On my drive home this evening, I heard an ICRT report on Jin Yong, a renowned martial arts novelist, receiving an honorary doctoral degree from National Ching-Hua University. It’s a pity that I was driving. Had I been home, I would have recorded it for my students to listen. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Good Websites’ Category
ICRT & News about Jin Yong Receiving an Honorary Doctoral Degree
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011TED Conversations
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011For those who want to practice English writing, TED Conversations, a new social media platform on TED, is a good place. There you can either start or join a conversation with people from all over the world. Even if you don’t have anything to contribute, just browsing through the conversations will give you ideas for writing.
http://www.ted.com/conversations
For example,here’s a topic I find interesting: What’s one thing you wish you had learned in school? Click on the link below and you’ll find hundreds of responses to this question. (more…)
The Seven Wonders of the Modern World, plus Famous Wonders, a Resourceful Website for Travelers
Sunday, November 27th, 2011On the 2nd mid-term, there is a passage about the Channel Tunnel, or the Chunnel. Reading the last sentence, “No wonder it’s considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World,” I was curious about the other six. Surely it is easy to find the list online. The following page of the website Famous Wonders gives not only the list but also a picture and a short descriptive passage for each Wonder. Before clicking on the link, guess what the other six wonders are. (more…)
Affixes & a Website Introducing the Commonest Prefixes and Suffixes
Monday, November 21st, 2011This afternoon, a student in Class 301 came to the office to ask me about the prefixes: in-, com-, con-, and sub-. After explaining the meaning of each, I gave him two more: pro-, ex-and suggested that he consult some online affix dictionaries., which include both prefixes and suffixes. (more…)
20 Legends Who Shook the World
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011I was exhilarated to receive the supplement to the latest issue of TIME (Nov. 7, 2011): LIFE’S LEGENDS: 20 Who Shook The World. In it are a big photo of each of these 20 legends and a short article about them. Better yet, the same stories are accessible online.
http://www.life.com/gallery/66401/image/ugc1329101/20-legends-who-shook-the-world#index/0
The 20 legends are Marion Brando, Jackie Robinson, Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther King Jr., Chuck Yeager, Winston Churchill, Georgia O’Keeffe, Margaret Bourke-White, Edmund Hillary, Ingrid Bergman, Edwin Hubble, Muhammad Ali, Frank Lloyd Wright, Audrey Hepburn, Yves Saint Laurent, Marian Anderson, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Isamu Noguchi, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Scientific American: 60-Second Reports
Friday, October 21st, 2011“It’ll take only a minute.”–Scientific American’s Podcast offers a series of 60-second reports or commentarary on the latest news in different fields, including science, mind, earth, space, health, and tech. Each report has its transcript below it.
ICRT–Radio Station to Listen to Taiwan News in English
Monday, September 5th, 2011ICRT is the only radio station in Taiwan to listen to local news in English. Besides news, it offers music and entertainment. Tune in to FM 100.7 to check it out. The news is broadcast at every hour sharp. Click on the URL, and you can read today’s news.
http://www.icrt.com.tw/newsroom_icrt_world.php?poId=6&ptId=21
The following are three pieces of news which I guess my students might be interested in, with phrases underlined by me. (more…)
Effective Ways to Build Your Vocabulary
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011Today, a student asked me how to build vocabulary in an effective way. He said he often forgot the new words he memorized a few days before. I suggested that he review the words he learned for three days in a row, say it aloud, and make a simple sentence when he first contacted a new word. Besides, I also advised him to use word cards.
The following webpage deals with the importance of a large vocabulary and effective ways to enlarge vocabulary.
http://www.jocrf.org/resources/EffectiveWays.html
Effective Ways to Build Your Vocabulary
Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation
The following is the part about ways to expand one’s vocabulary. (more…)
Beat the Heat–CNN Student News (July 22, 2011)
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011Listen to the CNN student news, which is about how to beat the heat. You can first listen to it without reading the transcript, then listen to it again reading the transcript simultaneously, and finally listen to it for the third time without transcript. It only takes you 3 minutes and 44 seconds to listen to it once.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/studentnews/07/20/transcript.wed/index.html
I downloaded the news and the transcript, in case some day it might be removed from the CNN website. In the transcript I underlined some phrases.