Friday, May 29, 2015

Friday's Assignment

"What can you do?"
"Everything!"
Will this help land you a job in your previous place of work?
Is it good to be a jack of all trades for employment in Canada?
What about being a polymath?

"What can I do? Everything!" Quoth the jack of all trades.

Here are your tasks:
  1. Role Play with a Partner: Finding a Niche
  2. Read the first question of this article. Then read this article. Which article do you agree with? Discuss in a group of 4 or 5.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Thursday's Assignment

Have you ever encountered this excuse from employers: "No Canadian experience"?
What do you think of it? How would you answer?

    
Here are your tasks:

  1. Read Version 2 of this page on “10 Ways” first.
    1. Discuss with a partner your answer to, "Now, you don't have any Canadian experience, do you?"
    2. Record your answer to that question on chirbit.com by first asking the question and providing your answer.
  2. Find and publish a list of regulated professions in Ontario.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Feedback on the LINC Program

Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)

Our LINC program has been sponsored by Canadian taxpayers through the federal government on an annual basis. Through the LINC program, you have the opportunity to meet friends, go on field trips, learn some grammar and vocabulary, use the editing checklist, join the Tuesday conversation circle, practise the four language skills using computers and the Internet, make speeches in class, etc.

The purpose of the program is to help you improve your English communication skills and your settlement in this great country. Hopefully, most of us will wake up every day feeling a bit more Canadian than the day before.

If you feel you have benefited from any of these, please answer the following questions, and write your comments below:
  1. What were your needs/reasons for coming to LINC class?
  2. What things made your needs complicated or special?
  3. What were the results or outcomes of coming to LINC class?
  4. Share a favourite memory from LINC class.


Wednesday's Assignment

"Tell me about your abilities." "What can you do?" "Are you good in change management?" "Can you do original research?" "Are you able to drive a Class B vehicle?" "How well do you handle people with disabilities?"

What other questions relate to your job skills? How would you answer each of these?

Is the above c=artoon funny? Discuss your view with a classmate.
Here are your tasks:
  1. Make sure to finish Monday's and Tuesday's assignments.
  2. Check out 2 videos and 2 audio podcasts at this site, taking notes.
  3. Read 2 success stories here, taking notes.
  4. Attempt a few assessments by clicking on the Assess tab here.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Tuesday's Assignment

We continue this afternoon with a focus on business writing:
  1. Take this free online business writing lesson, clicking on Applying for a Job > The Covering Letter. Take good notes as you may need to use the knowledge later this week.
  2. Write your trip report for last week’s visit to Ontario Science Centre. Check with two partners before publishing.
  3. Role Play: Giving a Job Recommendation.


Monday, May 25, 2015

Monday's Assignment

Welcome to our new campus and classroom! Do you like it?
Hopefully, some of us will go from this class to a job or job-prep program. So this week, we are having a look at skills assessment for employment.
Here are your tasks this morning:
  1. Write your trip report for last week’s job fair.
  2. Role Play: Describing One’s Skill Level
  3. CLB6W Select all, copy, and paste this application form (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V) onto your blog, and fill it out.
    1. Have a partner or two check your answers for spelling and accuracy before publishing.
    2. Read other answers on your classmates' blogs and submit comments for each one.


Thursday, May 21, 2015

Field Trips Thur/Fri May 21/22: NY Job Fair and Ontario Science Centre

An earlier generation at the job fair, several in jobs now
This Thursday's field trip is to the Canada Job Expo at North York Memorial Hall, 5110 Yonge Street, Toronto, just below North York Central Library. Please be sure to register here. Plan to arrive at 11 a.m. for a group photo as well as a possible tour of the library!

Then on Friday, our field trip is with the rest of the school, to the Ontario Science Centre. Plan to arrive by 10:15 a.m. to enjoy the discounted group rate of $2 each. Peter will be leading the group from Don Mills departing at 9:45 a.m. on bus 25. Those who are late can enjoy the regular rates.


Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Welcome to Churronno

http://www.blogto.com/city/2015/05/25_hacks_to_make_your_life_easier_in_toronto/


Tuesday's Assignment

Welcome back from the Victoria Day weekend! This week, we'll be having a look at environmental issues, including land use and transportation.
Here are your tasks:
  1. Listen to this video, from 45:05 to 45:23. 
    1. First listen at normal speed. 
    2. Then play it at half-speed. 
    3. Check your transcript with two partners before publishing. Make sure to include these instructions. (Answers below)
    4. Practise reading your the transcript aloud, checking it with the original video, and then record it on chirbit.com.
    5. Discuss with your partners the following:
      1. What was most difficult about this exercise?
      2. What surprises/lessons did you pick up?
  2. Read this article, and identify all the passive verbs. Discuss each use with a partner.
  3. Role play: Riding in a Carpool

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Friday's Assignment

Welcome back!

Please finish this morning's work (below) and do the following:


Are you too strict or too lax on your kids? If there are two things to change about your parenting style, what would they be?
Which parent in the picture best represents your parenting style?
Here are your tasks:
  1. Role Play: Being a Strict Parent
  2. Listening and Discussion: Getting Home Late from School
  3. Reading and Writing: An Overbearing Father; write about your own experience

This morning's work:


Some people think raising teenagers is the greatest challenge in parenting. Nothing is as hard before or after the kids are in their teens. Do you agree?

Are teen problems bigger than those of younger chldren?

Here are your tasks:
  1. Listening and Discussion: Generation Gap
  2. Role Play with a partner: Raising Teenagers
  3. Using your edited printouts, update your blogs with corrections, showing the before-and-after versions of your writing.
  4. Learn the following vocabulary, focusing on pronunciation. Then choose 10 words and make sentences with them, writing them out, having a partner check them, and then recording them on chirbit.com. This will get you ready for our Land-Use presentation next Wednesday!

ESL/ LINC Vocabulary for Land-use and Transportation Presentation

1. Biodiversity: The number and variety of organisms found within a specified geographic region.
2. Built Environment: An area where humans have transformed the landscape; an example is changing a meadow into a farmed field.
3. Cargo: Is the term generally used for goods carried by ship or plane.
4. Deforestation: The cutting down and removal of all or most of the trees in a forested area. Deforestation can erode soils, contribute to desertification, pollute waterways, and cause the decrease of biodiversity through the destruction of habitats.
5. Desertification: The transformation of land once suitable for agriculture into a desert.
Desertification can result from climate change or from human practices such as deforestation and overgrazing.
6. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): An EIA is an assessment of the possible impact—positive or negative—that a proposed project may have on the environment, consisting of thenatural, social and economic aspects.
7. Fertilizer: Any substance, such as manure or a mixture of chemicals, added to soil to increase its productivity.
8. Freight: Is the general term for goods transported from one place to another by any means.
9. Groundwater: Water found deep within the ground that can be pumped up for human use or naturally flows into a nearby body of water, like a river or lake.
10. Habitat destruction: Is the process in which a natural habitat is altered and unable to support the species present. In this process, the animals and plants which previously lived in the area are displaced or destroyed. This negatively impacts the biodiversity of the area.
11. Habitat fragmentation: Fragmentation occurs when a large region of habitat has been broken down, or fragmented into smaller areas of habitat. For example, a forest habitat may become fragmented when a highway is built through the forest.
12. Habitat: The area or environment where a particular kind of animal or plant usually lives or occurs.
13. Hazardous Waste: Waste that is dangerous or potentially harmful to our health or the environment. These wastes can be liquids, solids or gases; examples are cleaning products, pesticides, batteries, and paints.
14. Infrastructure: Transportation, communication, sewage, water, and electric systems are all a part of infrastructure. These systems tend to be high cost investments; however they are needed for a society to be efficient and productive.
15. Land-fill Site: A method of solid waste disposal in which garbage is buried between layers of dirt and left to slowly discompose.
16. Land-use Designations: Includes areas of land chosen for neighbourhoods, commercial areas, parks, utility corridors, etc.
17. Land-use: Is the human modification of the natural environment into built environments such as fields, pastures, and settlements.
18. Logging: The process, work, and business of cutting down trees and transporting the logs to sawmills.
19. Natural Environment: Includes all living organisms and non-living things found naturally within
an area.
20. Ontario’s Green Belt: A protected area of land in the Province of Ontario, which includes the Oak Ridges Moraine and the Niagara Escarpment.
21. Pesticide: A chemical preparation used for destroying plant, fungal, or animal pests.
22. Pollutant: Any substance, such as chemicals or waste products, that makes the air, soil, or water harmful or unsuitable for living organisms.
23. Regulations: Laws through which governments can control or regulate actions within their focused area such as a city, region or province. A governmental order having the force of law.
24. Shipment: Is a quantity of goods destined for a particular place, no matter how sent.
25. Sustainability: Capable of being continued with minimal long-term effects on the environment.
26. Trails: A marked or beaten path through a natural environment, used by people, pets and wildlife.
27. Transportation: A way of moving from one place to another.
28. Urban sprawl: The uncontrolled spread of urban development, or urbanization into nearby regions.
29. Urbanization: The process by which large numbers of people become permanently concentrated in relatively small areas, forming cities.
30. Watershed: The area of land where all of the water that is on it or under it, drains into the same river, and eventually into a larger body of water, like a lake or ocean.
31. Wetland: A low-lying area of land that is seasonally wet, and provides habitat for wildlife and plants. Marshes, swamps and bogs are examples of wetlands.
32. Wildlife: Non-domesticated animal species, which live wild in an area without being introduced by humans.
33. Zoning By-law Amendment: An application is submitted to the city to rezone / change the land-use designation for an area; an example is seeking permission to change agricultural land to residential / neighbourhood land.
34. Zoning: A section of an area or territory established for a specific purpose, as a section of a city restricted to a particular type of building, or activity: an example is a residential neighbourhood.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Wednesday's Assignment

