Welcome to Our Class 2007!

Hi to all the new students for semester 2, 2007 and 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. Read the information first and then answer the Computer Health quiz. When you finish answering the quiz, print it and keep it in your folder in the blog section.

Remember to get a ring folder to be well organised with your class notes. Anderew and I will be asking you to look at things done in previous lessons.

These photos are from my holidays. Can you tell me the name of the animals shown and where my brother (who is on holidays from Spain) took the photos? You can write the answers in the comments of this post (click on the comments button below). Don't forget to write your name.

I'll give you clues if it's too hard!















This semester we are going to do work with a group of students from another TAFE college in Sydney, Liverpool. Their teacher Anna and I thought that it would be good to start with a topic that everyone knows about: your first impressions of Australia. Go to ESOLforum (on the right sidebar). Read the question and start writing. You will need the password and user name. Ask your teacher.

If you have time, look at Time4English and go to the grammar book. Do the exercises Articles 1 - Countable and Uncountable Nouns & Articles 2 - Uncountable Nouns. Ask me for the user name and password.

Now try this game to learn about computer words. You can also do this other game with more computer vocabulary in English.

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.

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!