Wednesday, December 18th, 2013

Hooray for the holidays!

This afternoon, I'm going to give you the chance once again to choose what you'd like to work on. Here are some more of my favourite websites for practicing English.                                                                                                                       

Grammar:

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html (Verb Tense Review)

http://www.grammarbank.com/verb-tenses-practice.html (Verb Tense Review)

http://www.sdc.uwo.ca/writing/handouts/Verb%20Tenses.pdf (Verb Tenses)

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/askaboutenglish/

Listening:

http://www.englishpage.com/listening/

Pronunciation:

http://www.evaeaston.com/

IELTS Preparation:

http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-test/free-practice-tests

For those of you celebrating Christmas, a very Merry Christmas to you and your family! Happy New Year and a Prosperous 2014 for all of you! 

Wednesday, December 11th, 2013

Good afternoon LINC 7,

Today, I'm going to let you choose what you would like to do.  I have posted a number of links for a variety of different skills.  Please choose the ones you would like to practice. 

Canadian Heritage Minutes:
http://www.gotaminute.ca/

101 Things Canadians Should Know About Canada:
http://www.101things.ca/

Grammar:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/grammar_challenge/  (Various grammar topics)

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/quick-grammar (Various grammar topics)

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/grammar.htm (Various grammar topics)

http://www.grammar-monster.com/ (Various grammar topics)


Pronunciation:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/activities/phonemic-chart

http://esol.britishcouncil.org/pronunciation/identify-stressed-syllables (Syllable Stress)

http://colorvowelchart.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=
article&id=47&Itemid=56  (Colour-coded vowels)

Listening:

http://www.cbc.ca/ottawa/esl/lessons.html  (Canadian context listening)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/  (6 Minute podcasts)


IELTS Practice:

http://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/about-the-exam/ (General information and practice questions)

Wednesday, December 4th, 2013

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, you're going to continue practicing with pronouns.  First, you'll view the PPT slides and then practice the interactive exercises.  I will give you a copy of the handout to go with interactive exercises, so you can keep track of your answers and check them.

http://www.chompchomp.com/presentations.htm

Start with:

1. Pronoun Case- 4.7

2. Pronoun Agreement- 4.4 

Once you've finished with the pronouns, you're going to move on to speaking exercises.  This website gives you examples of the three parts of the IELTS speaking exam, as well as sample answers for your to listen to.

http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-your-test/free-practice-tests/speaking-practice-test-1/speaking-part-1

Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 27th, 2013

Good afternoon LINC 7,


This afternoon, you're going to be writing about the bar graphs from pg. 189.  Write one paragraph for each graph, and write one paragraph comparing this information with what generally happens in your country. Are the results similar or different?  Don't forget to begin with an introduction and finish with a conclusion.

Your writing is due before the end of class. Please email or share your work.

If you finish early, here are some additional exercises on nouns for you to try:

http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/nouns_different_types.htm

Wednesday, November 20th, 2013

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, you're going to prepare presentations.  You will have this period to prepare, and you will presentation on your topic on Monday after lunch.  

You will work in pairs (of your choice), and your presentation must be 10 minutes long.  I would also like you to use PowerPoint or Presentation in Google Drive.  Each group will present on a different topic.


Helpful hints: 

• Don't put to much information on your individual slides.  You're telling people about your topic not giving them a slide to read
• Don't use more than 10 slides, including the title slide
• Check your spelling
• Use pictures, graphs, and charts where necessary.

To create your presentation, follow the instruction of pg. 188 of handout from Monday on 'The Census Snapshot of Canada- Families.'

Here's the website for Statistics Canada:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/ind01/l2_40000-eng.htm

Under the heading 'Families, households and housing', you will find information relevant to each of the topics.

Please provide an overview of your topic.  You will need to review the information, analyze it, and then create a brief overview in your own words. You may copy some of the charts if they are necessary.   

Wednesday, November 13th, 2013

                                                                                                        

                                                        

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, you're going to continue practicing the TOEFL integrated writing task.

You will be completing exercises on the Longman TOEFL cd (which I will give each of you).

First, please click on the 'Skills' section of the Main Menu.  Then, click on 'Writing.'  Finally, click on 'Integrated Writing' and start working on Task 1.

Once you've completed these tasks, return to the main menu and click on 'Mini Tests'.   Click on 'Mini Test 1' and select 'Writing Mini Test 1.'  Read the text, and then, listen to the lecture on the same topic.  Writing your essay using the strategies we've discussed in class.  Before exiting the writing, copy and paste your work into a Word document or Google Drive document and email or share it with me.  

Monday, November 11th, 2013

This morning, we read the poem "In Flanders Fields," 

talked about Remembrance Day, and attended the 

Remembrance Day service.



Below you will see a photo of the West Hamilton 

Cenotaph for WW1 and WW2 veterans from West 

Hamilton.  This year, the West Hamilton celebrated its 

88th year of Remembrance, and was commemorated by 

the City of Hamilton with the plaque below. 

___________________________________________________________________________


TOEFL Integrated Writing:

Last Wednesday, we completed our first TOEFL integrated writing.  You had some 

difficulties synthesizing the information from the listening and reading and 

putting it together into an essay response.