Are your kids in school? Sometimes the parenting dilemma comes from outside the home. Watch the following video, and discuss it with two or more classmates.


Here are your tasks:

  1. Reading and Listening: Censorship
  2. Read either this article or this one, and learn 10 new words/phrases.
  3. Check out: My Child! My Choice! 
    1. Click on "About" for a description of the group. 
    2. Do you agree or disagree with its position. 
    3. Give reasons in an email to a classmate. 
    4. "Like" or leave a comment on any of the posts there.
  4. Role Play with a partner: Describing Men’s Bodies.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Tuesday's Assignment

Have you ever gone berserk listening to your kids scream? Or vice versa?

What can you do? What have you done in such situations?

You can have a party or throw a party. You can go on a vacation. You can hit the road to get home. But what about a tantrum? What verb goes with it?
Here are your tasks:
  1. Role Play with a partner: Having a Temper Tantrum. Then make a chirbit.com recording of it, following the intonation (music) of the podcast voices.
  2. Rewrite this list of tips.
    1. List the tips in descending order of importance. Compare your list with your classmates.
    2. Alphabetize the points. Again, check with your classmates, for accuracy.
  3. If you haven't finished yesterday's assignment, please do it right away.

Monday, May 11, 2015

Monday's Assignment

For this afternoon:
  1. Complete your work from this morning.
  2. Publish your parental dilemma role plays involving the step father, mother, and daughter. Don't forget to have at least three classmates check your work before publishing. Optional: record the conversation on chirbit.com, making sure to introduce yourselves by name at the beginning.
  3. Practise by yourself, and then role play with at least three classmates: Taking Care of a Willful Child.


Welcome back, folks. So, how was your weekend? How was the family?
Parents, have you ever faced a parenting dilemma, a difficult decision regarding your kids?
Can you think of an example in the past week when your relationship with your children was tested?


Here are your tasks:
  1. Related Vocabulary: Raising Children
  2. Listening and Vocabulary: Parenting Challenges
  3. Role Play with a partner: Types of Families
  4. Write a 10-sentence paragraph about a difficult experience with your children or your childhood, and post it on your blog. Have a partner check before publishing. Then leave comments on your classmates' blogs.

