Review-- Happy Feet

Happy Feet is a comedy-drama film and is directed by George Miller. Maybe some people think this is a cartoon. Leading actor is a small penguin, whose name is Bobo. He is very different from other penguins, because he isn't good at singing, but he is good at dancing. All penguins are congenital singers, so he is expulsed by the family of penguins. He is a stray penguin, but he makes some friends and has a long journey. Bobo saw human want to destroy their existent environment, so he wants to check them. At the last, he succeeds.

I like this movie, because the songs and dancing are very nice. Penguins are very cute. Furthermore, this movie teaches us that we should protect the environment for animals.

Summary of Book--David Copperfied

This book which was written by Charles Dickens is called David Copperfield.

This book tells the story of the life of David Copperfield. He was born in Suffolk. His father died six months before he was born. When he was about eight, my mother married Mr Murdstone. He doesn't like his stepfather and stepfather's sister. They teach him. If he can not answer questions, his stepfather will hit him. He was sent away to boarding school, so he knew some friends. However, his mother died after several months later. His stepfather sent him to work in London. His life is very bad, so he ran away and went to look for his aunt, who is Bestsey Trotwood. He didn't go back to his home with stepfather. His aunt sent him to school for studying. His aunt suggested that he spent one month in London before what profession he decided to choose. When he lived in London, he met his old friend, who is Steerforth. When David came back, he chooses the occupation of lawyer. He met Dora and fell in love with her. However, his aunt was bankruptcy. Then Mr Copperfield married Dora and became a gazetteer. Dora was ill badly, when David became a famous writer. After period of time, Dora died. He was very sad, so he had a long journey. Finally, he got married with Agnes, because she kept touch with him, when he was travelling all round cities.

Week Ten - Oral Blog Portfolio Post Entry Seven Diploma Lecture 2

There was a lecture, which was called New ZILD English on week seven. The speaker was Philippa Fox.

Firstly, she talked about varieties of English, such as British English, Korean English, Indian English, African English and so on. There are two types of English, which are standards British English and American English. New Zealand English is close to standard English. In addition, she talked about mixing vowels and also about how new accents are created. This happens when people move and mix in New Zealand. There are many influences, including normal change, pioneering spirit, national identity, media characters, Maori and class. Then, she talked about the differences in the Kiwi accent, such as vowels, diphthongs, disappearing differences, extra syllable, "L" and high rising intonation. There are differences in vowels, for example, the number one is that English speakers say fish and chips, but kiwis say fush and chups. When kiwis say pen, I hear pin. When they say six, I hear sex.

Finally, she told us some references. The first one is Video "Newzild", which is the story of New Zealand English. You can find it in the Language Learning Centre in the library. The second one is web articles. There are two articles and I have a link for them.

Week Ten Text Blog Entry Eight - an article about my country in the international press

There are 12 animals, which is used to symbolize every year who is born in China. This year is “golden pig”year, which comes around once every 60 years. There have a link to a article about it.


This year is the second year to sold firecrackers in Beijing. There were more than 380,000 boxes of firecrackers sold, which was much more than last year. Astrologers said people born during the Year of the Pig are lucky. As a result, many people get married during this year and have a baby. People used the mobile phone to sent text messages wishing each other a fortunate New Year. People went to the temples to burn incense and pray a fortunate New Year. In addition, people went to traditional temple fairs to celebrate New Year. In temple fairs, you can bought caramel sweets blown with a pig shapes. Many people went to their hometown to celebrate New Year. People who live in the western country had been celebrating for days. China's most powerful leaders went to the countryside to visit some of the hundreds of millions of farmers. During the festival, nobody will cut their hair. Because it might not have good lucky.

Oral Blog Entry Six- Picture Comparison

There are two pictures. Both of them show different types of classrooms in primary school. The first one shows students are using computers with their studying. They learn for each group. The second picure shows students are studying without computer. They study are studying together.

I think the first one is more efftive than another, because they can learn a lot of knowledge from computer. They can find more information from computer.

However, if they don't use pens, they will forget how to write. In addition, they will lose their culture, because words is a culture for a country. There are many bad knowledge on the internet, so it is not good for children.

Week Nine Text Blog Entry-- Diploma Trip

I really enjoyed this trip. We had thought it would rain before we went on this trip. However, we were very lucky, because the weather would be sunshiny. We went to Huia Point and Cornwallis Beach.

Firstly, Yan took Vivian and me to a cafe, which we should meet in Titirangi village. I think this village is very beautiful. We had a morning tea and had waited other people for several minutes before we went to Huia Point. Yan still took us to go there, but we missed other cars. We didn't know which road should we drove, but Sally came back and took us to go there. When we arrived there, we saw a beautiful sea. We saw two mountains in the sea. The grass have two colour. We discuss this why these have phenomenon. We took a photo from there, then we went to Cornwallis Beach. I saw a nice sea and we walked on the beach. I saw black sand, which is the first time I have seen it. I asked Ron why. He told me it is not a pollution. We had a short walk and we went back to share lunch. There were many kinds of food, such as cakes, salad, chips and chicken. All of these were very delicious. Finally, when we finished eating, we had a free time in the afternoon.

It was a wonderful trip, which I really like it. I think we can know each other more after we chat about everything. I hope have a next time to do a trip look like this one.

