Our Class 2006

Our Class 2007

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

Visit our new blogs: Our Class 2007, Our Class 2008 and Our Class 2009

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!

Blog portfolio

2006-06-10T04:52:00.000-07:00

Today you can start documenting your blog portfolio. One or 2 pages is enough. The work is on your blog, so ther is no need to print any of it, just a list of contents. The document you are going to prepare should have your blog URL, a list of your posts and comments you have posted on other people's blogs, any comments other people have made in your posts that you think are worth including and your choice of your best post. This will be the only post you can include in this portfolio document.

To help you with the technical side of things, the how to do it, watch a video with instructions on how to use Paint & Word to create your Blog Portfolio page/s.

It will take a couple of minutes to download the video. Be patient. It will then ask you to save it , say yes. Once it's saved, you can open it. The video is a video of my computer screen. I talk to you as I open a blog, open paint and word to start writing a blog portfolio list. I hope you can follow the instructions.

Take time to publish any posts you haven't published.
Do the conditional exercises form Grammar in Time4English and any other exercises you feel like doing (maybe listening, film reviews, etc)
Go to Approaches to learning. Remember your username is your TAFE number. Follow the instructions in the announcements.

Have a good day!

Foreign Languages, Identity and Intercultural competence

2006-06-06T07:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks a lot to Gloria for a very entertaining show yesterday. Her imitation of Raphael was spot on. It brought back memories that were buried by many layers of new multicultural experiences.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell us what is new about our class blog appearance. And does anyone know where this photo was taken?

Barbara Dieu (or Bee) is mentoring a group of young caucasus women. She has given them, and other esl students that feel like contributing their thoughts, some issues to think about.

She starts from the premise that language is a very important component in a person's identity. Nevertheles many of us live in a community where our mother tongue is not the dominant language. At the same time English is becoming widely spoken in all the world.

Watch and listen to her introduction, close to my heart, as it is a very good example of a photostory or movie story, like the one I would like you to create.
Read her questions here: young caucasus women- mentor page.

Can you answer the questions she asks about languages, identity and intercultural competence?
Her students have started answering them in their blog foreign languages identity and intercultural competence. Write your answers in your blog and leave them a link to your blog in their comments .

Susan Marandi, a teacher form Iran, has a new class blog, Susan Marandi's blog,where you'll find links to her students' blogs. They are worth reading. Susan's students' English is very good and they cover a range of topics from English literature, Iranian traditions to the validity of housework. Read them and write comments to them. Maybe you could chose 1 or 2 students and visit them regularly and invite them to visit your blog regularly.

Last week we didn't have a lot of time to do our work. Visit the Canadian site, Dear Ai, with advice, information,etc. and One stop English Friendship Advice Forum. Like I told you last week, they would make a very interesting funny radio program. One of you is Agony Aunt and the rest phone in with questions, unusual situations, etc .

Go to Time4English and read Cultural Mistakes in Intermediate.

Also in Time4English do the grammar excercises for Will and Would. You will find them in Grammr book, lettter W.
Finally, also in Time4English, do WOULD & WOULDN'T WITH IF. It is more practice for the conditional sentences.

Visit Sydney's People Podcast or Let's Talk to listen to Chika's radio program on transport and Anna's radio program on movies. Remember to pay attention ot your contribution in order to improve on your spoken language. Check with me if you have any doubts about your oral performance.
Listen to Suzanne's Podcast, if you still haven't done it.

Radio Programs

2006-05-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Music, trips, excursions and other things

2006-05-19T01:57:00.000-07:00

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.

What do you think?

2006-05-15T22:14:00.000-07:00

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?

Media

2006-05-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Welcome back!

2006-05-01T03:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Our exchange with Portugal

2006-04-24T04:14:00.001-07:00

Hi all,

Just in case you have a look during our holidays, Fernanda, an English teacher from Setúbal (Portugal), has sent me a link to her podcasting site, Let's try podcasting, where her students ask you questions both in writing and with their own recorded voices. The topic is multiculturalism. Listen to them and also listen to some of the answers by other people, including English teachers Bee from Brazil and Graham from Barcelona. Graham has also answered by video.

I've put a permanent link to Let's try podcasting in our audio blog Sydney's People Podcast. That way you will find it quickly whenever you want to talk to our friends from Portugal. It is the first link on the right side bar.

