Congratulations to Bob 'twins father'

All the teachers and all the students on TBS 2 would like to say CONGRATULATIONS and best wishes to Bob (Stream A) and his wife who have just had (given birth to!!) two beautiful baby boys - yes twins! Why not visit Bob's blog and look at the photos of their new sons. Next time you see Bob say congratulations to him.

Update on BBC World Service documentary 'Top of the Class'

In a recent blog entry we told you about a BBC World Service documentary series this month called 'Top of the Class'. The first part has been broadcast and this week it's all about Finland. Here is the link to the audio of the programme which you can either download and save to your own computer or listen to as a live stream if you have a fast broadband connection.
Did you know that we have a Finnish student on TBS 2? Why not take a look at his blog and ask him a question about the education system in his country, after you've listened to the programme.

Tourism New Zealand Advertising Campaign on YouTube

On Tuesday night Tourism New Zealand begins a three month advertising campaign on video sharing web site You Tube, with a 100% Pure New Zealand video ad, made by Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop, on the front page of the site. Here's a piece about it on the TVNZ web site. The TVNZ piece gives the impression the ad will only be available on the front page of YouTube for Tuesday night. The video is fairly corny, of more interest are the 168 comments and counting!! Do you think the campaign is worth the $4 million dollars spent on it?

The remaining three months of the campaign consists of a 'New Zealand branded channel' on the web site. There are eight videos in all covering topics from wine and rugby to Maori culture. Which do you think is the best? Why not send a text comment and let Tourism New Zealand know what you think about the campaign or the videos.

'Top of the Class' BBC World Service programme on education around the world

In class we have been talking about education systems and luckily for us, this month the BBC World Service 'Wednesday Documentary' compares education systems around the world and discusses why some countries consistently come 'top of the classs' while others struggle to reach international standards.
The programme will be broadcast every Wednesday for the next four weeks, at 12.05, 17.05 & 23.05 (New Zealand time) on the frequency 801 AM.
Once the first programme has been broadcast you should be able to download it from the BBC web site and save it to your own computer so that you can listen to it in your own time again and again and again...... As soon as it has been broadcast we will put a link to the download on the blog for you.
You can see a schedule for this week's programmes on the BBC world Service at this link.

A radio interview with the Vice President of Google

There was a very interesting interview on BBC radio 4 last week (Aug 29th) with the Vice President of Google Vinton Cerf in which he dispels logically and rationally many people's concerns and worries over internet usage.
You can hear the interview by clicking on this link, although it may only be available at this link for three weeks. If you can't find it immediately you may need to look at the interview archive by scrolling back through the months.

Blog entry Two 'Class Report' Example Topic 1 'You'

In Stream A there are nine Chinese students , four Koreans, one Sri Lankan, one person from Burma, one from Iran...what a multi cultural group!
Six of us in Stream A are Citizens of New Zealand, eight of us have Permanent Residency and two of us are international students.

Newsweek Special on Global Education

There is a special report on Global Education in the Newsweek International issue dated 20.08 - 27.08.
In chapter three of the report there is particularly interesting article, 'Even in China English is King', comparing the number of non-native speakers learning Mandarin around the world with the number of non-native speakers learning English around the world. According to the article although many people around the world are learning Mandarin Chinese it will be sometime before the dominance of English as a global language or lingua franca is challenged by Mandarin.
This appears to be mainly because of the growing worldwide trend in non English speaking countries toward introducing English language teaching at the Primary school level.
The 'comments' at the bottom of this article are interesting as are the other articles in this special edition.

Noticing words and structures

Noticing the new words and structures which you learn in class, being used in speech and writing can help to reinforce what you learn and expand your understanding of it.
A great example of this occured last week when Jasun told us that she had heard on the TV news the night before a word which we had learnt in class that week. The word was flabbergasted' and it was used by a woman in the UK who had won 35.4 million pounds in the UK's Euromillions Lotto. Here's a link to an article about her win on the BBC. On this same page if you click on the link to the audio and play the video where she describes how she feltwhen she realised she had won, you can hear her using the word.
Over the next few weeks as you read your classmates' blogs, notice how they use words and stuctures such as 'have' 'have got' and 'get', the present perfect for actions which are still happening, etc. which we have been studying in class. If you're not sure if words and structures are being used correctly, look at their blog entries again in a few weeks when they have made changes based on feedback from their teacher. If the things which you thought were mistakes are the same and haven't been changed then you will know they (words and classmate) are correct. If the things which you thought were OK have been changed then you will know that you need to clarify your understanding of how a particular word or structure is used!!

Mel is English, doesn't have any children, doesn't drive and cycles to work (most days, when it's not raining). I have had two bike accidents and I've lived in Switzerland. I 've got three very old cats from Brixton and I grew up in the country.

Spell Check function

Hi everyone
just wanted to tell you about the spell check function which we have just discovered on blogger. There is an icon on your post menu which has 'ABC' and a little tick. Can you see it? If you double click on the icon it will highlight in yellow any words in your post which you have not spelt correctly. Then, if you click on the word it will provide you with some possible options of the word you were trying to spell. Try it out, make a deliberate spelling mistake and see if you can find the spell check icon.
Good Luck

Hello Stream A

Welcome to the blogosphere!!;-)

Which piece of information is about which of your teachers?

One of us is Kiwi, one of us in English, one of us is American.
We are all married. One of us hasn’t got any children, one of us has got two children and one of us has got three children. One of us got married in a cathedral. One of us has been married for eight years.
One of us lives on an island, one of us doesn’t drive and cycles to work and one of us walks to work sometimes/ One of us has got 3 cats, one of us has got two cats and a dog and one of us hasn’t got any pets

One of us has lived in Australia, one of us has lived in Pakistan and one of us has lived in Switzerland
Two of us grew up in the country, and one of us grew up near Mexico
One of us has had malaria 5 times, one of us has been a flight attendant and one of us has had two bike accidents.

