Celebrating Australia Day

It was Australia Day this week! On the official Australia Day web page you can find a lot of information about this special day for Australians, like:

On Australia Day we come together as a nation to celebrate what’s great about Australia and being Australian. It’s the day to reflect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation. It’s the day for us to re-commit to making Australia an even better place for the future.

Australia Day, 26 January, is the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of 11 convict ships from Great Britain, and the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove by its commander Captain Arthur Phillip, in 1788.

My friend Simone had an Australia Day party 1970's style at her home in Geelong, near Melbourne, and asked her friends and family what it means to be Australian and what Australia Day means to them.

Vox Pop from our 2012 Australia Day party!

Question 1) What does it mean to be Australian?

•    To be Australian is to have opportunity and freedom. Australians are friendly and always up for a chat. I love Australia’s landscape of wide, open spaces and gum trees.

•    Sharing and caring. All cultures must learn to live together in Australia as it is very multicultural. The freedom of speech is pretty cool but the best part is the ability to be a BOGAN! (A bogan is someone who is a bit of a dag, a bit uncool but at the same time cool because they are doing what they want without being embarrassed!)

•    Being free to be who you are. Making your own choices. Accepting others and being friendly.

•    As an Australian we have access to many possibilities, opportunities and lifestyle choices that other people are not as fortunate to have. We have privileges of space, rights, choice and wealth to develop communities and support of people who believe in dreams.

•    To have the freedom to ‘bad mouth’ our government without consequences. To have whatever lifestyle choice we want without persecution, to demand better living conditions for people of other countries, but in the same breath expressing our concerns with illegal immigrants. We are one, but we are many…

Question 2) What does Australia Day mean to you?

•    Australia Day is sunshine, barbeques (bbqs) and too many drinks. It is meeting new people and reminds me of the great country we live in.

•    Being free!

•    A day off to share with the people you care about, talking shit and drinking. Sunburn and freedom.

•    To catch up with family and friends, have a bbq, drinks and just being Aussie, oy oy oy!

•    A day with those you know and may not…Many beers and laughs…Straya Day. The best day of the year.

•    A day where we should all enjoy doing the things we love—our booze, fishing and music.

Here are some more pictures from Melbourne:

Australia Day in Images

Simone also sent me a couple of links to The Sydney Morning Herald:

Ways to Celebrate … Australia Day

Australia Day in Cronulla

Published also here. 

Ryan's typical day - a sentence-level exercise

LearnEnglish Kids is a place where they have lots of word games, songs, stories and other activities for children, but why not adults, too, could have a look at this web page.

You can, for example, do an exercise rehearsing quite simple sentence structures and speed: Ryan's typical day.

What time does Ryan get up? What time does Ryan watch TV? Put the words in the right order to make sentences about Ryan’s day.

Click on the words in the right order to make a sentence. Check your score and speed at the end of the game.

So, what's your score?

Martin Luther King Day

I bet everybody has heard of the name Martin Luther King, and the famous speech I Have a Dream. Today it's Martin Luther King Day in America, and a retired British teacher Josie Whitehead wrote a poem I Have a Dream, which is attached below.

What do you know about Martin Luther King or MLK Day? You can  easily find a lot of information about him and this day on the web, so I'm not gathering any of the facts here. Instead, I'd like you to take a while and think what you really know about the issue first, then find out more about him. I'd also like you to take a few minutes considering if Martin Luther King's dream was killed or is it being fulfilled, as Josie puts it in her poem.

But back to Josie. I was lucky enough to have come across her website on the weekend. She has written hundreds of poems in rhyme and rhythm, many of which you can read on her website. These are the two introductory pages: Who I am and Introducing myself, so besides reading her poems on many different topics you can get to know her too. Josie says rhyming poetry promotes phonological and phonemic awareness that is a key literacy tool. As all parents know, children love poems and stories written with rhyme and rhythm! This one is dedicated to this special day.

I Have a Dream by Josie Whitehead

“I have a dream” of a world that is fair -
Well, it’s more than a dream, it’s really a prayer.
      A small seed was set when these words were said -
       But from a small seed grew an oak tree instead.

Segregation by race, was deep in his heart,
Segregation by race keeps nations apart.
     Exclusion, separation, rejection by others -
     Not sharing God’s world as sisters and brothers.

