Carol McNamara
I live in NZ and work as an ESL teacher, however, I was born in Kent and have always had an interest in English history.
Location Auckland, New Zealand.
Achievements
Activity
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I would class a sport as elite if it were beyond the means for the average working person to ever be able to afford to participate, and if it involves obscene amounts of money "buying" players, venues etc - America's Cup, championship soccer etc. Not very keen on sport personally, and don't really care about modern celebrities. I go to the gym at least three...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
1 jousting, hunting and maybe dancing. Cock fighting and bear baiting.
2 reading, studying online to keep my brain active. Gym three times a week.
3 Using my retirement wisely! -
Carol McNamara made a comment
I loved the Black Tudors course and I'm sure this will be just as enlightening.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I've struggled a bit with the last paragraph - "immigrant" implies choice (I'm an immigrant myself). "Front line in dispossessing indigenous Australians" implies intention. Maybe the intention of the people sending the convicts but I doubt if the convicts either knew or cared. Maybe I'm reading this out of context? Interesting, I'm English, my husband is...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Thomas Keneally of Schindler's List fame, has written a series of books with his daughter under the author name Tom and Meg Keneally. Together they've written a four book series, the "Monsarrat" series. Although fiction, they're well researched and a great read. ‘Gentleman convict’ to ‘ticket-of-leave gentleman’, lucky for Hugh Monsarrat his interrogative mind...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
The first time I visited Australia from NZ in the 1980's it was still a bit of a sensitive topic I think. Since then I've married an Australian and not so very long ago he discovered that he has quite a few convicts in his family tree. He is most definitely not ashamed of them. Without them, he wouldn't be here!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
https://www.digitalpanopticon.org a great website with lots of information, especially if doing family research.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Sorry, by "here" I meant in Australia! Senior moment as I'm in NZ!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
This may be of interest from today's paper - where the Chinese here centuries before Europeans? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/buddha-found-on-aussie-beach-worth-180k/ZVQ4GCOET5GDHH5O2V7WRPTXLI/
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Carol McNamara made a comment
There are similarities here in NZ amongst Maori communities:- Those kinship bonds extend well beyond the nuclear family to include grandparents, informally adopted children and even deceased relatives whose actions and example may be taken into account for generations after their death. From www.teara.govt.nz.
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Thanks for that information! @CatherineCrotty
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I'm in the same situation, emigrated to NZ and there's no-one left to ask except one first cousin in the UK who isn't interested.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I only have five close matches. Of the five, two are from my grandad's relationship with a woman not my grandma, and three say there's no common ancestor. One of these is a really close connection. Despite contacting these three people, I've had no response. I realise what the connection implies and don't feel comfortable trying to contact them again.
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Carol McNamara replied to David POLL
Good question! @BobHay
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Carol McNamara replied to Janis Thomson
Through testing, I found a whole half-family of aunts and cousins, all due to my grandad leaving my grandma for another woman or possible women. Huge surprise! @JanisThomson
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I did a test through ancestry.com. It seems I have an incredibly close family connection to someone who may not have the father she thinks she had. Very difficult and not something I feel I can pursue.
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Carol McNamara replied to Delyth Waugh
I am enjoying it, thanks, but it's taxing my ageing brain cells a bit!@DelythWaugh
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Carol McNamara replied to Glen McKenzie
You're correct there, I think I've had responses from about two people in three years. I get very frustrated. @LouiseH.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Just about everything to do with my dna journey is either a surprise or a shock! My dad left home when he was very young and joined the British merchant navy. I've managed to find many of his records including the fact that he sailed on a ship called the "Ruahine" during the later part of WW2. I was born and brought up in England but emigrated to New Zealand...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
My husband was adopted at birth. He made the decision that he wasn't particularly interested in finding his birth family, but he did want to know about his ethnicity. This is why he did a dna test. Not long after doing the test, he started having contact with people with dna connections and before too long he knew exactly who his birth parents were. He's also...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Through dna testing, I've discovered an entire half-family that I knew nothing about until fairly recently - I'm 70 now. Came as a huge surprise. My grandad left my grandma after having three children, met another woman and had three more children. No-one ever mentioned this when I was growing up. Fortunately, my "new" family are a joy so happy ending!
