PLE (Personal Learning Enviroment)

Today I found a very very very very useful website which is created by Ph D. Ron Lee.                                     http://www.rong-chang.com/index.html

This is an english as a second language website. A starting point for ESL learners who want to study english through the web. This site is being constantly upsated, and your comments and suggestions are appreciated. This website include “writing”, “speaking”, “listening”, “vocabulary”, “grammar”. And also have “newspaper”, “magzines”, “podcasts”, “games” and so on. So it is a really useful web for ESL student. You will improve you english faster while you visit this website, and do the activities that web offer to you. You can improve you listening, speaking, writing, vocabulary and grammar if you read this web everyday. This web require a headphone.

• writing

Writing is very important today. Whether you’re a student, teacher, or businessperson, academic writing skills are necessary in today’s world. Even though when you apply a scholarship, you are require to write an essay about yourself as well. For us (ESL student) we need to know how to write an essay, and wirte effectively. Now many jobs require you to express yourself clearly in writing. For me, writing essay is a big challenge. Honestly, I hate to writing essay, because I need spend more time than do any other thing. Now, my writing skill is improving, here are some tips for you to learn how to write an essay:

1. Choosing a question
2. Analyzing the question
3. Making an initial plan
4. Locating resources
5. Reading and noting
6. Writing the first draft
7. Revising and redrafting

I found a very useful website about writing which is http://www.rong-chang.com/tutor.htm you can talk to a robot, and practice your english. It is so fun, the robot can answer your any question, then you can learn lots of skill of writing.

http://www.bestessaytips.com/ here is th website which gives you lots of tips about how to write a perfect essay. And teach you how to avoid plagiarism. It is very important because lots of students like to copy ideas from web. So if you have this kind problem, you must need go to see it.

• listening & speaking

Speaking and listening are very important also. If you can speak clearly or you are not able to undertand what are peole talking about. Then it is really difficult for you to communicate with native speaker and make friends with them. So for us (esl) you need  to spend time and practice.

http://www.eslfast.com/ here are 365 short stories for you. you can click and listen the native speaker to read it. You can improve you listening while you listen one story everyday. if you do not get it, you can repeat it again. It is a good web for those esl students who have listening problem.

http://www.eslfast.com/robot/english_tutor.htm this web can improve you writing and speaking when you talk to the robot. Go try it…

• grammar

I make so many grammar mistake when i write an essay. evertime when teacher give back essay to me, i can clearly see lots of correction on my paper. So today i found a web from Ron Lee web which is http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar

This web include all the english tenses. such as simple tense, simple past tense…

• vocabulary

http://www.languageguide.org/english/ this is a very good web to built your input everyday. It include:

1. family
2. greeting
3. body parts
4. Miscellaneous
5. Transportation
6. and so on……..

• EXERCISES AND QUIZZES

here are some webs for you to improve you english during you play the games and quizzes on line. They are fun and you also can learn things. http://www.rong-chang.com/ex/contents.htm

If you get bad grades after you check the answer, you can play it again until you get all the answer correct.

 

Again… this is a very useful web http://www.rong-chang.com/index.html do not miss it….

Hi & Goodbye

English as our second language, the way does really help us is talking to native speakers. So how can we open a conversation with them, how to let people wanna talk to you and make friend to you. Here is a vedio made by Mr. Duncan, he teaches people how you talk to people when you just meet hin/she one time.  I think it is very important to ESL students because we really need to talk to peole and communicate each other. Here are so many ways to say Hello to people, we can learn from local people and understand their way to say hi and goodbye to each other.

Language variation

Joanna Gong

Esl 94

Mr. Silva

4-4-2010

Language variation

            According to Pakenham, language variation will affect the way people speak. The two main types are between group variation and variation within the individual.

            Before I just thought region and environment will affect people’s language. Because the people who live in different area speak differently. In Hawaii , I can hear “aloha” & “Mahalo” everywhere. The people who live in Hawaii like to use some Hawaiian instead of English. Such as “Lanai” (balcony) and “ono” (good).

