gulfnews : Sharjah book fair receives big boost from publishers

gulfnews : Sharjah book fair receives big boost from publishers

Websites for the English Class

This is a list of the websites that you will be using in your English class this year.

ATHS Webmail – Use your ATHS mail ID and password.

https://mail.iat.ac.ae/

Ms. Rehab’s Blog

http://msragab.edublogs.org

Quia – Use the password and username given to you in class

http://www.quia.com/web

Edmodo- Use the password and username given to you in class

http://www.edmodo.com/home

ATHS Grade 9 Blog

http://athsdubaigrade9english.blogspot.com/

In a few Minutes!

A blog with lots of tutorials to show you how to use your laptop.

http://minutes2learn.blogspot.com/

ATHS Podcasts portal

http://athspodcasts.blogspot.com/

Useful links shared by Ms. Rehab

http://groups.diigo.com/group/athsdxbstudents

It's time to explore all these useful websites. Do your best to visit them as soon as possible before we use them in class. We'll have a short Q&A every morning to discuss any problems you may face.

Wishing you  a happy Eid :)

Ms. Rehab

Laptops in Ms. Ragab's class!

Grades 09-06 and 09-12,

Please remember to check your emails for links to your HW on Quia.

Get ready!

Hello Grade 09 Students!

Next week you will all be taking your first English Quiz. Make sure you're ready for it.

Go over the objectives covered in New Headway Plus Unit 1, both in the Student Book and Workbook. Also study any notes you took in your notebook and any handouts your teacher gave you. If there is something you don't understand, make sure you ask your teacher in class before the day of your quiz.

Good luck!

Inside the School Cafeteria

Good Morning 9-03! You have been here at ATHS Dubai for more than a week now, and in that time I am sure you have started to form opinions about certain things. One thing I am pretty sure you have spent some time thinking about, is the school cafeteria. In the video below, you will have an inside look at our cafeteria. Before the movie begins, please be sure to read the instructions on THIS ACTIVITY SHEET so that you can do the assignment properly.

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Inside the ATHS Dubai Cafeteria Published via LongTail.tv

If the movie is not loading fast enough, then DOWNLOAD THE VIDEO and watch it on your own computer!

Marshmallow Game

Grade Nine,

Welcome to ATHS. The first week can be a little scary - new teachers, new friends, new rules. Over the year, we will do lots of group work. Learning in groups is fun. But first we need to learn to work as a group. I hope you started to learn a little about team work and co-operation from our marshmallow game.

Mr. Crosbie

Classwork for 9-03 - Thursday, September 15, 2011

Just in cased you missed class, here is what we did on Thursday!

Reading Stories and Learning Words

Hello class! Today we read a story, drew pictures showing the story, and started learning new vocabulary. In case you need them, HERE ARE THE FILES!

Introducing the Parts of Speech

Hey 9-03! In case you missed the class, here are the copies of what we worked on in class today and yesterday. Just DOWNLOAD THIS FILE and save it on your computer.

Reading the Newspaper!

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Mr James Room - G9 - September 12 2011 Published via LongTail.tv

Welcome Back!

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Mr James Room - G9 - September 11 2011 Published via LongTail.tv

STUDY TIME

Dear 9.10 and 9.05,


I can’t believe this is our last week of classes! The next two weeks are very important and remember to start studying for your exams now. Use the test-taking strategies we learned in class to help you prepare for each test. First, review your test schedule and make a study plan. Second collect all the materials you need for studying (old exams, review sheets, your book, online assignments, etc.). Third, think about the concepts that were most difficult for you and be sure to clarify any misunderstandings! Remember you can go ask your teachers questions during the exam weeks. Finally, eat well, get a lot of rest, exercise and of course STUDY!

When you are taking your exams it’s important to read the directions carefully.
Ask yourself: How many steps are there? What are the directions telling me to do? Did I solve all parts of the problem? Do I need to write complete sentences or just the letter? If you have time please complete, How to Follow Instructions, to help sharpen your following direction skills. ☺

09-02 and 09-07,

Forming questions correctly is part of your LC4 objectives for English.

