Term 2 / Week 11: A Mad Scheme! Paul Mees has the Last Word

Transport expert and educator, Paul Mees, sadly passed away less than a week after he made this video message to be played at the Trains not Toll Roads Campaign Launch on 13th June, 2013.

He was always a good speaker: easy to understand and direct - a straight talker. So have a listen - what are his reasons for describing the East West Tunnel as a Mad Scheme?




Some of the words he uses:

- the most expensive
- far more expensive than ....
- value for money
- benefit to cost ratio is.... for every $1 you get 50 cents back
- simply a waste of money
- alternatives: much higher returns on investment
- upgrading existing services so more people can choose rail to get to work
- Los Angeles chose an alternative path
- no money left for substantial projects for at least a generation
- transport policy has to move from roads to rail

Late breaking news: Julia Gillard's last speech as Prime Minister

On the second last sitting day of the Australian Parliament, the Labor Party voted in Kevin Rudd as Leader again. Julia Gillard was deposed from the position - she was ousted from the job.

You can read along with the transcript as she makes her resignation speech. Here is the video and transcript.

Our walk in the Park - tracing the path of the Tunnel

Any impacts within Royal Park will be mostly short-term during construction.... the park will be restored and even improved once the project is completed. ....We are working with the community during planning to understand and minimise impacts in this area.

 from the Linking Melbourne Authority Fact sheet: Royal Park

Today we drove to the western end of Royal Park to visit the site where the East West Link road will come out of the Tunnel and cross Royal Park.

The sun came out and the only trouble we had was finding a park because all the construction workers had parked in the car park. A big thanks to all the drivers including Hang, Huong, Jason and Martin (Anna's father-in-law). None of us got lost, thank goodness.

We did a short walk into the Trin Warren Tam-boore wetlands (no, I don't expect you to remember that name!). There we saw a number of coots - two were even fighting!

Australian coot

We then went over to the Ross Straw sportsfield and looked across to the train line. Somewhere along the train line, the road is expected to come out of the Tunnel and trace a path over the sports ground and wetlands to Citylink. A dozen galahs were feeding in the grass.



After that, we crossed the road to have a look at the billabong wetlands which hold the stormwater (for watering the park in Summer). While we ate a snack, we watched a large swamphen and a black duck at the water's edge.



On the way back to CNLC, we turned off Elliott Avenue and drove up to the top of the highest point in Royal Park at the Netball Centre, just to have a look at the view over the zoo.

--> Weren't we lucky with the beautiful weather? Note: you can find our photos at ESLThree Kidblog.

A walk in the Park - video of Royal Park near City link

Here are some photos that I took the other day when I visited the western end of Royal Park where the East West Tunnel will connect to CityLink.

Term 2 / Week 10: Discussion - Tunnel or Train - putting it all together

As promised last Friday, here is a Dictation to help prepare your ideas for your Discussion text.



Note: - effect (n): The effects of climate change will be felt everywhere.
          - affect (v): Climate change affects the plants and animals living everywhere on planet Earth.

Listen to the text three times. Pause the recording to think and write. Check your writing and listen for full stops and paragraph breaks. When you can't improve your writing any more, you can check your work by looking at the Transcript here.

New resources

• Trains not Toll Roads Campaign - City of Yarra hub for the campaign
• Trains not Toll roads: Council opposes government - gives a good summary of both sides of the argument

Time to Review our Progress with Learning

Last week we started the process of reviewing our Learning over Terms 1 and 2. We are using the Worksheet: Midyear Learning Review and Self-assessment 2013.

We had a good discussion about the types of activities that you find useful to your language learning - both in class and independently outside class.

Video: Best TV shows for English language learners

Here is the video that I mentioned about useful TV shows for language. Many TV shows are difficult to understand but with sit coms (situation comedies) you can often follow what is happening by seeing the action as well as listening to the people. What's your favourite sit com? (Personally I don't have a favourite!)

Other English Language Learning websites

We also talked about a number of useful language learning websites such as VOA and VILC. If you have forgotten what is available and where to find them, go to our CNLCTalks wiki Learning on the Web Page to view the list and click any of the links to try them out.

Which one is your favourite? Why?

Here are the two websites that students talked about on Friday. What do you think about these websites?

• VOA has real news stories spoken slower than usual and you can read the captions at the same time.
• VILC requires you to sign in with our User name: 500vilcst and this year's Password which is on the whiteboard in the Computer room at CNLC.

Community news: Omar wins National Order of Australia award

Are you looking for an interesting community story to read and write about in your Independent Learning Journal? Read the story here.

It's very exciting to actually know someone who has received this National Order of Australia for his work in the community. Omar is employed through CNLC to help Horn of Africa men get employment. But funding for the program that pays for his employment is threatened. Let's hope we are successful in getting the program funded beyond June 2013.

Personal qualities of successful learners

Are you feeling a little tired out by the challenges in Level 3 English?

Video: have you got what Gus has got?

Here are a few videos to help you understand what you need to KEEP GOING.

When you click the link you can view some more videos (and don't miss the Baby Elephant video) that describe the personal qualities of:

• perseverance
• persistence
• risk-taking
• resilience

Which of those personal qualities do you need more of?

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for finding the videos and blogging about them.

Term 2 / Week 8 - 9: East West Tunnel - Arguments FOR the Tunnel

You will need to research both sides of the issue.

Here are some useful resources for understanding the arguments FOR the Tunnel.

Video: East West Link Project Overview animation

More videos are available at the Youtube channel linkingmelb.

The Benefits of the East West Tunnel Link

From the Linking Melbourne Authority website, the eastern section of the East West Link would:

• Complete the missing link between the Eastern and Tullamarine Freeways to relieve pressure on the Monash-West Gate corridor and transform travel around Melbourne

• Improve freight efficiency and connections for major industries in Melbourne’s north, east and south east to the Port of Melbourne and international airports

• Cater for the large volume of traffic already using disconnected roads along the east west corridor north of the CBD between the Eastern and Tullamarine Freeways

• Ease the major congestion bottlenecks on the Eastern Freeway at Hoddle Street

• Help to improve community amenity and on-road public transport (buses and trams) by taking cars and trucks off congested inner-city surface roads. North south tram and bus services currently compete for road space with east west traffic on Alexandra Parade. This severely limits the frequency and reliability of tram and bus services and on-road cycling due to the time given to east west traffic flows.

 What do you think about these arguments FOR the Tunnel?