Week Eight Text Blog Entry-Move to stem truant growth

This article talked about truant growth. Rate of truancy numbers has growth 41 percent in New Zealand since 2002. It had 30,000 children a day to skip to classes last year. Christchurch principal said school should need more resource. Rob Burrough who is the principal of Linwood College said if school and truancy officers use the inadequate resource, it will have the opposite result. Christchurch's truancy officers and District Truancy Services are two community organization to tackle this problem. It will deal with truancy to look at ways on other countries. New Zealand school will share ideas with each other. Katherine Rich who is National Party education spokeswoman said truancy should become a national priority.

There are active voice and passive voice. "District Truancy Services are contracted by the ministry to support schools with non-attending students." is a present simple passive form, means the ministry contracted District Truancy Services to support schools with non-attending students. "Papanui High School principal Denis Pyatt said truancy services were stretched," is a past simple passive form, means the government should stretch the truancy services. "but a date has not yet been set for the scheme to be extended across the country." is a present prefect simple passive form and a passive infinitive form. "These hard-working people on the front line need to be given greater support." is a passive infinitive.

Oral Blog Entry --Domeastic News Headlines

I heard this story on Morning Report on Natioanl Radio on Monday April 30th.

"The main story in the press is that the goverment is looking at ways to tackle truancy numbers. The story says last year an average of 30,000 children a day skipped classes."

Here are three pronunciation features which I noticed.
Consonant to vowel linking--"main", "average of"
Extra liking sound --"at ways"
Weak forms--"at ways", "to classes"

Week Seven Text Blog Entry- Describe differences in manners between NZ and own country

There are many differences in manners between New Zealand and my country, because my country is a very traditional country.I will talk manners about three ways. Although there are a lot of manners in my country, including eating, seating, talking to the old people, presents and so on.

Firstly, I want to talk about table manners. There are many manners about eating. It is completely different from New Zealand. For example, when it is time to eat dinner, we should not sit down the seat before the grandparents sit down. In addition, if we want to eat food, we could not eat everything before grandparents eating. In my country, people think this is a way of showing respect to older people. It have not these manners here, because I lived the home stay for three months. I saw the children can eat firstly. Grandparents and children are equal.

Secondly, appellation of people is absolutely different form New Zealand. One side, students should not call their teachers' names in the school, but students can call their teachers' names here. You can call their names in New Zealand, who are older than you. However, you can not call their names in China.

Finally, when we walk on the road, we might say hello for people, who we see and do not know them. However, we never do it in China.

Week Six Text Blog Entry - a narrative or recount

Today I readed a article what a farmer should pay $200,000 for extinguishing a massive fire near Bulls. Here is a link to this article. Mr Dulieu, who is Rangitikei District Council principal rural fire officer, said the fire was an accident. Why this incident happened because Gavin Hastings was mowing grass and the blade was heated up. As a result, the blade set the grass on fire. It took eight hours to control the February 26 blaze, which used more than 100 firefighters and six helicopters. This fire was the biggest in the Rangitikei region in recent times. I chose this article because I was surprised about this number.

Most of the verb forms which explain what happened are in the past simple form. There is one example of the past perfect continuous, which is " he had been mowing grass in a paddock owned by his brother when the mower blade hit a rock and he saw a fire." It means mowin grass happened before the fire in the past.

New 7 Wonders Of The World

Today my friend sent a web address for me. She told me this web address what is the election of the new 7 wonders of the world. There are many representative buildings for many countries. My friend told me the Great Wall is one of them, whereas little Chinese know this. As a result, there are 0.5 present of voters is Chinese. There are 21.8 present of voters is Peruvian yet. Firstly, I was very curious and opened it, though I thought this is a joke and do not have this web address. This is a real web address. I am very amazed for it, because I have never known this event before I saw it. Finally, I voted for the Great Wall. One reason is that it is my countrie's representative building. Another reason is that it is the largest man-made monument ever to have been built. The New 7 Wonders of the World will be announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 07.07.07. If you are interested in it, you can enter this web adress.

Oral Blog Entry - A Diploma Lecture 1(Unions in New Zealand)

This lecture was given by Sarah Hardman in week 6, who is a lecturer and ASTE chairperson. Firstly, she told us what union is. It is workers orgainized into a voluntary association to further their mutual with respect to wages, hours, working conditions and other matters of interest to the workers. Secondly, she show us some infoemation. For example, there are 330,000 New Zealanders joining a union, which 51.5% are women. If you are a union member, you can choose the union leader. Self-employee can not join a union. You can go on strike if collective agreement has expired. Although any worker can ont go on strike if they are angry with boss. Finally, she talked about why we need a union. there are several reasons, including fair pay, Fair working conditions, safe and healthy workplace, a voice for working people and equality of opportunity. If you want to know more information about unions , you can click here.

About me

Hello everyone! I'm Mengmeng Li. You can call me Jean. I came from Beijing, the capital of China. There are many old bulidings there,such as the Great Wall, Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven. I have been here about 7 months, but I went back to China for my holiday last year. I have an older brother, who is married and have two children. This is the first time I have lived in New Zealand without my parents, so when I came here for the first few months I talked to them everyday. We can see each other on the internet, so I'm a little homesick. I have only finished high school, so when I finish this course, I will continue my studying.


I totally like the environment in New Zealand,because there are more trees and flowers than my country. The weather is very different from my country, because it snows in winter in my country and is much colder than here. My hobby is music, but I just like listening to music.

That's all.

Welcome to my blog