Our Class 2006

Our Class 2007

2007-01-08T05:46:00.000-08:00

Visit our new blog: Our Class 2007

Happy 2007 from Salamanca, Spain.These photos were taken from my room, which had a fantastic view of the Plaza Mayor (main square), next to the Town Hall. As we were admiring the view the fog started falling onto the city from above the cathedral.

I´ll post a few more photos next time I visit one of my brothers.

Summer Holidays!

2006-12-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

We are all already on our summer holiday and nearing the Christmas season. I wish you all a great relaxing break with family and friends.

12 CGVE students and two teachers from the English and Design sections at St George College of TAFE got together and collaborated in a fantastic project, a mural for the parking area of the college, called Unity. Listen ot the teachers, Michael and Julie and 2 of the students, Kelly and Lee talking about it and how their aim was to encourage team work, collaboration and harmony between people from very different cultures. Well done everybody!

Listen to the Unity podcast here. It leaves us a message of hope. What a nice way of farewelling the year!

During your holidays, keep practising your English. You know where all the links are to podcasts and exercises. Write in your blogs. I[ll be watching! Do not stop writing to other ESL students from Dublin, Portugal, New Zealand, etc. By the way, Teresa D'Almeida has been nominated for the best teacher blog, Have Fun with English2. Write to her and congratulate her. You may also be in time to vote for her!

Here are are some games for the young ones (your children or yourselves!)
Games for young learners
Have a great holiday. I'll think of you while I'm in Spain!

Vaucluse House & Nielsen Park

2006-11-28T00:18:00.000-08:00

Today we had a magnificent sunny Sydney day. I'm putting some photos in a bubbleshare album. If you want to send me any of your photos, email them to me and I can add them.

I'm not going to write about the day here. You can write about it in your blogs. Leave a general comment here about the day with a link to your blog. That way everybody will be able to read what you have written about our excursion.

I ahve published more of your podcasts in Let's Talk. I will publish all of them bit by bit. Be patient and keep and eye on both Let's talk and Sydney's People Podcast.

Keep publishing your blogs. It's a fantastic tool to practise your English and to keep in contact. I love the way you've writing to each other for encouragement and moral support when you've had difficulties or one type or another. And keep writing to other ESL blogs, too.
POdcasting by yourself: you can easilyu do it at home if you register with podomatic. Then you can send me recorded emails!

Sculputure by the Sea

2006-11-17T19:43:00.000-08:00

Many of you guessed the flowers two weeks ago. Yes, they were hydrangeas, but I must tell our Canadian Anonymus (see last week's comments) that it is not a pale variety. It is simply a very young bud, still growing. today I went to photograph them again and you can all see the difference.

This is another flower growing in my garden right now. Do you know its name and where it comes from?

Last week's photos showed some of the places where I took my cousins from Spain. One of them was Sculpture by the Sea from Bondi to Tamarama. It is a spectacular walk on any given day, but doubly interesting form November the 2nd to November the 19th. Last year I was thinking of going to Sculpture by the Sea with my class. We never had time to do it, which is a pity as it is one of the best Sydney things or Sydney moments ever. You could take your friends and family there.

Can you search the net to find out how you could get there by public transport? Write your answer in your blogs.

You can also add to your blog a link to a good website with information about Sculpture by the Sea and some photos. My students posted very nice ones last year.

Vaucluse House

Next Tuesday we are going to visit Vaucluse House and Nielsen Park. Search the website (ther's a very good informative section in Education-Fact Sheet. and write 5 questions about Vaucluse House. Then give the questions to a classmate to answer. Write the ansers in your blogs, but do it as a paragraph, not in dot form.

Nielsen Park

Try to find information about Nielsen Park. Where is it? How can you get there? What can you do there?

Movie reviews.
Last week were working on a movie review. Go to Time4English and in themenu select Movie Reviews. Listen to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and chose another movie that you have seen yourself.
Write a review of a movie you really like. Remember to follow a structure similar to the one we saw in class: Introduce the movie-talk about the plot-the director-the acting/main actors-classification (rating)-general evaluation (*****). Post the review in your blog and find a good link to go with it.
Today you can write your opinion in our forum. Hopefully TAFE security will allow us to work on all our projects!
Finally, check out two of your podcasts: Layla and Yuki and Sophie's radio program. Sorry I'm being very slow in uploading the others, but I've been so busy creating a blog for some research on social software (and my son needs the computer for his HSC assingments) that I've only done a bit of editing on 2 of them. Keep posted, they'll eventually appear!

