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!
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 teacherblog,
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 learnersHave a great holiday. I'll think of you while I'm in Spain!
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Vaucluse House & Nielsen Park
- 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!
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Sculputure by the Sea
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.
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.
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!
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Morning Tea
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.
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Thank you Student Association!
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.
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Health Expo-Check out these podcast episodes!
Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer
Silvana's Health Expo radio segment: Cancer CouncilSilvana: ChiropractorMarielle's First radio programMarielle, 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
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
-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.
