Week 4, Monday June 15

Hello Higher-Intermediate students and welcome to my strangely-named blog!

You'll probably use this blog for various activities over the next few weeks, and possibly even start your own, but for today, all you need is this link to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Online (OALD). Click it now and use it when you're completing your vocabulary cards.

You can easily find it any time by typing "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" into Google and clicking the first link that you see.

Answers

1. There are a few similarities between Brisbane and Incheon. Nevertheless, both have one thing in common.

2. It's free to take the buses. Nevertheless only a few people use them.

3. Although houses in Seoul are so expensive, many people have their jobs in Seoul…

4. Incheon is the nearest city to Seoul…

5. Now, it is winter in Korea including Incheon but it is summer in Brisbane.

6. There is another difference, related to the traffic system.

7. Despite that, people don't use the buses much.

8. Although Brisbane is a tenth as big as Seoul, the population of Seoul is much higher than Brisbane's. (the population of Brisbane is 1.857.594, but the population of Seoul is 10.356.000 (2006))

9. First, the population of Seoul is much higher than Brisbane's.

10. Most residential buildings are one or two storey houses.

11. In contrast to Brisbane, there are a lot of apartments in Seoul.

12. We both have four seasons and a big river.

13. Nevertheless, the buses in Gwang-ju have no vacant seats.

14. I don't want to make a comparison between these two cities…

15. …both allow you to do a lot of sports…

16. I think Seoul is one of the most developed cities…

17. …there is too much rain in summer in Seoul.

18. At first , I was a little surprised, but I'm getting used to Brisbane.

19. It's hard to see foreigners…

20. …in Brisbane they use a ferry as a means of transportation but not in Deajeon.

Week 8

Morning all!

This morning we're going to look at your wonderful writing from last week.

Stage 1

• Work in pairs.
• The list of 20 sentences below are all from your writing last week. Copy them into a Word file.
• Work with your partner to find the mistakes and correct them in Word.
• I'll post the answers here on my blog in about 15-20 minutes so you can check.

1. There are few of similarities between Brisbane and Incheon. Nevertheless, both have one thing in common.

2. It's free to take the busses, nevertheless only few people use them.

3. Although the house in Seoul is so expensive, many people have their jobs in Seoul…

4. Incheon is the nearest cities to Seoul…

5. Now, the season is the winter in Korea including Incheon but it is the summer in Brisbane.

6. There is another difference, related to traffic system.

7. Despite that people doesn't use the busses much.

8. Alhough Brisnane is a tenth as big as Seoul, population of Seoul is much more than Brisbane. (population of Brisbane is 1.857.594, but popultion of Seoul is 10.356.000 (2006))

9. First, population of Seoul is much more than Brisbane.

10. Almost of residential buildings are one or two storied houses.

11. In contrast to Brisbane, there are a lot of apartment in Seoul.

12. We both have four season and big river.

13. Nevertheless, the buses in Gwang-ju have no vacant seat.

14. I don't want to make a comparison between this two cities…

15. …the both allow to practice a lot of sports…

16. I think Seoul is one of the most developed city…

17. …there are too much rains in summer in Seoul.

18. At first time , I little suprised, but I get accustomed to Brisbane.

19. It's hard to see foreigner…

20. …in Brisbane they use a ferry as a transportation but not in Deajeon.

Week 7

Morning all! Welcome to week 7.

This morning we're doing to do a reading activity. To prepare for it, and to do some listening practice, we're going to watch a short YouTube clip of the first 5 minutes of the film, Super Size Me.

Click here to watch the clip and open this link in a new window to read the transcript as you listen. Check any words you don't know in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

Week 7 task: Contrasts

Welcome to this week's blog task!

This week, we've looked at a couple of areas of grammar & vocabulary (countable/uncountable nouns, discourse markers for expressing contrast, expressions for making comparisons).

This week's blog task aims are for you:

1. to apply recently learned grammar and vocabulary;

2. to practice descriptive writing;

3. to practice editing your own writing;

4. to read and respond to your classmates' writing.

Stage 1 (we did this yesterday!):

• Think of two cities/towns/villages that you've lived in or know fairly well (for example, these could be Brisbane and your hometown).


• Make note of as many differences and similarities as you can between those two places.

Stage 2:

• Read the text I've written below comparing Brisbane and Edinburgh.


• Work in pairs: Discuss these questions regarding the structure of the text:

- How many paragraphs are there? What is the purpose of each paragraph?