Morning Tea

2006-11-13T04:13:00.000-08:00

Today we have been invited by the Student Association for morning tea. They want to thank you for the magnificent work you did for the Health Expo. That means we won't have a lot of time to work on our blogs. There are a few things we may do, though.

Participate in last week's forum. Only Anastasiya had time to do it.
Read the 3 Time4English readings about culture and cultural misunderstandings and differences set for the weekend. Write in your blog a bout something funny that has happened to you or someone you know because of a cultural mistake.
If you have time, have a look at these 2 Spot the difference from last year and try to find all the differences.
These photos are from last week. Try to guess where I took my cousins from Spain! Write it in comments.

Thank you Student Association!

2006-11-06T03:18:00.000-08:00

Thank you very much to the Student Association for the very generous donation towards our excursion!

You could design a nice thank you note and email it to Kylie and Kelly. I will send them a link to your online work: surveys, results, radio programs, etc.

These photos are from my mother-in-law's garden. Do you know the name of this flower? It is not native to Australia. Many flowers were introduced by the first settlers and some of them became pests, like lantana. They are considered invasive species, together with some animals. Australian quarantine laws are very strict. It takes very little to upset the balance in the ecological environment and most agricultural produce is foreign to this vast country of ours and pests can attack crops very quickly.

This week's forum: Do you think the internet is a good place for you to practice your English? Why? Why not? How?
Today is a big day in Australia. Everything stops for the Melbourne Cup. Read about it in this BTN story form last year and keep an eye on BTN later on today. What is the Melbourne Cup? When is it held? How do people celebrate it? What is a sweep? What do you think about the whole ting?
Work with a classmate. Choose one of your fantastic radio programs from the Health Expo (don't you all choose the same one!). Today you are going to be the teacher. You must create one or two worksheets to be done while listening to your radio program. You can do a comprehension test, a multiple choice quiz (remember how to do it with word documents/forms?), you can prepare a listening checklist, a writing task or anything else. Whatever you decide, you must know the answers to. I will upload them next to the relevant radio program.
You can read my post on the day, bubbleshare photos (thanks Dan!) of you interviewing people from the different stalls and a podcast with one of the teachers, Chem.
Listen to Olga's podcast and do the worksheets.
Do this very short tasks about adding favourites and creating favourite folders. Call me when you have done the task.

For the weekend:

Go to Time4English and do the listening Intermediate 5O, A Misunderstanding.
Then do Intermediate 4P, Cultural Mistakes.
Finally, in Upper Intermediate/Advanced, 2E, do the writing task Cultural Differences. It would make a very interesting (and probably very funny) radio program.

Health Expo-Check out these podcast episodes!

2006-10-31T21:28:00.000-08:00

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Let's talk! New episodes:
Anastasiya: Kelly
Anastasiya: Kylie
Laya, Dan & Silvana: General Practitioners
Silvana's Health Expo radio segment: Sexual Assault
Layla, Dan & Silvana: Health Expo: Women's Health
Rosa: Chem

There's a slideshow and more info on the Health Expo on these links:

Heath Expo 24th November 2006

Health Expo (with your surveys)

Thank you Student Association

Morning Tea

Silvana's Health Expo radio segment: Cancer Council
Silvana: Chiropractor

Marielle's First radio program

Marielle, Sophie adn everyone, Teresa D'Almeida from Portugal has left a very encouraging message in Marielle's first program. She would like you to send messages to her students. Please do and it'd be great if you could record them in podomatic (remember, to do so yo must join podomatic!)

Also, check Dan's photostories in his blog (sidebar link). They are very good examples of what you can do. Not only photos and music, but talking, too. Great job, Dan!
Enjoy! -- rosa

Health Expo 24th November 2006

2006-10-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

A few Sundays ago I went for a bush walk in the middle of Sydney, Lane Cove. It was a beautiful spring day and the flannel flowers were out in their whitest glory!

