 1st exercise: (out of a list in English book) find the most important points for getting a job (like: experience, qualification, references etc.). My group chose experience, qualification, personality, appearance and references.

o Out of this topic we turned to the vocabulary "to rank". Meaning of to rank: "to order according the importance".

At the moment Martin wrote the meaning of to rank on the board, everybody took their books and wrote the vocabulary in it. I guess Roland has started then his vocabulary book today (by the
destiny, that a a vocabulary was discussed first), and now he has to buy another book for grammar
and phrases! :-)

• 2nd exercise: we joined in groups of two people and need to find out and discuss the best/worst job, the best/worst boss, the best/worst colleague etc..

• Weekly Presentation:

Christian was the lucky person, who presented us the use of the word "should"; it was a
good presentation and very well prepared -- especially because Christian handed out a
Summarize of his presentation paper. The presentation was good – probably Christian
would say, that it was not so good – but I officially state here: It was good.

o I will definitely remember: "Ought to" can be used as should do and has also the same meaning; but "ought to" sounds more intellectual!

• Thoughts to the topic speaking English:
  

  Many people always have a very low self-confidence at the English language. That is why, they are then shy at talking English, and some people also try to prevent to talk in English. I understand that point, if something feels not comfortable, than it is not easy to do exactly this not-liked thing. But I think it is good that we have English once a week during the Fachhochschule – two hours once a week is not very much (actually for getting more practise in Speaking far too less), but still it is good and important for us to get in touch again with the grammar and the vocabularies. At every test everybody has to learn a lot new vocabularies and help to extend the vocabulary knowledge. But to get comfortable with speaking English 2 lessons are to less, but to help to get more self-confident in speaking English those 2 hours/week are ok – especially if people have to do presentations and exercises.

o Then we turned to the vocabulary "metacognitive". An interesting and very good description (to me) of the word "meta-" is: think and talk about a process. So if I talk about how to speak a language, this is meta-language. So cognitive would be e.g. speaking in social situations, and metacognitive would then be: How do I get speaking practise (e.g. by reading or by writing or by speaking?)

• As I wrote in my last reflection, I also had my presentation of the topic “countries, nationalities and language”. My feeling was that Martin expected a short presentation, with the main information, that words in combination with countries or nationalities always have capital letters at the beginning. But because the chapter in vocabulary in use covered more information, my presentation got longer. That is also the reason, why I did not feel comfortable in front of the class any more, then I also reduced the presentation content to finish earlier and summarizing, I am not satisfied with the presentation, because it was not so well. But in any case: This main information (capital letters) reached the class. But I also think, that I could put the usage of words with countries and nationalities a little bit across!
  

• At the end the homework: p. 78 --> A,B,C

awareness of writing always long texts

I was reading the last blogs by myself, and the following fact dramatically again came up:

I cannot write short texts! Never... :-(

I always start typing with the goal to write shorter texts, but it always ends up in a long text. Martin (our professor) always remembers me at homeworks, that if he gives us a homework to write a text with 150 words, that I shall write 150 words, and not 200... and every time I have to write the text (minimum) 2 times, until I have the 150 words!

So sorry for that, whoever reads my blogs -- posting short texts I have not accomplished yet! Except this one! ;-)