Here's a link that explains how to form questions. Make sure you scroll all the way down and click on 'Basic Question Types' and do the exercise at the end.

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-questions_structure.htm

Please ask me questions in class if you have any.

Almost There

Congratulation 9.01 & 9.06,

We are very close to the end of the year. We have just had our last quiz and all work has been submitted: our rants, our criteria essays, and our brochures for our hotels.

Next week, even though it is the last week, is still important. We have to review our grammar lessons, prepare for the writing portion of the exam, and also have a little fun in class.

But for now, gentlemen, enjoy your weekend.

Cheers,

Mr. Crosbie

Natural Disasters

 Dear Boys,

You have done a remarkable job putting together a big list of adjectives and adverbs and adding many new ones to your vocabulary this week. Try to use these words as often as possible when you are speaking English.

Till the end of the week, we will talk about 'natural disasters', how and why they form, what areas of the world they affect and read some recent articles featuring current natural disasters. In Iceland, the most active volcano, Grimsvotn, began erupting last week and caused widespread disruption to air travel. Read this article to see how this volcano affected the wider area in Iceland and western Europe.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13489944.


A tornado is a dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cloud. They are often referred to as a twister  Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but are typically in the form of a visible funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (177 km/h), are approximately 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before disappearing. The most extreme can have wind speeds of more than 300 mph (480 km/h), stretch more than two miles (3 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km).

Here is the vocabulary we will learn and use in our discussion:

• tornados move thorugh/rip through/tear through neighborhoods and towns
• destroy/destructive/destruction-devastation
• ...was directly hit/....was seriously damaged/ ...was destroyed
• ...cause enormous damage
• the government pledged to help the disaster victims.
• heavily damaged/completely destroyed
• ...pulling people out of the wreckage
• ...debris was falling all over the place.
• Fires broke out.
• Trees were rooted out.
• One of the worst storms to hit the U.S.
• Stunned residents...
• Roofs were ripped off homes.

Click on the links below in Ms Melissa's post to read the recent news articles on the Joplin, Missouri tornado that caused a lot of damage and killed around 300 people. We will have a discussion about tornados, how they form, and how they affect the areas they hit.

See you in class!

The Weather

Dear 9.10 and 9.05,

This week we learned a lot of new vocabulary words to help us describe the weather. You did an excellent job brainstorming and researching to find new and interesting words to describe all types of weather.

Over the past few months we have read a lot of articles about natural disasters that have been happening around the world. From the earthquakes in Japan to the tornadoes in America there has been a lot of damaged caused. This week we will read, Another Disastrous Tornado. This article includes a link that will describe how tornadoes occur. Please take some time to learn more about this natural disaster. If you have time also read, Tornado Storms Smack the South, we will read this article later in the week.

Thank you for your continued effort! I can’t believe the year is almost over! ☺

• Please read Mrs. Lara’s post to help you review the use of “going to” when talking about the future.

"Going to" for talking about the future

09-02 and 09-07,

There are many ways of expressing future time. One of the most common ways is using “going to”. WE use to express future plans, intensions and to make predictions.

Here are some of its forms:

Positive:
Long: I am going to leave.
Short: I'm going to leave.

Negative:
Long: I am not going to leave.
Short: I'm not going to leave.

Questions:
Am I going to leave?

Using "going to" is one of LC4's English objectives, so make sure you understand it, and if you don't, come to class with questions for me!

Gentlemen of 9.01 & 9.06,

Last week we looked at expressing negative opinions by "ranting". To help introduce our opinions we studied how to use adjective and noun clauses to do this: The thing that .......... is the fact that/ What ............ is the way that ........ You made the grammar look really easy. Here is some vocabulary to help fill in our grammar patterns:

bothers
annoys
hate
can't stand
frustrates
gets ...upset
makes ...angry
find annoying
can't understand

Place this vocabulary with correct pattern to help express yourself better. If you don't have them, the grammar sheets are in the extra material file.

