The European Council

Emina Ribo, Carola Ponjevic, Christine Hartinger


First versions

The European Council The European Council, one of the several institutions of the European Union, plays an important role when it comes to setting a general political direction. It became an official body of the European Union in 2009, when the Treaty of Lisbon came into force. As (The following sentence doesn’t connect to the previous one. What does the E.C do? → meet when other countries can not find solutions)  the EU is often confronted with difficulties, which cannot be solved by the individual member states, the heads of state or government of every EU country (good knowledge of the MNN’s - it’s not capitalised since it doesn’t refer to a specific title) meet and decide on a general political direction as well as on the EU’s priorities (what kind of priorities? economic or social ones; priorities for a specific year?). The decisions are made by consensus (It is not clear what you mean. I would instead rewrite the sentence and mention what consensus actually is: “The process of making decisions is based on the consensus principle”. → connects to the next sentence too) This means that a concept or an idea has to be accepted by every voter or by the qualified majority depending on the nature of the treaty. In addition, (avoid linking words, connect instead to the previous sentence by writing “People who take part in the voting are..) the Commission President, the European Council President and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (= you obviously have studied the MNN very well, great!) take part, but (It works but I’d use “however”; higher register) they are not allowed to vote. The meetings (doesn’t connect so well to the previous sentence, I would mention the voting: The meeting, in which these votings take place, are usually being held every six months in Brussels) take place twice every 6 (MNN!! number 1-10 in words!!) months usually (I think the word order is a bit misplaced here; it’s probably better to start with: The meetings usually take place twice every…) in Brussels. However, the president (MNN!! You refer to a specific president → capital letters), Herman van Rompuy, can convene (Well chosen vocabulary) a special meeting if needed. No conclusion sentence! Summarise! Why is the European Council so important? Link it to the introduction sentence! [180 words]

The European Council The most influential body of the EU is the European Council. This institution is composed of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States (you successfully avoided MNN’s:)), the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President of the European Commission and Herman Van Rompuy, who is the current President of the European Council. The President is elected for two and a half years and can be re-elected once. He is responsible for coordinating the work of the European Council and ensures that decisions are put into practice. The European Council, which meets at least four times a year, focuses on setting the general political direction of the European Union, sets priorities and debates sensitive issues (good collocation). For such a highly significant institution it is inevitable to have a certain decision-making process. If the Treaties do not provide otherwise, the European Council decides by consensus (This way is ok, because you mentioned what it is → decision-making process). In some cases they reach decision by unanimity, which means that every Head of State or Government needs to agree (on what? → on the decision; it is not clear what you mean here). If someone does not approve, the change (I would add “proposed change” → It’s clearer what you mean) cannot come into force. Other matters are decided on by qualified majority though. The presidents (MNN → You refer to specific presidents, namely the one from these states) themselves are not allowed to participate in this voting. Although the European Council is not a legislative body, thus not allowed to pass laws, it is still the mainstay of the European Union setting all of its directions.

Our version (by Emina Ribo, Carola Ponjevic, Christine Hartinger)

The most influential body of the EU is the European Council. It became an official body of the European Union in 2009, when the Treaty of Lisbon came into force. This institution is composed of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President of the European Commission and Herman Van Rompuy, who is the current President of the European Council. The President is elected for two and a half years and can be re-elected once. He is responsible for coordinating the work of the European Council and ensures that decisions are put into practice. The European Council, which meets at least four times a year, focuses on setting the general political direction of the European Union, sets priorities and debates sensitive issues. The decision-making within the Council follows a certain rule: If the Treaties do not provide otherwise, the European Council decides by consensus. This means that a concept or an idea has to be accepted by every voter or by the qualified majority depending on the nature of the Treaty. If someone does not approve, the proposed change cannot come into force. The Presidents themselves are not allowed to participate in this voting. Although the European Council is not a legislative body, thus not allowed to pass laws, it is still the mainstay of the European Union setting all of its directions.

