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    Tuesday, February 28, 2006

    Hello Rose-Marie's Class!

    For new bloggers in Marion's class and future bloggers in Rose-Marie's Class, these are some of the things you should get ready:


    • Buy a pair of headphones with microphone (you don't have to spend more than $11.00-$12.00)
    • It's a good idea to bring a floppy disk or a memory stick to class, in order to save some of your work and to bring photos from home (you can also email the photos to yourself)


    Now let's get to work!

    1. Go to Sydney's People Podcast and listen to Winter Olympics.
    2. Listen to this interactive story:Interactive listening maze
    3. I'm not sure we can use Time4English today. Our subscription expires on Friday and I have renewed it, but it looks as if we've already been cut off! If we can sign in, go to Intermediate and listen to How to be Safe in a Hurricane. It gives you another example of written instructions. You can use it as revision for your assessment with Liz on giving instructions.
    4. Also in Time4English Intermediate, go to MORE/ GRAMMAR BOOK and print the tense chart (under T). It's a very good summary f English tenses.
    5. Do the first exercise on the Past Simple.
    6. Listen to Time4English This week's Story: Healthy pople: Unhealthy Environment. It's related to one of our topics for the semester (Health)
    7. Go to the Forum and give your opinion on today's topic.
    8. There are many discussion fora (plural of forum, although forums is accepted too) for ESL students on the net. Dave ESL's Cafe has one and I found this interesting discussion on Chinese chopsticks. You can take part in it, but what really grabbed my attention most was a flash picture of a hand holding chopsticks. Click on it and you can read a list of DO's and DON'Ts on how to use chopsticks. Another excellent example of written instructions.
    9. We have been talking about Water Safety. Visit the Surf Life Saving Australia website. You can read about Zane Holmes winning the Interclub Ironman Final at the World Lifesaving Championships at Lorne on Sunday. There is a 1 minute video with the article.
    10. Visit Wollongong Lifeguard Service for good pictures and information about waves and rips.

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    Monday, February 27, 2006

    MoonRock esl

    Listen to it and answer the questions. You can check some of the words used in the interview in the glossary provided in the post. This is part of your orientation to studying in TAFE (Australian Systems and Culture) and it will help you with your educational pathways (Introduction to English Language Skills and Individual PlanB). Listening to an interview is also one of the many ways you can practise your English (Approaches to Learning).

    You can see the new photo in last week's podcast, some students were asking about Alex...

    • Write the name of four of the subjects you are studying in CESOL II
    • Go to time4English and find out what happened on March 2nd 1946
    • Why are firefighters in Shimohetsugi embarrassed?
    • Go to Upper Intermediate / Advanced and do exercise 2N on the Present simple tense.
    • Go to the forum and give your opinion on the topic of the week
    • Spend some time catching up with your blogs (eg write your holiday recount, opinion about arranged marriages, or your answers to previous weeks' work)
    • Remind Rosa to show you how TypeQuick works
    • I sent you an email with an attachment from the student association and some questions on it. Don't forget to send me the answers!
    • Finally, for homework and assessment: prepare instructions to help Marion's students start a blog and do their first post. If you need help, check the Power point Blogger.com Tutorial at the bottom of the right sidebar

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    Friday, February 17, 2006

    Welcome to Marion's Class

    Last Thursday you were fantastic! You put into practice what you had learnt with Liz and myself about the language of giving instructions in English and helped Marion's students get an email address.

    As you can see Marion was very busy going from one side of the clasroom to the other.

    Today's work:
    • go to Time4English and listen to THIS WEEK'S STORY, Ageing at Home
    • Go to the forum and answer the question on that topic
    • Open your blog and write about a holiday place in your country of origin.
    • Find a good site that can show good information about that place and insert a link to it. I can show you how to do it if you don't know.
    • Search for a good picture or map to go with it (remember to check the copyright or use a picture from one of the public free to share sites, like Flickr or Creative Commons) . If you have your own picture upload it.
    • Today I would like everyone to visit Sydney's People Podcast and go to the last post, Catching Marlin. Listen to it and answer the questions in your blogs. Marion's students can write them down on paper.
    • Yesterday I went to an inspiring concert by Japan's premier solo taiko drummer Eitetsu Hayashi. It was very interesting because of the multicultural mix of the musicians. Apart from the soloist and his two Japanese drummers, there was a group of taiko drummers from Sydney, Taikoz . There was also a very well known performer of shakuhachi, Riley Lee, who is originally from Texas, and a didgeridoo artis, Matthew Doyle. Can you find out more about any of these artists? Can you also find the instruments mentioned above? What type of instruments are there? What do they look like? Where do they come from? What does the oz in Taikoz mean?

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    Wednesday, February 08, 2006

    Our First Lesson


    Hi all,
    Welcome to our class blog!

    Before we get going, you should think a bit about good computer habits. It is very important to get used to having a good posture when you are working on the computer so that you don't get back pain, etc. You will find very useful information and some language exercises here: Computer Health.

    Today we will have a look at what a blog is. Search the net for a definition (Google, Ask Jeeves, Alltheweb search). An example of a class blog is the one my previous class had, Our class 2005. Spend some minutes exploring it and you will get an idea of what we will be doing on Tuesdays. Make sure you visit some of the student blogs.

    Later we will start our own blogs. If you have trouble, this power point presentation can help you: Blogger.com Tutorial.

    We are subscribed to Time4English. Ask me the username and password and you can read/listen to some of their activities. It's a great resource for students at your level.
    Palawat just found a reading on Uluru. It's in level 4, Vacation English Course.

    TypeQuick is a program that can help you learn typing more efficiently. All TAFE pcs have it. You will need a floppy disc to use it. Ask me to show you how it works. When you have time, you can practise at the college library or ASC.

    Today is St Valentine 's Day. Do you celebrate it in your country of origin? Read about it on St Valentine's Day post in Our Class 2005. Then go to our forum and answer the forum question.

    Ask me for a headset and listen to any of the listening sites/blogs in Listening Links (right sidebar) or in Sydney's People Podcasts. There is a good example of what I'd love you to achieve in the previous post of this blog.

    Good fun and happy learning!

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