Wednesday, October 23, 2013

#5 How do you like ESL Randall's Cyber Listening Lab as a language learning resource?

I used to watch English drama to improve my ability of LISTENING. Because I do not know which website or what English magazine is useful for me, and also I'm too lazy to find out the way. But in RANDALL, I can easily know which level I can handle, and do more practices to upgrade to the highest level that I want to achieve. So, I REALLY like this website, not only it's free, but also it's all useful for elementary or advanced.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

#4 Two clips from Randall's Cyber Listening Lab

A. Just a Hair Cut, Please !

atrim (verb): cut just a little off 
     e.g. He got his hair trimmed yesterday at a beauty salon.

b. voila (interjection): an expression to indicate satisfied completion 
     e.g. Finally, you should bake the cake for 20 minutes, and voila, you've made your first cake.

c. butcher (verb): to kill, and in this case, to cut without care 
     e.g. My brother tried to cut his own hair with school scissors and without a mirror, and he really butchered it badly.

d. in charge (adjective): in control 
     e.g. She is in charge of the new project.

e. decent (adjective): nice, acceptable, proper 
     e.g. The students did a decent job on the class presentation.

B. Wedding Anniversary

a. once in a blue moon: very rarely
     e.g. We go out to a nice restaurant once in a blue moon.

b. wardrobe (noun): the clothing someone has
     e.g. His girlfriend buys a new wardrobe every few months.

c. grab a bite (to eat): have a light meal
    e.g. Would you like to grab a bite this evening after work?

e. icicles (noun): a long thin pointed piece of ice hanging from a roof or other surface
    e.g. Icicles hung from the roof.

f. detour (noun): a way of going from one place to another that is longer than the usual way
    e.g. We took a detour to avoid the town centre.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

#3 Concordancer Exercise

Three different words of 粽子

a. dumplings    KK [ˋdʌmplɪŋ]
e.g. What are more than ten women doing in the temple, not sleeping but deftly tying the dumplings?

b. tzung-tzu

e.g. According to the custom of Taiwan, families in mourning are not supposed to make nien-kao or tzung-tzu for the holidays, but they can be given some as a present by their neighbors.

c. zong-zi

e.g. At festival times, they add chicken, onions, tomatoes and spices to the corn flour, wrapping it all up in banana leaves to create an Indian version of the Chinese "zong-zi."