Australian Story
Before you start today's work, please go to last week's link on computer health,
Computer Stations, and answer the questions I handed out in class.
1. We are studying the language of
procedural texts (or the language of giving instructions). Go to
Burke's Bakcyard, a very popular Australian lifestyle TV program, click on Burke's Bacyard and then click on
the home among the gumtrees and then on the first link,
Bamboo ladder. Print it and write the name of the stages next to each one of them. Remember a procedural text has a
Goal,
Materials and
Steps. Write down a list of verbs used in the steps. You can look at other procedural texts in this website, like
Clothes lines. Analyse the structre and write a list of the verbs used to give the steps. This will help you prepare for your presentation for Liz.
2. Go to
Time4English,
Level 6 Upper Intermediate/Advanced. In section
3 People, listen to
Stradivarius. Do all the exercises one after the other. Don't worry if you don't understand everything the first time. It gets easier as you do all of them.3. I found a biography of
Melinda Gleeson, the creator of Time4English. You can read it and alos print it. Keep it as an example for the biography that you will write after you interview a classmate from FT4 in the near future.
4. Another much more extensive and indepth biography from the excellent ABC program
Australian Story is:
Room at the Top. You can view the program first and if you find too difficult, you can listen to it while you read the script. Once you've listened to the whole program, write your opinion on it. What do you think about Heath Ducker? What have you learnt from his story? What is
Aunties and Uncles? Write your opinion in your blog.
5. Go to
Approaches to Learning (link on the sidebar, below
Our Internet Courses). Your user name is your student number. You should have received your passworkd on an email (if not, talk to me). Read the announcement and follow the instructions in it.
6. Go to the
forum and answer last week's question if you havent' done it yet. Write your opinion in your blog.
7. Finally go to
Let's Talk, our podomatic audio blog and listen to the firlst post
Hello from Down Under. We will be recording our first post later this afternoon.
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Semester 2, 2006. Our first lesson.
Hi all,
Welcome to our class blog!
I hope you had a good break and feel ready to work hard this semester. Welcome to the new students.
- Today I would like you to start work by thinking about posture and good computer habits. Visit this website on Computer stations and read about good working positions, wrists, distance to the monitor, etc. Later I will give you a quiz with questions about good working posture.
- We are also going to have a look at what a blog is. Search the net for a definition (Google, Ask Jeeves, Alltheweb search, wiki, etc). An example of a class blog is the one my previous class had, Our class 2005, this one, Our Class 2006 and the ones linked on the rightside bar below Other ESL Class Blogs . Spend some minutes exploring them and you will get an idea of what we will be doing on Tuesdays. Make sure you visit some of the student blogs (the links are also on the right hand side) which will give you an idea of what you will be doing. Later we will start our own blogs. If you have trouble at home, 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. Today you can go to UPPER INTERMEDIATE, Aboriginal Culture. Listen to it, fill in the gaps and when you finish, print it as an example of an information report. Look here for a description of the structure of information reports and write the different parts of this one, Aboriginal Culture.
- TypeQuick is a program that can help you learn typing more efficiently. All TAFE pcs have it. Ask me to show you how it works. When you have time, you can practise at the college library or ASC.
- Every week we have a discussion on our forum (right side bar). Go there and answer the forum question. Ask me for the user name and password.
- Get a headset and listen to any of the listening sites/blogs in Listening Links (right sidebar) or in our own audio blog Sydney's People Podcast. You can also listen to last semester's students' radio programs in Let's Talk. We will be doing something similar this semester. Start getting ideas for your own radio programs.
- We will aso be doing an online module, Approaches to Learning and some work on Exploring the Internet and Diversity in Education, which are all part of your course. You need to have your student number and an email address.
- 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).
Good fun and happy learning!
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
