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    Tuesday, May 30, 2006

    Radio Programs

    Today we won't have a lot of time in the computer room because the end of semester pathway talks are taking place from 10 am onwards. We'll see how we go...This is the program:

    10:00am Katarina with ESP
    10:20 - 11:30am, EFS, Oracy-4 will have their little spiel, then a break.
    11:30am: Jenny Sturman CEEW and Jean Turner Communications

    Location: The general area near the Ping Pong table, ground floor, Hogben St

    If we have time, will work on recording our radio interviews. If we are in the computer room, use Audacity and then we will store your recording in a memory stick/upload into Our media. If, on the other hand, we are downstairs in the lab, we will record a couple with the mp3 player.

    A teacher from Canada has sent me an email, asking to exchange links with her blog. I said yes because I found her blog very interesting. She is like the Agony Aunt section in a magazine. Students send her a problem, question, etc and she gives them an answer with advice, information,etc. One stop English have a Friendship Advice Forum. Visit it, it has many varied entries.

    It would make a very interesting funny radio program. One of you is Agony Aunt and the rest phone in with questions, sunusual situations, et (you can do it tongue-in-cheek)

    On radio, TV, newspapers and magazines you can read movie reviews. Many people write them in their blogs. Read this review of the Indian movie Water in the blog Thinking about....

    Don't frorget to listen to Suzanne's podcasts, the one about EFS and her personal one.

    In the same blog I found an interesting link to Guyana, where Emile's mother comes from, read the post Guyanese Proverbs. Thanks for your opinion on his slide show. Publish them on your blogs. They are very interesting and I hope your wishes come true!

    Marko found the answer for the photographs (the ones that look like blood or lava from a volcano). Ask him about it or look at his written answer. I'm still waiting for someone to tell us what is new about our class blog appearance.

    There is a new audio comment and a new written comment in Let's talk, Helen's questions on school. Check it out! And don't forget to answer your classmates' questions.

    Phrasal Verbs. Visit Dave's Sperling's site for a very thorough collection of phrasal verbs and their meanings.Go to Time4English menu (in the centre of the cover page) for another collection of phrasal verbs. Read the introductory explanations on not separable and separable phrasal verbs.

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    Friday, May 19, 2006

    Music, trips, excursions and other things

    Marion and Sally's classes went on an excursion to the Sydney Aquarium. Check Marion's post.

    Visit Harjit's blog. She's posted a recount of her Easter Show trip. You should go next year. It's worth a visit.

    Prepare questions for Emile. He said he may have time tomorrow afternoon. Listen to his slide show talk in Sydney's People Podcast.

    I'm also posting Suzanne: music mania, although she hasn't given me the photos yet. Don't listen to it in class, leave it for the weekend.

    Remind me to help you open the comments (if you want) to allow students from other countries to write in them without having to subscribe to blogger.

    As you didn't do the work last week, try anddo as much as possible today. So get ready and start work in What do you think?

    I'm still waiting for someone to guess what these pictures are of: the one in this blog, the one in What do you think? andthe one in Sydney's People Podcast.

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    Monday, May 15, 2006

    What do you think?

    I apologise for some of the podcasts not working. It looks as if the whole TAFE server is down. I managed to upload Suzanne's podcast in our media, though. All of you have been thinking of what to do next semester if you complete level 4. As you know, Suzanne is the EFS Coordinator. Listen to her talking about EFS. It may help you with your study plan.

    Berta, a teacher from Venezuela has left a comment in Teresa's blog, Fun for English2. It has a link to Berta's slide show on Venezuelan women. Listen to it and write 5 questions on it and write your opinion about the role of women and men in our society. (3/4 paragraphs) in your blog.

    Go to our forum and answer the questions on the what Berta tells us some women do in Venezuela when they marry "they leave the daily care of their children to their mother an maid or a day care centre"

    See who can spot (see, find) what's new about Our Class 2006 appearance.

