Teacher Aide Graduation

Congratulations to our wonderful teacher aides who have just graduated as qualified English Language Assistants.

Mrs Yang and Mrs Kim have studied hard this year to complete a six month course run by the Ministry of Education. This involved monthly assignments, and professional development days followed by an in-school visit from their facilitators.

Topics covered were: Developing and enriching concepts and language, scaffolding language, effective reading to and with students and effective writing development with students.

Well done ladies, we are proud of you. See the photos below of the Korean Fan Dance group, performing at Baverstock Oaks school, as part of the graduation ceremony for the ELA course.





Speeches
There was a pleasing standard of English language speeches presented in the ESOL department. Students followed the school guidelines and produced interesting, well-researched speeches.

Mandarin Speeches
Irene Chen has been selected to represent the school in the Auckland Mandarin Speech competition. The reserve is Seraphina Zhou. This is being held on Monday 24 August at 7 p.m. at Wakaaranga School, Butley Drive, Farm Cove.

Korean Speeches
Selection for the school representative will be next Tuesday.

Term 3 Topics
This term the Level One topic is Procedural Text. Levels Two and Three are working on Expositions. These types of writing are taught in their home classrooms as well.

Ministry of Education Visit and Science Fair

Today a group of parents met to listen to Pavarati from the Ministry of Education. She spoke about the New Zealand Education system from pre-school through to college. In addition to this, she handed out booklets of useful information for migrant parents. It listed useful websites that parents and students can access for help with educational activities.

Also included in the booklet was a step-by-step explanation of Science Investigation terms - both in English, as well as Korean and Mandarin. Science Fair categories were listed and assessment criteria were discussed.

Science Fair boards were displayed to give parents an idea of the high standard of work that is expected - both research and presentation.

Mrs Murray explained that Level One ESOL students will not be doing an individual experiment for Science Fair. Instead they are presenting a detailed animal investigation based on their own choice of animal group. It will be presented in the same format as the rest of the school, and will be on display in the hall with the other boards.

Mrs Barnett explained that the Level Two and Three students will be completing a science investigation just like the other students at Bucklands Beach Intermediate. Time will be allocated in the ESOL class each day to support and assist them with this work.

All science investigations are due on the Monday of week 10, June 29th. All students are expected to deliver a speech explaining their work in front of the ESOL class.

The ESOL team will hold another parent meeting next term where a guest speaker from Team Solutions will discuss reading at home with your child. Translated reading material will be available for parents who attend. Watch this space for the dates.

Parent Meeting

A parent meeting was held last Tuesday, 10 March to introduce the staff and ESOL programmes to parents. There was also an opportunity for parents to see the ESOL area, resources and students’ work. An outline was given of the programme for 2009. Then the Year 7 parents were given information relating to the school camps; whilst the Year 8 parents had an informal social time.

2009 Official Welcome to Auckland for International Students

On a glorious sunny Thursday in late February the International ESOL students from Bucklands Beach Intermediate boarded the Half Moon Bay ferry to travel into the city.
On arrival we all walked to the Viaduct Basin and saw the old sailing ship, “Spirit of New Zealand,” as well as some of the large charter boats in the harbour.

After a brisk walk up Queen Street we had morning tea outside the Aotea Centre, before going into a welcome ceremony. It opened in spectacular fashion with a haka by students from Mt Albert Grammar School. 1700 international students attended the event. We had some excitement when Ian Lee won a spot prize to go to the Maori cultural show at the Museum.

The Maori cultural group performed a few more songs and dances. Then a contemporary dance group, Toru Toru, wowed us all with their amazing mix of Maori, Pacific and hip-hop dancing. Steven Song joined the dancers on stage for a quick performance and really showed off his moves.

After lunch at McDonalds, and an icecream, it was back to the ferry for the return to school.

Timetable and Overview

Below you can download (in *.pdf) copies of the 2009 ESOL timetable and overview of the term plans for Levels 2 & 3 in the areas of Listening and Speaking, Reading, Writing and ICT.

Timetable
Levels 2&3 Overview