14 posts from 2007

Text:

1.          Is the advertisement well-designed? Are the descriptions of the product attractive to you?

2.          Does the headline match with the product?

3.          Are the advantages of the product, such as its price, innovation, convenience, and so on, highlighted in the advertisement?

4.          Are there grammatical mistakes o

r inappropriate words in the advertisement?

Text with Pictures, Videos, Audios

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Psky

Tired of buying plane tickets and waiting in airports? Now you can buy a personal airplane with the price of a car! A robot will drive the plane for you so that you can look lazily out of the window during your plane ride or take a nap. You will reach your desired destination in no time. Most importantly, it's safe, comfortable, and convenient.

For more information, please visit personalsky.com
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Write an essay about what people can (a)eat, (b) do, or (c) think about that contributes to good health. Focus on CAUSE and EFFECT, a good thesis statement, and the vocabulary and expressions you learned.

A thesis statement may be like:

(a) A positive mental attitude, (b) regular exercise, OR (c) a well-balanced diet IS ONE crucial aspect of a lifestyle that contributes to good health.

Determine a, b, or c and NARROW it down to sub-categories such as mutual trust, positive thinking, running, etc.

• Example:

Activities that Contribute to Good Health

Regular exercise, such as running, bicycling, and swimming, is one crucial aspect of a lifestyle that contributes to good health.

Running is a great, inexpensive form of exercise that partly contributes to my good health.

Bicycling is one moderate exercise which I do on a daily basis.

In summertime, I also go swimming, which is the only sport that allows the muscles all over the body to exercise.

In brief, sufficient exercise is essential for people who want to lead healthy lives.

Among the teachers who have taught me through my school life, Teacher Helen is the one that I most admire. She was the English teacher of mine while I was in junior high. In contrast to some teacher's apathy, her vitality always refreshed the atmosphere in our classroom. Moreover, her enthusiasm and thoughtfulness still warmed my heart to this day.

      Helen's charisma won everyone's appreciation soon after she began teaching us. As she was not the first English teacher of us, everyone had a skeptical eye on her in her first class. Sensing our doubts, she began the class with a guessing-people game. She asked us to write about our characteristics on a small piece of paper, which afterwards was read to the class for us to identify the person. We had great fun that day due to her ingenuity to grasp what we wanted. Afterwards, the contempt students used to hold in her was nowhere to be seen.

The energy and passion Helen possessed when teaching was unbelievable. With more and more days she spent with us, I noticed a distinctive quality of hers that truly amazed me. No matter what the weather was like and how she was feeling, she was always in high spirits when she entered the classroom, as if she was ecstatic to see us. Besides, she encouraged us to interact with her; therefore, the class was by no means serious and tense, but very enjoyable and inspiring.

Book

      Helen used clever techniques to arouse our interest in learning English. Quizzes are the indispensable element of a class, but Helen added them with her own illustrations to make them more fascinating. She also printed many handouts, adorned with her amusing drawings, to provide the information missing in the textbook for us.  In short, she had the magic to transform something painstaking into pleasure. Furthermore; lots of English songs were introduced to us in her class. Whenever we started a new lesson, she would come up with songs whose themes or lyrics were related to what we were learning. The songs were so fantastic that everyone took delight in both listening and enhancing our vocabulary from the lyrics. Through her instruction, my love for English was reassured thanks to her.

      The considerate cares out of class Helen gave us was moving. The third year of junior high was difficult to most of us, for studying was the only proper thing we could in order to enter a decent senior high school. Exhausted from the schoolwork, some students were extremely depressed. Helen perceived their low spirits and thus allowed students to go to her office and talk about their problems. Incredibly, she became the spiritual pillar of the class. Moreover, she also intervened in the disputes among students and acclaimed for us in every tournament at the sports meet. Aside from it, another unforgettable thing she did was writing a card for every student at Christmas. I was close to tears when she handed the card to me, for no other teacher had equal consideration as she did.

      Helen has created the model of an excellent teacher to me. Her teaching skills and attentiveness are etched eternally in my mind. Now when I teach students, I strive for devoting the best of my patience and effort in honor of her.

• Please download this ppt file since it contains all the words from Unit 3 to 5 that may be tested.

The instructions in this entry are for Unit 4. Check out the ppt file for further information.

Below is the list of words that will be covered in this lesson. Each word will be explained in detail in the following pages.

