a weekend task

Hello,

I'd like to ask the students who were present on Wednesday to write a summary of what we did in class for those who didn't attend. Can you consider the following questions:

• What did we discuss in class? What ideas did we agree on? Did we have a difference of opinion on any of the items we discussed?
• What are the homework tasks?
• Summarise the projects that students are advised to take part.
• Describe how you felt during the lesson. What did you find useful/not so useful?
• Any other comments you'd like to make.

Thank you!

And have a nice weekend!

KEEP BLOGGING!

ralitza

How to be English

Hi there everyone,

Here is an interesting video, if you want to be 'english' and take part in our favourite national pass-time of making and drinking tea!

If you want to upload a video from youtube, you just need to copy the HTML under the word 'embed' - written in grey, to the right of the video and under the name of the person. When you compose your blog message, click on Edit Html (next to compose) and paste.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any problems. I look forward to seeing some of your favourite videos uploaded soon!

Jemma

possible writing topics

Hi again,

What topics would you like us to discuss here? Here are some suggestions:

• Language topics/skills/tips
• Hobbies, interests
• Cultural Issue (i.e. What doesn't the West know about the Arabs?, What does it mean to be an Arab?)
• Things we like, Personal topics (the list is vast here)
• Abstract ideas (i.e. What is happiness for you? What are the lessons of life one should learn?( is this abstract, by the way?))
• Poems ( a favourite poem, why?)
• Talking points (issues from the news)

Add your suggestions and let's blog!

Warm regards,
ralitza

podcasts

Hi everyone,

I continue with the discussion of online resources that are available for language learners. I'd like to remind you of the listening project I posted last week and ask you to revisit the elllo site and post a comment on how useful you think it is for you.

Something else that you can do to improve your listening skills is to listen to podcasts.

Podcasts are audio (usually mp3 files) or video files published via the internet and designed to be listened or watched on a portable mp3 player of any type or a personal computer.

This is a tutorial on how to use iTunes to get podcast. It is done by Russell Stannard, who is a principal lecturer in Multimedia/ICT at the University of Westminster.

Listen to the tutorial. What do you think of the idea? Post your comment.

Regards,
ralitza

Defibrillator

(Automatic Defibillatoes)pic

Before few days I took one course of First Aid I find this course interesting that it had a lot of things one of these things was the Defibrillator .
Dose any one know what it is?
I think all of you know it, u have seen it may be in TV or some may seen it in the Hospitals.
This is my topic the Defibrillator Machine, the machine that saves people life
Let me first tell you about how the heat is working:-

The heart's electrical system causes the heart to beat, controls the heart rate (the number of beats per minute) and has special pathways (conduction pathways)
That carry the lower heart chambers (ventricles) for each heartbeat.
When heart cells in the upper heart chambers (atria) receive an electrical signal
They con-tract (pump) and then relax.
The blood from the atria is pumped into the relaxed lower heart chambers (ventricles)
And then passes down to the ventricles , causing them to contract and pump blood to
the body.

Types of Defibrillators

1) Automatic Defibrillators ( AED) are lightweight defibrillators units that are powered by micropro- cessors.
A computerized voice instructs the opera-tor to place two electrodes/pads on the
Patient's chest .
The device analyzes the heart rhythm and decides if a shook is necessary
The micrporoces- sor will not permit the device to deliver a shock un-less it detects the presence of the heart rhythm that requires defibrillation .Emergency medical personnel and lay personnel traditionally use these

2) Manual Defibrillators
Are defibrillators monitors that provide therapeutic and diagnostic functions
They are traditionally used by emergency trained medical personnel in Critical Care Units, intensive Care Units and Operating Rooms as well as EMT-Paramedics in the pre- hospital setting .
The defibrillators unit may be used as a ECG bedside monitor . it can document date /time , heart rate, instrument status and critical shook parameters as well as offer preset patient alarms and measure SpO2 as part of patient monitoring.

