Monday, February 27, 2012

Rapunzel vs. Tangled - by Abla


Rapunzel


     Many people have heard the classic story of Rapunzel, and many people have changed it up and put it in their own words. In Disney animation, they twisted up the whole story and create a new one, but Disney’s movie is still based on the original.
The biggest difference between the original story and the Disney movie is the plot. In the Disney movie, Rapunzel was kidnapped from her parents, and in the original story it was the opposite. Originally, Rapunzel’s parents traded her for all the lettuce they can eat, and the enchantress had originally taken Rapunzel because she wanted a child. However, in the animated movie, the enchantress had kidnapped Rapunzel because the power of the magical flower was in her. Also, the guy who Rapunzel fell in love with in the original story was a king’s son, but in the movie he was a thief.
One important similarity is Rapunzel herself. In the movie, Rapunzel is a beautiful blonde girl. She has long, silky, golden hair. Same thing in the original story – her characteristics are the same. In addition, her voice is great in both.
Finally, Rapunzel’s hair in the movie is cut by the thief who tries to protect her from the enchantress and take her back to her original parents, but in the original story Rapunzel’s hair is cut by the enchantress. She tries to trick the king’s son using Rapunzel’s hair and she is successful, she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.
Although the original story of Rapunzel and the movie are different, there are remarkable similarities in their characters, the ending and the personalities. Also, Rapunzel’s story in general is still one of the most famous stories by the Brothers Grimm.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Our review of the Free Dictionary


The Free Dictionary
  1. What skills can you practice on this site? The Free Dictionary is a good website for to develop some important skills like vocabulary, spelling words, pronunciation, reading, a little bit of grammar, idioms, and more that can help you with your knowledge. Also, you can explore articles and links including an English language form a continuous spelling bee, a word of the day news links and much more.
  2. How do you practice these skills? You can develop this skills in different ways, for example for to know new vocabulary you can search any word that you don’t know and the site spell the word and it give you the definition. For pronunciation, there’s a play “spelling bee”, in this play you have to figure out some words and the site allow you to listen them too. For reading there are some and different articles everyday that you can read and in the same time it help you to develop your knowledge about famous characters, history, news, and some more. If you need help with vocabulary in grammar, the free dictionary give you examples like how to make good sentences and it help you how to use the word inside the sentence. The side contain idioms also and you can read the different meanings and to read some examples too.
  3. Who should visit this site? All student in the ELC with different levels should to use this website, because there are a lot of good and advanced information for to practise English, and an important advantage is that they can use this website in any languages that they need. Also, you not only know how to use the words at once but also learn a new word and use it well in your daily life. It will helps you in English a lot.
  4. What does the website look like? The side look like very interesting because the amount of information that you find in the home page. There are a lot and different sections for click and learn. Read section occupies the greater part of the screen, and the first that you can see also is all languages that you can use in this page. In addition, the games that the page have look likes funny and in the same time you are learning.
  5. Who created the website? The website “freedictionary.com “ is owned and operated by a company called Farlex Incorporated. They are a privately owned independent company based out of Huntington, Pennsylvania. Farlex Inc owns many online reference products to include the free-dictionary, the free-library, and the definition-of.com. We can trust the knowledge we find on “freedictionary.com” because information found on the website is cross-referenced with the Columbia Encyclopedia, Hutchinson Encyclopedia, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, among other reference resources.
  6. What do you like about the site? I like this website because it has a variety of different online tools that I can use to find information I need to understand words and how they are used. I can search for definitions in the search window. After reading the definition if I still don’t understand the word I can use the translator tool to change it into my language to read it more easily. Also has fun things like the word of the day that help me to learn new ways to express myself. Also it has links to the news and weather so I can watch the world around me while I work on homework and study.
  7. What do you dislike about the site? I dislike the format that the site is presented in. The website is too busy and it’s hard to find what I’m looking for sometimes. If I’m only looking for definitions it’s easier to use dictionary.reference.com because it’s easier to operate. If I need to translate anything I can use the tools built into my computer or use the google website translator tool. Also that I can’t write my language to do a search makes it hard to find the right words to express myself.
  8. Would you recommend this site to other students? I recommend this site because have different ways how to develop all the student’s skills. Also, it`s good way to improve my English skills , They give me some new words ,and can use them well in daily life.I recommend it because the more important thing is that there are a lot of international students, so they need to use it in their own language for understand all very good.

