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!!;-)