Our final version The most influential body of the EU is the European Council. It became an official body of the European Union in 2009, when the Treaty of Lisbon came into force. This institution is composed of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President of the European Commission and the current President of the European Council. The President is elected for two and a half years and can be re-elected once. He is responsible for coordinating the work of the European Council and ensures that decisions are put into practice. The European Council, which meets at least four times a year, focuses on setting the general political direction of the European Union, sets priorities and debates sensitive issues. The decision-making within the Council follows a certain rule: If the Treaties do not provide otherwise, the European Council decides by consensus. This means that a concept or an idea has to be accepted by every voter depending on the nature of the Treaty. If someone does not approve, the proposed change cannot come into force. The Presidents themselves are not allowed to participate in this voting. Although the European Council is not a legislative body, thus not allowed to pass laws, it is still the mainstay of the European Union setting all of its directions.

Link to Feedback on essay about Bosnia

Here is the link of the feedback Monika Maric gave us for our essay about Bosnia and the EU:

Feedback of Bosnia

Link to post about Bosnia

Monika Toma uploaded the new version of the paper about Why Bosnia should join the EU on her blog. Here is the link:

Why should Bosnia join the EU

Reflection on the Pecha Kucha experience

When I reflect my very first Pecha Kucha presentation about Irish Gaelic, I have to admit that I am quite satisfied with it. There were certainly some mistakes that shouldn’t have occurred, but we could all turn a blind eye on them ;).

Monika Toma was my partner for the PK presentation. Working with her was actually very relaxing and easy as we have already held many presentations together so far. At the beginning of the preparations for our PK, each one of us collected information on her own and put it in a Google Doc. When the time had come to create an outline, we met and discussed about the information we had found up to that point. We both agreed on the scope of our presentation and so we could eliminate unnecessary facts. We didn’t want to bore our audience with dates. We decided to focus on the importance of the language and we wanted to answer the question why Gaelic actually did become one of the official working languages of the EU. Since the Pecha Kucha presentations were supposed to be entertaining, Monika and asked Fiona whether she could read out a short text in Irish for a short clip. She immediately agreed on that idea and so we filmed her with my camera. This was the fun part of the preparations. The most complicated part was to create a cohesive, well-written text and divide it into 20 seconds for each slide. We had some difficulties with that as some paragraphs were too short and others too long. But in the end we managed to resolve this problem. Picking out appropriate pictures for the Power Point was not complicated at all.

When the day of our presentation came, we met before in order to rehearse again. Apart from the fact that we had put the Scottisch map instead of the Irish on our PP, the presentation was quite good. At some points we were not always in parallel with our slides.

From my first Pecha Kucha, I have learnt that revising pictures properly is very important. I haven’t actually realised that we’ve used a Scottisch map which is quite embarrassing. In addition to that, we should have rehearsed more often. For my next Pecha Kucha I will surely try to not make the same mistakes again. But all in all, pretty much everybody was impressed by Fiona’s Irish.

I am convinced that Pecha Kucha is a very good way of giving a presentation. People are really thinking about the content of their presentations and do not bore the audience with complicated facts. This awareness enormously increases the quality of presentations and I myself was very enthusiastic and impressed by other Pecha Kuchas. They were all very creative and involved the participation of the audience. I really liked the Pecha Kucha about “Esperanto”. In such a short time, namely six minutes and 40 seconds, a completely new topic was presented to me very well. It left an effect on me which is what all presentations should do.

Vocabulary Notebook

For the second PC I actually took the necessary time to study the Porter vocabulary properly. Since I am not capable of coping with stress and I knew how many words were waiting for me to write down, I got down to work during Christmas break. Previous experiences have shown that the writing down of unfamiliar words makes me remember them much better and therefore I wrote down every single word, its explanation, synonyms and some example sentences too. I worked with three online dictionaries at the same time, namely the Longman Dictionary, Vocabulary.com and Thesaurus.com. In the end I had more than 20 sheets to go through again. This time I developed a method for studying vocabulary efficiently. I took the sheets of one unit, went through them and tried to remember as much as I could. The next day I revised them again. When I was not really sure about one word of the list, I put the sheet with that word on a specific place in my apartment. Of course, I also put the sheets with the vocabulary I could remember on a different place. Each time I would pass by these places, I took a sheet out and revised it. My method was to combine studying vocabulary with my daily life. It helped my mind to actually assign unfamiliar words a certain place in my apartment. To be honest, I have never memorised such a great range of vocabulary that quickly before. My method turned out to be very successful and I will definitely return to it again. Even if it is a very time consuming way to study vocabulary, the effect is undoubtedly worth it!