- How many different comparing/contrasting expressions are used?

- I've used several that we haven't discussed in class yet. Which ones are they?

When I was growing up, I moved around a lot with my family; by the time I was 16, I had lived in five different countries. As an adult, however, the two places where I've spent most time are Brisbane and Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.

Although Brisbane is much larger than Edinburgh in terms of population (Brisbane's population is 1.8 million, whereas Edinburgh's is less than 500,000), they are quite similar in a number of ways. Firstly, the actual central business districts (or CBDs) of the two cities are fairly small and compact - much smaller than those of Sydney or London, for example. In contrast, the suburbs of the two metropolises sprawl out for miles into the surrounding areas.

This compactness contributes to the relatively relaxed and laidback vibe that I think both cities have. I've also lived in London and, in comparison, the lifestyle in both Brisbane and Edinburgh is much more easygoing. Similarly, the smaller size of the two cities means that it is quick and easy to escape the city centre and find some fresh air, which really helps to reduce the stress level.

Another similarity between Brisbane and Edinburgh relates to music. Both cities have pretty small music scenes, with few venues or decent bands. Also, many touring overseas bands ignore Brisbane and Edinburgh when they visit Australia or Scotland. Melbourne and Glasgow, on the other hand, are larger cities have flourishing music scenes and no self-respecting musician would ever miss those two places on an Australian tour!

Nevertheless, there are a number of major differences between Brisbane and Edinburgh. The main one is history: Edinburgh is far older than Brisbane - about four hundred years older, in fact. As a result, the two cities have developed in very different ways. The oldest surviving buildings in Brisbane - the Windmill on Wickham Street, and the Old Commissariat Store on William Street - were built by convicts in 1828. The oldest building in Edinburgh, in contrast, was built in the 12th century! In addition, Edinburgh is divided into two parts: the Old Town and the New Town, which dates from about 1766. Even in the New Tow, there is a lot of architectural consistency. Brisbane's architecture has no such consistency; it's just one big architectural mess, really!

So, particularly in terms of lifestyle and music, Brisbane and Edinburgh are quite similar. As far as history and architecture go, however, the two cities could hardly be more different!

Stage 3:

• Using my text as a model, and your thoughts and notes from Stage 1, write your first draft of your own comparison of two places you know well.
• Remember to use a variety of linking expressions (but, although, however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite) and comparing/contrasting expressions.
• Be careful with your use of nouns. When you use a noun in your writing, think about it: Is it countable or uncountable? Should it be singular or plural? Does it an article (a/an, the) or a quantifier (some, any, many, a few, a little) before it?

Happy writing!

The Bell Divers

Vytor has just asked me about the name of my band, so to save time, I'm posting the name and the link to our website.

We're called the Bell Divers, and this is our website: www.thebelldivers.com. You can read about us and some of the things people have written about us, look at some photos of us, and download our debut album for free!

Heroes: Day Four activities

Good morning bloggers!

I hope you're enjoying blogging as much as I am :-) I've really enjoyed reading your blogs so far and I think you've done a great job with your articles about your 'heroes'. I feel like I know you all a little bit better now! Fabio and Diego, I'm looking forward to reading yours when you've posted them.

Here are the activities for today!

Activity 1: Edit and re-write

• Work on your own.
• Read carefully through the printed-out version of your blog post about your hero, and think about how you can correct the highlighted errors.
• Edit post your post, making any necessary changes.
• Publish it when it's ready.

Activity 2: Read others' work

• Read the blog posts that your classmates have written and find out about their heroes.
• Add comments at the bottom of their posts to give them some feedback.
• Find the answers to the questions below and post them to your blog.

1. What does Minsun admire about Myung bo Hong?
2. How have Tolkien's books influenced Alain?
3. Why was 2002 such an important year for Ronaldo?
4. What sets Lewis Hamilton apart from other Formula-1 drivers?
5. According to Agnes, how does Rod Stewart feel about London, his birthplace?
6. In what ways is Richard P. Feynman unlike most scientists?
7. What is so significant about Heath Ledger receiving an Oscar award?

Activity 3: A song

• Copy the incomplete lyrics to David Bowie's 1977 classic, 'Heroes' to a new post on your blog.
• Listen to the song and watch the video.
  
• If you prefer, you can listen to Queen and David Bowie playing the song live or Oasis 
• Complete the lyrics while you listen and post them to you blog when you've finished.
• Check your answers with a partner.
• Read the complete lyrics.