    Answer your classmates questions in Let's talk. Try to record your answers.

    In Fun for English 2, Teresa d'Almeida has posted a text written by one of his students, Pedro. Read it and read all the comments, many by students of English and teachers of English from all over the world. Write a comment for Pedro and don't forget to write down who you are, where you come from and where you live.

    In Time4English, click on Grammar book (centre of the home page), then click on the letter P and do the passive exercises. It will reinforce what we are learning in class.

    Finally, Alex gave me the promised video clip from his fishing trip. Watch it here, Catching Marlin.How long did it take them to catch it? How does he say it? How long and heavy was this marlin?

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    Tuesday, May 09, 2006

    Media

    Lunch at Harry's Cafe De Wheels. Photo taken by Marcela.
    Media was one of the topics we chose to be part of our course this semester.

    This week we've been working with TV news. You can visit the Behind the News (BTN) website to get transcripts of their programs and other information.

    Radio is another important means of communication. This term you are going to produce a radio program for our audio blog, Let's talk. Visit The Bardwell Road Centre for examples of what you can do . Fernanda's students could then send us their own answers to your questions and even their own interviews.

    Choose a topic for your radio program. It should involve interviews to your classmates or native speakers, like teachers, friends, etc. Start thinking of the questions and write them down. You can record the interview with an mp3 player, like mine or Robert's, Audacity or directly into podomatic when we are in the computer class. This is going to limit the number of people who can come to our computer room! Has anyone got any ideas to solve this problem?

    • Another topic you chose was legal matters that concern you in your daily life. Remember that we started working on Car Insurance. Make sure you do all the exercises prepared by Melinda in Time4English for us. You'll find them in Level 5-Intermediate/7 LIVING IN AUSTRALIA. Tomorrow, Wednesday 10th May, you'll write a report on car insurance in Australia.
    • Go to our forum and participate in this week's topic, your first impressions of Sydney adn Australian way of life.
    • Make sure you have written the questions you recorded for Fernanda in their podomatic, Let's try podcasting. Find your audio comment and if you haven't done it, write the exact words you have used. This will help her students, in case they have problems understanding us.
    • Check our podomatic, Let's talk. Fernanda's students have answered some of your questions and I have posted our class discussion (after a bit of editing) for them to listen.
    • Also in Let's talk leave answers to your classmates' questions. This time practise leaving them directly, without using Audacity. I'll give you the username and password.
    • I forgot to remind you to visit another blog from Portugal, their teacher left a message in our podomatic, Let's talk. You'll find a link there.
    • Read Vuthy's email to uas all in the comments in this post. He misses being here a lot.

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    Monday, May 01, 2006

    Welcome back!

    It was great to see you all (well, nearly all of you) back in class today. You seem to have had a good break. Some did interesting things, like Chika who went to the Jenolan Caves. Some did more urban things, like Chris and myself who visited the pearl exhibition, Pearls, in the Australian Museum. Others got a bit bored and most of you did quite a lot of work in your blogs and catching up with your homework.

    Today we are going to concentrate on recording our answers to Fernanda's students' questions. You can read ladt weeks' post Our exchange with Portugal to start with. So sit next to the same classmate as yesterday and start working.:
    • open Audacity
    • record your answer
    • check the recording and edit it: get rid of silences, noises, re-record bits that you are not happy with, etc
    • when you finish, import as mp3
    • go to Let's try podcasting, look for the question you are answering, listen to it and import your audacity answer
    • Listen to all the recorded questions and answers. View Graham's answers, too.
    Once we finish answering all the questions, we'll start recording our own questions for Fernanda's students and I'll post them in Let's talk (our class' podomatic).

    • Remember to look for photos of yourselves or flickr/net photos in traditional costume. We can use them for our podomatic post. You can see an example of the traditional costume from my region (Aragon) in the photo of my niece Clara, taken during the festivity of my town, San Lorenzo, which takes place on 10th August every year and which goes on for a whole week.

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