Photos from Downtown Norfolk by Khalid Alharthi

ODU in Winter by Khalid Alharthi

DC/NY Travel Pictures from Wael Zin Aldeen

DC/NY Travel Pictures from Wael Zin Aldeen

WASHINGTON, D.C.

This image is in the Washington, DC Air and Space Museum.

This is the space rocket "Discovery."

I took these pictures two months ago.

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NEW YORK CITY

This is an image of the Statue of Liberty.

Manhattan is a wonderful city.

This is one of the three M&M stores in the USA.

This last image in New York is at Times Square.

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Editor's Note: Have you traveled to an interesting place in the United States or other country? Do you want to share your experiences on the ELC Blog? Send your submission to lray@odu.edu

ELC Blog - Call for Submissions!

Dear ELC Faculty, Staff, and Students,

The ELC Blog is BACK! (http://elcatodu.blogspot.com/)  

The ELC Blog is a place for us to share paragraphs, essays, articles, pictures, videos, language learning resources, and more! I’d love to hear from YOU!

Students – Have you written a great paragraph or essay, and you would like to share your work? Did you attend an event, and you want to tell us about it? Have you visited an interesting place in the United States, and you want to tell people about it? Have you found something really cool to do on the ODU campus? Did you take some awesome pictures or shoot video, and you are looking for a place to share it? Is there anything else you want to share? Submit to the ELC Blog!

Teachers – Do you have suggestions for students on how to succeed at the ELC? Have you found some great websites or articles with resources for learning English? Are there some fun places or activities that you think our students should check out? Is there anything else you want to share? Submit to the ELC Blog!

I look forward to hearing from you! You can submit at any time! J

Laura

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.

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.

The Toy Monster

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