'Heroes' 

by David Bowie

I, I ____ _____ ______ _____

Like the __________, like dolphins can swim

Though nothing,

_______ _____ ______ ____ _________

We can beat them, for ever and ever

Oh ___ ____ ___ _______, 

just for one day

I, __ ____ ___ ______

And you, you will be queen

Though nothing will drive them away

___ ____ ___ _______, just for one day

We can be us, just for one day

I, I can remember (I remember)

Standing, by the wall (by the wall)

And the guns shot above our heads

(over our heads)

And we kissed, 

as though nothing could fall

(nothing could fall)

And the shame was on the other side

Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever

Then we could be heroes, 

just for one day

We can be heroes

We can be heroes

We can be heroes

Just for one day

We can be heroes

Week 5 task: Heroes

Welcome to our Week 5 task,

which I've decided to call

'Heroes'.

We'll do it in different stages over several days.

The aims of this task are:

1. To practice reading and listening to authentic English-language texts.

2. To write a description of a personal 'hero'.

3. To read classmates' descriptions and comment on them.

When you're reading my blog and you see a word highlighted like this, it's a word that I think might be new or unfamiliar to you. Look these words up in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Online

(which you'll find here: http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/?cc=global) and write them down in your notebook or on a vocabulary card.

DAY ONE

Activity 1: What is a 'hero'?

• Work in pairs.
• Go to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Online and search for 'hero'.
• Does the definition sound a bit sexist? What's the feminine equivalent of 'hero'?
• How many different definitions are given? Aim #2 above says that you're going to write a description of a personal hero, so which definition is most appropriate for this task?

Activity 2: Who are your heroes?

• Work in pairs.
• Think of a person you admire because of a particular quality or skill that they have. For this task, because you're going to research them on the internet, choose a public figure, not a family member or friend. Think of the following:

1. Who are they?
2. What biographical information do you know about them?
3. Why do you admire them?

• Tell your partner about the person you've chosen, thinking about the answers to questions 1-3 above.

Activity 3: Read about one of my heroes, Neil Young

• Work in pairs.
• Below is a description of one of my heroes, Neil Young. I'd like you to read it and then discuss these two questions with your partner:

1. What do I admire about Neil Young?
2. What is the significance of the sub-title, "Burning, but not burning out"?

• Add a comment at the end of this blog post telling me the answers to the questions.
• Check the words highlighted like this using the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Online (see link above).

NEIL YOUNG:

Burning,

but not burning out

Neil Young is a legendary musician from Canada who sings, writes songs and plays a number of instruments (acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, organ and piano). I've been listening to his music for most of my life; I can't remember when I first heard his name or his music. My parents used to play his music in the house as I was growing up, particularly one of his albums, Comes A Time, that was released in 1978, the year I was born. I guess that's where the connection really started.

I really started to pay attention to Neil Young in 1993, when I saw him performing live on MTV with Pearl Jam, my favourite band at that time (you can watch the performance of Neil's song 'Rockin' in the Free World' here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF1kCpCl9a4; and read the lyrics to the song here: http://www.thrasherswheat.org/fot/lyrics_ritfw.htm). Pearl Jam revealed that they were heavily influenced by Neil Young and his music, and this intrigued me: what was it about him that my younger musical idols found so inspiring?

Since then, I've been slowly collecting his albums (I now own about 18 of them) and I've seen him perform live twice (in 2003 and on January 21st this year - one of the best concerts I've ever been to). Recently, I've been reading an excellent biography of him and been listening to his music more than ever (actually, my wife Chrissie, who loves his music as well, is fed up with me playing his music around the house all the time at the moment!).

Musically, his long career (his first album was released in 1966!) is an inspiration. Even at the age of 63, he attacks his instrument with an energy and passion that surpasses most musicians a third of his age and, over the last 40 or so years, he has lost none of his skill or intensity. Even in 2009, he's still making some of the loudest, angriest and rawest music of his career. If you look at him onstage with Pearl Jam in that YouTube clip from 1993 - the members of Pearl Jam just stand back and watch him in awe!

In 1979, at the age of 34, he sang, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." Ever since Kurt Cobain quoted it famously in his 1994 suicide note, it has undoubtedly been not only his most well-known lyric, but also his most misunderstood. In my opinion, it means that you should live your entire life with passion and energy, rather than slowly lose that passion and energy as you get older and die unsatisfied and unfulfilled. I think there's a lot of truth in that statement.