Today we are going to edit our recordings on Health Expo day, which took place last Tuesday. Everyone agrees it was a great success, in great part thanks to our involvement. We will post your radio programs about the day in Let's Talk.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

One of the stalls was the Largest Underwater Dance Class, which is a fund raising event for CanTeen. It's going to be broadcast on Channel 7, on Sunrise live from 6 am to 9 am this Friday morning. We spoke to Paul Feitz, a TAFE student at St George college who was at St George manning a stall for the event. Check out this smh video clip. Channel 7 had a video clip with Paul in it, but I'm afraid they've taken it off air!

During the week you may find time to listen to Olga's podcast. Some of you may be leaving us at the end of this semester to go on to study or work. Olga has written some very useful guides for employment of skilled migrants. Check them out in Sydney's People Podcast.

On a totally different topic, I found this video of something that is only too common in our classes. Is it real or a set up? You can be the judges: The phone never rings twice...

Health Expo

2006-10-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

This photo is the answer to previous post photoguess. Some of you were right, the picture is related to fish. Nothing to do with tongues, strawberries or salt lakes, tough! Unfortunately I can't remember the name of this fish, so it'd be nice if anyone knows and tells us. The pictures were taken in a Vietenamese fish market in Marrickville.

These are the surveys you created for the other ESOL students to fill in:
Alternative Medicine
Lifestyle
Food & Diet

And these are the relsults of the survey. You worked very hard collating the data, creating the graphs an dinterpreting them. Well done!

Alternative Medicine Survey Results
Lifestyle Survey Results
Food & Diet

Listen to our radio program on the day!

Spot the Difference

2006-10-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

I was talking to Dan and Anna about how to change pictures for your blogs. Sometimes you may only want a small detail, you may prefer the picture to look narrow, you may want to create a collage, a guessing picture, etc. The easiest way is with paint. You will find paint in programs/accessories. I use it all the time for my blog.

There are nuch better programs ( I think Adobe Photoshop is one of them), but they are harder to use. I'm lucky my son helps me sometimes. This is something we did last year , spot the difference and 2nd Competition. Try to do them. It's fun!

Welcome back!!

2006-10-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

I hope you all had a great break. Mine was fantastic, lots of resting, catching up with friends and family and only a tiny bit of blogging.

Welcome to our two new classmates, Yuki and Becky. We'll set up their blogs today, so say hello to them.

As nobody seems to have guessed the picture from the last post, I've put this one to help you. Write your guess in comments.

Go to our previous post, Dublin ESL students exchange and do the activities mentioned there. Some of them have left questions and comments in your blogs. Please read them and answer them.

Peter Sheekey, the teacher from Dublin, has prepared a text on Dublin. Listen to Peter's dictation and write down everything you hear.
I know it's Tuesday today, but have you heard of Mondayitis? Find out about it in Time4English, This Week's story.
This afternoon we'll start interpreting the Health Surveys you did before the holidays. We will need to do some graphs to present the results of the surveys. So let's look at some models. Go to Time4English, last level : Business and Academic and read 3D Describe a Graph 1 & 3E Describe a Graph 2. Don't write the essays, just do the exercises and write a summary of each graph.
Some of you should remind me to show you how to send email attachments and need to give me your new blog URL.
Please show me your internet bookmarks/favourites. You should have 2 folders: English & another of your choice (music, travel, etc). Each folder should have at least 3 favourite sites.
Catch up with any work outstanding. We haven't got many weeks before the end of the year and there is so much to do! One of the things I sent you for the holidays was the assessment task Exploring the Internet. Please send me the answers as an attachment.

Dublin ESL students exchange

2006-09-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

Another guessing pic! Write your answers in comments. You were telling me that last week's picture reminded you of fields and hills seen form the air . Check some beautiful arial (birds' eye view) photos here.

Peter Sheekey, an ESL teacher from Dublin (Ireland) has contacted me to see if you can have an exchange with his students. If you read this during the holidays, check their blogs in Peter's Class. We will work on more ideas for the exchanges with them and New Zealand after the Health Expo radio programs and Health surveys reports are finished. Meanwhile, you can answer his student's quizzes on Romania, Ukraine and Latvia. Write the answers in your blogs (so that nobody else sees them immediately) and leave a message in their blog asking Peter's students to see if they are correct.