I find this devices interesting thing to talk to you about because it saved and still saving allot of people life till this day I like to tell you one story that happened in one of the cities in the USA

One day one lady was driving in her car like every day and at the same time there was one person who was deriving at the same rood as this lady but this person was on his way to work he was doing a Promotion for this Device , this lady stopped her car she was having a heart Attack this man Stopped to help her , he used this Device the Defibrillators and it really helped this lady then the unbalance arrived and the lady was rescued because of the help of this man and this device.

Another story says , one retired complex that people in the USA live after they retire , the people where dieing before the Unbalance arrives so they donate some money to make I device that can help them so they invented for them this Automatic Defibrillators its easy to use at emergency time.

I hope you all liked my topic and find it interesting and you can find the Defibrillators in the mall and the airports in USA, I hope all of you can take this interesting course you can learn in it a lot of useful thing that can help you and you can help the other pepole when they need your help you will know what to do.

ididnt use any web pages in this topic .

I Used one Book ;First (fundamentals of lmmediate Response Support Training)Hamad Medical Cororation (Hamad International Training Center) only to get from them how the heart is working and the types of the Defibrillator

Fatina

listening project

Hi again,

Further to today's lesson, here is an outline of the listening project. Visit the English Language Listening Lab Online site:

http://www.elllo.org/

Here is a short description (you can find it on the elllo site in the ABOUT tab)

ELLLO stands for English Language Listening Lab Online. It is a collection of over 1,000 listening activites that students can view free via the internet. Most listening activites come with a downloadable MP3 audio file, transcipt and interactive quiz. ELLLO offers a variety of listening activities that each target a specific listening skill, need or interest. See below:


Weekly Updates
Weekly Updates occur each Monday. On average there are at least five new listening activities each week. Activities are numbered for easy reference. Currently, the listening activities include interviews, newscasts, surveys (Mixer), songs, presentations (Talking Points), and listening games. Read below for details about each one:

Interviews
Interviews are natural conversations with various speakers of English that offer multiple listening options. Students can listen to a variety of English that is harder to find in more traditionally scripted textbooks. Also, unlike podcasts and other listening sites, ELLLO interviews contains rich images that help listeners follow the topic of the converation.

Listening Game
Listening Games can help students listen for gist. Students can listen to audio about a topic and choose the picture that matches the audio. There is very little reading. The listening games are designed for beginning students and for students who want to listen for fun and enjoyment. The object of the games it to reach the end of the listening activity.

Mixer
Mixer is a survey that features six different speakers answering the same question. Students can easily follow the topic and compare the various responses. Each speaker's segment comes with two questions that appear at the end of the audio segment to develop test taking skills.

News Center
News Center is an animated newscast. Each Newscast has six stories. For each story, students can try to answer questions about each news story. Newscenter can help students learn academic English and develop test taking skills for standardized listening tests such as TOEFL®, TOEIC® and IELTS®.

Songs
Songs are a great way to learn English. ELLLO contains some great songs by independent artists. As the students listen, the words are displayed on the screen so students can catch the lyrics (words to the song). Listening and reading the lyrics is a great way to improve grammar, pronunciation, reading speed, reading by chunks and common slang and idioms.


Task A) Check out what is available on the site and post your thoughts on how useful you think it is for you. Give details of which recordings you've listened to, what new vocabulary you've learnt, what is your reaction to the variety of accents and opinions presented.

After you have tried out the different options (Interviews, Mixer, News Centre, Songs) check out the LINKS and choose one more listening site.

Task B) Write a short report of what activities the other students can find on that site (provide link and short description) and give your personal recommendation.

It's keep listening now!

Warm regards,
ralitza

mid-course evaluation

Dear Student,

We are half way through the course and it seems the right time to take stock of the things we've done for the first four weeks.

Could you post a short self-evaluation of your commitment and work? You can consider the following questions:

• Have you been attending lessons regularly?
• Have you been participating in class actively?
• Have you been reading and contributing to the blog?
• Have you started your individual thread?
• Do you regularly comment on other students' posts?
• Do you use the New Cutting Edge CD-Rom as a self-study tool?
• How much do you self-study outside the classroom?
• How much extra work do you do to improve your English?