Cheers,

Mr. Crosbie

Dear 9.09 & 9.04,

Congratulations on a job well-done! Your brochures were great! I was pleased to see that they were informative, eye-catching, and attractive and that you made every effort to include the required information.



Ice climbing



Are you a thrill-seeker? Have you ever tried bungee jumping, hang gliding, ice climbing, or motor racing? Are you addicted to the adrenaline rush? If your answer is yes, then you are in for a week of fun. This week, we will explore extreme sports and discuss the risks, safety gear used, and external factors affecting the people doing the sports.

Ms. Neriman



Presentations

Dear 9.10 and 9.05,
This week you are doing great generating ideas about ways to get healthy for summer. If you are still unsure of what you would like to write about you can reread the article,GET UP, GET ACTIVE. I’m looking forward to seeing your presentations on fun ways of getting fit.

The Present Continuous

09-02 and 09-07,

Using the Present Continuous correctly is one of your LC4 objectives.

FORM
am/is/are + verb+ing

Examples:

•You are watching TV.
•Are you watching TV?
•You are not watching TV.

Use the Present Continuous to express the idea that something is happening now, at this very moment. It can also be used to show that something is not happening now.

Examples:

•You are learning English now.
•You are not swimming now.
•Are you sleeping?
•I am sitting.
•I am not standing.
•Is he sitting or standing?
•They are reading their books.
•They are not watching television.
•What are you doing?
•Why aren't you doing your homework?

Make sure you refer to your Student Book, Workbook, notebook, hand-outs and online howework when you're preparing for your LC4 English exam.

Please ask me questions when you have them.

Rant

Gentlemen,

Good job today in class. I enjoyed hearing your rants - we are ready to start work in i-movie. A fun mini-project for the end of the year. Like our football movies, we'll show them as a class and vote on a winner.

Essays and Brochures

Dear Boys,

I am really impressed by your hard work and dedication this week. The quality of your persuasive essays has been remarkable and I am proud to display your work in class. Thank you for your effort and patience in producing a final draft after revising and editing your work. Now, you know what is involved in the writing process and follow the same procedure to develop more great essays like these!

You are almost ready to present your brochures, which look vibrant and eye-catching! Keep browsing the internet to find real hotel brochures and compare them with that of yours to see what else you can include to make them even more attractive! But overall, all brochures seem to have the four required type of information that I outlined in class. On Thursday, please submit a hard copy at the time of presentations and turn in soft copies on Edmodo.

Keep up the good work!

Ms. Neriman

Dear 9.10 and 9.05

DON'T FORGET TO READ EVERYDAY! :)





Wow! Your essays, comparing two cities, are excellent. I’m very impressed with how you are researching and finding information, but not copy and pasting. I can see that you are finding important facts and putting the information into your own words. This is a skill we will continue to work on!

This week's been fun describing people. What do they look like? What are they wearing? What’s their personality like? We will keep working on finding new words to be descriptive.

Thank you for all your hard work!

• Please read Ms. Lara’s post, to help you review when to use “who’s” and when to use “whose”.

whose VS who's

09-02 and 09-07,

Who knows the difference between who's and whose (one of your grammar objectives from New Headway Plus Elementary Unit 11)? Here's a lesson whose time has come.


Who's
Who's is a contraction of who is or, less commonly, who has.

For example:

Who's watching TV?

Do you know who's going to speak?

Who's ready to go?

Who's in the kitchen?

Who's this?

Who's already eaten?


Whose
Whose is the possessive of who.

For example:

Whose book is this?

Do you know whose car this is?

I know a woman whose kids study there.

Whose side are you on?

An idea whose time has come.


Basically:

The apostrophe for the who's here is a CONTRACTION - not to show possession.

If you can replace the word with who is or who has, use who's. If not, use whose.

Your Criteria

Gentlemen of 9.01 and 9.o6,

I have started to read your criteria reports. Some of them, 9.01, are fantastic. The tables look good, the writing is good, and you have used the new vocab grammar. Great Job. For the few students in 9.01 who have not handed it in - get it in.

