Week 8

Two weeks ago there was a total lunar eclipse. Did you have a look at it? It was spectacular, especially when the moon was totally covered by the earth and you could see it like a dark red ball.

These are some photos we took from our house back verandah.
Congratulations to Marta for her podcast. She recorded it and edited by herself! You can listen to it in Let's Talk.

Congratulations to Lisa too for her page in our Kogarah & Liverpool wiki. She was the first student to create her ownpage in the wiki without any assistance! Summer has also published her own page and told us about your excusion to Bundeena. Well done!

Today you can continue working on your wiki pages and the world map.

Other work to be completed:

• Forum: old forum: Marion's topic on gender roles & ESOLforum: quickly add a topic or two to talk about.

Check this vodcast (videos) site out: Living English . It's like a TV series and there are about 4o episodes. The level of language is not very high. Every episode has some listening exercises and grammar explanations. The best thing of all: it's Australian!

Listen to Lois talking about her earliest memories

Now listen to Aaron about growing up as a kid in Australia

Think of your own memories and childhood. Prepare a talk about it. We will record it in class.

Visit this website and do the punctuation exercises on commas. They will help you with your writing.

Check your Webquest answers with me and publish them in you in your blogs if you want.

Health Expo 2007

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• On Wednesday 16th May the Student Association is holding Health Expo 2007. There will be some fund raising activities, like the lunch prepared by the AMEP students. There will be raffles and good prizes to be won. The money raised will go to the paralympic athletes. It is a very well organised event, please go and visit all the information stalls and talk to them about what they offer. To help you with the vocabulary and content of your surveys and podcasts, check the following activities:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Check the following links to help us prepare for Health Day:
Better Health Obesity. Do the worksheet Obesity. (You can print it or do it online This is part of your reading assessment for level 4)
Better Health Skin Cancer, download the worksheet Skin Cancer.(You can print it. This is part of your reading assessment for level 4).
They have a BMI Calculator. You just enter your height 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.

• And talking about health and fashion, did you know that Spain 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.Look for the topic called Thin Models and read everyone's opinion before adding yours.

Answer theses questions and then write an article in your blog, including your opinion:

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

• When you have time, you can listen to last year's student podcasts on the Health Expo 2006. They interviewed many of the doctors and health staff on the day. There are links to all their podcasts here.

To do at home

• Forum: Read all the opinions from last week's forum about fashion. Write an opinion text in which you present the different points of views and at the end you give your personal opinion in a conclusion. Before writing it, look at the explanations and examples in your text book (Unit 18).
• Go to Time4English and in the grammar book, letter a do the two exercises on articles.
• We were talking about noun groups fro the writing of reports and we did an exercise on how to order the adjectives in front of the noun (size-quality-age-colour-place/origin). As it is quite hard to remember, I thought you may like to do extra practice on it. Here are some more exercises: The order of adjectives & Adjective order. If you want to know more about them you can visit this site, Adjectives, where there is a more complete table (they add material and a couple of exercises.

Expresing opinion

• Congratulations, Lei! You were the first one to find out the name of these native flowers. They are known as flannel flowers (Actinotis helianthii is their scientific name). I have seen them amongst eucalyptus trees in Sydney reserves and national parks in sandstone areas. One was never able to enjoy them at home before. As you know, you are not allowed to pick wild flowers from the bush, but now they are growing them commercially and are found in flower shops in spring.
  
  I'm preparing an interview with a young Sydneysider, Nikki, who is involved in many things. As fashion is one of them, I would like you to give your opinion about fashion and other topics related to it in this week's forum.
• If you didn't have time to listen to Vukosava's podcast in Splendid Speaking last week, do it now. We will be working on it later on.
• Listen to another movie review from Time4English. You can start a list of verbs and adjectives used in these reviews. It will help you with your own review writing and it will help you with your spoken activities and radio programs.
• Also in Time4English, in the grammar book, go to the letter i and do the ED / -ING exercise. You will find a list of adjectives useful for your movie review.
• Then go to the letter p, do the exercises for plenty of, a lot of , a little, a few. It will reinforce what we did in class last Tuesday.
• Finally in English Lessons - Upper Intermediate / Advanced do the first Tenses quiz.

Happy 75th Birthday Sydney Harbour Bridge!

We did it! 101 Ways to Improve Our English Outside Class!
Check it out here. With all your answers and the ones from my previous students and your help in class to put them all together, we have reached our goal of 101 ideas on how to improve our English skills when we are not in class. They are divided into the 4 skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, but a few of them are general, so I put them at the beginning. They are all your ideas, so read them and put them into practice!

• Some of you wrote very good answers about the photos my brother took in his recent trip to an exotic destination. Nobody has guessed the exact country, so I've left a few clues in your comments. It is neither Africa nor China! Read the clues in your classmates' blogs and some of Marion's students' blogs and also see if this helps you guess the name of the country.
  

• Today I want to give you time to read William's students emails and reply to them. He sent a general list of emails. You can put them all in a group or distribution list in your contacts/addresses book. So, start work by reading your received emails and answer them. I'll help you if you need me to.
• Last week we didn't have our forum. Check it out this week. Harmony Day is approaching, we live in a very multicultural country, we had a look at my brothers photos from another multicultural country, so the topic is very relevant: multiculturalism.
• Time4English: Go to Grammar and then to the letter T. Get the Tenses Chart and print it. Now you can start doing the exercises. Today you could do the five light blue tense exercises.
• Have you published your thoughts on last week's photo of an old man in a classroom in Kenya?
  

Did anyone do the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk last Sunday? If you did, tell us about it in this post comments.

Happy 75th Birthday Sydney Harbour Bridge!
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101

Well done Classes! Last week's forum nearly achieved its aim.

Four Skills Pictures (click to make it bigger)

Between the two classes, Marion's and our one, we got 80 ways to improve our English outside class. Some of them are repeated, so we may try to get rid of the repetitions and add them to this list from a couple of years ago: How to improve your English outside class. Check it and let me know if you want to help put the 2 lists together.

How are your emails to William's students going? He has sent you one with a very good link to practise your pronunciation. We decided to send everyone all the emails. That means that everyone gets more practice. But when you get an email addressed only to you, if you prefer to write to that person only, reply to that person only, don't click on reply to all.

What about your report on your hometown? Now you know how to form noun groups (article+adjective+noun), so you can still improve your text.

One of my brothers has recently been on a holiday to a very exotic place. These are some of the photos he took. Can you guess where were they taken? In your blogs, write your answer and write about the photos. What can you see? What are the people doing? How do you feel looking at them?

• Harmony Day is approaching. Visit the government site and write in your blog about it. What is Harmony Day? On the left, click on What's On? On the map of Australia, you can see What's on in your area? Check if there's anything on in Kogarah. How do you think we can celebrate? Write your ideas in this post comments.
• Go to Time4English. Ask me for the username and password. Go to Lower Intermediate, 5 Cultures and listen to 5D When Cultures Meet. We will talk about this in our forum.
• Go to the Forum and answer today's question about cultures. This will be one of the ways we celebrate Harmony Day.
• Listen to Lisbeth's podcast if you didn't have time last week

That's all. Have fun!

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 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!