            I thought environment is also very important for us, because I thought it is one factor that affects people’s language. For example, educated people speak more standard than people who are not educated.

            In the article, pakenham says the pronunciation of words. In different regions is different. Now, I learned American English in Hawaii. I found some English words pronuncastion is different from the ones I learned in China. For example, “can’t” this word, I pronounce “kent”, but my English teacher in China taught me pronounce “kant”. Later I figure out the English I learned in China is British English. Two words have same meaning and same spelling, but sounds are different.

            After I read Pakenham’s article, I learned there are lots of factors affect people’s language. Such as gender, setting, age, region and so on. So I think my language is probably different from others. I am a student at Kcc and a cashier in a T-shirt store. I think I speak more polity than others. I add “please” whether I speak to my best friends or stranger. And nod my head to say “thank you”, because I think people feel more comfortable with that and I think there is no reason people have to help me. So speak more polity to people and make them help me is granted.

            Be different social group, I can learned lots of different language, I used to work in a BBQ store. There I figure out “kalbi” is “short ribs” and “curry stew” is just “curry”. Before I thought they are all different kinds of plates. Be a successful language learner. I really need to spend more time to study it, because language is so varied. So for me, English is a big challenge, I need to do something to improve my English. After I read pakenham ‘s article. I think I need to make more native speaker friends instead of Chinese. Because I always speak Chinese all the time except in school and at work.  Reading more books and watching more vedios to improve my English.

            I think between group variation is main factor that affects people’s language. So for better future, I need to join native speaker group to improve my language.

Essay

Learning about Learning

            In the past five weeks, I learned lots of new vocabulary from the grammar blog. I learned how to use the words in different positions with different meanings. I learned about child phonology, and how left brain and right brain work. Honestly, I received lots of input.

            In the past five weeks, I went t everyday on time, because I don’t want to lose any opportunity about my English learning. I took notes during the class. I finished tasks as soon as possible, because I will get feedback from teacher soon. At night, I reviewed some notes and prepared for next class, because I want to take more attention to the questions that I can’t able to understand which I marked on the notes. The activities that I did were the grammar blog, posters, and creative my own blog every week. Not only did I learn how to organize my idea from the activities, but also I found out one way to improve my English. I like to create my own blog activity, because it pushes me to look for good articles or other things related to English.

           From this activity, I found a very useful website to study English. It includes listening, writing, and grammar. I like the podcast in it, I listen every day. It is a common conversation about social life. Everyday has a different conversation, such as in restaurant, in post office, and in the airport. I learned what “doggie bag” is, what “ASAP” means and so on. I am so happy that I found this website; I received some inputs every day.

           I reached the student daily goal for my class which is the goal of taking up opportunities for input and output. There is nothing that prevented me from taking up opportunities expect I need to wake up early in everyday morning. Because of if last night I didn’t sleep well, it will affect next day’s morning class.

            I felt great for these two weeks, especially my presentation of my poster. Although I was stuck my people asking questions about my topic, I still felt great because I learned how to explain to people, and how to improve it next time. I really like my class, especially the way the teacher teaches. I like the online tasks. But I still worry about my writing skill. I feel so stressed when I write the essay. I don’t how to express my feelings in English. So I think I need to read books and improve my writing skills.

Simple past tense & Present perfect

I really get confuse at past tense and present perfect. Today I see this video and it really helps me a lot. This video is created by business english pod.com. Chalk ‘n’ Talk, available to download from http://businessenglishpod.com, is a series of ESL video lessons exploring advanced English grammar topics.

In this lesson, Brian reviews the three basic conditionals: first (probable) conditional, second (improbable) conditional and third (past improbable) conditional. It is really helpful for those people who have trouble at past tense and present perfect tense.

Activities for ESL Students

While i browse internet, i find a very useful website which is www.a4esl.org it contains lots of activities for esl students to improve their english. Such as Quizzes, tests, exercises and puzzles. All these activities are contributed by many teachers. You also need headphone when you listen the podcasts or ESL videos.