Teresa Almeida d'Eça, another English teacher from Portugal, left us a message in our podomatic. My 2004 students wrote a quiz about Australia for her students. Visit her class blog, Have Fun with English 2, also linked in our Sydney's People Podcast (second link). They have songs, videos, and lots of games and activities. Leave her students a message and don't forget to tell them who you are and where you live and come from. They are in 5th form and will get a thrill if you talk to them.

If you want, you can subscribe to podomatic at home. It is very easy and it is more connvinient to write/record your answers directly there. At TAFE it's a bit hard. I"ll have to ask the IT staff to do it for us. Start preparing your answers. We'll do it the first week back. I've sent a recorded message from our podomatic (link on the right side bar of Sydney's People Podcast), Let's talk. You can also listen to it in Fernanda's class podomatic, in the entry called Multiculturalism.

The Archibald Prize & Woolloomooloo

2006-04-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

I hope you enjoyed our day at the Art Gallery of NSW and Wooloomooloo. You experienced one of Sydney's most popular spots: Harry's Cafe De Wheels, famous for its authentic pies. Chika was telling us that she always sees accidents there at night. Read this article from the Daily Telegraph, posted by the Pedestrian Council of Australia, where they say that site is "an accident waiting to happen".

How are you going with your opinion text about the portraits we saw?

I've added some pictures on both flickr (picture above) and frapper (see below). You can click on the pictures and see the rest. I also added the pictures of the new students, Chris, Gloria and Nancy, and you listen to Chika, Gloria and Chris's introductions in Who are we?

Have a fantastic break and I'll see you soon!

Archibald Prize, reports & copy right

2006-03-31T23:16:00.000-08:00

On Thursday 13th April we are going to go to the Art Gallery. Download and print the workshet The Archibald Prize Excursion.

Go to Train Timetables if you want more practice on how to read them.

Go to our forum and give your opinion to the last topic.

You have to publish your report on your hometown. Download this worksheet, Written Skill, Report: Places,Checklist to help you with analysing the structure and linguistic freatures of reports already published in our blog.

To learn more about the importance of copy right, visit Creative Commons flash show Get Creative.

Melinda from Time4English has created some car insurance related exercises for you to do. Go to Intermediate level and do 7A and 7B. I will print a webquest on the same topic for your holidays. This is part of the legal topics that you wanted to deal with as thematic content for our course.

Easter Show

2006-03-29T23:56:00.000-08:00

Very soon we are going to break for the Easter holidays. One of the most important atractions is the Easter Show. One of our teachers has prepared a very good worksheet. Download it and then print it to do the exercises: Easter Show

Photo by dizzy @ flickr

Go back to the online post I prepared for last week, Working Online. Visit some of the student blogs that appear there and write comments on them (don't forget to sign!)
Do any of the activities that you din't have time to do last Tuesday.
If you didn't have time on the weekend to revise report writing, do it now: Report Writing
Go to Sydney's People Podcast. Did you listen to Sally's class morning tea for Harmony Day? I have also posted Emile's recount of his long trip overseas. Finally I have posted some links to very good podcasts by students of English like you. Listen to them. You'll be doing that soon! In fact we'll start today by preparing a short podcast about yourselves, so ..
start thinking about what you want to say. Write it down and practise your pronuntiation.

Report writing (information text) Revison

2006-03-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

This is a bit of revision for your report writing.

For a table with the main features of report writing click here.

Last year David showed us some Australian native animals at the Australian Museum. Do you know their names?
Do they belong to the same species? What's their main characteristic?

Go to Time4English Lower Intermediate 5M and read the Wombat story (you can listen to it, too). Is this text a report? Not really, because the wombat is talking to us (I, my pouch, my baby...) What changes do you have to make to the language, so that it is an information report?
Write a report about wombats based on that story.

You can add more information by searching the net.

For a worksheet that will help you understand the structure and lingusitic features of a report, go to Report Writing: Analysis of Animal Reports

And for a bit of relaxation, why don't you stop for a cuppa and listen to Sally's class Harmony Day Tea?

Working Online

2006-03-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

1. Today I'm not posting any new podcasts to let you work on Liz's A Trip to Afghanistan. But you must go and visit Robert's blog. He has posted his first podcast. Next week he promised to help me show you how to do it. If you want to try recording your voice with audacity (or an mp3 player and then you edit it with Audacity) visit the instructions I posted in Sydney's People Podcast.