Pronunciation Diary (second post)

The feedback on my recording has helped me enormously to realise where my pronunciation problems lie. To be honest, I have never payed enough attention to it as I have always considered my pronunciation to be good. This, apparently, is not the case and there are a great deal of problems in my pronunciation I have to work on - and I am willing to do so!

1.) The first problem I have to tackle is the th sound. Up until now I have always pronounced the th in the article “the” and other words like “they” as a “d”.

Everyone was praising Rachel’s English channel on Youtube to be very helpful. I agree with that! However, when I was searching for other videos, I came across with Dave Sconda. In my opinion, he gives a much clearer explanation of the difference between the voiced and unvoiced th sounds. Maybe this sounds embarrassing to you but I have actually never been aware of the fact that there is a difference! What a shame!

Personally, I had difficulties to notice the difference between the th sounds in Rachel’s pronunciation. Dave, on the other hand, pronounces it clearly and also mentions the way English learners fail to pronounce them. Both of them read out sentences which contain these sounds. In order to practice them, I read them out aloud too. After some time (and it became very ridiculous ^^) I could actually discern the difference in my pronunciation! The only problem I am facing now is that I am too concentrated on pronouncing both th sounds correctly which is why sentences don’t really roll off my tongue - I guess I have to practice the natural flow now!

Here is the link to Dave Sconda (Does he remind you of Max Medina from the Gilmore Girls too?). He is quite popular on Youtube given the fact that he has over five Million viewers.

Dave - TH sounds

2.) Another problematic sound is the W and the V. Thanks to the help of a very amiable Canadian woman called Roonie, I will use a certain technique when I read out these letters. 

Roonie - V and W

If you want to pronounce the W correctly, just pretend to give somebody a kiss. Stick out your teeth like a Bieber and the correct pronunciation of the V will come out naturally. It is as simple as that. I have practiced this method on two words, veil and whale. In case I ever meet one of the greatest designer Vivienne Westwood, I can proudly shout out her name!

The feedback and all the useful links have helped me realise which sounds are problematic concerning my pronunciation. It is important to be more accurate and attentive when reading out a text. It is really not difficult at all!

Pronunciation Diary (first post)

When we learn a new language, we shouldn't underestimate the value of a good pronunciation. It's quite pointless to study vocabulary by heart without even trying to pronounce them correctly. In my opinion, it is a very crucial part of learning a language as native English speakers might not understand you if you don't pronounce particular words correctly.

This problem can be demonstrated clearly with an example:

The word "wound" can have two different meanings, depending on its pronunciation.

As a noun it is pronounced like this: wo͞ond --> Click on it!
However, the verb sounds like this: wæʊnd

If you are interested in the way I pronounce it, just click on the words below:
wo͞ond
wæʊnd

These words are written the same way, but are pronounced differently. Words like these are called homonyms.

The opposite, words which are  pronounced the same way, but are spelled differently, are called homophones.

Example: flour and flower Look at this picture for more homophones. Isn't that interesting?

Homonyms and homophones are very interesting linguistic phenomena (quite a tough word) and demonstrate clearly what it means to have good pronunciation skills.

Each time I come across with an unknown vocabulary, I try to pronounce it correctly and in order to make sure I’ve done a good job, I check the correct pronunciation on the Internet. In most cases I do pronounce it correctly, but sometimes I just don't get it right. I plan to work on the pronunciation of words I am already familiar with.