Week Ten Text Blog Entry Eight - an article about my country in the international press

I'm sure you would have all seen the coverage last week on NZ TV of the British Queen's state visit to the US.

Here is a link to an article in the American press covering the visit and one from the British press. I choose these articles because I found George Bush's gaffe or slip of the tongue rather amusing. As he was recounting previous visits of the Queen, in particular the one in 1976 for the bicentennial celebrations for the country's founding, he nearly said she had been there then in 1776 for the Declaration of Independence, ageing her quite considerably! To his credit Bush acknowledged his mistake and managed to reedem himself by saying 'she gave me a look only a mother could give a child.'
The Queen got her own back later at a dinner at the British Embassy in Washington when she began her toast to the first couple by saying "I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, 'When I was here in 1776,"

171 words including quotes

Week Nine Text blog Entry - Nalini's blog about the Waitakere Diploma Trip

I really enjoyed our Diploma trip because the students are such a nice bunch! We were lucky not to get wet at the Cascades, and because the sky looked so threatening we just went for a 5 minute walk to see a huge Kauri tree. For a picture of a Kauri tree which looks much bigger than the one we saw, click on this link: http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/11698/te-matua-ngahere-223.jpg

I have provided a link instead of uploading a photo, because I found out this afternoon that we are not supposed to upload photos onto our blog unless they are our own photos!

Crystal Mountain was the next place we visited. You can find it by clicking here: http://www.crystalmountain.co.nz/

We saw many stunning pieces of crystal and rock, and a funny goat that came to eat lunch with us and scared Grace! I was delighted to try some food that my students gave me - a tasty pie from Nazi, something nice from Zainab which I think was a sort of curry in triangular pastry (I don't know what to call it), some colourful Korean sushi from Kay and some yummy food from Helen which I would call "a wrap" in English, although she probably has another name for it. Also, Margaret made some Afghan biscuits with icing and a walnut on top. In the end I didn't even have my own lunch because everybody kept giving me food and feeding me like the goat!!

I bought a pretty purple crystal inside a rock for just $5 (very cheap!) to give to our secretary because she loves things like that. Apparently the stone is called "agate". If you follow this link: http://www.crystalmountain.co.nz/ShowPage.aspx?page=7 you can see a picture on the left which has a group of gifts and includes a tall grey rock with purple in the middle. This looks like the one I bought for Joy.

Thanks for a wonderful trip!

Modern Manners and Etiquette

I came across this article in a foodie magazine which I subscribe to in my Bloglines account. It's about the new entertaining etiquette and how to be the perfect guest or the perfect host. There's an amusing little quiz you can do to find out which one you are. They both cover issues such as cell phones, gifts for the host, smoking.
Not many modal verbs in the article though!
The content for the article comes from a journalist called Leah Ingram who also has a blog where she advises on common everyday etiquette issues which seem to permeate every aspect of our lives from real estate to sending emails.

Week Six Text Blog Entry Four - a narrative or recount

Last week much of Northland and the Bay of Plenty was hit by severe rain and flooding. Four metres of rain fell in 24 hours!!
Here is a link to an article about a woman whose house was threatened by rapidly rising water from a stream usually 100m away from her house. By the end of the day the water was 20m from her back garden.
Most of the verb forms which explain what happened are in the past simple form. There are two examples of the past perfect simple.
The first one 'had been recorded' is past perfect passive and refers to the time before and up until the continuation of the 'weather warning'. The second one 'had escaped' is used in reported speech.

how to create links in your posts using google maps, wikipedia and flickr.
Here is a link to Unitec in google maps
Here is a link in wikipedia to Unitec
Here is a photo of unitec from flickr

Text Blog Portfolio - Task One - Week Three

Your first blog portfolio task is to write a short post (150 -200 words) about yourself.
Look at Mel's model on EAPL 5022 to help you. If you can, include a photo of yourself . If you do not have any digital photos of yourself tell your text teacher who will lend you the school's digital camera to take some photos.
Key information to include;

• where you come from. If you can try to find links on wikipedia to the village, town, suburb, city, area, region, province, where you come from. Also look at google maps (use the hybrid view and see if you can see your house!) Use the 'Link to this page' to provide a link to google maps in your post
• how long you've been in NZ, PR or citizen
  
• family, pets,
  
• job(s),
• other countries you've been to, lived in
• your interests or hobbies. Provide any links ( in English) which you think will explain more about your interests

When you have posted your first blog entry go and read some of your classmates' posts. Use your bloglines account to access your classmates blogs.

About Me

Hi everyone
My name is Mel and I'm the course co-ordinator for Text & Oral 2 here on the Diploma in English at Unitec.I am originally from the UK and have been in New Zealand for just over 7 years. I moved here with my Kiwi partner and our five cats, although they were quite old when we moved here and now sadly we only have 3.


I grew up in a small village called Constantine (here is a beautiful photo of the village from Flickr) near the old port of Falmouth in a beautiful somewhat isolated part of the UK at the south western tip of the country in the county of Cornwall.
Before I moved to New Zealand I lived in London, which is where I met my partner, for quite a long time. I have travelled a lot in Europe and been to four out of the five main English speaking countries. (Fuel stops in LA don't count!)
My Mum and Dad still live in Constantine and my younger sister lives near Frankfurt in Germany with her two children. You can see my neice in the photo of me above. I also have a younger brother who lives in Falmouth.
I am vegetarian and despite this, love food, eating and cooking;-) My other interests are reading, (good) music, walking, yoga, travelling ( not that I do much of that anymore!).

Hello and welcome

congratulations Stream C most of you have set up your blogs;-)