“I have a dream” which led on to a march,
In the hope it would lead to a triumphal arch.
     “I have a dream.”   Oh, I too, have a dream
       Where humans show others respect and esteem.

“I have a dream” where parity reigns
Where freedom flows freely through everyone’s veins.
    Where exclusion by colour, by class or by creed -
     Is changed by attention to each other’s need.

“I have a dream” - where a slave is no more,
And hope for one’s future can knock on each door.
     Where chains that restrain can be torn into shreds
      And liberation from bondage is granted instead.

“I have a dream” - - - - oh how time has fled -
And the dreamer long since joined the ranks of the dead.
       A shot from a gun - - - - - and was his dream killed,
       Or in the world of today, is it being fulfilled?

Test your vocabulary!

Test your vocab is an excellent place to test how many words you know in English. It's estimated that a native English speaker knows approximately 20 000-35 000 words, non-native learners know some 2 500-9 000 words.  Here you can check the results by country. Test how many you know!

TestYourVocab.com is part of an independent American-Brazilian research project to measure vocabulary sizes according to age and education, and particularly to compare native learning rates with foreign language classroom learning rates.

It functions by means of a quick three-part test: the first part with a handful of words to determine the general vocabulary level, a second part with a larger but narrower selection of words to determine the vocabulary level with greater precision, and a final (optional) survey to collect statistical information.

Ps. Did you know that..

..English has the most words of any language on Earth.

..English’s vocabulary is so large because it started with the Germanic peoples who first arrived in Britain, was added to by waves of Scandinavian and Norman (French) invaders, and then augmented further with Latin and Greek words during the Renaissance. And of course, it hasn’t stopped growing since then.

..The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) contains over 300,000 entries, which take up over 20,000 printed pages.

Have a good Twelfth Day!

As most of you probably know, the twelve days of Christmas begins on 25th December and end on 6th January, Epiphany. Some people give presents on each of these twelve days, as in this famous song - sung in a new version, though ;) Straight No Chaser: The Twelve Days of Christmas

The lyrics presumably are of French origin, but became known in a children's book Mirth Without Mischief, printed in London in 1780. The song was performed for the first time in 1842 by James O. Halliwell.

The lyrics to this song are here, and if you just have time, I suggest you to read the brilliant comedy Twelfth Night, Or What You Will by Shakespeare :)

Finnish recipes in English

You can find some traditional Finnish recipes (in English;) on Finnguide web page, like salmon soup, Karelian pies and cinnamon buns.

Enjoy!

BBC News - sounds dull?

For some people the word 'news' may sound a bit boring, and when there is 'BBC' together with this boring 'news' it may sound even more boring. That is not necessarily the case - have you ever read the Science and Environment section? Health? Or Entertainment & Arts? Or are you more interested in Travel? The Culture Show Clips? Formula 1? Lifestyle? You can also listen and watch One-minute World News, although, for example, this video lasts 3 minutes..

For me, the best link probably is Learning English!

I bet there's something for each and every one on these pages, go explore your favourite clips, audios, news, articles on not so dull BBC News!

Culture Café - all sorts of links

Culture Café is an English book for the upper secondary school in Finland. On their web pages you can take some quizzes on different topics, but also these links are worth noticing! Here are some examples:

A to Z Quiz on American and British Culture

Educational and working life trivia - Part 2

Tattoos: Recognition and Interpretation

Soccer Vocabulary

Music Dictionary with an Audio Pronunciation Guide (QuickTime)

BBC Video Nation Videos (RealPlayer) 

Guide to Punctuation with Quizzes 

Prepositions of Time: Introduction and Exercises 

How Are Hollywood Films Made? 

Web Exhibits, Painting and Color 

Info and Pictures about the Moomin Characters by Tove Jansson 

Online Literature 

How to Write a Poem. An Online Interactive Exercise (Flash)

The Rhyme Zone 

Words and grammar on New Year's theme

The first week of the year 2012! I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I posted a list of 'Merry Christmas' in different languages here a few years ago, but how to say 'Happy New Year' in different languages? Here's one link, for example.

Enchanted Learning provides some New Year's Crafts ideas, but there are some better presented ones on Kaboose. My favourite is this sparkly New Year's ball!

Also adult learners can learn new words visiting these children's pages ;)

There are some grammar games on New Year's theme on Manythings.org. By checking your grammar level you can also learn about American New Year's traditions.

Quiz 1

Quiz 2

Quiz 3