Cooperation

Can you think of any other vocabulary items that are related to “Cooperation and Competition”? Please post them below as comments. If you are unsure of the usage of some of the words above, please look them up in the concordancer and post a few example sentences as comments below.

(Keep this sheet for a semester!!)

Vocabulary: Word power made easy

Blog entries: When no topic is assigned, you can write anything, including some assignments given in our textbook. Blog comments on 2 different classmates’ each time. Try to read as many different classmates’ blog entries in this semester as you can.

9/24 (Monday)-10/7 (Sunday) Vocabulary Unit 3: personality types

9/27 1^st blog entry in the diary: around 300-word draft in MS Word to be uploaded to vox next day in computer lab (Topic to be announced); 10/7 2 blog comments on any two classmates’ blog entries in around 50 words respectively 10/24 final version of the first writing

10/8-21 Unit 4 types of doctors

         2^nd blog entry and 2 comments due on Friday night of 10/12, 19 at the latest Sunday night

10/22-11/4 Unit 5 practitioners 11/7 quiz on first 3 vocabulary units

           3^rd blog entry and 2 comments due on Friday nights of 26, 11/2

11/5-18 unit 6 science and scientists

           4^th blog entry and 2 comments due on Friday nights of 11/9, 16

11/19-12/2 unit 7 liars and lying

           5^th blog entry and 2 comments due on Friday nights of 11/23, 30

12/3-16 unit 9 actions 12/19 quiz on second 3 vocabulary units

           6^th blog entry and 2 comments due on Friday nights of 12/7, 14

           7^th blog entry and 2 comments due on Friday nights of 12/21, 28

Winter break: Vocabulary Units 8, 10, 11

I have been in Tsing Hua for four years, and this semester is the beginning of my fifth year (and hopefully the last one) here. The longer I stay in Tsing Hua, the fonder I grow of the campus. Although I love Tsing Hua dearly now, my first impressions of it four years ago were not all pleasant.

Tsing Hua has a large, spacious campus with trees, lakes, and hills. Not all college campuses have environments full of natural wonders, and perhaps the spacious campus is what Tsing Hua students should take pride in. However, it was time-consuming and tiring to travel from one place to another within Tsing Hua. Although school buses were available, it was difficult to arrange my daily routine according to the bus schedule, as I had too little patience to wait for the bus when it was not right before my eyes. Moreover, sometimes when it was packed with people, I had to walk. I walked so much that my feet were sore at night. The trees and lakes looked beautiful on sunny days, giving the campus a poetic air; unfortunately, they brought mud onto the roads on rainy days, making the walking experience even less enjoyable.

Compared with the cuisine in my hometown, Taichung, the food in Tsing Hua and in Hsinchu (the city where National Tsing Hua University is located) in general tasted terrible but cost a lot. The food stalls in Taichung usually offered free addition of rice/noodles and drinks, but this was not the case in Hsinchu. My jaw dropped at the price of sixty dollars for a bowl of noodles here. Worse still, not only I but also my classmates complained about the taste of the food; our consensus was that even the most ordinary restaurants in our hometowns were gourmet, a sharp contrast with the ones here.

Hailed as Hsinchu "City," oddly, there was little to do downtown on weekends. To my astonishment, there were not many stores when I went downtown my bus. Born a city dweller, I was accustomed to seeing the city full of crowds, shopping centers, outdoor activities, and cultural affairs, but Hsinchu was virtually quiet and boring. Thus, I ended up returning home every Friday afternoon.

Now that I have been in Tsing Hua for a long period of time, I have come to appreciate the distinctive characteristics of the Tsing Hua campus. With the abundance of plants and animals here, the fresh air always keeps me in good spirits. Since some paths on Tsing Hua are steep, taking a walk is almost equivalent to hiking, so I do not need to spend extra time doing exercise. The foods served at cafeterias are still far from tasty, but I can recognize the school's efforts to improve the food quality over the years. Finally, the scarcity of entertainment in Hsinchu has made me a diligent student. If I want to take part in activities, it is convenient to go to Taipei, which is merely one hour away from Hsinchu by bus. I know that I am going to miss this place at the time of my departure.

Dear all,

Our first writing topic is "First Impressions of Tsing Hua." What are the things that strike you most during your first month in Tsing Hua? Describe the memorable things to you in your essay. Remember to organize your ideas in a beginning paragraph, supporting paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. Each supporting paragraph needs a topic sentence (for the usage of topic sentences, see textbook p. 16-20).

Please post your questions and comments if you have any. :)