Your grades

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Hi! Welcome to my class on American culture. I hope you enjoy it and that it helps you improve your English as you learn about America.

This is the first recording that I am making for this class. I will make many more recordings like this and put them up on my blog. I will explain the recordings in class but you will also need to listen to them outside of class so that you can learn to understand the English in them. If you have an MP3 player you should download these recordings and put them in your MP3 player so that you can listen to them when you have free time.

I would like to begin by telling you how I will decide your grades. Eighty percent (80%) of your grade will be your score on the final exam and twenty percent (20%) will be your score on pop quizzes that I will give in class. Pop quizzes are little tests that I will give in class without warning. In the phrase "pop quiz", the word "pop" means "sudden and unexpected." The same kinds of questions will be on the pop quizzes and the final exam. So, after you have taken several pop quizzes, you should know what kinds of questions to expect on the final exam.

I will also consider your participation in this class when I decide your grades. If you participate actively in this class, I will give you a higher grade. There are two ways in which I will know that you are participating in this class. One way is through Twitter. During class you can use Twitter to ask questions or make comments. I will explain how to use Twitter in class. The second way is to send me e-mail after class. If you send me an e-mail after class, it should include a summary of what we studied in class and some comments or questions. It is very important that you always include your student number in your tweets and e-mail messages. At the end of the semester I will do a search using your student number. If your messages do not have your student number in them, I will not be able to find them.

Again, I hope you enjoy this class!