Friday, May 8, 2015

Friday's Assignment

Now that we know what's available from all three levels of government, how about fun things from nongovernmental places, from commercial places?
Can you guess where the following place is? Can you say Sherkston and Erie?



Here are your tasks:
  1. Check out the following places and write an email on your blog inviting a friend to go with you to two or three of them, stating your reasons:
    1. Alpine Slopes
    2. Sherkston Shores
    3. Happy Days Houseboats
    4. Sky Zone
    5. Try New Things
  2. Make sure to find a partner to check and discuss before publishing. Then comment on 3 classmates’ posts.
  3. Role Play: Getting Childcare

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Thursday's Assignment

Nice to see you this morning, all bright eyed, bushy tailed! Are you ready for some fun today?


Living in this province offers some really unique perks. We will be hearing about some of these after the break this morning, but in the meantime name three activities you can do when camping with Learn to Camp Ontario (see video below) and tell a partner your list.

Then find out three resources you can access on their website.


Here are your tasks:
  1. Vocabulary and Listening: Camping under the Stars
  2. Role play with a partner: Supplies for Outdoor Recreation
  3. Read and discuss in groups of 4 which of these camping trips would be ideal for our class to join.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Tuesday's Assignment

Besides those rec activities offered in Toronto that we looked at yesterday, there are others offered by the federal government.



Here are your tasks:
  1. Watch the above video and:
    1. Follow the audio, speaking aloud in your native accent
    2. Follow the audio, speaking aloud in the Canadian speaker's accent--feel free to repeat!
    3. Switch off the audio, and speak aloud in the Canadian accent that you have just practised
    4. Record your speaking on Chirbit.com
    5. Check out other videos at the Parks Canada website
  2. Browse this website and draft a helpful email recommending a camping program to a friend in Toronto.
  3. Practise this trip report aloud, changing the details to a Canadian destination.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Monday's Assignment

Did you have fun this morning? Did you start to imagine what you could do in the summer?

Here are your tasks for this afternoon:
  1. If you haven't completed the tasks for this morning, please do them first.
  2. Vocabulary Checklist: Let’s Go Camping!
  3. Role Play with a Partner: Giving First Aid
  4. Readalong and Comprehension: Camping

Welcome back! This week we consider some fun recreational facilities and community centres in the city. Some of these offer daytime activities. Others offer overnight activities. Have a look at the following pictures and guess which picture represents daytime or overnight "camp" activities:

 

Here are your tasks:
  1. Check out 5 differences between day camping and overnight camping in the city. Compare your list with your partner’s. Then post a combined list on your blog.
  2. Below your combined list, compare it with camping and other recreational activities in your country of origin. Embed a picture and a video with your comparison.
  3. Make friends on Facebook with at least 6 classmates. Check out the posts on this Camping group page, and discuss some ideas for the summer.

Friday, May 1, 2015

Friday's Assignment

Good morning!
Yesterday's field trip was thankfully untypical of our field trips in many ways.
Think about your experience and how it was similar to or different from what might have happened under similar circumstances in your country of origin.


Here are your tasks:
  1. Compose a trip report using some of these words and phrases: group photos, ticket counter, security guard, rejected, accused, fraud, alternative program, had to wait, disappointed, apologized, refund, found no evidence, wasted, ruined, embarrassed, Toronto Police, Steam Whistle Brewery, Toronto Railway Museum, Harbourfront, HTO Park, Toronto Music Garden, made the best of.
    1. The first paragraph answers the W-H questions: Who, when, why, how much, etc.
    2. The second paragraph reflects your feelings about the trip and life or Canada in general: so what? Any lessons?
  2. Share or ask to share pictures with your classmates to include in your post. Include captions.
  3. Have 3 or 4 classmates check your writing and captions before posting. Don't forget the post title as well.
  4. Publish your post and check that it looks nice.
  5. Go leave a nice comment on 3 or 4 of your classmates' blogs.

Answer key to editing checklist appetizer

  Int excel