JAPO2 for Geographers Speaking Semester Project – Presentation/Report on your most interesting trip/journey Time for the preparation: 2-6 weeks Aim: make it interesting enough to attract your classmates to join you next year, taking you as a guide - the winners will practice the following abilities: Role A - Future professional career – travel agency guide or and an advertiser Speaking abilities: offers/ advertising, giving detailed information, instructions, and making arrangements Role B – making decisions and giving opinions, comparing offers - asking questions to find out details You may get inspiration from the report on Australia written by Šárka, a student of geography – will be done in our seminar. It should not be published yet, since there are quite a few mistakes. Hopefully you will not mind them and you will correct them. Grammar in practice – direct and reported speech Writing a/ Main ideas and summaries of field topics. b/ answers - in reading texts c/ Request and A Letter of complaint about services – deadline by the end of March Use Student Materials in IS to get to the websites more comfortably. Letters of Complaint about Travel agency in Florida - instuctions One day you accept "two weeks winning cruise to Bahama islands" from the travel agency Starr Getaways in a telephone call and agree to pay 950 USD for the accommodation during the first week in Orlando, Ft.Lauderdale and Daytona. FLORIDA TOURIST BUREAU withdraws the money from your bank account the same day. The lady you speak with says you will receive the promotional vacation package by DHL within 7 days. The following number STS08200512 is given to you to fill in the confirmation form which you do and receive the automatic answer.- Starr Getaways Verification Confirmation Thanks for taking the time to complete the verification form. We are processing your Starr Getaway Holiday and will be contacting you shortly. Customer Support, Starr Getaways Two weeks have gone and you receive no package. Write a prompt email request about your package. (You do not know yet the time is running for the travel agency but you should become suspicious about the money having been withdrawn. Have you read their terms and conditions? I advise you to do so as soon as possible.) This is the answer to your first complaint: Dear …., Congratulations on your holiday. Your package was shipped out to you weeks ago but there seemed to be a problem with your postal code. I just got off the phone with our shipping dept. and I have been advised that your package will be re-shipped today by DHL. Please accept our apology for the delay. Best Regards, Etta James You finally get the holiday package. Go through all the forms to find out if it is what you have expected. Are you as disappointed as I was when I received it? It has been 27 days now since your first telephone call and the payment. Read the terms and conditions to find out if there is still chance to reject the holiday and get your money back. I hope you have understood that you have to send the package back by DHL because of time and because of tracking the shipment via Internet, But you also have to write another letter of complaint- not very long, but make it clear that you do not want the holiday any more. Insist that they refund your money. ………….Time passes and there is no respond. You had your credit card blocked. Do you have an idea what to do now? No? Perhaps there is a good piece of advice: There are ways for you to file on line complaints. I would choose one of them and ask them to contact this company in Florida and insist that they refund your money. These websites are part of the Attorney General Office of State of Florida. The Attorney General in each of the 50 states is the chief state official in charge of enforcing all laws and instituting all criminal procedures at the state level. Regular murders, thefts, etc are handled by the states attorney in each county. (We copied the county governments of England.) Since these people operate in Florida but do not restrict their sales to one county, the complaints are handled by the State of Florida - Office of Attorney General. This is the website: http://myfloridalegal.com/ When you get to this website look at the green column on the left. Choose Consumer Protection. Once you get to Consumer Protection be sure to read 1. What the Florida Law Provides. When you get to this part at the end you can click on Consumer Fraud. Then click on Checking Accounts. 2. Next go to Consumer Protection, same website and click on "Protecting Yourself from Consumer Fraud." Down at the bottom is "Vacation Certificates." It sounds very familiar. 3. Go back to Consumer Protection, click on it, click on How to File a Complaint. There is an on-line form. Look at it. Jan. 2OO7 – If I had not sent the Travel Claim to FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE & CONSUMER SERVICES, Division of Consumer Services, Bureau of Mediation & Enforcement, I believe I would have never got my money back. It had been long 18 months before I received a check on 950 USD, but I hope you agree all the correspondence was worth it. Listening 1. You can improve your listening ability on http://www.esl-lab.com/index.htm 2. University lectures on field topics (volcanoes, earthquakes, plate tectonics) 3. Listening tests in our seminars – common English 4. Toefl tests in self-access study room of the Language Center The English Language Grammar Conditionals, time clauses, wishes and regrets – tables on http://verahranac.wz.cz/ Reported speech – spoken practice in seminars. Practice Tests in seminars – preparing for the exams. Vocabulary Build your new vocabulary from section reviews and also from topic texts on the air (atmosphere, weather and climates), volcanoes, earthquakes. Gap tests – preparing for the exam. Reading Comprehension Answering questions about field texts. Practice Test in seminars – detailed reading for T/F tests, logical continuity of a text