Spring!

My Favorite Movie by Jeon Hyelim

This is a guest blog post from Jeon Hyelim in LIEC 105

201210097. 전혜림
< My Favorite Movie >
Hello professor,I will recommend and
introduce my favorite movie 'Twilight'. I watched this 5 series all. I love story about vampire. One I want to introduce of these series is 'Twilight'. This is love story about vampire. Major characters in this movie are Bella Swan and Edward.

 
Bella has naturally dark personality and she likes better playing alone than with friends. Bella moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father. The first day of school, Bella looks at the Cullens and Edward. She becomes interested and has fascinating feeling to him. A few days later, She attends biology course with him. She is pleasured, but he does strange behaviors like wrapping nose, retching. In addition, he is absent from next course. One day, Bella is almost hit by a car, then Edward extricates her from the car with enormous strength. She finds out that Edward and the Cullens are a vampire who drinks blood of animal. Edward warns to her to keep himself. However, Bella doesn't care about the fact. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love. Meanwhile, when Bella and the Cullens are playing baseball, James finds them. He hunts humans who have sweet blood like Bella. Edward provokes James by protecting Bella. The Cullens help Bella from getting killed, but Bella gets bitten by James. However Edward saves her by draining the poison out. Bella wants to be vampire, but Edward doesn't want it.
 
This is simple summary of 'Twilight'. During watching this movie, I have so fantastical, and beautiful feelings. Although this series was over, I expect more and more movies about vampire are made.

Class Openers

If you didn't take the prints, here are some of the jokes I've used for starting class:

FINAL EXAM FAILURE

Last semester I took macroeconomics and didn't have a clue what I was doing (as cited on the final exam). There were 80 multiple choice questions. For some reason I decided to play the game of probability and choose the letter "A" for everything. In that game, the only thing probable was that I failed.

The following day, the professor asked to see me after class. "Is everything okay?" "Sure," I said, "why? "Well, here's your test," he said and handed me a piece of paper that was covered with red ink. "Can you explain why you chose an 'A' for everything?"

Knowing that there was nothing I could do at this point, I said, "Well, I've always wanted to be an 'A' student."


LITTLE JOHNNY... DEFINITE DEFINITION

The preschool teacher says, "We're going to do vocabulary today. Who can use the word 'definitely' in a sentence?" Mary raises her hand and exclaims, "Me me me!"
The teacher says, "Go ahead, what's the sentence?
Mary replies, "The sky is definitely blue."
"That's good, Mary," says the teacher, "but the sky can also be gray or white."
Sam raises his hand and states, "Grass is definitely green."
The teacher says, "That's good, Sam, but grass can be brown, too."
Little Johnny raises his hand and asks, "Do farts have lumps in them?"
The teacher says, "No Johnny, why do you ask that?"
Little Johnny replies, "Well, I definitely shit my pants."


HELISOFT

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment. 


Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a handwritten sign that said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER." 


The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how he had done it. 
"I knew it had to be the Microsoft Building, because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer."

Social Phobia (Park Ha Young LIEC 107)

< Social Phobia ＞

201410104 Park Ha Yeong

Hi:) My name is Park Ha Yeong and I am sophomore. I would like to introduce a korean movie I watched last weekend with my friend. Have you heard of 'Social Phobia'? It is a combination of the words Social Network Service(SNS) and Phobia. SNS like twitter, facebook, kakaotalk and so on is essential in our life. This movie shows influences of SNS interestingly.

First, I want to tell you a storyline of this movie. Lena posted hateful comments about a suicide of a soldier. It became rapidly widespread through the SNS. Even some netizens also posted malicious comments to her and planned to punish her under the name of justice. They traced her personal information and gathered to break in her apartment with a camera played as a live. However when they entered her house, they found her dead body. Many people blamed them for her death. Because they gave her a extreme stress. Two of them were preparing for being a policeman. Ji woong and Yong min heard that it would go against them. Therefore they insisted her death was a murder. They tried to find evidences that support their insistence.