Room5 podcast is a blog where Primary school children from New Zealand publish their podcasts. Check them. They are amazing! Leave them a comment too, they'll be very happy to see that they have a wide audience.

Check Marion's student Vicky's answer for the collage challenge from our excursion to the Sydney Harbour Pylon. She's got all the answers but 2! Can anyone guess the missing 2?

More photostories hosted in Myspace is an amazing place. I've left a permanent link to a list of photostories on the sidebar. I'll be updating it and if/when you publish yours, it'll have a link there too. There're already two of yours there. Check them out!

Health Issues

2006-09-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

As you know, we have committed ourselves to helping the Student Association with the organising of the Health Expo food. Our class is also conducting some health related surveys which will be answered by the other AMEP classes and some high level classes. We should finish typing them today. The surveys are on Alternative Medicines, Diet and Lifestyle.

To help you with the vocabulary and content of your surveys and podcasts, check the following activities:

Go to Time4English, News Library 7J. Read the article Hot Chips cause Cancer. It's a good idea to read the three levels, it will help you with vocabulary and comprehension.

Now read the article 7Y Take-Away Food Dangerous. Read the three levels.

In your blog write a summary of both articles and tell us what you think.

Check the following links to help us with the Health surveys for Health Day:

Better Health Obesity. Do the worksheet Obesity. (You can print it or do it online)

Better Health Skin Cancer, download the worksheet Skin Cancer.(You can print it).

They have a BMI Calculator. You just enter your hwight and weight and it'll tell you your BMI and if it's healthy or not. (Thanks Marion for the tip!)

Check their health quizzes to get more ideas for yours.

To prepare the radio programs for the Health Expo day, have a look at the program. Choose a topic or some stalls that you would like to visit and start preparing questions for the people who are manning the stalls.
You should also prepare a script:

How are you going to introduce the radio program? Write a draft.
What are you going to ask the experts?
What are you going to ask the public (students and teachers).
What can you ask the organisers of the day (Student Association and AMEP teachers and students)

Check this idea: Radio program on music and recipes from all our countries done by William's New Zealand students (on a real radio station). We could just do it ourselves and broadcast in our podcasts.

Have a look at this great digital stories about Health! They were created by primary school children from Adelaide. This is one of the ideas we had for after our Health Day. You can also create some with the information you've got from all the literature we've been reading (like how to read food labels, skin cancer prevention, etc).

Totally unrelated, but relaxing (remember that mental health is very important too), have a look at 2 music videos that I found just by pure chance the other day. You will find the music familiar. Enjoy them!

New Zealand friends

2006-09-19T06:31:00.000-07:00

You can listen to the podcasts & quizzes you prepared for our New zealand friends. They are all in a special post for them, Exchange with New Zealand.

William, their teacher has told me they have three weeks' holiday, but that you can look at their blogs in William's Class Blog. Five of their blogs are active. Visit them and write to them in comments.

Spain has decided to ban models that are too thin. Read about it in the Sydney Morning Herald and the abc7news. Write your opinion in our forum. Read everyone's opinion.
Answer theses questions and then write an article in your blog, including your opinion:

What triggered the ban?
What's BMI?
What BMI should a model have to be allowed to participate in fashion parades in Spain?
What's the average height, weight and BMI of a runway model?
What are the arguments for and against?
Check the meanings of gaunt, emaciated and wan. You can find many dictionalries on the internet (just wirte dictionary into Google). One of them is the Merrian-Webster
How can you calculate someone's BMI?

More digital story examples made by students of different subjects, Digital Directors Guild.

I wrote a worksheet with information on how to upload digital stories onto an internet host in order to publish them onto your blogs. I hope it helps you and you are able to do it from home. Most of these sites are banned from TAFE.

Melinda Gleeson has re-published her page on Computer Health and the Quiz. I'll leave a permanent link on the sidebar. Do it now and remember to do the exercises regularly if you work at the computer for long periods of time.
Let's do the new work for Approches to Learning.

