Week 5

G'day all!

I hope you enjoyed your week without me! I hope the assessment wasn't too hard! I hope it will make interesting reading over the next few days!

I had a fantastic time in Melbourne. I won some money on Derby Day but sadly, didn't back the winner on Cup Day! Did any of you have a 'flutter' on the Cup? I met some really lovely people during my stay there and hopefully I'll be able to catch up with them again in Sydney!

This will actually be our last computer class because, traditionally, EFS have a 'party' on the last day. As we mentioned earlier, we'll have class in the morning but at lunch time we'll stop and enjoy some time together over lunch. I will of course invite the other teachers to join us!

So, what to do for the final class? Well, as we were looking at newspapers this morning, I'd like you to try this online quiz about understanding newspapers.

Then, you can select an online story, print it off, and then write a summary of it. You MUST hand in both the article and the summary to me! In addition to the summary, include the topic of the article, the source, the register (formal or informal) and give examples to show this. Also, include 5 new words from the text. If time permits, use them in sentences to show you understand the meaning AND if you still have time, give your opinion of the article!!! 

Wow, that should keep you occupied for a while!!

It's been a real pleasure teaching you all. You are a very competent, enthusiastic group of students. I've enjoyed turning up each Tuesday to help you improve your reading skills. I wish you all the very best for the future and hope you continue to develop your English skills.

Take care, good luck and even though it's early, Happy Christmas to you and your families! Don't forget us!

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Week 4

G'day all

I hope you've had a good week. Just a short post today!

It won't be long now before you get to the end of the course but I'm sure you won't miss the assessments!

Today, you can finish off the Halloween webquest.

When you finish that, have a look at the Moodle and print off Topic 15 which is on the Melbourne Cup. A very special event on the cultural calendar!

Enjoy the break from blogging next week! Have a good week and I'll see you when I return from Melbourne.

Week 3

G'day all

It's hard to believe that we had such warm weather when you think of yesterday and today! I heard on the radio that it's a feature of spring weather to have such  up and down temperatures!

I hope you had a successful excursion last Wednesday. Feel free to write about it in your blog if you want a bit of writing practice!

Well done to those of you who ALMOST worked out the 2 sentences from last week's Wordle! At least you were able to group adjectives with nouns to make sense!

Today (and perhaps next week) I've got a webquest for you on the theme of Halloween! Have you heard of it? Is it celebrated in your country? Feel free to share your knowledge of this event in the Comments section at the end of this post BEFORE starting the webquest. Then you can check back later and see if you were right!

I've printed the worksheets but you'll have to follow the online links to work out the answers to the questions. They are quite varied! It doesn't matter which order you do them in! In lots of the tasks, you DO NOT have to read the complete text, only a paragraph or two so don't panic yet!

OK, now you've read this post, come and see me and I'll give you the worksheets!

Good luck and happy blogging!

 

Week 2

G'day all

Congratulations to those of you who scored 100% on your Skillwise quizzes last week! I hope your certificates will have pride of place in your living rooms! :-)

Today, I'd like you to start by deciphering the text below and writing it out coherently. There are a couple of variations that you could end up with! As long as it makes sense, that will do! It is part of a news report and there are only 2 sentences in the actual report. All the articles, prepositions and pronouns have been removed! I'll give you the text later! Numbers are also missing and you'll need them! You'll need $12,000; 83 & 20!



When you have worked that out, have a look at one of today's online newspapers. Choose from The Sydney Morning Herald or The Daily Telegraph. Scan the headlines for an article that interests you. Read it, look up any new vocabulary then write a summary of the article in your blog. Post me a comment when you've finished so I can check it out! Please indicate the source of the article!

If you still have time left, see if the same news items appears on the other paper and compare the reports.

If you STLL have time, ask me to give you something else to do!

Happy blogging!

Term 4, Week 1

G'day all!

Welcome back to your final term of AEFS!

I hope you all enjoyed the break to catch up on a bit of whatever!! I hope you are all well rested and ready for what promises to be a short but intensive term!

As for my break,  I did a bit of well needed spring cleaning and managed to get to the gym on a more regular basis! I also managed to indulge in my passion of scrapbooking and card making on more than one occasion! Unfortunately, everything will now be put 'on hold' again as I concentrate on work!

I hope you all remembered to put your clocks forward on Saturday night! I

Well, let's get to it! For today's activity, I'd like you to look at the Skillwise website and complete the activities on text types. There are a few to complete so do as many as you can to check your understanding. You'll need to read the texts AND complete the tasks. Do the text types game, the types of text game and the Entry 3 quiz!

See me if you're unsure of what you have to do! Here's the link.

When you finish these tasks, you can go to your blog and write your opinion on how doing these online activites can help you to improve your English language skills.

Happy blogging!

Week 6

G'day all

I hope you're enjoying the milder temperatures Sydney has been experiencing over the past couple of weeks! It does make a break from the cold, dark mornings that seemed to drag on forever!

Well done on last week's newspaper reading.

Today's activity is a little bit different! It's an online reading task which involves skimming and scanning to solve clues to a 'crime'! I hope you're up for it! Can you help Angela Spelling? Click on the link to the video and follow the clues! Please write a summary of the activity in your blog when you finish! You can write it as a recount of what you had to do or a description of the game or a review! Your choice of text type! 

When you finish that, click on this link to Textbuilder and try some of the activities! They're quite challenging but fun too!

If you still have time, you can  look at some of the websites on this home page and do some other reading or grammar activities.

Good luck and happy blogging!

Week 5

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G'day all!

Welcome to spring! Last Friday I went into the city to have lunch with a couple of friends. Any idea where we ended up? (There are clues in the slide show!) I'll give a little 'prize' to the first person who can correctly identify the EXACT location of our lunch venue!

I hope you're feeling a bit more relaxed now that you've completed your research assignment! You should then be able to complete the activities for me today!

First of all, do the work from last week. Here's an extra question? Why was Matthew Coudrey's latest gold medal win historic?

Now, click on this link to the AEFS Moodle. You'll have to ask me for the 'enrolment key' so you can log on. Once you've done that, click on the link to 10752 so you can accesss today's reading text and questions. When you've printed off the worksheets and answered the questions, hand your work up to me to correct for you.

I couldn't resist this unusual video and news story so have a look if you dare!!!!

Good luck and happy blogging!