His passion and energy is not limited to his music. His other major obsessions are vintage cars and model trains! In fact, he has used his talent for engineering and electronics to design, among other things, an electronic model train control system for use by disabled people. This was inspired by his son Ben, who was born with cerebral palsy and cannot speak.

Neil Young actually has two sons with cerebral palsy, though his elder son Zeke's condition is not as severe as Ben's. When Ben was born in 1980, Young's life and musical career was thrown into turmoil. Throughout the previous decade, he had experienced massive success, but now he had to balance his musical ambitions with his total determination to help his son. As a result, his career and reputation fell into a major decline that lasted most of the 1980s. Many of his fans and his record company became disillusioned with him and many abandoned him completely. Out of love and respect for his son, though, he never discussed the cause of this decline with anyone else.

In addition to his commitment to do the best for his sons, Young and his wife Pegi have done a lot of valuable work for a various charities, much of which they have shunned recognition or publicity for.

What all this adds up to, then, is a man who has spent the last 40-plus years refusing to fade away and, in 2009, is still as energetic and impassioned as ever. Long may he run.

Activity 4: Grammar in context

• Work in pairs.
• Look again at the text above and, with your partner's help, identify all the examples of Present Perfect Simple and Present Perfect Continuous verb forms. Write them down in your notebook.
• Discuss with your partner these questions:

Why did I use that tense?

Why didn't I use other tenses?

For example, in the first paragraph, I used Present Perfect Continuous in this sentence: "I've been listening to his music for most of my life." Why didn't I use Present Perfect Simple ("I've listened..."), Past Simple ("I listened..."), Past Perfect Simple ("I'd listened), Past Perfect Continuous ("I'd been listening...) or Present Continuous ("I''m listening...")?

WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED THIS ACTIVITY, WE'LL RETURN TO CLASS AND DISCUSS THESE ACTIVITIES TOGETHER.

Welcome to the world of blog!

Good morning Higher Intermediate students and

welcome to my blog, the Unity of Opposites!

This morning, I'd like you to start your own blog. If you've done this before, it will be pretty easy. If you haven't done it before, it shouldn't be too hard to learn. I've written a blog before but I've never asked students to start in class, so this might be a bit of an experiment for all of us! :-)

There are several purposes to this activity:

1. For you to practice reading, listening and writing (well, typing really!) in English.

2. To practice listening to and following instructions in English.

3. To encourage you to communicate regularly in English.

4. For you to interact with classmates in English in a new way.

5. For you to express yourselves in a more 'free' way than might be possible in class.

6. To provide some variety to your English studies.

I hope you enjoy doing it and get something out of it personally. It'd also be great to see you continue your blog after today. If, however, it's not really your cup of tea and you're not very keen on it, that's fine; just focus on purpose #1 above (to practice reading, listening and writing in English).

There's just one simple rule that I'd like you to follow:

Don't include anything that might offend others (e.g., swearing, negative personal comments) - remember that other people in the class will read your blog.

What to do

1. First, have a look at another blog. This is an interesting one: http://thetravelphotographer.blogspot.com/

1. The next thing to do is to start creating your own, so put the headphones on, and have a look at this short instructional video: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BnploFsS_tY

2. Then, following the instructions in the video, create your own blog.

3. When you are ready to start writing your blog, open Microsoft Word and begin writing your response to the following tasks in a Word document:

Imagine you had more time each week to do the things you enjoy. Write about how you would spend that time (e.g., If I had more time, first of all I think I would have some piano lessons.)

Think about major decisions you have made in the past. Imagine if you had made a different choice. Explain to another student what you think you might have done. (e.g., If I hadn't come to Australia, I would have stayed in my country and I'd probably be still working.)

4. Use Word to improve your grammar, punctuation and spelling (if something is underlined in red, the spelling is wrong; if something is underlined in green, the grammar or punctuation is wrong). Ask me for help if necessary.

5. Copy your text from Word into the 'Edit post' area of Blogger and when you're happy with it, click the 'Publish Post' button.

6. When you've finished your blog, it's time to share it with me and your classmates. Come back to my blog and click on the 'Follow this blog' link in the top right hand corner, under the 'Unity of Opposites' title. Choose to 'Follow publicly' and click 'Follow'.

7. Click on the other people who are 'following' my blog so you can read their blogs. Comment on the blogs you read.

And that's it! I hope you've had fun

and I look forward to reading your blogs :-)