Monday's Assignments

Good morning! Welcome to a week on Employment Rights!

Here are your tasks for this morning:

1. Check out your instructor's DVDs from the Toronto Public Library. Feel free to place them on hold on your account.
2. Update your blog on the field trip to the Ontario Science Centre or your weekend activities.
3. Check out the links on this employment rights page. Post three questions and answers on your blog.

Friday's Assignment - HOMEWORK DAY!

While the good news is that you can stay home in your pyjamas, the not-so-great news is you've got work to do before 2:30 p.m. for attendance.
Here are your tasks:

1. Call 211 or 311 and find out if there is any employment, legal, or dental assistance in your neighbourhood available for your family. E.g. where can you talk to a free lawyer about an immigration or workplace problem?
2. Share what you learnt on your blog and record your reading of it on Vocaroo.com. (If you don't have a blog, like two of our new classmates, you can send me an email containing the same information.)
3. Read your classmates' new posts today and write a comment on one or two of their blogs.

Happy Homework Day!

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FOLLOWING WHO WERE PRESENT: Fides, Sana, Yoo Lee, Maribel, Marjan, and Mohammad! See you all on Monday--have a great weekend!

Wednesday through Friday, October 23 through 25

WEDNESDAY

Mohammad, Marjan, Noori, Shaheena, Habiba, Chang, Ying, Louis, Maribel, Vincent, Cheyenne, and Fides look at various business ventures!

It's time to register for Enterprise Toronto's annual Small Business Forum, and you can do so online through this link. Please be sure to forward me your confirmation note by email.

Following are the details:

What

Here's the Agenda for the day. Think about what interests you the most in terms of starting a small business and choose a relevant session to attend. As a class, let's all meet at 11:30 a.m. at the Trade Show entrance for a photo opportunity and to exchange notes.

When

Wednesday October 23, 2013 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EDT 

Where

Metro Toronto Convention Centre 

222 Bremner Boulevard
South Building, Level 800
Exhibit Hall "E"
Toronto, ON M5V 2W6

To get us thinking in advance, what do you think of these stories of starting a new business (Hint: Psst, did you remember to click on the Listen Button?)?

THURSDAY

• 
1. 

On Thursday, all the students in our school are going to the Ontario Science Centre. You should have paid $2 for an adult ticket (kids go in for free). If not, please pay the teachers when you get there.

Go MicroSkills! Yay!

Those going by bus from Don Mills Station should meet Peter Vale at the coffee shop inside the station (on the floor just above the subway platform) at 9:15 a.m.
Those going by car should meet at Ontario Science Centre's entrance at 9:45 a.m.
Bring good indoor walking shoes, a camera, pocket money or snacks, and all twelve of your kids, and be prepared for a wonderful educational day at one of Ontario's favourite indoor destinations!

THURSDAY UPDATE:

Hope everybody's had an awesome time at the Ontario Science Centre! Meanwhile, some of us teachers were at an ESL teachers' conference at the Exhibition Place. It was there I was privileged to present a poster on the use of our special checklists to help us edit our blogs and stuff. Check out the pictures here and on the Foxes Bagged blog.

Anything look familiar?

Congratulations alumni Ghafour and Katie, who bagged those foxes!

Jenny and Vincent did a great job! Way to go, guys!

There were over 1,000 ESL teachers there. How many teachers can you recognize?

FRIDAY

This Friday is Homework Day. Be sure to check the blog on Friday morning for an assignment that you will complete by 2:30 p.m. the same day.

Tuesday's Assignment

Good morning!

Halloween 1517

Today, we continue looking at a cultural celebration but from a historical viewpoint. Not everyone celebrates Halloween in the same way, or at all!

1. Watch this Video (focus on 1:08 - 2:09): Can you list 3 modern approaches to Halloween and 1 historical one that affected the nation of Canada? Listen again, following with the transcript. Compare your answers with a partner.
2. Check out the Good Morning, Canada! section, and identify one library resource on word meanings. What does the Oxford English Dictionary say about the word Halloween?
3. If you haven't registered for tomorrow field trip, this is your last chance! Make sure you forward me your confirmation email.

Thanks, Nora and Company!

Thank you, dear friends. This is far better than I deserve! Happy Thanksgiving to you all, too!

Hello Who? Halloween! Monday's Assignment

Come next Thursday evening, you will be seeing children dressed up in costumes going trick o' treating in the neighbourhood. You will see some houses dressed up, too, like a graveyard. And between now and then, you won't be able to avoid stores selling treats by the cartons and pumpkins and all sorts of scary stuff.

Here's your afternoon assignment:

1. Register for this Wednesday's Small Business Forum if you haven't already done so; be sure to forward me your confirmation!
2. Blog about your Thanksgiving Week and/or our Field Trip to Four Seasons Concert.
3. Listening and Vocabulary: Halloween
4. Role Play with the living person sitting to your left: Believing in Scary Things

Here's your morning assignment:

1. Register for this Wednesday's Small Business Forum; be sure to email me your confirmation!
2. Check answers to your T/F quiz: US and Canadian celebration
3. Explore any new stuff on the Good Morning, Canada! and Resources Pages at the top. Tell a partner if you find something surprising.
    

11 Tips for Computer and Cell Phone Users

 

Did you know:

• To highlight a word on your computer, double-click it instead of 'wasting your life dragging across it'.
• To highlight a whole paragraph, triple-click it.
• Using the mouse to scroll is 'a terrible waste of time'. Instead, scroll down a webpage by hitting the spacebar, and Shift+spacebar to scroll back up.

 To read the rest, check out the rest of the article.

  

Friday's Announcements

1. Please note that it's the Thanksgiving Break all week next week. So Happy Thanksgiving! Be sure to show up in class bright and early on Monday, October 21, at 9 a.m.
2. Peter Vale has very kindly forwarded his notes on relative clauses. Please to check them out.

"That’s the bank that was robbed yesterday."

Thursday's Assignment: Follow-Up Lesson on Business Structure

Maribel, Ying, Cheyenne, Shahinah, Jie Ling, Noori, Fides, Nora, Kent, Ming, and Chang with Michael Snow sculptures

Good morning, everyone! Hope everyone had a good time on the field trip yesterday.

Today, we continue our English studies with Kent's Follow-Up Lesson on Business Structure.

Do stay tuned for instructions!

For more pictures from the field trip, click below:

Field Trip to a Free Concert Downtown on Wednesday October 9

COC Ensemble Studio to perform Benjamin Britten

Our field trip to a concert at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts happens on Wednesday, October 9.

We'll be meeting at and leaving from the Westbound Platform of Bayview Subway Station at 9:45 a.m. Mr. Kent Ng will be introducing us to the language and landmarks you will find in Downtown Toronto. Don't be late! 

Bring a pair of good walking shoes, perhaps an umbrella and some snacks, and definitely your camera! Be ready for a surprise itinerary!

Tuesday's Assignment

1. Do the listening exercise on Types of Business Entities.
2. Write down the vocabulary you feel difficulty learning in terms of pronunciation or meaning.
3. Discuss the vocabulary in groups of three. Pay attention to Kent's instructions.