Reminder

G10-02,05 & 08....you can access your vocabulary word quiz on your accounts starting at 4pm today, Thursday, 26 January until mid night.  There is a 45 minute time limit on the quiz but you can take it anytime between those two times today only!!  Have a safe weekend; read, study and prepare for your system wide quizzes which start Sunday.  See you in class!

Stress in G10-02's world

What's coming up!

There will be no English classes on Wednesday because all English teachers will be attending a conference in Abu Dhabi, however, we will have classes on Thursday during the 3rd and 4th period so be there.  You should know where your classes will be but if you don't come by G210 first thing Thursday morning and I may be able to help you find your way. 

You have a homework assignment due Thursday evening....The Traveling Chef which you must record and answer the 11 questions at the end of that text; as usual turn it in by schoology when you're done.  Also the vocabulary quiz will be available for you to take between 4pm and 12midnight Thursday while you are at home.  We had the pre-quiz on Tuesday and you will be tested on the same words but in a different style of test so study. 

Next up  G10-05 will be treated to a presentation by Abdulla Salim and Majed Essa on 'hacking an electric power system' which I certainly look forward to seeing and finally next Wednesday G10 English will have their system wide quiz from 9:00-9:40 am. In the days before it please intensify your reading and come to class prepared to work.  Make sure your laptops are working and bring your text book too. God willing see you in class on Thursday!

More on stress from students in G10-08

Vocabulary and troubleshooting

Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi is working to keep smart power grids safe from hackers, reads the title of the article that appeared in the January 15th edition of The National newspaper.  We read it in class and it should be an inspiration to those of you who want to study IT just how important that career is for the future of renewable energy in the UAE.  We also gleaned some vocabulary words that are used in everyday English that are useful to know.  Although there are 16 words here, our vocabulary quiz on Thursday will only be on 10 of the words below.....and another five from last week's vocabulary list so start familiarizing yourself with these words now.  Here they are

generation
monitor
reliant
renewable
complex
unpredictable
analyze
efficient
vulnerable
quirk
coherent
protocol
verify
genuine
encrypt
consumption

On another topic.....we're having far too many problems with our laptops during the course of one period.  Students are not able to use their web browsers or not able to upload their work to either of the two sites we use in class, schoology.com or pb works.  Therefore, starting Tuesday, several of the really good computer literate students of g10-05 will give us all a troubleshooting tutorial during class, where they will suggest ways you can work around these common problems or even fix them using approved ATHS solutions.  We may make this a regular class exercise to refresh ourselves on the problems we face with the  laptops.  Perhaps we can get the ball rolling in g10-02 and g10-08 as well with students who can help their classmates in those sections. Any students interested?  If so, please let me know, otherwise see you in class!

More mobile phone application news + vocabulary

The UAE is becoming increasingly more popular with people who make applications for mobile phones and they are gaining international attention as a result.  We've read about Emirati college students who developed an application for Blackberry, iphone and Android operating systems as well as an Emirati father who developed an iphone application to help his daughters learn their alphabets.

Now comes news that a word game in both English and Arabic was developed in Dubai and has been nominated for the Best Ever Apps award. The idea for  Kalimat was the brainchild of Farès Fayad, who commissioned the Dubai games company Piranha Byte to develop it.  Along the way, however we ran across some often used words that we must know to increase our vocabulary.  Here they are

nominate

conceive

entrepreneur

innovate

enthusiastic

evolution

gripe

expo

astonish
exist

I encourage you to use some if not all of these words in your writing assignments we will have this week.  There will be a short vocab quiz on Thursday, God willing.  If you have any questions, I'll see you in class!

Hear what students say causes them stress

We all get stressed out from time to time, but to hear from some of our students, their stress is chronic.  Here is what they have to say about what causes them stress!

Vocabulary!

The following words will be used in a vocabulary test based on the article we read in class on Emirati students who volunteered to clean up the Manar al-Eman Charity school, here:

Volunteers

Scrub

Renovations

Assess

Hygiene

Expatriates

Accommodates

Orphans

Janitors

 
The quiz will be fill in the blank and it will be on your laptops so please make sure they are charged and you can open your web browsers.  For G10-02, the quiz will be on Thursday during the 5th period and for G10-08 on Tuesday in the 7th or 8th period.  I haven't forgotten about G10-05; perhaps you guys want to get started preparing early by reading the article linked above on your own.  However, we will read it together as a class when you come on Wednesday.  Please, students of G10-05, be prepared to work on your laptops on Tuesday on the My Academic Connections Lab web site.  See everyone in class!

Overdue Books!

There are still some students in G10-02, G10-05 & G10-08 who have books that are overdue at the library.  Ms. Smallpeice really wants you to turn in your books before she turns in your name to be penalized for them.  If you are not sure if you are one of the students with a late book, go to your schoology accounts and take a look see if your name is mentioned.  For those of you who responded to the first call to return your books thank you!

How do you cope with stress?

We all have experienced stress at some point in our lives.  Here are some of the ways students in G10-08 handle stress.

Welcome Back!

Good morning gentlemen,

I hope you all had a great time with your family and friends during the break. I'm positive that you all will start the 2nd term with great learning spirit, enthusiasm, sense of responsibility, punctuality and regularity. . Lets gear up for a great start at school and for English lessons.
We will start with Unit 3, Stress and Health.

Go to the link below or copy the link in your URL, read the text and complete the exercises given at the end of the reading text. You will also paraphrase the text in your own words using the linking words and upload on Edmodo.com.

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0412/01.stressKills.html

Welcome Back

Good morning gentlemen,

Welcome back..I sincerely wish you a healthy, happy and a successful new year and new term.

We are back on full schedule all geared up and ready to take off. We have a full new term ahead. It is a chance for you to make a difference.
Manage your time effectively, stick to deadlines, complete your work, focus, come on time, be serious are all gentle reminders of your responsibilities.

We will start with UNIT 3 -health and stress.
Below is a link to an article I would like you to read, and take notes on the word document I sent you.

http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/news/20051214/cell-phones-raise-work-home-stress

Congratulations and welcome back

Welcome back to ATHS and 2012!  I hope all of you in G10-02,10-05 and 10-08 had a restful and safe term break.  It's time to think about school and especially English language, but before we do I want to remind all of you who have library books that you must turn them in immediately to the librarian Ms. Smallpeice who really wants the books back so that your school mates can read them when they want to.  I will post on your schoology accounts the names of those students who have overdue books, so go to your account to see if you are one of the students with a late book.

Now that school has resumed, let's get back in the habit of reading, writing and speaking in English.  All of the assignments we had during the first term, like writing summaries of news articles as well as reading and recording texts and answering questions on those texts for homework we will do during this term as well, so let's get ready.  God willing we will all be as successful this term as we were the last so take a deep breath and let's get back to work.  See you in class.