2. Go to the forum. Last Tuesday was Harmony Day, but we were too busy to have a forum. We can look at it today. Harjit and myself already posted an entry. Today I would like to expand the topic to the Cronulla riots. What do you think about it?

3. We have been learning how to read and write information texts or reports. In Time4English, Lower Intermediate, Vacation, you can get more ideas and information on animal reports. Remember to write one on an animal from your country of origin. And remember to use the structure:
General Statement
Description of parts (appearance; habitat; behaviour)

Remember the linguistic features:
simple present (Kangaroos are native Australian animals)
noun groups (The red Kangaroo)
generic subjects (The kangaroo/kangaroos/a kangaroo)
always agree subject and verb ( The kangaroo has/Kangaroos have)
use be/have
use correct expressions of time (under a tree).

4. Visit Blogging from the Tropics , a class blog from Brazil. Introduce yourself to the students whose links appear on the left sidebar. Their teacher, Bee, has invited my students to communicate with hers. They are teenagers, but as you will be able to see, their English is very good. Bee also suggests to write to a group of women in Young caucasus women .You will find links to them in every post. They write about very interesting topics. Read them and tell them what you think or ask them questions in comments.

5. Go to Racism No Way, in the Game Room there are several puzzles. You can try the interactive crosswords. You can also create a poster in Graffiti Wall.

6. Go to Time4English and finish all the activities in Lower Intermediate, 8 LIVING IN AUSTRALIA (this week you should be doing 8d Drownings and 8E Jellyfish)

Harmony Day 2

2006-03-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

1. Yesterday wasHarmony Day and we had morning tea with all the students in our class. We all come from different cultural backgrounds. Table manners are sometimes different. Look at our forum on table manners and write instructions on DO's and Don'ts of table manners for our parties. Include all the rules from all the different backgrounds. For example, in Spain you shouldn't leave your hand under the table at any time while you are eating (who knows what you are could be doing!), so the instructions sould be:

Do not place your hand on your lap
Always leave your hands on the table
Do not place your elbow on the table

Post your instructions in your blog.

2. Listen to your beautiful introduction of yourselves in the podcast Who are we? and check the pictures at the bottom of this blog. I'll change them every now and then.

3. Listen to Liz's interview, A Trip to Afghanistan . You will find out many interesting things about her and what she does when she's not teaching English.

4. Go to Time4English, Lower Intermediate and listen to 8C Life Savers

5. Also in Time4English, check the meaning of these Aussie slang words: aggro, barbie, bathers, brekky, cow, and grotty. You will find a Slang Dictionary on the front page (Home), below MENU.

6. Liz taught you some words and expressions used in Australian English. Check this post for more information and games on Australia, Oz Quiz. Can any one solve the hidden message?

AMEP-A celebrate Harmony Day

Harmony Day

2006-03-14T18:21:00.000-08:00

Today's Work

Photos by Josef Stuefer

Today I would like you to be aware of Harmony Day . When is it celebrated and what does it celebrate? We might do furhter work in class.
Go to this Computer vocabulary game with pictures to learn the language of your computer hardware. Do the first 2 exerecises only (first and 3rd page).
Go to the forum and give your opinion on table manners. Before writing anything, you should read the link to Chopstick rules.
In Sydney's People Podcast, listen to Touring Europe and answer the questions.
Last week we couldn't do any work for Time4English, try to look at the exercises when you have time. Today I would like to thank Melinda from Time4English for having prepared exercises specifically directed at the topic we've been working on, Water Safety. Go to LowerIntermediate Unit 8 and listen to 8A SAFETY AT THE BEACH - DOs AND DON'Ts. It gives you another example of written instructions. You can use it as revision for your assessment with Liz on giving instructions. Remember that I don't put a link to it here, as we have a subscription and you have to log on!. Cick on the right side bar and then log on.
Listen to 8B FLAGS ON THE BEACH.
Also in Time4English Intermediate, go to MORE/ GRAMMAR BOOK and print the tense chart (under T). It's a very good summary of English tenses.
Do the first exercise on the Past Simple.
If you have any spare time, write anything you like in your blogs or comment on other people's blogs.
You should also find time to answer the Commonwealth Games questions. It's part of Australian Systems and culture and you will be hearing a lot about them on TV.