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Carol McNamara replied to Glen McKenzie
Same problem, so rude!
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Carol McNamara replied to Delyth Waugh
Kia ora from Auckland! @DelythWaugh
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I've learnt some new activities I can try with students. I'll try back-chaining. I also learnt the proper names for all the mouth places, new information for me and I've been teaching for a long time.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I used to teach international classes so plenty of variety! As noted elsewhere, /l/ and /r/ are a common problem for Japanese speakers, and I've found that Thai speakers really struggle with word endings - es, ed, ing etc. For Portuguese speakers, pronunciation of "th" is a big problem, as well as over-emphasising "..ed" at the end of words - Shocked =...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Some great tips, thanks!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Useful and challenging!
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Youtube - Pronunciation Journey hit heat
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Carol McNamara made a comment
On youtube - Pronunciation Journey hit heat, this is a branching game from the Pronunciation Games book by Hancock. I've used this a lot and it's always been a lot of fun.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Some of my students used to struggle with words like "vegetable", and the word stress on words like "engineer". This looks like a good website -https://www.speechactive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/English-Commonly-Misprononced-Words-English-Pronunciation-PDF-.pdf
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Never thought about "squashing", fantastic advice!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Great explanation, thanks.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Some great information here. I know I speak differently according to different situations - when teaching, I grade my language, when with friends I speak faster and use more informal language. If I'm speaking to my husband, well, after many years of marriage there are all sorts of short forms that we use - "Tea?" "Ta" "Bikkie?" "Nah, ta".
There are some...
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After writing text on the board, first without, then with pauses highlighted, might be useful to ask students to record themselves, as a reminder.
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Reading aloud is great. I've tried asking students to prepare a one minute speech using colour pencils to mark where to pause. They can also highlight linking sounds, word stress, sentence stress, etc. They can read this out to their peers, then try again without using their notes.
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This one is interesting youtube -Top 10 Hardest UK Accents To Imitate
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I just had a quick look on Youtube, there's some good material from BBC, if you search for The Teachers' Room you should find something eg The Teachers' Room: Top tips about intonation
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Carol McNamara made a comment
This was fun!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
A great explanation and downloads, thank you!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
1. Segmentals - phonemes, vowels, consonants etc.
Suprasegmantals - word stress, linking, weak forms, etc
2. Helps listening skills, aids comprehensibility, easier to teach.
3. Accuracy - focus on individual sounds. Fluency - helps with speaking at a normal pace without too many pauses. I think accuracy vs fluency depends on the requirements and... -
Carol McNamara made a comment
I've also tried students leaving voice message for another students in class. The receiving student then has to write out the voice message and check with the speaker. Another good activity is "Whispers" - the teacher gives the first student a sentence, they whisper it to the next student and so on, then the last student writes what they think the sentence is...
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My students used to love tongue twisters! Have also tried a bit of silent dictation where the "speaker" has to make the mouth shapes of words really clearly for their partner to guess the word. Looks silly but good fun.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Some that I've used - https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/, some good, free resources. Some can be found on youtube - "Sounds of English", especially good for showing the shape and movement of the mouth. Also minimal pairs, "Ship or Ship" book, and also available on youtube. I've just found this one, looks good -...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
When my students did free speaking practise, I would usually try to listen in and monitor, making a note of areas for correction. After the activity I'd spend time going over pronunciation errors as a whole class activity. That way there's error correction and no-one felt they were being "picked on" or not as good as their classmates.
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Carol McNamara replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
I still struggle sometimes with Kiwi pronunciation - bid/bad/bed!