Use the scale from 1-10 (1 -for very poor, 10- for excellent) to evaluate your:

Attendance
Participation
Homework and extra work
Motivation
Blogging

Use the same scale to evaluate your:

Grammar
Reading
Writing
Listening
Speaking

What skill/skills do you need to work more on? What are you planning to do to improve it/them?

Regards,
ralitza

Arabic aphorism

Hi teacher and friends

I would like to participate together about Arabic aphorism and compare it with foreign aphorism, and as you know in Arabic culture we have many of aphorism that it is famous and all Arab country use it, and there are local Arabic aphorism depends to the culture of people who live in same area.
Here are some example and if you know more please add in comment

*- Birds of a feather flock together.

*- A friend in need is friend indeed.

*- After a test men are honoured or disgraced.

*- A scabby sheep infects a whole flock.

*- A drowing man will catch at astraw.

*- A disease known is half cured.

*- Man propose and god disposes.

*- A bird in the hand is betterthan ten on the tree

*- A bird is known by its note and a man by his talk.

warm regards

Walid

Tulips

Hi all, when I was watching TV I saw one program at the Europe channel and they where talking about the Tulips and I went to the net to find about this wonderful flower ,if u say tulips the first thing that will come to our min is Netherlands so lets all read the History of this flower and know from where did it come?

sometime in the year 1637, a Dutch farmer was in the market for a tulip. Upon finding a bloemist who carried the specific variety of flower that he desired, the farmer entered into negotiations with the flower-seller. When an agreement had been reached, the farmer acquired his flower-bulb. The purchase price that the farmer apparently deemed reasonable for a single tulip-bulb of the Viceroy variety included “two [loads] of wheat and four of rye, four fat oxen, eight pigs, a dozen sheep, two ox heads of wine, four tons of butter, a thousand pounds of cheese, a bed, some clothing and a silver beaker.”1 Such a high price, estimated at approximately 2,500 guilders, for a single tulip was not unusual. During the height of the Dutch ‘tulip mania’ in the seventeenth century, a Semper Augustus, considered to be even more precious than the Viceroy tulip, could bring in close to 6,000 guilders. In fact, tulip prices and the practice of tulip speculation became so excessive and frenzied that in 1637 the States of Holland passed a statute curbin g such extremes

Widely available at modest prices today, tulips are still closely associated with the Netherlands. However, the tulip is not a native Dutch flower. Like many other products in western Europe, such as the potato and tobacco, tulips came to the Netherlands from another part of the world. Not introduced to the Netherlands until 1593, the tulip was first seen by Europeans in Turkey. It was there in 1556 that Busbeq (A.G. Busbequius), the ambassador sent by the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, witnessed the flowers growing in the gardens of Adrianople and Constantinople. Scholars now believe that the Turks had been cultivating tulips as early as AD 1000. Most of these tulips probably originated in areas around the Black Sea, in the Crimea, and in the steppes to the north of the Caucasus.

Soon after Ambassador Busbeq noticed the flowers in the Ottoman Empire, tulips became one of the most sought after luxury items in Europe. At first, in the 1560s, trade and diplomatic interaction with the Ottoman Levant allowed for a small number of tulips to be imported into Hapsburg Europe. In this early stage, tulip ownership was primarily limited to wealthy nobles and scholars. Antwerp, Brussels, Augsburg, Paris, and Prague are among some of the cities where such tulips first began to circulate. A key figure in the history of European tulip interest is the famous botanist Carolus Clusius. Clusius, who had achieved great recognition for his work with medicinal herbs in Prague and Vienna, accepted a position as head botanist of the Dutch university in Lei den in the year 1593. Previously, he had met with former Ambassador Busbeq in Vienna and accepted several tulip bulbs and seeds.

