It's still summer!

Hi again. I hope you all had a good weekend and are ready to continue our blogging adventure.




As you know, I spent a great part of our Australian summer in cold wintry Spain. Fortunately we still have quite a lot of warm weather left. In Sydney we have beautiful beaches and there are many activities we can do there. Today's work will deal with beaches and related topics.

1. Visit "Australian English at the Beach". First look at the signs in Safety at the Beach. Do all the exercises (on top of the pictures). Then answer these questions in your blog:
1. Do you know all the signs? If not,
   
2. Which ones are new to you?
   
3. Do we have all these signs in Sydney?
   
4. Do they have all these signs in your country of origin?
2. Read The Aussie Cozzie and do the quiz (at the bottom of the text). Read what other people have written about it in the comments page and then write your thoughts about it in your blog.
   
3. Look at the pictures in Story in pictures (also at the bottom of the text). Choose two and describe them in your blog. Compare the similarities and talk about the differences.
4. You can search for pictures on the Internet or the link provided below the The Aussie Cozzie text (Search for pictures), but remember that it's always better and more satisfactory to use your own pictures (and you won't be breaking copyright regulations)

Some of you wanted instructions on how to add links and images to your blog posts. I've published a video tutorial (permanent link on the sidebar)

I have also published permanent link on the sidebar to a post with all your blog links, Our Class 2007 p2p ESL EFL X. It is to make it easier for people from other ESL classes around the world to communicate with us. Make sure you keep your blogs interesting and that your English gets better and better.

Our Class 2007 p2p EFL/ESL X

This is our new class for 2007. It is a full time class (ESOL 3 & 4) of ESL students living in the St George are of Sydney, Australia. We meet 20 hours a week, Monday to Thursday and our ages range from 18 to 52. This course is a semester course only and we hope to improve our level of English to be able to go onto different TAFE courses or work.

We would love to hear form you, either in our blogs, our class blog, Our Class 2007, or our audio blog, Let's Talk.

These are our blogs:

Our Student Blogs

• Burcu


• Celina


• Leslie


• Winnie


• Sharon


• Jane


• Lei


• Angela


• Dan


• Yan


• Wendy


• Ada


• Jason


• Katie

Adding links and images

Create link to Sydney.Write after link safely.
Add image.


Click here to see a video tutorial on how to add links and images to your blog posts: Adding links and images.Click on Link and save on your desktop. Once it's downloaded, you can watch it.

2007 student blogs

Marta

Svetlana

Summer

Eva

Winnie

Cindy

Tony

Lisa

Jin

Fawzia

Zhi

Anna

Alina

Recipes, reading, writing, etc

Listening/Podcasting

• Podcasts
  

• Living English Video Lessons
  

Digital Stories

• Digital Stories List
  

Grammar

• Adjectives


• Oxford Practice Grammar Online


• Manythings


• English 4 U
  

Recounts

• Recounts
  

Descriptions of Places

• My Hometown
  

Descriptions of People

• Descriptions of People
  

Recipes

• Recipes
  

ESL Class Blogs for p2p Exchanges

• p2p X ESL class blogs
  

Our Class Competitions

• Competitions
  

Games

• Games
  

Reading & Writing

• Writing
  
• R & W
  

Our second day...

What is this picture?
Hi again!

You worked very hard last Tuesday and nearly everyone got a brand new blog!

Yes, you were right about last week's picture. My son took it at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. Someone thought it may be the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Not bad, considering they are both made of the same material and were designed by engineers.

1. Do a search and find out the names of the engineers who designed both the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Answer these questions:

* When were they built?

* Who designed them?

* What are they made of?

* Do you know any special interesting things about these two constructions?

Write about them in your blogs. Remember: do not copy and paste text from the Internet. It is a crime called plagiarism. Write the information in your own words and put a good link to a website that will give extra information to the readers of your blog.

3. Visit your classmate's blogs and say hello in their comments.

4. Tomorrow you are going to go to the library for a tour of the facilities. Listen to the podcast with Patricia: St George College Librarian. There is a vocabulary exercise to do before the listening. It will help you understand better. Write the answers to the comprehension questions in your blog.

5. Write a post about your hometown and I will show you how to do a link to a website with information about it. We will also upload a photo (it's better to use your own photos, you can bring them in a memory stick or a CD). Today you can just write a short description. Next week you can write a longer one. As an example look at My hometown. If you don't have a computer at home, print all the texts and exercises now.

6. I was sent a very good link for students of English by Oxford University Press. They have a section called Natural English online, with games and exercises for you to practise English in a natural contest. Check these ones about mobile phone text messages: Mobile Madness 1, Mobile Madness 2 and Mobile Madness 3. I have put a permanent link on the right hand side bar so that you can do more exercises whenever you want.

7. If you didn't participate in last week's forum, do it now.

8. Go to Time4English and in Lower Intermediate, listen to 5J Languages.

9. Also in Time4English, listen to 3A Computers. Tell Rosa if you find it too difficult or not.

Welcome to our first 2007 class!

What is this photo?

See the previous post for a clue.






Hello everyone. This is our first computer class this semester.

You will be practising your English here. Some times we will discuss topics on our forum, other times you will practise grammar online in our Time4English subscription, and you will be reading and writing in English all the time. Not only that, you will be practising your listening through our podcast blog, Sydney's People Podcast, and you will be publishing your own radio programmes in our podomatic blog, Let's Talk!

You will need the following:

• Buy a pair of headphones with microphone (you don't have to spend more than $11.00-$12.00). You will find them in P.O shops , big supermarkets and computer shops.
  
• 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)

Don't worry if it all sounds too much. We'll learn things step by step. And the very first thing to think about is your posture when working on the computer. It's very important to sit properly and at a good distance from the computer. So let's start work:

1. Read this information about Computer Health. Click on all the links (Stretches, Postures, Consequences)
2. Do the Quiz.
3. 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 2006. 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 on the right hand side.
   
4. Your main teacher is Andrew, whom you met yesterday. Listen to this Sydney's People Podcast about him:Andrew: Nut & Num .
5. Go to the forum and answer today's topic. You will need a username and password. Ask me for it.
6. Now let's got going and create your own blogs. You will need an email address. If you don't have one, let me know and I'll help you get one.
7. Tomorrow is St Valentine's Day. If you wnat to know more about it, visit this post I wrote for previous studetns, St Valentine's Day.
   

Have fun!

Welcome to Our Class 2007

Happy 2007 to everyone!

I'm still a bit jet-lagged from our trip to Spain. We only got back on Friday after spending nearly 4 weeks in Spain and three wonderful days in Paris.

We had unusually warm weather at first (global warming!) but one day towards the end of our stay we woke up to a Huesca in snow.

The pictures with the snow are views from my parents' balcony. You should be able to know what the lit up tower is!

Have a look at the slide show and see if you can guess which photos are from Spain (Huesca, Salamanca, Pamplona and San Sebastian) and which ones are from Paris.

Does anyone know the name of the sweet stick coming up from a thick chocolate cup? Yum!


BubbleShare