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Carol McNamara replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
I'm from the south of England originally but have been in New Zealand for most of my adult life. Still sound like a Londoner apparently!@JoannaSmith
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Carol McNamara made a comment
This is great, thank you.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Hi, I'm Carol, from New Zealand. I'm a semi-retired ESL teacher, and my favourite part of English teaching was/is pronunciation. As I haven't completely given up work, I thought this would be a great course to continue building my knowledge and abilities.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Thanks to this course, I've just discovered that even remote New Zealand had internment camps for German nationals as well as P.O.W.'s. I had no idea. This an interesting read - https://ww100.govt.nz/germans-in-new-zealand-ww1
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Carol McNamara replied to Frances Heffernan
another interesting website - @CatherineBartlett">https://www.rmslusitania.info/controversies/conspiracy-or-foul-up/@CatherineBartlett
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Carol McNamara replied to Lodewijk Jan Nauta
And this - It was Winston Churchill who intervened to secure the safe return of tens of thousands of war horses stranded in Europe after the First World War. War Office documents found in the National Archives at Kew show that tens of thousands of the animals were at risk of disease, hunger and even death at the hands of French and Belgian butchers because...
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Carol McNamara replied to Lodewijk Jan Nauta
You might be interested in this - @LodewijkJanNauta">https://www.warriorwarhorse.com@LodewijkJanNauta
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Carol McNamara replied to Michael Bath
Just found this re: New Zealand - "The total number of New Zealand troops and nurses to serve overseas in 1914–18, excluding those in British and other Dominion forces, was 100,444, from a population of just over a million. Forty-two percent of men of military age served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, fighting in the Gallipoli campaign and on the...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
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Carol McNamara replied to Jill Hind
H.G. Wells ""The Land Ironclads" published 1907 is a good read too. @JillHind
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Carol McNamara made a comment
My grandad joined the Royal Engineers at the start of the war, then later, towards the end of the war transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. I have some wonderful old photos of him in his flying gear sitting in the cockpit of his plane. I only met him once, but I know the family stories of shell-shock, and how it changed him, and the lives of the people...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
"Dachshunds often have been seen as a symbol of Germany. Because of this association, Dachshunds lost popularity in the United States during World War I and World War II." Same applied in the UK I believe.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Enjoying the course a lot, thank you!
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I agree with you Sara. I don't have strong religious beliefs but I'm confused here - if we can communicate directly with God, what's the relevance of Christ?@SaraF
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Being English, I knew about Guy Fawkes, the plague and the great fire, but I'd never really thought about the rulers and their connections before.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I'm related to the Akehurst family of Sussex who I believe were Quakers in the early days. Might explain why I've always had an interest despite having no great religious affiliation.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I've always had an interest in Quakerism. Through researching my family tree I have discovered that one family line in Sussex was very involved with the movement which has motivated me to find out more.
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Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell novels! Patricia Cornwell tried to prove that the artist, Sickert, was Jack the Ripper (Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed).
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Carol McNamara made a comment
A really interesting course, thank you.
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Interesting! I thought I was mainly from Kent, but I've also got 22% Scottish, 5% Germanic Europe, etc...and most of my immediate ancestors were actually from Sussex.@TonyBall
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Interesting comment, I was born in England but emigrated to NZ many years ago. I'm a New Zealand citizen and have both NZ and UK passports. I still refer to Kent as "home".
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Books, holiday photos, my few bits of jewellery, documents and family tree, brass cat - first gift from my husband.
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Your first paragraph reminded me of seeing Victorian photographs of people that had passed. I think many today would find that quite difficult to deal with - children/babies propped up or sitting with their siblings as if still alive. Personally I'd prefer photos of people still alive and as I'd known them in life, however, with the child mortality rate in...
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Age, sex, state health, diet and cause of death would be my choices.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Looking forward to this!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Retired, curious, health-conscious.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Thank you Alexandra, educators, mentors and fellow students, this has been an amazing course. Looking forward to the next one!
