Monday, May 26, 2008

Health

It's Health Expo Week again! Congratulations to all our students, both in Marion's and Rosa's class (Ivy, Li, Min) on the fantastic health tips left in our f2fwiki. Continue adding to it, we have to reach 101!

Meanwhile, you can do this cloze on Childhood obesity. Double click on each work to put it in the right place. Answer these questions:
1. What is childhood obesity?
2. Which developed countries are more affected by childhood obesity?
3. What is the meaning of epidemic?
4. What percentage of North American kids are obese?

Check this website, CalorieKing that Marion posted for her students. They will be preparing all the food for the Health Expo. We'll be there to taste their healthy food! Read the brochure and answer these questions:

1. How many stalls will there be?

2. Look up new words in your dictionary.

3. Choose one of the stalls. Write 5 questions to ask the stall holder.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Check the following links :
    Better Health Obesity. Do the worksheet Obesity. (You can print it or do it online)
    Better Health Skin Cancer, download the worksheet Skin Cancer.(You can print it).
    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 .

Creative Commons Photos

Last Friday I met Peter Shanks, a TAFE IT teacher from Bathurst. He showed me a great tool designed by him that allows you to find pictures that don't break copyright. They are flickr photos that have a Creative Commons licence, like the ones I showed you last week in class. Creative Commons means that you can use them for free, as long as you show the attribution details, which means that you write the name of the author and a link to where the photo comes from (in this case flickr).

To find a photo you just write the name of what you are looking for in the Find window and then click on the picture you like. If you do it with the tick in the edit box, you can edit it before you save it, add words to it and a frame. You can add the attribution inside the picture itself or copy it and paste it on your blog below the picture. You save the picture as usual, by right clicking on it and storing it in your computer.
Ideally you should link the photo to its original page in flickr.

I'm leaving a permanent link to this tool below Useful Links in our righthand side bar.

This is and example I edited for our Money money week.

Original image: 'Money' by: Joshua Davis
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51194339@N00/8806988
Released under an Attribution-ShareAlike License

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Money, money

Last Sunday started with rain, but then we had a glorious winter afternoon, perfect for a bush walk around Manly. Here are some photos of the day (the quality is not brilliant, they were taken with a mobile phone). If you have time, take yourselves there by ferry, walk to the beach and follow the walk to Shelly beach. There is a bush walk up the cliffs that takes you back to Manly going past the old seminary. It's great!

BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.

Health Expo is coming! We are going to work with Marion's class, AMEP A (level 4) to build a page around health topics. Go to our f2f wiki, the Events page, and follow the instructions below the Health Expo.

Last week we started talking about money matters (one of the topics you wanted to work with).

AMES VILC has several stories about consumer issues, Mind your Money. The listening doesn't seem to be working (try at home, just in case), but you can do some of the exercises and also have a look at the links provided in other languages. Let's look at Mario and Marta's Wedding exercise 1 . Then do exercise 2. Finally read the whole story and check out the advice and links below it.

AMES VILC has also got weekly listening news items. Listen to this week's news here.

Next week we can do another one. The list of topics is here. Look at them in Know your consumer rights! and tell me which one you prefer to do first.
Today you can listen to a new podcast, John: Global Citizen. Print the worksheet first. It will help you with the listening and the writing.

We have a new f2f wiki, so you'll need to update your links. It's going to be on our permanent links on the right of this blog and will replace the pbwiki one.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Look at this!

Look at this watch. It looks like a normal watch, doesn't it?




It was given to an EFS student as a present. He came this morning to see if he could use one of the computers to print his homework.

When I said "yes, go ahead", he produced this watch.... and proceeded to connect it to the computer.

Look at these pictures!




Monday, May 19, 2008

Stress


  • We have been looking at modal verbs at a higher level. Please go to Time4English Grammar book, click on the letter M and do the exercises on can/could, can/could/be able to and must/have to. Write notes about how to use them in your note book. Add examples to help you understand their use and to help you remember it.
  • Last week we were also talking about how stress affects different age groups. Listen to this passage in Time4English, Are you stressed? (lower Intermediate 6I). It is a stress test. See what your stress levels are like!
  • Listen to this podcast of a casual conversation amongst 4 teachers about stress. Can you write down the topics we talked about? Also take note of the language used to change topic or to relate one topic to another. How is feedback given?
  • Let's catch up with our Audacity work. I will help you one by one to use Audacity to record your voice and improve your introductory podcast, This is us!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

This photo is for the geeks out there!
Good work everyone! Last week you learned how to create and post a photo album. I hope you continue using your new skills to send photos of your family to friends and relatives. You can also add sound and today we will try to do it.

Look at Bing's blog. He wrote a good personal piece on If I were an animal... . Try and write something yourself.

Today you will have some time to catch up with your podcast listening. Check last week's post for the links to the 4 podcasts due this term.


Last week we created our first podcast by recording it onto an mp3 player/recorder. Another way of creating audio files is the program Audacity. A couple of you tried it at the beginning of last term. Today I would like to find time for everybody to record your voice using Audacity. Follow this steps:

  1. Listen to your very first podcast: This is us! (Ft 2008). YOu will also find it in our podcasting blog: Let's talk!


2. Click on Audacity

3. Connect the headphones/speaker to the computer

4.Press the red button to record your voice

Time to relax!
Marion and Sally have told me about online karaoke and I found this blog, YouTube Karaoke, where you can practise your English (at home, as it is blocked at TAFE) while singing. Have fun

Add to Technorati Favorites

Dekita Orchard: Aggregating EFL/ESL Students Worldwide

Open EFL/ESL Exchange