9.06, I look forward to reading yours next week.

Have a great weekend.

Making progress...

Dear Boys,


Congratulations on a job well-done! All persuasive essays have been turned in and they look great! We will still go through the steps in the writing process, revise and edit before we produce a final copy. Meanwhile, I want you to go over all the new words and structures you learned about so far this week and review your notes to make sure you're on the right track. Keep up the effort and good work as we are nearing the end of the school year and there's still much to cover before the summer holiday!


Ms. Neriman

Mid-Cycle Quiz This Week

09-02 and 09-07,

Remember to study the objectives we've covered so far from the New Headway Plus Elemenary course book for your Mid-Cycle Quiz this week.

Please ask me questions if you need any clarifications.

Good luck studying!

Cities Around The World

Dear 9.05 and 9.10 Students,

I absolutely love how your brochures turned out! You did an amazing job and they look very professional. Thank you for working cooperatively with your team and completing your projects on time.


What makes a city? Continue thinking about how we define a city. What do you find in cities? How are cities different and how are they alike? We will continue researching and comparing cities around the world. I hope you enjoyed learning about the cities I lived in before moving here.

Please keep doing your best!

Tutorials

Gentlemen of 9.01,

So far a great job on the video tutorials for I-movie. They are excellent, some even professional. What is more important is that you are making a learning resource that will stay with grade nine even after you leave for the summer. Great Job!

Mr. Crosbie

How persuasive is your argument?

May 4th, 2011

Dear Boys,

It has been such a pleasure teaching you essay writing. All the time and effort we spent brainstorming ideas, creating graphic organizers, making outlines, and debating the issue of city versus country living paid off. Your persuasive essays look great! I was impressed to see how hard you tried to meet the word limit for paragraph and essay. In the end, all of you wrote a minimum of 80 words per paragraph and over 400 words for the entire essay! Some had 600 words! But, the quality is more important than the quality. The essays I have gone over so far follows the order of the outline and the ideas planned to go into each paragraph.  Tomorrow is the deadline for the essay, however, many of you already submitted your first drafts on Edmodo. Upon marking them, I will have volunteers to share their work with the class and we will, as usual, display all pieces on our board in class!

Good job and keep up the good work!

Ms. Neriman

9.10 and 9.5

Dear 9.5 and 9.10,

Thank you for the quality work you are doing on your hotel projects. I know they will turn out wonderful! Remember to work as a team, discuss, problem solve and negotiate together. Teamwork isn’t one person doing all the work.

I know how difficult it is to research, find information and put it into your own words. However, it’s very important that you are reading, understanding and summarizing…not copy and pasting! ☺ We will continue to work on the strategy of summarizing information.

Keep up your enthusiasm for learning! I appreciate the effort you make to listen, complete assignments and appropriately participate in the classroom.

One more thing! I would like to welcome my new students to our class ☺

Present Continuous Tense

09-02 and 09-07,

This is week 3 of LC4 and we've started learning about the present continuous tense. Refer to Grammar Reference 11.1 and 11.2 on page 132 of your New Headway Plus Student Book for details on its forms and usage.

During the week remember to access your Quia account for homework and to be prepared for your daily short quizzes and any other possible drop quiz you may have.

Great Job

Grade Nine Team,

Well done on the weekly quiz - the best grades yet. 9.01 you had a class average of 19/20 and 9.06 you did very well with a class average of 17/20. Good Job to everybody.

9.01 - Don't forget to hand in your criteria tables and writing for Monday and good start on the I-movie tutorials. Let's make something that will really be of benefit to other students now and into the future.

Essay Writing

Dear 9.04 & 9.09,

We are well into the last learning cycle and looking back, I am so excited to see how much we have accomplished together! You have made such great progress in English so far and your work, both written and oral, has been remarkable. Keep up the good work and strive for the best. You have the potential to achieve excellent results and I know that you CAN do it!

