Melbourne Cup Day

Photos taken yesterday somewhere in Sydney. Do you know where?

• Check your emails. You will receive and invitation to a party. Please reply following the structure that we learnt last week (refusing an invitation).
• Today is Melbourne Cup Day. Do you know anything about it? Check the information in the Australian Government Culture and Recreation Portal, Melbourne Cup, and answer the following questions:

1. What is it?
   
2. When does it take place? (time and date)
   
3. What happens to the nation on that day?
   
4. What is a sweep?
   
5. What would you be looking for if you checked the milliners directory on the Racetrack Fashions link?
   
6. How long has the Melbourne Cup been around (existed/taken place)?
   
7. Which is Austalia's most famous racehorse? Why?
   
8. What can you see in the National Museum of Australia?
   
9. Who won the 2006 Melbourne Cup?
   
10. What do you think about all of this?
    
11. Use the answers to these questions to write a short report about the Melbourne Cup, with your opinion about it at the end. You can compare it to other celebrations or festivities in Australia or in your country of origin.

• Last Tuesday Luisa Odelli, one of the college career counsellors, gave a talk about educational & vocational pathways. She showed us two very useful websites with course and work information: TAFE Find a Course and My Future. You should start thinking about your pathway for next year.
  
• Last Tuesday we corrected all the answers of the webquest. Well done everyone and thank you to Marta for helping all of you.... Today you can write a draft of your report. Email it to me or print it and revise it before we can check it together.


• Did you email your questions about Grant Mizens to me?


• Today's ESOLForum question is about drivers. First do this short dictation in Time4English: Advanced 3L, Bad drivers!. Then go to the last entry of our ESOL forum and give your opinion. Don't forget to read everyone else's opinion before you write yours.

Sydney Corners

Welcome back!

I hope you've all had a great holiday and are ready to tackle work for the last few weeks of term.


Today I'm going to ask you to finish up a bit of work from level 3 and then we'll get right into level 4 work.





Level3 work:

• Check your email. I have sent you a message about the holidays and I would like you to answer it today. This is the last assessment for level 3. You can use your dictionary to compose your email.
• Write a report about Bundeena.

Level 4 work:

• There are some things to be finished from last semester, but they are already level 4 work:
• Write an article about Melinda, after having listened to her podcast
• Finish the webquest and write a report on it

Other bits and pieces:

• Check emails from Liverpool and answer them
• Complete your wiki page, if you haven't done it yet
  

So you went to Bundeena...Report wiriting

Can you guess what this photo is?

Hi everyone!

Sorry I can't be with you f2f, but Andrew will help you with your work today. To make his job very EASY, please read my instructions carefully. Don't rush!

First of all, congratulations to Marta for another great podcast! She interviews a childcare worker this time. It's very interesting and very clear: Marta: The Rainbow.


First do some catching up work, if you need to*:

Listen to Emile's podcast

Publish your writing about the sleeping girl in your blog

Answer any Liverpool emails

Write on your wiki page.

Write your opinion about gender roles on the forum (only one person did it last week!)

NEW WORK
You went on an excursion to Bundeena with AMEP classes. Complete the following activities:

• Publish a recount about the excursion in your blog.


• Read the article that Sally links to in her post, Bundeena excursion and do this worksheet, which includes writing a report. By now you know the structure of a report (information text). Write a draft and let me check it (you can email it to me).
• Listen to Melinda's podcast. Read the post carefully before you listen. You should print the listening worksheet to get help with the listening. Do all the exercises and writing on the worksheet.

* Remember that you've got one week to do all this work, but that it becomes too much if you leave it undone and then you have to catch up.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Sydney. You could already smell spring in the air. I went to one of the most iconic beaches this city offers, Balmoral Beach. There were people swimming, sunbathing and sitting under the huge fig trees that line the promenade along the beach. The cafes and restaurants were full and it was only Monday! If you have never been there, make sure you go and have a walk, a picnic or a swim. Every summer there is a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Twelfth Night or The Taming of the Shrew at the Band Rotunda on The Esplanade opposite Balmoral Beach. Who wrote these very famous plays?

Congratulations to Svieta, Winnie, Cindy, Jin (I couldn't see the photo) on their voicethread slide shows. Check all your classmates' voicethreads:

Marta, Eva, Lisa, Summer, Svieta, Winnie, Cindy and Jin.

• Write a quiz for all the slide shows your classmates or Marion's classmates have created. Each one of you has to look at 2-3 slides shows by your classmates and write at least 2 questions for each one of them. You are also allowed to ask 1 or 2 questions from your own slides. For example: Who says ..... Where did ..... go last ...? Who took a photo of....? Email me your questions and we'll put them together in our wiki fro the Liverpool students.
  

• Continue working on your webquest and look at the notes I added on how t write a report or information text.
  

• Forum: Go to ESOL forum and quickly add a topic or two to talk about.

• Go to our other forum and read the latest topic that Marion set up for her class. It is very interesting, they discuss women's and men's roles and jobs. Read what her students wrote and add your opinion.