Exchange with New Zealand

2006-09-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

Our class has prepared several activities for our New Zealand friends.

A description of our class. You can listen to it in Let's Talk and read the script at the same time. It was prepared by Robert & Sarina.

Oz Quiz (Whats' the meaning of Oz?). Prepared by Anna, Silvana & Gloria.

Oz Quiz 2. Prepared by Anna, Silvana & Dan.

An article on an Australian icon, Steve Irwin with a small interview to different students to get their reaction to his accidental death. Listen to it in Let's Talk. You can read the script here. It was prepared by Marielle, Sany, Dina, Chi & Sarina.

An interview with Sally, the teacher of AMEP-C, about the International Food Market organised by her students last week, also in Let's Talk. Check the beautiful poster Fawzia designed. The interview was conducted by Sany, Chi & Robert.

Word Clouds

2006-09-12T05:24:00.000-07:00

Wordcloud made by snapshirts. Thanks Bee for the link!

Today we haven't got a lot of time in the computer room. Go to Marion's blog and read about Steve Irwin, carpe diem and what her students wrote about it. In your blog, write the meaning of carpe diem and write your thoughts about it.

Go to enough rope and listen to Steve Irwin's interview. Write your opinion in your blog. To listen and read at the same time, click on 2003 script and click on Listen to full interview. You can also view part of the interview by clicking Play Video (to read that part of the interview, open the full 2003 script, go to the top toolbar: Edit and go down to Find in this page. At the bottom of the page a window will appear, write one of the first words from the beginning of the video, like cartoon or conservationist, click on Find next and it will highlight that word on the script. Now you can start the video an dread at the same time).

You may need to check a few Aussie words Steve uses, like bonza, in the Dictionary of Australian Slang or the Macquaire Dictionary Book of Slang (if you write Aussie slang in Google Australia only, you'll get lots of good Oz slang dictionaries)
You can also read the Australian writer PeterMoore's blog entry on Steve Irwin's death. His dad works at Australia zoo. read the comments, too.

Check Marion's students' blogs. They are making a lot of progress! Their answers to the collage are very good.

Go to Approaches to Learning. I rewrote the instructions to make them more user-friendly. See if you can follow them. There's a very good link to a website with drawings of a computer and its parts and functions.

We will finish our group writings & podcasts to be uploaded onto Let's talk:

Quiz for our New Zealand friends (insert pictures/map)
Steve Irwin: article and podcast (type and record)
Description of Our Class and podcast (type and upload)
Radio interview withSally and her students about International Food Market (record to upload)

Today's picture is made of words. Where do they come from? You can make your own for your blog!

Digital stories

2006-09-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

Stop Press!
Everyone is saddened by the sad news about Steve Irwin's death. YOu can read about it on the abc website, Steve Irwin's final moments.

Next week you should be able to view the video from Andrew Denton's Enough Rope tribute broadcasted yesterday. You can read the transcript of an old interview from 22 March 2004, Steve and Terri Irwin.

The collage on the right is from our excursion to the Pylon Lookout. Can you tell us what each piece of the puzzle represents?

Have you started creating a digital story with your photos of the excursion?

Two weeks ago when we had a digital story workshop, we used Photostory. There are other tools you can use to create a photo story. Below is an example of a very simple one created by Delia Bradshaw. It was done with bubbleshare. You can join on the internet. It is free. You can record your voice on each picture and it's very easy to add it to your blog.

digital story

This album is powered by
BubbleShare
- Add to my blog

Other examples: Scissors, Remembering my grandmother.

Another example is the one created by an AMEP student, Robert, at the end of last semester: Salsa.

An ESOL teacher from New Zealand, Hadashi* (real name William) has written comments in some of your blogs and would like you to exchange comments, etc with his students. I think it's a fantastic idea. What do you think? We could send them recorded questions, create a quiz on Australia for them, ask them about New Zealand, etc. Read your comments from him, answer them and start thinking... We will do an activity, Group Writing, based on his idea, to start working on this exchange.
Ramy told us about the news program Lateline. You can watch the video and read the script at the same time.

* What does Hadashi mean? What language is it?

Go to Approaches to Learning and follow the instructions.
Read this poster created by one of Sally's students (AMEP-C). Don't bring lunch on Thursday! It's for a good cause and a great idea.