This week, our focus areas as you know are debate and writing persuasive essays. We have brainstormed ideas on living in the city versus living in the country. We have discussed the pros and cons of both and made different conclusions, created mind maps, took notes, went through images, and prepared speeches to support your view and convince/persuade others after taking the poll on Edmodo. In both sections, we were surprised to see that there was a tie each time groups voted for living in the city or country. The debates were amazing! Every time I listened to one of you supporting your opinion and trying to convince me, I felt excited and proud. Your arguments were strong and backed up by examples and valid reasons. It was fun watching you getting excited and making an effort to speak English to offer your perspective to convince me to move to the country or stay in the city. I think this was a great learning experience for all of you since you now can effectively use your powers of persuasion in writing and speaking.



In the remainder of the week we will continue to focus on the same ideas and concepts, but use the skills learned to write a five-paragraph essay. The assignment is posted on the blog and we have discussed what should go into each paragraph to make it a well-organized and well-developed essay. I expect you to transfer the ideas we generated along with your personal opinion to your essay. The ball is in your court now. I will make my final decision on staying in the city or moving to the country based on how convincing your essays will be! Do not be afraid of expressing yourself and making mistakes. Writing is a process and we will produce several drafts until we have great persuasive essays, revising and editing as we go...

Keep up the good work.

Ms. Neriman

LC4

Dear 9.05 and 9.10,

Thank you for starting out the new learning cycle with such a positive attitude! I’m excited to see how much progress all of you have made in English this year. During this cycle we still have a lot to accomplish. Please do your best to stay focused and keep achieving.

The past few months we have concentrated a lot on reading strategies in order to increase comprehension. Remember to activate your schema, ask questions, infer and summarize to be the best possible readers.

I want to compliment all of you on your wonderful writing! I’m so impressed with the details you are putting into your writing. Continue to work hard to edit and revise your papers in order to make them better.

Find a comfy chair and read every night! :-)

LC4 - Grammar Objectives from NHP Elementary U10

09-02 and 09-97,

Last week we started Unit 10, New Headway Plus Elementary. The grammar objectives we've covered so far are:

- comparative and superlative adjectives.
- have/ has - have/ has got.

Remember to access your Quia accounts every day to do your homework. You will be tested on the material we cover in class regularly. Also, ask me any questions in class if you need any clarification.

Dear 9.10 and 9.05,

Your English exam is tomorrow and I know you will all do great! Please go over the revision activities I gave you for Units 7, 8 and 9. Also, check your Edmodo account, I sent you some test taking tips and some information to help you improve your writing.

Get a lot of rest tonight and the best of luck on your exam!

09-02 and 09-07,

The past simple tense is one of the main objectives in New Headway Plus Units 6, 7 and 8. Please make sure you check your email - for the work to do at home and the presentation - to help you understand the past simple tense better.

Your LC3 exams are just around the corner, so make sure you start studying and come to class with questions if you're unclear about anything.

MT-2 Exams Coming Soon

Gentlemen,

Your MT-2 Exams will run from Sunday April 3rd to Thursday April 14th. Be sure to focus over these two weeks before exam time and ready yourself for the last stretch of the academic year. Don't forget that teachers are available to help you with extra study time every Saturday here on our Campus. CLICK HERE to download your schedule.

Mid-Cycle Quiz This Week!

09-02 and 09-07,

Please study hard for your Mid-Cycle Quiz this week: New Headway Plus Units 6 & 7 Student Book, Workbook, notes in the notebook and on your laptop, and hand-outs and worksheets in your folder.

09.05 and 09.10

Dear 09-10 and 09-05,

Thank you for working so hard this semester. All the groups did a fantastic job writing the proposal letters. I know it was a difficult task and I’m very impressed with the effort you put into creating a professional and well-written letter.

I really enjoyed listening to the recordings of you discussing a country. It was wonderful to hear how fluently you are speaking! Also, I learned a lot about each of your countries. Excellent job!

This week you will have your mid-cycle exam. Please continue to use your student book and workbook as a study guide. Remember, I’m always here after school, before school and during most breaks if you have any questions or need extra support with anything.