I think their action to trace her was not righteous. It wasn't justice but selfishness. Ji woong and Yong min behaved because of their benefit. It was just 'witch hunt'. People tend to express their feelings on the Internet too easily without considering those influences on others. In addition, the expressions are usually cruel and harsh. I think it is invisible violence. A development of the Internet has both merits and demerits. It is important to utilize the good things and be careful in an anonymous place. I hope that we will become more considerate in real life and on social network service(sns). I usually watch movies just for fun. However, I considered messages of this movie and it was very interesting. I am not very good at writing yet so I am concerned about getting my ideas acrossㅠ_ㅠ. I would like to express my thought effectively and communicate with others in English. Therefore I will practice this kind of activities and participate in your class actively. Thanks for reading my multimedia journal assignment!

And another student blog!

Choi Eun Kyoung of Low Intermediate English Conversation 106 also has her own blog!  Check it out!

http://blog.naver.com/eg0957/220305291189

Another Blog

Seongkyu Park, in Low Intermediate English Conversation 106, has made his own blog for his multimedia journal!  Please visit it and leave a comment for him.

http://seongkyupark.blogspot.kr/

Thanks, Seongkyu!

Modern Life and Traditional Customs

Guest post from Huang Shimeng in HIEC 109:

  Mordern Life and Traditional Customs

  Nowadays, people's life develops quite rapidly and things have changed a lot over the centuries. As the skyscrapers replacing the old buildings gradually, telephone, air-conditioner, TV, digital camera, computer and the internet have taken their place in our life. It means we've stepped into Information Age and apparently people are enjoying these newest digital products. 

   As we can see, people are leading a more colorful life than ever in their spare time with all these hi-tech products. Such as watching movies, surf the internet or just make a phone call with their friends and families whenever and even wherever. Compared to the previous age when people couldn't even feed themselves, how different the present life is! What's more, it differs a lot as well in transportation. Various modern means of transport have taken the place of human feet and horses. Airplanes, subways and even maglevs are offering people much convenience. In other word, people can save a lot great deal of time when on the way of traveling.

  However, there's always something remaining the same while people are enjoying the changes caused by hi-tech. For example, the traditional customs and festivals are typical to be carried on as the old time. Especially the customs that people gather to celebrate as well as ethical culture forms like Peking Opera, ancient architecture and traditional food. Peking Opera is spreading throughout and as to ancient architecture like Siheyuan and Hutong, people are still preserving them well as the symbol of the whole nationality's historical culture. Besides, when it comes to traditional food, people are still used to enjoy it. Even though the world has been extremely highly developed and all kinds of foreign culture are pouring into China, traditional food is still the mainstream. That's why I believe traditional culture will stay unchanged and develop further though those hi-tech products bring along unprecedented creature comforts. And on the original basis, it must create miracles one after another because it belongs to the soul of    our Chinese nationality.

Family Introduction

This is a guest post from Koo Min Woo for his multimedia journal assignment:

Hello, Professor. I am Koo min woo.

First, I am really happy to meet you.

Because it’s my first journal, I would like to tell you about my family.

Now let’s begin. To your surprise, my family consists of 5 members: dad, mom, younger brother, sister and me.

My dad is our good cook. Do you know why? Because, when he often makes a dish, our family members enjoy a meal.  

But, it doesn’t mean that my mother is not at cooking.

His hobby is watching a baseball game.

Despite of living in Pusan, he is a fan of Samsung. Of course, I am Giants’ fan

This makes a trouble, you can imagine I think.  You’re right!  

When we sometimes watch the baseball game, we support other team.

But we don’t care whether which team win. We just enjoy together.

Also, when I have a trouble, he listens to my worry carefully and offers a solution

So, I am very thankful to him for everything.

Second member, my mother is an ordinary housewife but my brother and I call her a wonder woman.

Why do you call her? You can ask me like that.

Although she loves socializing and she’s always out meeting people, she manages to keep the house spotless. So we call her like that.