At Leiden’s innovative hortus botanicus, or botanical garden, Clusius cultivated the bulbs and seeds and thus introduced the flower to Holland

Through botanical experimentation, Clusius and other horticulturists produced new color variations in tulips. This breeding of tulips with new color combinations had two important effects on the European — primarily Dutch — tulip market. The most elegantly and vividly colored of the new tulips, such as the Semper Augustus, which was white with red flames, became exorbitantly priced. Only the wealthiest aristocrats and merchants could afford these striped hybrid varieties. By the early 1630s, however, flower growers had begun to raise vast crops of more simply-colored tulips. These flowers, such as the Yellow Crown tulips, could be purchased cheaply by even the poorer segments of society. With an ever-growing number of varieties and an ever-widening price range, tulips became one of the few luxury goods that could be purchased by members of all classes

The popularity of the tulip in the Dutch Republic reached its pinnacle in the years 1636-37 during the craze known as ‘tulip mania.’ At this time, the practice of tulip speculation — only relevant to prized varieties of the flower — emerged. Because the flower-growers had to cultivate the bulbs and could not sell them until they were ready, these bloemisten began selling promissory notes guaranteeing the future delivery of the tulip bulb. The buyers of these pieces of paper resold the notes at marked-up prices. In this way, the promissory notes changed hands from buyer to buyer until the tulip became ready for delivery. The key was to be able to resell the note before the tulip could be delivered; the unlucky gambler was the person who could no longer resell the note because he now owned the actual tulip. This Dutch trade in the future promise of tulips became known as the tulpenwindhandel, literally ’tulip wind trade,’ because transactions involved nothing more than air. Many Dutch citizens, angry at such a corruption of the flower market, voiced their opinions on the matter in pamphlets.2 The Dutch government was also concerned and ended the tulpenwindhandel and the era of ‘tulip mania’ by enforcing economic controls in 1637.

Growing trade with non-European economies, the rise in new learning and scientific experimentation, and a boom in the market for luxury goods are all aspects of early modern Europe that are demonstrated in the history of the tulip. Thus, the tulip truly stands out as a cultural symbol of Europe during the time of the flower’s heyday

More web pages

http://www.webgardenguide.com/History_of_Tulips_3799_589_2.html

Video

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/69976_grow-tulips-history.htm?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=yssp&utm_campaign=yssp_mainvids

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Journals/Journal/266807

so interesting history of this flower I hope all of you liked this topic.

Have A Nice Day

Fatina

A good listening web site

Hi my colleges, I would like to post a good web site for learning English that, I hope, increase our listing and speaking skills.

This web site provides a set of listening quizzes that we can listen based on the learner level (Easy, medium and Difficult levels).

The web site URL is http://www.esl-lab.com/index.htm

Please let me know your comments about this web site.


Omar Mahmoud

individual threads

Hi again,

Here is the idea we discussed in class today. Thanks to Fatina who started the tedddy bear thread and in aswer to some suggestions from students, I invite students to start their own threads and initiate any topics they 'd like to discuss or which they consider of potential interest to the other students.

A student starting a new thread would be responsible for reading and responding to comments as well as to steer the discussion and keep the interest level high.

You can also consider the use of pictures or any other form of visual enhancement to attract the attention of your reader.

You should also provide the support and your comments to other students' threads.

This thread of yours could be part of the continuous assessment of your writing. What is your opinion on this? You can vote on the right.

And one more thing, could you label your thread (use the box in the bottom right hand corner).

Here we go!

GOOD LUCK!

questions to make us think about the blog

Hi everyone,

Thanks to the students who have already expressed their opinion about the blog. Could I ask the others to share their opinions as well?

If you prefer, you can consider some of the questions below. I hope this will help you to reflect on the experience and make us all better bloggers and language learners.


1. Is this your first blog?

2. What do you think of the blogging so far?

3. Do you find it useful? Why/ Why not?

4. Do you read the blog regularly? When do you usually do that?

5. How often do you post comments a week:
rarely
sometimes
twice a week
more than twice a week?

Why do you think is that?

6. Have you commented on other students’ posts? Which topics have you found the most interesting?

7. Which language skill do you think you can improve the most with the help of the blog?

8. Is there anything that you can achieve through blogging much easily than through classroom time?

9. Do you think you have improved as a language learner with the help of the blog? In what ways?

10. Do you have any suggestions for how we should go about the blog for the remaining time of the course?


11. Is there anything else you want to comment on?

Thanks and see you in a bit in class,
ralitza

under a scrutinising eye

Hi everyone,

Further to the posts about the writing criteria and error correction, I was wondering how you'll feel about the following suggestion.

