Stewards of the Earth

It's Earth Month! April 22 is Earth Day. Not only that, but YOU told me that you want to learn more about Canadian culture. You want to fit in here and you want to know what is polite and what is rude in Canadian society.

So this week we talked about cultural norms in our first countries versus Canada with regard to waste disposal. Where can we put our gum? Where can we spit? Can we put a wet tea bag in the blue bin?

We shared answers to these and other discussion questions in small groups. The next day, we tackled these guidelines.  We made sentences:

_________ go/goes in the red box.
_________ go/goes in the blue box.
You can't recycle _____________.
You have to take ____________ to the drop-off depot.

Someone asked what the drop-off depot is. We looked at it on the map and watched this video explaining how to drop stuff off. We also learned that you can get FREE paint at the depot--but you can't be very picky about what colour you get!

Here is an easy conversation about recycling.
Here is an easy conversation about Earth Day.

Friday we read about Dan Phillips, a Texas man who helps build affordable houses from reclaimed materials. This is a great example of RE-USING. Here is his TED Talk. You can choose subtitles in your language to help follow along.

Review Day

Hello!

Please watch this video about using "will" and "be going to" for future time.

Next, you can take this test to see how much you remember about dialing 911, 211 or 311.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

When you are done, you can go back to any earlier post to review. (Scroll down to see earlier posts.) You can also use Ellis, check email, or use any link on the side bar.

Computer Lab - Tuesday, August 2

Seniors' class: please explore the website for the City of Windsor's 311 Services.

I will give you a worksheet with questions to answer about this site.

After break, please visit the Transit Windsor web site. Turn your worksheet over and answer the questions about Transit Windsor.

If you finish, you can do this reading and listening lesson about using a bus schedule.

Please bring your worksheets to class on Wednesday.

Cas' class:

You may use any website in the sidebar (on the right). I recommend VOA Special English newscasts for learning English. Another good site is Breaking News English and its easier counterpart, News English Lessons.

After you listen to a news story, there are online quizzes and games, plus worksheets. Call me over if you want to print a worksheet. If it's not too long, I will print it for you.

Another good site for short, interesting broadcasts is National Public Radio's StoryCorps. Each one is a podcast that you can listen to while viewing the text of the story.

Those of you with very high listening skills may wish to try TED.com. Call me over and I can show you how to bring up the transcript or subtitles while you listen.

Ramadan Mubarak to all my Muslim students!

Kelly