Library Pocasts: Interpreting Practice

St George TAFE Library staff have been producing podcasts with information about the library services and instructions on how to use different technology and library facilities. Although they are specifically talking about St George college, most of what they say can be applied to any college library and many other libraries in Australia. Their instructions on how to use technology are also general.

Some of their podcasts are in Languages Other Than English (LOTE), so they are great practice for interpreting students.

These are some of the podcasts:

• English: Internet searching
  

• English: Library etiquette
  
• EnglishUsing TAFEcat

• Cantonese: SES username and password

• Cantonese: Plagiarism

• Arabic: Copyright

Mandarin: SeS username and password

Spanish: How to borrow from St George Library

Spanish: Off campus services

Complete List of Multilingual Podcasts

International Students

Attribution: "Exams_by_Majeed"

I distributed some istudents magazines today. If you didn't get one, you can access them online:


istudent magazine. Check their article avoiding scams. It will help you revise your consumer affairs/fair trading topic.



They provide a classified section, in case you want to advertise something you'd like to sell/buy. For that purpose, you can access the Gum Tree, which has a lot more items listed.

Check also freecycle.org for free items!

Good luck to those studnets undertaking their interpreting exams this week!

Heath Issues

Attribution: "Phagocytosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis"


















We had an interesting presentation on eating disorders today (thanks Arum) and I thought you may be interested in further exploring health issues.
Check the following links and worksheets:
Better Health Obesity -worksheet Obesity
Better Health Skin Cancer-worksheet Skin Cancer
BMI Calculator. You just enter your height and weight and it'll tell you your BMI and if it's healthy or not.
Health quizzes

And talking about health and fashion, did you know that Spain decided to ban models that are too thin?. Read about it in the Sydney Morning Herald and the ABC7news. After reading the articles, you can answer these questions:
What triggered the ban?
What's BMI?
What BMI should a model have to be allowed to participate in fashion parades in Spain?
What's the average height, weight and BMI of a runway model?
What are the arguments for and against?

Check the meanings of gaunt, emaciated and wan. You can find many dictionaries on the Internet (just write dictionary into Google). One of them is the Merrian-Webster.

For extra listening practice, you can listen to some ESOL student podcasts on the St George TAFE Health Expo 2006. They interview doctors and health staff about different health topics. The links to all their podcasts are here.

Insurance

This weeks' topic for our intensive Interpreter's course is insurance.

Watch the BTN epidsode on this topic and try and do the activitiy worksheet .

Visit the links to the Insurance Council of Australia and read the ASIC insurance fact sheet.

Housing: Renting

What architectural style of house is the one in the picture?

We have been talking about housing and many of the topics related to it, like advantages and disadvantages of buying a house, renting or renovating.

Today' s paper has an interesting article on renting, In the fight to snare a rental property a CV is the weapon of choice. Read it and discuss it's content with your classmates and teachers.

Check this BTN episode from 11/03/08 Rental Squeeze. There are 4 separate sections. Watch all of them. You can always read/print the script to help you with vocabulary and understanding the content.

Listen to the podcast Vince: Building and do the worksheet provided. It will help you undersatnd the building process in Australia.

MyLanguage Website

One of the useful websites listed in our wiki websites document is MyLanguage. It was created by seven State Libraries to provide information in more than 60 languages and on many topics.

It also has links to government bodies, dictionaries, thesaurus, news, and up to six million information links!
This is a video about it in English. You can visit this Youtube page to watch it in different languages. Good for your interpreting and translating skills.

Podcasts: Interpreting

Hi all,

A reminder for all our interpreting students about our Podcasting blog, Let's talk.

You will find interviews that will help you with the topics studied during your interpreting courses.

If you go back and listen to older podcasts, you can listen to a variety of Sydneysiders who speak with a variety of accents about a great many topics.

Most of the recordings are supplemented by a worksheet to give you extra help and practice with the listening, vocabulary, etc.

Remember that you can subscribe to this podcast through itunes and download it onto your ipod.

Have fun!