Her hobby is cooking and shopping.

The funny thing is that she often takes me and my brother to the mart and department store as a porter.

As she is very humorous, I like to talk with her.

Third member is my brother. He is 20 years old and he wants to be a

Chef of Western food

So, he is now at cookery school at Seoul and lives in dormitory.

Unlike me, he likes exercise so he plays soccer every weekend.

And because he is interested in clothes, he has many clothes and often goes shopping.

I ‘am not interested in clothes so I have a few clothes.

Sometimes, secretly I wear my brother’s clothes but he doesn’t know as he has many clothes.

Now, as he isn’t at home, I can’t do that.  I miss him sometimes.

Fourth member is my cute sister. She is 13 years old.

When both of my parents work in the past, I often took care of her.

As a baby, she is very cute and beautiful but now… uncertain.

In my eye, she is still cute.

She loves puppy so she often asks me “could you buy a puppy?”

I want to buy her a puppy but we live in apartments so we can’t.

As she has played piano for 4 years, she plays the piano well.

   

Lastly, it’s about me.

I am 24 years old and about a month ago, I finished army.

So, I have a lot of plans like travels and going abroad for studying,

For all of these plans, I have to earn the money. So I am planning to get a part time job in summer vacation.  

My hobby is listening to music.

Because ballad music makes me relaxed and I can relieve study-related stress by listening to music, I often listening to music on my way home after class.

My favorite singer is Younha.

Because her voice is very clear, it makes me feel better.

Because my family members have various hobbies and characters, we have a lot of conversation each other and often have a joke.

Sometimes, although we conflicted in the opinions, we resolve that and then have a enjoy life.

Thanks for listening to my story.  

Multimedia Journals by Text

Hi everyone, here are a few examples of how to submit a multimedia journal from a text message chat/conversation.  The first is from Son Young Eun in class LIEC 105:

The next is from Nguyen Vy in TESOL Communication 1:

Some More Multimedia Journals

We have some awesome videos submitted today, as well as a business letter and audio recording of a phone call.  Keep up the good work, everyone!

Here is a video from Mingyang Lee in class LIEC 107

And here is a fun video showing a card trick by Jay Nam in class LIEC 106

A multimedia journal example

Ms. Kim Jihyeon, in the TESOL Masters level Communication 1 class, has submitted a video for her first multimedia journal assignment.

Students in Low Intermediate English Conversation, don't worry about your level of English compared to Ms. Kim.  These assignments are not about testing your English grammar, vocabulary, or usage.  It's about fluency.

Still, you may want to watch this video as an example of something you can do.  Pay close attention to how much fun Ms. Kim is having interviewing her coworker.  If you can have fun while doing this, it will make it easy!

Google Drive links are fixed

My apologies, everyone.  I had not made the Google Drive folders accessible.  I believe the links are fixed now, so you should be able to view/download documents in them by following the links at the right.    

10 Words Commonly Misspelled by English Native Speakers

BAND app

Hello everyone.  In order for me to easily keep in contact with each of you and let you know important announcements easily, please download and install BAND for your smart phone, tablet or PC.

http://www.band.us/

Once you have the app installed, please search for your class below and follow the Invite Link:

TESOL Communication 1: http://band.us/n/5QKBuxS5

High Intermediate English Conversation 109: http://band.us/n/5UIPrTG9

Low Intermediate English Conversation 101: http://band.us/n/GYt6cM18

Low Intermediate English Conversation 105: http://band.us/n/xyctlzvq

Low Intermediate English Conversation 106: http://band.us/n/xGMBm42Y

Low Intermediate English Conversation 107: http://band.us/n/GkFCkeHr

If the links don't work, please contact me and let me know!

Thanks,

Dennis

Hello, everyone!

I hope you're enjoying your classes this semester.  I look forward to getting to know all of you better, and helping you to improve your communication skills.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here.

Also, remember that my office hours are Mon/Wed/Fri 11 am to 12 pm.