Commonweath Games

2006-03-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

Peter Konnecke's photos

One of our teachers, Nadia, has prepared this worksheet for all our students. You cna write the answers in a Word document. Then Save it As, and finally either print it and hand it in to your teacher, or email it to your teacher as an attachment.

INTERNET SEARCH-COMMONWEALTH GAMES

Helpful site: Commonwealth Games
(check latest media releases)

When and where are the 2006 Commonwealth Games being held?
When and where were the first games held?
When the games first started, what other name did they have?
Which countries participated in the first games and which country won the first trophy?
How frequently are the games held?
Where were the last games held?
Where are the next games going to be held?
Which 3 countries hold the largest medal tally since 1930?
Name Commonwealth Games sports starting with these letters: ABCDFGHJNRSTW
How many Austrlain athletes are taking part in the 2006 games? How does this number compare with last games?
What are the largest and the smallest Australian sport teams for 2006?
These 3 Australian athletes will attempt their third consecutive gold medal in the same event in 2006. Which events are they? Ian Thorpe, Michael Diamond, Jane Saville
Find the following 2006 Australian athletes and give some details:

The tallest, the oldest, the youngest

Hello Rose-Marie's Class!

2006-02-28T21:47:00.000-08:00

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!

Go to Sydney's People Podcast and listen to Winter Olympics.
Listen to this interactive story:Interactive listening maze
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.
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.
Do the first exercise on the Past Simple.
Listen to Time4English This week's Story: Healthy pople: Unhealthy Environment. It's related to one of our topics for the semester (Health)
Go to the Forum and give your opinion on today's topic.
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.
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.
Visit Wollongong Lifeguard Service for good pictures and information about waves and rips.

2006-02-27T02:09:00.000-08:00

Today we'll start by listening to the interview Our Multicultural Education Coordinator.

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

Welcome to Marion's Class

2006-02-17T03:14:00.000-08:00

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?

Our First Lesson

2006-02-08T22:01:00.000-08:00

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!

Our Class 2006 p2p EFL/ESL X

2006-01-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

Our Class 2006
You can visit Our Class 2009

We are a group of adult migrants who blog and podcast out of St GeorgeTAFE college in Sydney.
Our level of English is heterogeneous, from lower-intermediate to intermediate and our school year goes from February to December. We meet 4 times a week for 5 hours a day and one of these classes is in the computer lab.

Our ages range from 19 t0 about 35. We come from Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Lebanon, Thailand and Russia.

Here are the links to our blogs:

You can also hear our first introductory podcast if you visit Who are we?
We have a podcast venue, Let's Talk, where we chat with other students of English and where we post our radio programs.
We also have Sydney's People Podcast, where we can listen to different people from our multicultural city.

Marion's class blogs

2006-01-01T21:18:00.000-08:00

These are some of Marion's students' blogs:

Elisabete
Adriana
Maria
Amani
Sana
Afyaa
Chi
Jacqui
Dan
Vicky

Next week we will post the rest.

Welcome to Our Class 2006

2006-01-01T05:14:00.000-08:00

Photo taken from the Opera House on New Year's Eve

We will be starting the new course in February. If you happen to visit us before that, you can start exploring Sydney's People Podcast, where you'll find short listening files that will introduce you to different people from Sydney.

Have a listen too to the very interesting podcasts in Barcelona Young Learners EFL Podcasts.

You will be doing your own podcasts very soon. One of last semester's students did his own: Yuki's Podcast.

On Thursday 26th January it was Australia Day. You can get an idea of what it means and how it is celebrated if you visit last year's post here. You may want to search the net for news articles on that day. There is quite a lot of controversy about celebrating it on that specific date. Can you tell me why?

Previous students created a quiz on Australia, Oz Quiz. Try to answer the questions to check your knowledge of all things Australian.

Start getting ideas on what to talk about. It's going to be fun!

Sicilian Winter Salad

2006-01-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

Fennel is a winter vegetable and oranges were traditionally only found in winter. In Sicily, Italy, they prepare a beautifully refreshing salad with just these two ingredients. My Sicilian friends, John and Tina, introduced me to it in Sydney and I often prepare it for my friends. You can serve it at the beginning of a meal, between dishes to clean the palate or at the end of the meal, like a sort of pre-dessert. It's always a hit and it's so easy to make!