This website do really help people build the inputs for english everyday. It is a good study website for all the second language learners. It also contain external Links such as Kelly Brothers’ Website, Other ESL/EFL Websites. If u are second language learner, so don’t miss it…

My Essay

Joanna Gong

Mr. Silva

Esl 94

2/20/2010

                                                                                     Second English Learner

                Whether learning dance, language, or other specific skills, you should start when you are a child, because a child’s brain is still growing. It is easy for them to remember all the inputs which they learned from schools and society. According to the author, Pakenham, it is rare for adults to speak English without any accent like native speaker. But they may do every well in vocabulary and grammar.

            I always believe that I can succeed in anything. The only thing I need is passion. Passion brings me power, and power makes me get started to do it. Currently, I am so disappointed that in could not reach the goal which I expect, and the reason why is age problem. For me, it is not bad news, but also it is good news. The good news is I will continue is keep studying and never give up.

            In 2006, English was a strange thing for me to study. I could not speak English at all, and the only thing which I knew about English was the 26 letters of the alphabet. At that time, I told myself I have to adapt to the new country and school. Every day I got up earlier than rooster, and went to bed later than a mouse, and studied harder than bees. Now I can communicate with my instructors and friends in English. Although I still have a heavy accent when I speak English, at lease it is much better than before.

            In the future, I will keep studying English, and increasing the amount of inputs and outputs in my mind. Vocabularies are very important to second English learner. Because one sentence is combine by many words. And I will try my best to make the pronunciation correctly for each word.

            After comparing my language learning experience to what pakenham said, I have to believe that it is extremely rare for second English learner to speak English like native speakers, but they can reach the same level in writing as native speakers.

Improve Your Listening

Today, I found a very helpful website which is made by Ron Lee.  Ron Lee is a starting point for ESL learners who want to learn English through the Web. This site is being constantly updated, so we can comments and make suggestions to him.

http://www.rong-chang.com/

-This webste include writing, reading, listening, ext.  It also have podcasts, newspapers, magzines to show you. But you require a set of headphone for podcasts.

-This is a very helpful website for english as second language students, I chose this website to show everyone of you, because you guys need it. I did listen the podcasts, I found out this is very good for us to listen and improve our english. It is a commom conversation that you will hear anywhere, you also can hear lots of new words and they will eplain to you. such as “what is American express card” “what is ASAP mean”?

Don’t miss this~

Past Tense Verbs

I am very confuse that when I need use past tense to describe something. Today I find a very resourse which tells us how, and when I need to use past tense verbs. Although it doesn’t tell me who created the resourse, but it lists lots of Online Instructional Resources, such as BBC

http://www.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules/Past-Tense-Verbs.html

“What are Past Tense Verbs?

The English language has three basic tenses: past, present, and future. Within these verb tenses, there is a perfect form to indicate completed action, a progressive form to indicate ongoing action, and a perfect progressive form to indicate ongoing action that will be completed at some definite time. For example:

 Simple Form Progressive Form Perfect Form Perfect Progressive FormPast took was/were taking had taken had been takingPresent take/s am/is/are taking have/has taken have/has been takingFuture will/shall take will be taking will have taken will have been taking

The purpose of past tense verbs within the English language is to express activity, action, state, or being in the past. For example:

• “We visited the grocery store yesterday.” Visited is a simple past tense verb that is used to describe a completed action.
• “Emily said that she went to the mall.” Said is a past perfect tense verb that describes reported speech.
• “They were driving for three days.” Were driving is a past progressive tense verb that describes a previous action which took place over a period of time.”

Here are most words that we will use on essay and our daily conversation:

http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/pastverb.htm

We also can test on line and see how much you understand the past tense verbs. (quiz, games…) ^.^    BBC has a fact sheet, quiz, and game for students to discuss the difference between various verb tenses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/tenses/getting_the_right_tense/index.shtml

There are very very good resources for us to improve our writing skills, so please try them… Good Luck!