Party Invitation & Report Writing

2006-08-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

Anna and Chi getting their certificate.

Last Thursday we had a party to celebrate the completion by some students of the Let's Participate (citizenship preparation) course .

Thank you everyone for the beautiful food you prepared for the occasion. And thank you very much to Green, who gave a very good in promptu speech.

As Marion told you, there will be another Let's Participate course at the end of this semester.

1. Last week you analysed the language and structure of invitations and wrote one for the citizenship Party. Today you have to read this invitation for an end-of-term party and write a reply telling me that you can't come. As my phone is engaged, send me an email.

Refuse the invitation in a polite way. Remember the stages:
First-Thank me for the invite.
Second-Apologise for not being able to come.
Third-Give a reason.
Fourth-Wish me a good time.

2. In Time4English, go to Upper Intermediate 2G Aboriginal culture. Listen to it and do the exercises. Print the final page. Listen and repeat to learn the intonation and pronunciation. Later on you will be dictating it to a classmate. The aim will be to be undestood!

3. Listen to Ana Maria: Flamenco. Write the answers in a piece of paper and then write an article about her in your blog.

4. Research: search the net for information and photos-or even a video- of a traditional dance from your country. Write a report in your blog. You can read The Jota as an example.

5. Go to Approaches to Learning and follow the instructions in announcements.

Writing postcards

2006-08-22T02:33:00.000-07:00

What's the name of these flowers? (last week's answer: scribbly bark gum tree)
Writing postcards is something we usually do when we are on a holiday trip. We write about the places we visit, their people and their food. We talk about things we've done.We use contractions and punctuation markers, such as exclamation marks, underlining (for emphasis) to sound as if we were talking (colloquial language). Last Thursday we went on an excursion to the Sydney Harbour Bridge Pylon Lookout.

Write a postcard to a friend about the pylon excursion.

If you didn't go on the excursion, you can listen to Mirella's podcast, Liz's podcast or Lizbeth's podcast (below) and write a postcard as if you were one of them. You can use some of the language they use to describe the places they visited. Remember it is a postcard, so it doesn't have to be very long. You can read some examples from last year's students here: Silvia's postcard, Jie's postcard and Jessica's postcard.

Listen to Lisbeth Podcast and do the 3 worksheets (you can print them to write the answers more easlily)
Don't forget to listen to your podcast in Let's Talk!

Later on today, Marion's class will come and we will learn how to create a photostory.

Recipes & Train Timetables

2006-08-07T04:15:00.000-07:00

Who was it that brought chupa chups to class?

Yesterday we read a short biography of Elvis, the King. Go to the computer and in programs, educational programs, click on Issues in English 2 and on the topic Fame-level 1. You will find many exercises about Elvis. They are good fun. You can try some of them, especially the pronunciation and listening (there's even a dictation)
Last Tuesday afternoon we were playing a guessing game and we came across a vegetable, fennel, which is used by some cultures as a herb, others use it as a salad ingredient, some use the fennel seeds while other cultures do not use it at all. We also spoke about eggplants and their use in different cuisines.

As we are studying the language of instructions (or procedural texts) and recipes are one very basic example of that text genre (type of text), here is a challenge for you: write a recipe that contains fennel or eggplant as one of its ingredients. Not only write the recipe, but also tell us about it, where does it come from? Has it got any special history behind? As an example, read my recipe Sicilian winter salad.

Planning an excursion. We are going to the Pylon Lookout on Thursday. Have a look at the cityrail Train timetables worksheet on how to read train timetables and answer the questions at the bottom. You can print the worksheet.

When you finish the worksheet, keep the cityrail website open and answer the following questions:

At what time should you catch the train to arrive in Town Hall at 9: 41 from Kogarah?
What time you should catch the train from Carlton to get onto the same train as the Kogarah 9:16 am?
What train do you have to catch from Rockdale to get to TownHall at 9:41 am?

Go to Time4English. On the Menu section, click on Grammar Book and go to letter D, Despite, Although, However. Read the theory and do the exercises.

Go to Approaches to Learning and follow the instructions.

