March 2013

ESOL Meeting

There will be a meeting held for parents who have children involved in ESOL programmes within the school, on Thursday the 21st of March 2013.   

The purpose of the meeting is to provide parents with an opportunity to learn more about how St Albans School caters to the needs of ESOL students. The ESOL teacher will discuss what the Ministry of Education English Language Learning Progressions mean in terms of the learner.  

Where: The staffroom off the main office.
When:  To commence at 2:15pm.

Our Special Place Right Here in Riccarton

Our Senior ESOL group visited Riccarton Bush earlier this year as part of an environmental study.  Video footage and photographs taken by the students formed a visual record of the visit. Once the sequence of visual images was embedded into iMovie the students used Garage Band to record a commentary that was then attached to the movie track.

A number of parents attended a gathering at the end of Term Three to view this work. Feedback for the students was very positive. We appreciate the parents taking time out from their busy day to celebrate this work with ESOL groups.  This is the movie shared at the end of last term.

 

RADIO PLAYS for ESOL STUDENTS

We have been researching how effective it is to use radio plays in an ESOL setting to improve spoken English. To become fluent in a script of any length requires determination and much rehearsal on the part of the students. This video footage is the end result of a group of Year 2/3 ESOL students in our school recording their radio play using Garage Band. Elena (aged 7 years) kindly created a series of images that were able to be linked to the radio play using iMovie. The students are now able to share their work on the Blog with you. They all thought that this work was a fun way to learn to speak English. Please feel free to provide feedback.

TERM FOUR

ESOL Morning Tea

The Senior ESOL group will host a morning tea for parents within our ESOL Community. The students would like to share their Riccarton Bush Inquiry with you and answer questions that you may have about their learning experience. We would also like to give the Year 2/3 group an opportunity to share their radio play with you. This has been made into a short movie. We hope that you can join us:

Celebrating Cultural Diversity

The children have been learning that clothing often enables us to identify with a cultural group. Shiako’s mother kindly allowed Room 7 and our ESOL group to share some treasured items of clothing that are worn on special occasions. Shiako said that he feels very special when he wears his suit. I’m sure that you will agree that he must look very grown up.

Shiako told us that his mother might wear this dress to a special wedding.

Thank you for sharing your treasures with us Shiako.

Nothing Beats Hokey Pokey

Kiwis are very proud to claim Hokey Pokey icecream as their own. One of the Year 2/3 ESOL groups found out what Hokey Pokey really tasted like. Prior to the cooking session, the children wrote the ingredients and instructions for their recipe. Here they are with their freshly cooked sample. At this stage it was too hot to eat.