Wednesday, April 27, 2005

New Zealand weather

The first task that I have given the students to complete is to reflect on New Zealand's weather. Being an island nation we have varied weather patterns, even over the course of one day. Many of our students here come from mainland China, meaning that they have experienced very different weather, and notice particularly our weather when they arrive. However, we have students from all over the world, whose perspective on our weather is equally valid.

I am looking for richness of vocabulary, so I'm expecting the students to use whatever resources they have at their disposal, (including me) to augment their lexicon.

For those of you who may be interested in the success (or otherwise) of this exercise you can check out the blogs of two of my students.

http://okhranaxp.blogspot.com
http://hehediary.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Introduction

I'm a teacher (of English) at the University of Waikato Language Institute in New Zealand, and this site is a test site for using blogs to teach writing skills. The idea is that the students maintain a journal of their thoughts and experiences while over here in New Zealand. Writing on a regular basis must help them to improve fluency (if not grammar and vocabulary), and the fact that their musings are live should impact on accuracy. Hopefully, the possibility that you may be reading will add rigour to their proof-reading.