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Fascinating. I particularly enjoyed learning about food and health, but the whole course has held my attention all the way through.
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Wow! I wish I'd looked closer in the previous step!
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Gold, or gold leaf. 9 figures, one being a king. Maybe some sort of coronation ceremony? I think this piece is a type of crown or headpiece.
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Thank you!@AlexandraChavarria
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I'm a bit confused, have I missed something? First we read about the Goths, then the Lombards, but were they one and the same? Or were there two different groups of people? If so, when did that happen? Am I having a senior moment?
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Carol McNamara made a comment
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That's one I haven't read! I'd forgotten, he also wrote the Cicero series - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator.@ChristineClover
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Pompeii by Robert Harris is a good novel - "Marcus Attilius Primus arrives in the Bay of Naples from Rome to take charge as aquarius (hydraulic engineer) of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that supplies water to the towns in the region encompassing the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius". Fiction but gives a good idea about aqueducts.
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In Auckland we have the Civic Theatre, built in 1929 for 200,000 pounds. It was going to be demolished but was restored for nearly 42 million dollars (21 million pounds roughly) but worth it! "The Civic opened in 1929 as a picture palace, a truly glamorous experience for patrons attending the ‘talkies’.
Today, The Civic is one of the few remaining intact... -
Hi Fay, I'm in locked down Auckland! Don't know where you are but just found this on the internet - "Of the forty known volcanic hill pa of Auckland, 70% have been severely damaged or destroyed, mostly by quarrying. The best preserved sites today include Mangere, Maungakiekie, Maungarei, Maungawhau, Motukorea, Ohinerau, Takarunga and Te Kopuke".@FayWeatherly
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Carol McNamara made a comment
Rochester and Canterbury, Kent.
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Carol McNamara replied to Judi Boutle
Thank you!!!@JudiBoutle
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Carol McNamara replied to Judi Boutle
Vegetarian and whisky then I'll join you!@JudiBoutle
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Thanks for that, I didn't know there was a historical fiction course. @FrancesAlbrecht
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Carol McNamara replied to Judi Boutle
The taste was definitely blue cheese but very mild and creamy. Mmmmm!@CorinneHG
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Thanks for this, the libraries in Auckland reopen today after a 3 month lockdown so I'll be able to order books at last!@FrancesAlbrecht
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Carol McNamara replied to Judi Boutle
Many thanks Judi, and your husband! This looks divine, could be Christmas Day dessert. That's my diet over - again!@JudiBoutle
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Carol McNamara replied to Judi Boutle
What a great husband, can you ask him for the recipe?!!!!!@JudiBoutle
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Thank you for these websites. It's extraordinary, I've lived in Auckland for 40+ years and I've never heard to the Imperium Romana organisation! @MargaretTaylor
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Sadly nothing like that in NZ but this might interest you - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pā@ÉamonÓDeagha
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Carol McNamara replied to Judi Boutle
Probably, I'm willing to give it a go! @MaryR
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Carol McNamara replied to Carol McNamara
Sadly, case numbers are rising here, hope your family stays safe and well.@LynneSalter
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Only a tiny bit off-topic, this is an interesting article about the structures beneath modern Rome https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/04/underground-rome/376836/; there's also a fantastic book (if still in print) "Subterranean Rome".
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An interesting article about the walls around Florence - https://www.florenceinferno.com/florence-town-walls/
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Carol McNamara replied to Judi Boutle
We were in Rome a couple of years ago and tried the delights of gorgonzola ice cream, sounds disgusting but is So delicious, a major reason for going back.@MaryR
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Carol McNamara replied to Carol McNamara
That's a good point! @LynneIrwin
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Carol McNamara made a comment
I live in NZ but was born and brought up in Kent. I did a google search and found this article about Canterbury - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_city_walls. How I wish I'd paid more attention all those years ago when it was just a car journey, rather than an 18 hour flight!