Any student who would like to have all her/his posts under the scrutinising eyes of the other students, can express so in this thread. For example, a student considers that she/he wants to improve the quality of his writing and volunteers to have all her/his posts discussed by other students. That will mean that the students will read all posts made so far by the student in question and comment on the quality of her/his posts.

The students can then discuss the good points of the writing as well as provide suggestions if there are any shortcomings. This will give feedback on the quality of the writing and generate discussions in class.

In the meantime, can I encourage you to go back to the post about the writing criteria and continue with the discussion about what accounts for a good writing. This will give us clear guidelines for the assessment.

Keep writing!

Warm regards,
ralitza

Teddy Bear

How We Got the "Teddy Bear"

The teddy bear is a child's toy ,a nice soft stuffed animal suitable for cuddling.

It is,however,a toy with an interesting history behind it.

Theodore Roosevelt, or Teddy as he was commonly called , was preesident of theUnited States from 1901 to1909 .

He was an unusally active man with varied pastimes, oneof which was hunting.

One day the president was invited to take part in a bear hunt ; an inasmuch as Teddy was president , his host wanted to ensure that he caught a bear .

A bear was captured, clanked over the head to knock it out. and tied to a tree; however,Teddy, who really wanted to actually hunt, refused to shoot the bear and in fact demanded that the bear be extricated from the ropes; that is , he demanded that the bear set free.

The incident attracted a lot of attention among journalists .First a cartoon- drawn by

Clifford K.Berryman to make fun of this situation- appeard in the Washington Post , and the

cartoon was widely distributed and reprinted throughout the country.

Thentoy manufacturers began producing a toy bear wich they called a "TeddyBear"

The teddy became the most widely recognized symbol of Roosevelt's presidency.

I find it interesting thing to read about if u like to read more about Teddy Bear you can visit these wep pages

http://members.tripod.com/~bigbee/history

http://www.teddybearandfriends.com/archive/articles/history.html

blogging

Hi everyone,

and thank you Ashraf for sharing your opinion about the blog in class.

I thought it might be a good idea to provide this thread (a series of posts related to the same topic) and ask you to share your thoughts and perceptions of the process of blogging.

You can describe your experience so far and I would encourage you to return to this thread regularly (perhaps once a week) and add any new feelings, emotions, revelations*.

So, what are you initial thoughts and how would you describe your first blogging experience?

Regards,
ralitza

revelation - the process of letting people see or know something that was previously hidden, not known

writing criteria

Hi,

As I wrote in my comment on the post about error correction, tomorrow we'll be looking at the nature of most common errors and how serious we consider them for the quality of writing.

Could you comment on what criteria should be applied when assessing writing?

See you tomorrow,
ralitza

vocabulary work before today's lesson

Hi,

tough, overdone, delicious, burnt

boil, chop, roast, bake

prawn, lamb, pork, beef

Which is the word that does not belong in each group?

If you like this kind of exercise, have a look at ex. 2 on p. 51 in the workbook.

There are more activities on the vocabulary from module 7 in the workbook: p. 51/ex.1 & p. 55/ex. 10.

Do them and then report how difficult or easy you found them. What might be the reason for that? Do you need to consider again your revision techniques?

See you later,
ralitza

2 new tasks

Hi everyone,

How is the weekend? Did you find time for blogging?

Here are two more questions to ponder (to think carefully about something before reaching a decision).

The first one is about error correction. How do you feel about it? Do you view error correction on your posts as important?

What did you think of the lesson on Wednesday when we looked at a student's post and discussed ways of improving it in terms of more appropriate vocabulary and correcting some grammar and punctuation errors? Do you think this error feedback on accuracy done in class is a good idea? What other ways can you suggest of dealing with language errors?

And the second task will require to read the comments made by other students and comment on them. I'd like you to comment on the main idea, not necessarily to look for mistakes. We can refer to some often recurring mistakes in class when we do remedial work. How do you feel about this?

Eager to read your comments,
ralitza