Library and Pylon

2006-08-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

What is this photo? Write your guess in comments
Hi all. Today we are having a bit less time in the computer room, so we won't be doing so much work.

1. To help you with your Library portfolio, listen to Patricia: St George College Librarian in Sydney's People Podcast and answer the questions in your blog.

2. Forum : Is it OK to smack a child? Read the introduction to this week's topic and write your opinion. Marion's students are also going to take part in the forum, so make sure you respond to their comments.
3. Check the Sydney Harbout BridgePylon Lookout website to prepare our visit. When is it open? How much is it? How can we get there? What can you find out about its history? What do Stuart Little, Di Smith and Cookie Monster have in common? Write about it in your blog.

View from the Sydney Harbour Bridge Pylon
4. Do you know the meanings of these Aussie words and expressions?

dunny, tucker, Waltzing Matilda,g'day, off one's face

You can find out in Aussie Slang.

5. Most of you have to catch up with your blog work. You can do it on Thursday or on the weekend:

write a post about your first impressions of Australia
write your opinion about Australian Story: Room at the Top.

Australian Story

2006-07-24T04:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Semester 2, 2006. Our first lesson.

2006-07-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

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).

See you and good luck!

2006-06-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone for having been such good students. It was fun teaching you and learning from you too, and I'm not only thinking of salsa dancing...

I wish you all the best for your future in this country. Come around any time and say hello to us.

I joined another photo server, buble share. You can also record your voice. I decided to publish a few photos that I haven't posted before. They show a bit of our life in Hogben street (maybe we should have had more salsa and more table tennis).

I'm still trying to upload the video. Keep an eye on the blog, I may succeed one day. Robert is also trying.

I've uploaded Harjit's and Helen's radio programs in Sydney's People Podcast and Let's Talk. Marcela's is nearly ready, too. I'll upload the rest asap, so keep posted!

Digital Story Telling

2006-06-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago we watched Barbara's digital story, close to my heart, and my short video of Gloria's fantastic performance. Today we will watch Liz's digital story about her trip to Afghanistan. You can see that it is something achievable. The main thing is to have a clear idea in your head of the story, find the photos and place them in a digital format, write a script and then get down to creating the digital story.

You can use Photo Story 3 or Windows Movie Maker . Click on them for the tutorials.

EXAMPLES
There are many examples in Capture Wales*. A very good one, simple but effective, is the one with a shoe. Silence Speaks, Telling Lives, Breaking Barriers, Path of Me. Watch them!

Another great link with examples is the BBC Humber Stories*.

Video Nation*, also BBC UK, has more digital stories.

Centre for Digital Storytelling tells you everything about digital storytelling. You can view stories in quicktime, which works at TAFE.

acmi is an Australian site with a digital story section.

Finally visit this post What's in a name? from Ayden, a teacher whose students have published individual short photostories interpreting their names. They are in windows media player, so you won't have any problems watching them at TAFE.

And now, let's do it!

*To see most of the stories above, you need real player and we don't have it in the computer rooms.

Last week you answered Barbara's questions on Language and identity. She has taken the time to read your answers and write comments in your blogs. You should try and reply to her comments, as they are open questions that invite you to engage in further communication. Read also some of the answers that the students from the caucasus women's groups wrote:

Siran's Foreign Languages, from Armenia and Remziyye from Arzebaijan writes Foreign Languages. Read their entries and respond to them in comments. You can leave a link to your own entry there.

Visit Barbara's students podomatic, Pods from the Tropics. Listen to their podcasts and leave them a message, written or, even better, recorded. Remember to leave your name and a link to your blog.

Everything comes to an end. This is our last computer class. It doesn't mean you have to stop blogging. The door has been open for yu to continue exploring, learning and getting in contact with other people. I hope you have enjoyed the trip, I certainly have. You've been great learners, adventurous, never afraid to take risks. It shows, too. Have a look at your first posts and see how you've becomemuch more independent in your writing and the topics have been more in depth as we've progressed.

You can visit our forum and answer the last question for this semester. Don't forget to continue working with Time4English and keep in touch. Good luck!

Thanks Liz, Djimi, Chika, Harjit, Palawat and everyone for the delicious morning tea you prepared yesterday!