Ingredients
2 fennels (the bulb, no stem or leaves)
3 oranges (blood oranges are very good for this recipe, see picture below left)
salt
chili flakes
olive oil

Preparation

Clean fennels by discarding outer layer, top and bottom
Chop fennels into quarters
Slice fennels thinly
Peel oranges
Cut oranges into small pieces
Get rid of orange pips
Dress with salt, chili flakes (optional) and olive oil

Podcasting & Vodcasting

2005-11-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

How to access Lectures, etc on itunes

Absolutely Intercultural
Academic Word of the Day
Barcelona Young Learners efl podcasts
BBC Learning English
BBC Flatmates
BBC GCSE Bitesize-English Audio
Daily Motion, this one is for spelling. Search for ESL videos for other topics

Elllo English Language Listening Lab Online
English Cafe
English Central videos for listening

English as a Second Language (ESL) Podcasts
English Bites
Englishcaster

English Idioms and Slang

ESL EFL Llistening Skills

ESL Podcast
ESL podcast TV

English Pod Song
ESL Video

Frankley Talk
Grade One Student Podcasts
Grammar girl
International Students NZ

Living English (Australian)
Madrid Young Learners podcasts
Peppy Idioms 20
Podfeed.net The Podcast Directory
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
Real English
Seesmic, video conversations betweeen ESL teachers and students around the world
Six Podcasting sites for Language learners evaluated and linked to

Splendid Speaking
Speaking and Listening Renata's Corner
Teaching Listening Skills onestopenglish
This WEEK in TECH Podcast

TEFLclips

The Bob and Rob Show

Very Vocabulary

Videos- Story Telling by students of English in Portugal
Video & songs: Nick Peachey, example Ana Maria Menezes

We love your accent podcasts with people from all over Britain
yappr

Adjectives

2005-11-16T17:44:00.000-08:00

410 Grammar

410 Grammar exercises

The order of adjectives

ESL Adjective Order

Adjectival Magnets

Oxford Univerisy Press: Students

Recounts

2005-11-16T17:42:00.000-08:00

Kalpana's Farewell party

Difficult experiences

Descriptions of places

2005-11-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

My Hometown

Sydney

My suburb

Students'Hometowns or Countries

More Students'Hometowns or Countries

Descriptions of People

2005-11-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

Descriptions of People

Recipes

2005-11-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

Recipes

Students' recipes

More students' recipes

Djimi's Knefeh

X p2p ESL blogs

2005-11-16T17:30:00.000-08:00

William's Class Blog 2006, New Zealand

Peter's Class, Dublin

Blogging from the Tropics

young caucasus women

Rome EFL Blog

Have Fun with English

Image English Class Weblog

eicuib1000classblog Vietnam

eicuib1955classblog from Vietnam

Our Class Competitions

2005-11-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

Games

2005-11-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

Games

ESL Games & Quiz Corner

ESL go-free

Matching Synonyms

Same Difference

More Synonyms and other games

ESL:Games

English Games

Isabel's ESL Site

Oxford University Students

101 ways to improve your English outside the classroom

Reading & Writing

2005-11-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

VILC

Genres Types of writing : samples and worksheets with scaffolding (or templates)

A girl from Spain

Reports:

Reports: Information Texts

My Hometown

My Hometown power point

Written Skill, Report: Places,Checklist

Huesca

Sydney

My suburb

Students'Hometowns or Countries

More Students'Hometowns or Countries

Cities

Reports:

Animals

Template for a report on animals

Difficult Experiences

Describing a person

Australian Beaches

Jokes for the ESL/EFL classroom

Learn to Read at Starfall

Stories for the Classroom-EFL Classroom

Writing English for Academic Testing Purposes

Digital stories list

2005-09-27T05:40:00.000-07:00

EXAMPLES
bbc.co.uk wales home is a very comprehensive repository of digital stories. Within it 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

My space is an amazing place

Delia's Bradshaw Bubbleshare story on WOmad

BarbaraDieu's Close to my heart

Health digital stories by Adelaide primary school kids

Digital Director's Guild
Scissors, Remembering my grandmother

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

MCL ESL Digital Stories has lots of links and good student examples

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!

My students' photostories

Robert's Salsa
Anna's recount of the Pylon Lookout excursion