Here's a sample task to help you complete these types of tasks:

http://www.slideshare.net/AjaanPaul/toefl-integrated-writing-task

Wednesday, October 30th

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, we're going to practice working with graphs....I know, I know, I can hear you groaning, ;)...but graphs and knowing how to interpret and write about graphs is an important skill for test taking and future employment.

Please begin with the exercises on this website:

http://www.elanguages.ac.uk/los/eap/introduction_to_describing_graphs_and_tables.html

Once you've complete these exercises, please complete the IELTS, Task 1, writing task.  Please pay careful attention to the word count.  You must write at least 150 words.  You writing is due at the end of class. You can email it or share it using Google Drive.

Enjoy,
Kim

Extra Credit:
http://lnkd.in/bk_NehX

Wednesday, October 23rd

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, we're going to practice some different types of listening.  The first tasks are IELTS listening tasks.  First, you will try an IELTS practice listening test. I will give you an answer sheet to record your answers on. Please pay close attention to the directions and spelling. Writing too many words or spelling them incorrectly is considered an incorrect answer. :( 

http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-test/free-sample-tests/listening-sample-test-1/listening-section-1

Next, go the following website, "BBC: 6 Minute English" and choose a podcast that interests you.  Once you've listened to it, write a brief summary of what you've heard.  Make sure to use your own words. Do not use direct quotes. Also, don't forget to include the title of the podcast that you choose.  Your writing is due at the end of class.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/


Enjoy!
Kim

Idiom of the Day: Monday, October 21st

* to hit one's stride

Ex.: Don't worry. You haven't hit your stride yet.

Meaning: ________________

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, you are going to complete the writing exercises from page 25-26 of the grammar handout. You will using the present perfect and/or present perfect continuous in your letter.  Please email or share your letter once you're finished.

If you'd like some more practice with the present perfect/present perfect continuous, have a look at the pictures below and try some of the exercises contained in the links.  

EnglishPage.com
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html (Exercises 5-10)

                                   

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013

Today, I would like you to finish working on your report for Part 1 of "Who on Earth Are We?"  Once you're finished, please submit it via email or share it using Google Drive.  

Language Learning Style

• What kind of language learner are you? 
• What helps you to be successful? 
• What are some strategies that you could improve?

Now, we're going to complete a 'Learning Style' questionnaire to see how we really learn.  Once we have collected this information, we can compare the data with our reflections about the four questions about language learning and compare the styles of different class members.

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, we're going to continue working on the academic listening that we started on Monday.  You can review Part 2 if you wish.

Please listen to Part 3 and answer the questions from the handout that I gave you on Monday.  You can look at the text for the listening, but please don't do this until you have listened at least twice.  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/talkaboutenglish/2009/04/090427_tae_al.shtml

After you've answered the questions, please listen to Part 1 of  "Who on Earth are We" (*Note: you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the page to find Part 1).  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/webcast/tae_whoonearth_archive.shtml

Please take careful notes of the main ideas.  Once you have a good understanding of what you've heard, you will write a report about the content.  Don't worry statistics, tables, etc at this point.  You're only responsible for reporting on the information that you've collected.  Think carefully about how to present and organize the information.  

Here's the webpage that we looked at together in class:
http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/reports

Enjoy!
Kim

Wednesday, September 25th

Good afternoon LINC 7,

This afternoon, I'm going to give you some time to practice the verb tenses that we've been working on. The website below contains exercises on all of the verb tenses in English.  Today, we'll focus only on Exercises 1-4 (the present and past simple and continuous tenses).  Please try a few of the exercises.  The second link contains information and exercises for the state verbs.

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/stative-verbs

Finally, I would like you to review the corrections from last week's writing.  Once you reviewed last week's week, I would like you to create a comparison between Canada and your country.  To do this, you will use a Venn Diagram to compare the similarities and differences.  You may need to do some research to find some statistics.


Here's the link to the CBC '1 Day' website for your reference.  You may also refer to your notes.
http://1day.cbc.ca/


You present your comparison to us next week and discuss the similarities and differences.

Wednesday, September 18th , 2013

Here are the notes that we created from watching Part 1 of the '1 Day' documentary.

http://1day.cbc.ca/home

Questions to consider:

• What have you learned so far?
• Were surprised by anything you've seen or learned so far?
• What did you think will happen to the characters in the second half of their day?
• Can you locate all of the these places on the map? 
• What do you know about the people and places that you've heard about? For example: the Northwest Passage? Measha Brueggergosman? Nunavut? etc?

Please write about your impressions of the documentary so far.  What do you think the message of the documentary is?

Use this diagram to help with your summarizing:

Monday, September 9, 2013

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/courses/elc/Sample/Beginner/gs/gs_01.htm

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/partsp.html

____________________________________________________________

Review of Parts of Speech:

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/rvpartsp.html

____________________________________________________________

Listening-Writing Task:

You will listen to an online documentary, take notes about what you hear, and then, write a summary of what you've heard.

What is a summary?

• much shorter than the original text
• written in your own words and NOT COPIED from the original
• provides a broad overview of the entire text

The process of summary writing:

____________________________________________________________

Now listen to the documentary and take careful notes.  Use the map of Canada to help you keep track of the places and events.

http://1day.cbc.ca/home