Our Class 2008
From the Sydney Opera House, Happy New Year!
Let's hope 2006 brings peace and happiness to everyone.
I also would like to make it possible for my 2006 students to be able to communicate and exchange ideas with other ESL/EFL students across the world. We will be continue blogging and podcasting from Sydney, so keep watching...
Our Class 2006!
Our Class 2007Our Class 2008Labels: ESL, ESOL, multiculturalism, p2p, web 2.0
Merry Christmas
Xmas in Huesca. Photo by my brother Manolo
Xmas at home in Australia
Merry Christmas and a peaceful 2006! Australian map from Wendy's homepageIf you get bored these holidays, try this interesting webquest (click on the title above). If, on the other hand, you feel a bit lazy, just click here and explore different parts of the world and how they celebrate Xmas. You could go to my country, Spain, and find out what "the Mass of the Rooster" is or what "hogueras" are.You could also read about your own country (in English!) and tell us about some of its traditions for this time of the year.(Write in comments) For those of you who don't know about Christmas in Australia, go to this interesting site, Christmas in Australia, and read about many different aspects of an Aussie Christmas.Labels: ESL, ESOL, multiculturalism, p2p, web 2.0
Nielsen Park, Sydney (dusk) - Last Sunday a group of friends celebrated the birthday of one of us with a picnic in Nielsen Park. If you haven't been there, go during the holidays. It is a beautiful safe beach-it has a shark net- with a big park full of huge fig trees, which makes it perfect for picnics.
A couple of weeks ago I told two of our ESOL students about it and they took themselves there by public transport. From Nielsen Park they walked to Vaucluse House, visited it and continued their walk to Pasley Bay and finally Watsons Bay. They loved it and thanked me for having recommended it to them. So, if you want to see a diferent area of Sydney, get yourself a map, train /bus timetable, or drive there, and search the net for information on the park, bushwalks, Vaucluse House, etc. and ...enjoy Sydney!
While you are searching for information, see if you can answer these questions:
- Who runs Nielsen Park?
- How long is the Hermitage Foreshore walk?
- What facilities are there?
- Who runs Vaucluse House?
- When was it built?
- Who lived there?
- What architectural style was it built in?
- What can you do in a day there?
- How long is the walk from Nielsen Park to Watson's Bay (you can measure it in Google Earth)
- Visit our Sydney's People Podcast and listen to Dimitra's interview.
- Keep visiting Time4English. Chose whatever activities you feel like doing.
Labels: ESL, ESOL, multiculturalism, p2p, web 2.0
Last class for 2005
Today is our last class. We can do many things, but first have a look at
Yuki's Podcast in his blog, Torpedo.
Visit our
Sydney's People Podcast, listen to the
Birthday Podcard and answer the questions. There's a more challenging text about intercultural exchanges below the podcast, read it and tell us what you think in the
forum.
If you want to learn how to post voice too, read the
instructions on how to record your voice, posted in Sydney's People Podcast.
Please read the post about the
New Zealand blogs.Karen, the teacher, has emailed saying they are interested in doing something together next year. So it looks as if we may be doing work with Italy and New Zealand. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to visit them in person? I'm afraid virtual tourism is more probable!
You can listen to the news in
Time4English an then chose anything you feel like doing from their extensive range of activities.
Some new students haven't had time to go into our online module
Approaches to Learning. Today would be a good time to do itl, so that you can work at home during the holidays... if you haven't got more interesting things to do!
Anyway, enjoy your long break and keep an eye on this blog. I'll try to find interesting things for you to do. I would love if you did the same and keep me and each other entertained with your blogs and podcasts.
See you next year!
Labels: ESL, ESOL, multiculturalism, p2p, web 2.0
New Zealand Blogs
A teacher of English from New Zealand has written a post about our blog. Read it
here.You can also visit her class blog, called
PI BW Class blog (term 4).Have a look at your blogs and read the comments her students may have left. If they left their own URL (the address of their blog), visit their blogs and write comments too.
This is part of what we've mentioned in several occasions, communicating with other ESL students from different parts of the world. Hopefully you can continue working on your blogs during the summer break.
Labels: ESL, ESOL, multiculturalism, p2p, web 2.0
Party Time
Thank you everyone for the great end of year party!
Thanks a million from Marion for the surprise birthday party! She was really touched. We are going to miss you a lot, but it's good that you are all going to continue with your studies, either English or other courses.
I'm waiting to get some of your photos, but meanwhile these are the ones I took. You can see the rest in flickr by clicking on any of these.
Lisa has given me her photos, these are some of them, 
but if you want to see more, you'll have to visit
Lisa's blog (on the rightside bar).If you want to see them bigger, click on any of them and you will be taken to flickr, where they are hosted.
Now back to work!
- There's a new podcast in Sydney's People Podcast. Listen to it and answer the questions to help you with the listening. You will also have to write some new questions for your classmates to answer. The first part is a bit noisy, but Nicole's voice is clear.
- Go to Time4English and do the listening in News Stories Library-Upper Intermediate- Aboriginal Culture
- Today I'd like everybody to enter the online module. New students haven't had a chance to use it and it'd be nice to do it before the summer break, so that you know how to access it during the holidays.
Labels: ESL, ESOL, multiculturalism, p2p, web 2.0
Today I want to introduce you to the world of
podcasts.
- Search the net. You could use alltheweb.com (remember what the librarian told us yesterday) and get an explanation of podcast.
- Go to the link Sydney's People and listen to the 2 podcasts. You can have a look at more photos from Spain in flickr by clicking on any of the ones on the Trip to Spain post.
- Answer the questions about the Interview with a university student.
- Now go to the forum and give your opinion about the question for this week.
Labels: ESL, ESOL, multiculturalism, p2p, web 2.0
From the Sydney Opera House, Happy New Year!
Let's hope 2006 brings peace and happiness to everyone.