Please continue to check Edmodo daily for updates and assignments.

Ms. Melissa

Project Task 1

Congratulations to 9.06.

Great job on your business letters. Every group has successfully completed the first draft of their business letter. They look great, now we just need to tweak some the English to make it sound more professional.

Cheers,

Mr. Crosbie

The Past Simple Tense

09-02 and 09-7,

Your main language objective for New Headway Plus Unit 7 is the past simple tense. Remember to study the pages in your Student Book, Workbook, notebook and documents in your laptop in preparation for a possible drop quiz - and ask me questions if there's something you don't understand.

Ms. Lara

Welcome back!

Hello Grades 09-02 and 09-07!

Welcome back to school! I hope you enjoyed your holiday and are now ready to jump right back into your school work!

Today, we start looking at the past tense. Your HW for tomorrow is to submit a list of 10-20 verbs in the past tense that you use in today's writing task. Please type your words in the English Blog's Writing Submission Form.


I hope you enjoy your first day back and remember to do your HW!

Vocabulary Development

09-02 and 09-07,

This week we looked at how to learn new vocabulary and record it. Remember the skills you learned to record new vocabulary and use them, not only for English, but for your other subjects as well!

Keep studying for those exams and remember there are remedial classes after school if you have any questions for your teachers.

How to prepare for a test!

Preparing for a test

Keep up with regular class work and assignments. Take notes.

Start reviewing a few days before the test.

Devise your own ways to organise and remember information.

Use a 'buddy system' to study. Teach the information in your own words to a classmate.

Get a good night's sleep, and eat a healthy breakfast and lunch.

Ms Ida

Test Taking Tips

Do you sweat, chew your pencil, and feel butterflies in your stomach as your teacher hands out a test? A lot of people (adults included) get freaked out when it's time to take a test.
Here are some tips for taking tests:
• First, be sure you've studied properly. It sounds like a no-brainer, but if you're sure of the information, you'll have less reason to be worried.
• Get enough sleep the night before the test. Your memory recall will be much better if you've had enough rest.
• Listen closely to any instructions. As the teacher hands out the test, be sure you know what's expected of you.
• Read the test through first. Once you have the test paper in front of you, read over the entire test, checking out how long it is and all the parts that you are expected to complete.
• Focus on addressing each question individually. As you take the test, if you don't know an answer, don't obsess over it. Instead, answer the best way you can or skip over the question and come back to it after you've answered other questions.
• Relax. If you're so nervous that you blank out, you might need a mini-break. Of course you can't get up and move around in the middle of a test, but you can wiggle your fingers and toes, take four or five deep breaths, or picture yourself on a beach or some other calm place.
• Finished already? Spend any extra time checking over your work, rereading your writing and making sure you answered ALL questions.

Time to Study!

Dear 9.5 and 9.10,

I can’t believe the first semester is almost over! Your final exams begin on Sunday and it’s very important you are aware of your schedule. Schedules were emailed to you. Take some time to go over when you have each exam and make a plan of how you are going to study. Don’t wait until the night before to study, start studying NOW! Also, take advantage of the time after school to meet with your teachers and go over any concepts that are still difficult or confusing for you.

Good luck!

The Present Simple Tense

09-02 and 09-07,

One of the objectives of New Headway Plus Unit 4 is the present simple tense in all its forms and persons. Remember to go over your notes in your notebook, worksheets and hand-outs, in addition to the pages in your Student Book and Workbook in preparation for your LC2 English exam.

Make the most of your last week!

09-02 and 09-07,

As I told you last week, all your teachers are availabe after school every day this week. Please go over your material at home and stay after school to ask your teachers questions if there's anything you're unsure of. Don't leave it to the last minute.

Good luck studying for your LC2 exams!

End of Term

Grade 9:03 & 9:08

We have reached the end of term 1 of the academic year. Next Sunday ie the 9th of January your term exams are going to begin. Remember everything that has been taught in class. This week we are going to go through all the language skills like reading, writing, listening and speaking in class. Good luck with your exam preparation.

Ms Ida