Saturday, August 23, 2008

What are you wearing?

Welcome back, Marion!

Can you prepare a few questions to ask Marion about her trip? When you are ready we will interview her for a podcast in Let's Talk!


  • Listen to two teachers talking about what they are wearing. Answer the questions and write a description of one of them (or both) in your blog.
  • With a classmate ask each other about what you are wearing. You have to talk about the clothes, colour, type of material, origin, how you bought them or got them, if they were a present, etc.
  • You can get ideas from this forum, Fashion Police, but I would also would like you to ask/answer questions about how you got the clothes, were they a present?, did you buy them? where did you buy them? how much was it? are they any specific brand? did someone give them to you (hand-me-downs)...
  • Now record your description in Audacity. Marion and I will help you set up.
At home you can watch this video where people on the street answer the question what are you wearing? It has subtitles, so it's very easy to understand and learn from it.

The essence of written texts

Today's picture is an easy riddle. If you know what it is, write it in comments below. You can create your own wordle for your favourite song, poem, your blog or any piece of article that interests you. Ask me how to do it and save it as a picture for your blog .

Some of you wrote more suggestions for overseas visitors in Sydney during Thursday's class. Don't forget to add them to our esolf2f wiki!

Great work with your report writing. This week we'll look at writing a report about an object. You can start thinking about something interesting you would like to write about. For example a great invention, something iconic in your culture, or even a sport or event.

Andrew and I recorded an example of what to do when you can't attend class, which is to phone the teacher and let them know you will be absent. Listen to it and write down the dialogue. W will practise it later in class.

Now listen to this podcast about Andrew, Andrew: Nut & Num, and do the work at the end of the post. It will be part of your blog portfolio.

As part of your portfolio, you should listen to the podcasts we link to in this blog and do the questions and writing tasks in the worksheets included in each podcast. If you have and ipod, you can subscribe to the whole blog, Let's Talk, by clicking on the itunes icon on the right sidebar. This means the podcasts go into your ipod and you can practise your English while you catch the train, bus, do your exercise, housework, or you're bored and have nothing better to do.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Sydney through foreign eyes



Friends and family are always welcome in our household. Last month we were showing off our beautiful city to our Spanish visitors.



What do you do when you have visitors from overseas? Today we can write down a list of suggestions in our esolf2f wiki.


Last week we decided we wanted to revise comparison in adjectives. Go to Time4English, click on Grammar book and in letter C do the exercises on Comparatives er / est ,more/most
You have been given a Welcome to TAFE kit with information about TAFE, rights & responsibilities and study pathways. Listen to these interviews with Djimi, an ESOL student in 2006. My class students from last semester ask her about her study pathways. Have a look at her chart and think about your own study plan.
Take time to write your recounts and reports in your blogs.




Well done to all the students who got a new blog. There is a link to your blog in your teacher's blog. Sorry we didn't have time to help everyone. We'll do it today. Now you can write a comment in your classmates' blogs. Remember to check your grammar before publishing.



Some of you didn't have time to finish all the work last week. You can try and do it now:

  1. Marion's interview: listen & answer the questions on the worksheet

  2. Type the questions to Marion in the World Map & record at least one of them

  3. Add some questions on the Olympic Games wiki page

Friday, August 8, 2008

Olympic Games Beijing 2008


The picture on the left is the answer to last week's picture-guess. Elmira was the only student to guess it, although she wasn't 100% sure. Well done! You could try and guess who the mystery man is. Write your guess in comments.


As you know, Marion is in Ireland. She has just left a message for us in the comments of this post. Read it and write something to her there. Listen to her telling me about her trip. Do the worksheet (type it and email it to me or print it and hand it in).Think of some questions to ask her. Write them down and we'll try and record them in our World Map.

  • Have you listened to your first podcast in Let's Talk? You can find it in the post below. You can send the link to your family & friends overseas.
  • Did you watch the opening ceremony at 08:08 on 08/08/08?
    One of our teachers, Nadia, has done a quiz, Olympic Games Trivia for you to answer. You can type the answers and email them to your teacher or you can print the worksheet and write down the answers. I've included the answers that she gave me, but in a code. If you are desperate, you can try to decipher it!
  • Add more questions to our esolf2f wiki Olympic Games quiz.
  • Have a look at the teachers page. Robert has added something to it!
  • Finally, check your emails. I have sent you one about my weekend. Read it and reply to it. You will be practising some of our assessment tasks for level 3: reading emails, writing emails and writing recounts. Good work!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

New FT Students

Hi everyone, I posted your introductory recording to our podcast, Lets talk!. Click this link to check it out: New Students FT Semester 2 - rosa



Friday, August 1, 2008

Library Skills

If you know what this is, tell us in comments

Hi again. I hope you managed to record your voice on our voicethread world map at home. If not, we will try it at the college.


  • This week Andrew is going to take you to the library. Before you go, listen to Patricia, one of our librarians, and answer the questions. It will help you understand what they tell you on the library tour.
  • The librarians at St George are producing excellent tutorials on how to use some of their facilities. You can find them in their wiki, St George Library wiki. There is a permanent link to it on the right sidebar of this blog. Keep visiting it to learn how to put money in your TAFE library to photocopy or print from one of the library computers, searching skills, etc. Today I would like you to watch their tutorial on how to start your TAFE portal access and change your password.

Marion has gone overseas. Listen to this casual conversation and answer the questions on the worksheet.

Finally, let's write a wiki page for the Olymppic Games. You can write the questions that you wrot e in class for the Olympic Quiz. Get the invite key from me.

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