International Students in Australia

Here are a few radio stories reporting on the situation on international students in Australia.

National Interest

Life Matters
Australia Talks

Are we stimulating you?

Does this picture look like your classroom. Many educators believe that learning only happens when students are engaged and stimulated.

This story exlplains why this is important and how it can be done. Listen to the story here, take notes, then write out a summary of the story.

Australians and The Great Depression

What was the Great Depression? Listen here and answer the following questions.

How were Australians healthier during the Great Depression?

Why were they healthier during the Great Depression?

Why do stars twinkle?

Read or listen to this story to find out the answer.

ABC TV on iView

The ABC is Australia's public broadcaster. It airs a number of TV programs that are valuable to you as learners of English. I have made a list of the "best" programs. There are many more, but this are my recommendations.

News/Current Affairs:

Compass

Foreign Correspondant

Four Corners

Landline

Lateline

Media Watch

Q&A

The 7:30 Report

Australian/Aboriginal Topics:

Australian Story
Message Stick

Science:

Catalyst

The New Inventors

Entertainment:

At the Movies
The Bill

All of these programs can be viewed on ABC1 or ABC2. You can also stream them on the internet at iView.

The Story of Australian English

This is a great lecture about a new book on Australian English. You can listen to the story or you can read it by clicking on the transcript. This is an interesting and useful lecture.

Catastrophic Bushfires in Victoria

There have been some terrible bushfires all over Victoria over in the last few days. The ABC News website has an very informative website that shows photos, video, stories and maps about the bushfires.

If you want to donate money to the victims of the bushfires please go to the Red Cross Australia website.

Solar Cooling? Is this possible?

Here is a story about an air-conditioner that runs on solar energy.

Is this possible?

How will this change things in Australia?

Would you buy one?

Euthanasia: An Emotional Issue

Euthanasia is a highly debated issue in many countries. It often brings up strong emotions in people because they have had personal experiences with the issue.

Here is a forum from Australia on this topic.



What do you think about this issue? What do people think in your country?

When Dangerous Dogs Attack

There have been many dog attacks on young children recently. Sometimes the young children have died. Who is responsible for the attacks? The dog? The dog owners? The parents?

Many members of the public are calling for Australian dog laws to be reviewed. This report is from the 7:30 Report (ABC). Click on one of the movies in the column on the right.

What do you think? Should the laws change?

Keeping up with the News

As an ESL learner it is very important that you keep up to date with the world around you. How can you do this? Let's look at a few different resources you can use.

Newspapers- you don't have to buy them. You can read them for free on the internet.

The Age- my favourite local newspaper.
Hearld Sun- not my favourite, but it will give you some alternative opinions to The Age.

The Australian- as above, it is owned by the same media group.

The Independant- a great newspaper from England.

The New York Times- a well respected newspaper.

Radio- you can listen to these stations on the internet if you don't have a radio.

ABC National (621AM)- this station has lots of news and currecnt affairs.

ABC Melbourne (774AM)- lots of local news.

TV- if you don't have a TV, you can watch news updates on the internet for free.

ABC (Channel 2)- lots of Australian news plus some international news.

SBS (The channel number depends on your TV)- this station broadcasts lots of international news.

Channel 7 - commercial news.

Channel 9

Channel 10

Try to watch, listen or read the news at least once a day. You can change to different sources so you can practice different skills.

Good luck.

Australian Music: Sounds as vast as our Landscape

I love Australian music. It is completely different from music from the Unitied States or the Unitied Kingdom. It is a rich and creative relfection of Australia's people and landscape.

Triple J recently aired a series of programs on the connection between the Australian landscape and Australian music. The Wide Open Road series celebrates this connection. It has a great website that takes you on a journey through the Australian landscape to better understand the music from our country.

Here is a taste of some Australian music featured in the Wide Open Road series.



This is a great song from an Aussie Hip Hop group called the Hilltop Hoods. They often sing about current Australian themes and issues. This song is called Stopping all Stations. It is about travelling on a train in an Australian city. Each part of the song talks about a different passenger on the train and tells us about their life. Very cool!

Australian English

It took me more than two hours to workout how to put this mp3 on the blog! i hope you like it. 

AustralianEnglish.mp3

Here is a great news story from ABC Radio. Listen to the story, take notes, write a summary of the story.

Listening to ABC Radio National

The ABC Radio National website allows you to listen to radio programs whenever you like. All the presenters are Australians, and so are many of their guests.

Click on the Listen Live icon at the top left of the screen. Or use the menu on the left side of the screen.

It's a Furphy

Here is a great story about Aussie language.

A furphy is a rumour or a yarn. The term was given to us by an Irish immigrant family who settled in Victoria in the 1800s.

Accounts of the precise origins of the term 'furphy' have changed over the years, however. There have been a few furphies within the furphy story.

The Language Man

This is an episode of a TV show called Message Stick. The show covers many stories about Aboriginies and Aboriginal Culture. This is a very interesting episiode.

John Bradley was in his early 20s when as a new teacher he was sent to the remote aboriginal community of Borroloola in the Northern Territory. For most of his adult life he has been working with the Yanyuwa (pronounced Yan.you.a), documenting their language and culture, and is now a fluent speaker himself … one of the last.

You can see Message Stick at 1:30 pm on Sundays on ABC1 (Channel 2) It is repeated at 6pm on Fridays on ABC1.

The Best Show on Australian TV

I think that Australian Story is the best program on Australian TV. Every week they interview real Australians about their experiences in life. Some of them are very famous but some are average Australians. All of them have extraordinary tales to tell.

My favourite story is about John Marsden. He is an Australian writer. I grew up reading his books and I always enjoyed them. I had an even deeper respect for him after seeing this episode.

Australian Story is televised on ABC-TV (Channel 2) Mondays at 8.00 pm and repeated on Saturdays at 12.30 pm.

Enjoy

Listening to Australia

The Best of the ABC website has some great radio segments and videos. Choose a story that interests you and watch or listen to it. At the bottom of the webpage you change choose to look at previous stories or the archives. This should help improve your listening. For an extra challenge take notes while you listen and write a summary paragraph about the story afterwards.