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Toy Monster

Some of the Basic 2 students wrote a very cool children's book called The Toy MonsterHere is the pdf attachment.  You can download the story by pressing "file," then "download."  Great job, guys!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Our Review for Learn English Online

Learn English Online
  1. What skills can you practice on this site? We can practice these skills on the site: reading, grammar, vocabulary, listening, dictation, speaking, and writing.  There are different way to practice these skills: articles to read, English poetry, online books, quizzes, tests, games, and songs.
  2. Who should visit this site? Basic and intermediate students
  3. What does the website look like? The website is really interesting; it’s easy to practice.  There are images to explain, speakers to spell words, and many things.
  4. Who created the website? This website was created by Laurent Camus. He is an ESL teacher and webmaster from France.
  5. What do you like about this site? It’s easy to learn and understand because there are a lot of skills and they take control of our own learning process.
  6. What do you dislike about this site? We dislike nothing on this site because everything is very good.
  7. Would you recommend this site to other students? Yes, we would recommend it to students because it’s a good site which can help students to improve their English.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Review of Dictionary.com


Dictionary.com
  1. What skills can you practice on this site? We can practice vocabulary, pronunciation, quotation, translating different languages by word to word, or text to text, and there is a special space to learn Spanish vocabulary with a big different ways of various levels.
  2. How do you practice these skills?  You can practice by vocabulary, or games
  3. Who should visit this site?  Every level can visit this site because it is easy to use and rich of translating.
  4. Design: The website looks nice.
  5. Author: LLC company has created the site Dictionary.com, that was launched in 1995. 
  6. What do you like about the site? I like text translating between many different languages.
  7. What do you dislike about the site? There is no picture dictionary.
  8. Would you recommend this site to other students? Yes, I would like to recommend the site to other students.





Our review of ESLGold.com

ESLGold.com
  1. What skills can you practice on this site? This site it’s has practice for Reading, grammar, writing, listening and speaking.
  2. How practice these skills? You can do these skills from quizzes, articles to read, games to play and etc.
  3. Who should visit this site? This site has speaking, listening, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, business, pronunciation, TOEFL and idioms for many different levels. The levels start from low beginning to advanced, so it is good for all ELC students.
  4. What does the website look like? This website is very simple and plain, but its simple and easy to use, every thing you want to look for is already in the home page.
  5. Who is the author? The website has no author listed. Eslgold is supported by generous contributions and commissions from our Affiliates. Company deals with Voluntary. The company has several books to learn English, and the profits go back to the develop of the website. I don't have any idea for the information in the website because they are Different people write in the website.
  6. What do you like about this site? I like listening, reading, and vocabulary. They provide good practice that can help students learn English. Any student who wants Development their listening, reading, and vocabulary skills should visit this website.
  7. What do you dislike about this site? I think this website should reduce the commercials.

"Anne Geyer" by Alhanof Alhudibi


Anne Geyer is very friendly woman in the ELC. She is very nice and kind woman. When I came to the ELC for the first time, I talked with her, and she made me feel nothing is impossible. She has worked there for 22 years. That is very impressive. She likes to work with students.
Anne grew up in Ohio in the middle of the country. She went to Ohio state university, where she got her degree in nursing. wWhen I know that about that I was really shockedm, but I know now why she makes me relax when I talk to her.
     Anne Geyer worked as a Navy nurse for 2 years because the Navy paid for the university. She worked in the navy hospital in New York, so she had very big experience from a small town in Ohio to the Big Apple; New York. She enjoyed her life there. After that, she got married, and she lived in Seattle WA with her husband.
     After her husband graduated from his university bachelor’s degree, they thought that was a good time to take trip. Then they went to Europe and visited England, Italy, France, Germany, and Denmark.
     Anne had 3 children, so after that, she stopped working for 15 years to take care of her children. I think that is very generous of her to do that with her career for a very long time. She thought she should have kept working a little bit not every day , just one or two days in a week but she had full time job with her kids .
     After 15 years with her kids she thought it was good time to get back to work life. Because she didn’t work for a long time, she had to study again, so she studied in Old Dominion University. After that, she worked in the ELC. When she worked to the ELC she went to Japan and Korea.
     Anne really likes the life she has had. She likes her job, and this is the fun time. The responsibility of children is gone, and now she has good time with grandchildren. I think she is amazing grandmother. She has very exiting life.
     I am very happy to know these things about her. She is very nice woman to know and take with. I think if I have another chance to do interview with her I will do it again.
     I am really thankful for her to let me do this interview with her. I ask her a lot of questions about her life and her job. She was very helpful with me, so I felt comfortable in the interview.

Alhanof Alhudibi