Sam's Class: 2005

Here is a very interesting site that has interviews and stories about people who are thought of as being very accomplished and prominent here in America. They come from different professions and by choosing one of their careers like actor (which you'll find under "The Arts") baseball player (listed under "Sports" or doctor listed under "Science and Exploration." To see and hear the interviews, you'll need to use a home computer unfortunately, but you can still read and enjoy them.

Academy of Achievement: Academy Careers

Google is a very good search engine and most of us use it almost all the time. Sometimes though, we have to stop and think about what to put into the search box to get the information that we want. Here is another search engine that you might like to use. It's called Ask Jeeves and when you go to this site you'll be able to ask a question in a regular sentence and then get your answer that way. For example, if you put- How do I fix my computer-in the search box and then click on search you'll find many different answers to your question if you scroll down the page.

Ask Jeeves - Ask.com

Every city in America has it's own TV and radio stations. Sometimes it's interesting to watch the video news broadcasts from a city or state other than the one that you live in. Here is a TV station from San Francisco in California and if you watch their video segments you'll be able to compare them to watching ones from Portland. Remember that you can replay them as many times as you want so listen for new words that you can look up later.

abc7news.com: Video

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Vocabulary from Newspapers, Image Search, Word for the Wise

Reading the newspaper is a very good way to both keep informed on current events and improve your vocabulary. If you see a word that you don't understand, write it down and you can check out both it's definition and pronunciation at our favorite talking dictionary. Merriam-Webster Online Of course, some newspapers tend to use more difficult words than others. The one that I'd like to recommend to you generally uses easier words, so I think that it's a good place for you to start. It's called USA Today and I hope that you like it. After you click on the link below and go to their website, look in the upper left corner for the word "News" click on that or any of the other sections like "Travel" , "Money" or "Life" and you'll go to a new page where you can read stories related to that section.

USATODAY.com - News & Information Homepage

There are several ways to find images (photographs) on the internet. I wanted you to know about how to do this for two reasons. Firstly, it can be fun and interesting to show your new friends photographs of your homeland. Perhaps you'll also be writing a report for a class that you'll be taking later and you'll need to find a photograph or map to include. Now you'll know where to go for them. Our favorite search engine Google at google.com has what is called an image search. Just click on the word "Image" it's underlined and written in blue letters and it's right next to the word "Web" above the search box. After the next page comes up, just put the name of your homeland or anything else in the search box. Then just click on the grey "Search Images" bar and you'll see a page. Remember that there are usually several pages so be sure to look for additional page # at the bottom. There's another image search service as well and it's called Corbis. First go to:

Corbis: stock photography and digital pictures

Do you see the search box? It's in the upper left corner of the page. Just put in whatever you want to see a photo of and click the bar where the word Search is written in white letters. This site will give you several pages of images too but the page # are listed above the photos to the right of the page.

Here is a new service from our dictionary. It's called "Word for the Wise" and if you click on one of these words or phrases you'll see a brief article. If you click on the littlle red speaker icon (like the one that you click on when you want to hear a word being pronounced when we use the dictionary) you'll hear someone reading the article and of course you can replay it as often as you want to. I hope that you find this to be useful. First go to the website Merriam-Webster Online Look down the left side of the page and look for the word "Home" . Look for where it says "Word for the Wise" under that.Then click on where it says "Archive". When you get to the next page you'll see a long list and yo can click on any of the words or phrases and listen. As always, please feel free to e-mail me if you have any difficulty using these sites.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Green Card Diary, Word Stress, Reverse Dictionary

Green Card Diary

BBC NEWS World Asia-Pacific Vietnamese who found new lives

English Pronunciation: Word Stress (EnglishClub.com)

noodlepie

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

Yahoo! Search - Video Search

Life in the USA: The Complete Guide for Immigrants and Americans

For Immigrant Students, Math Is One Road to Success - New York Times

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Magazine Search Sites, Asian Reporter, Archaeology Videos

MagPortal.com - Magazine Article Search Engine, Directory, and News Feeds

FindArticles - News, Magazines, Reference - On Health, Fitness, Business, Home, Arts,

AllYouCanRead.com

NewsLink

The Asian Reporter Newspaper -- Your International & Local Newsweekly

The Archaeology Channel Video Guide

Friday, May 06, 2005

RhymeZone, ClicheSite, VOA News, Citizenship

RhymeZone rhyming dictionary and thesaurus

ClichéSite.com - The largest collection of clichés or cliches, phrases and sayings with definitions and explanations.

Asian-Nation : Asian American History, Demographics, & Issues :: The Vietnamese American Community

VOA News - Voice of America Special English - News Radio for English Learners Click on anything under the heading "Topics" and you can hear the audio. You may have to download a media player like RealPlayer to listen

Vietnam Globe - News and current events

Citizenship Sites

1) Immigration.com-Frequently Asked Questions on Citizenship

2) Citizenship Test Preparation Sites

3) DAR National Society - Manual for Citizenship - Introduction

Friday, April 29, 2005

BBC Pronunciation Tips

BBC World Service Learning English Watch and Listen - Pronunciation Tips

Click on where it says Unit 1: Key and Pin to begin. After you click on these words separately, you can just click on the word next to move to the following word groups.

Practicing Word Stress

Sounds of English

Here's a good site for practicing word stress. Please note that they don't have a little speaker icon (symbol) for you to click on to hear the proper pronunciation of these words. Look at the top of the word list for the word audio and click on that. If you can't hear the words being spoken, you may have to download the free realplayer. Please e-mail me and I'll explain how to do that.

Food-Shopping and Recipes

Safeway.com - Delivering our best

Asia Society's Asia Food - The source for Asian food information and recipes.

Betty Crocker: Rice Recipes

Friday, April 22, 2005

Speech by Dr. Hoat to Viet. Society of America

http://www.cognitrol.com/vas/Voices/v5n4/hoat.htm

English Quiz List From BBC World Service

I hope that you'll enjoy taking these brief quizzes. Although British English is slightly different from American English, most of the answers will be similar enough that you could use them in both countries and still be understood. Click on Quiz # 120 American English first so that you'll understand how the site works. BBC World Service Learning English Quiznet - archive

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Reuter's Videos

Here is a link to videos from Reuter's News Service. They have stories on many different topics and also different videos in each subject area. Reuters Video Do you see where it says Low on a blue bar to the right of the start and stop controls? Click on the word low unless you have a broadband (high speed) connection. You can make the screen larger by clicking on the box that says Full Screen but his may make the video harder to see even though it's bigger. These videos are a bit different than the other ones that we've already looked at in that when you hit the stop (pause) control it doesn't go back to the very beginning, it just stops and when you start it again it begins at the same place where you had stopped it. You can replay the video but you have to click on the link for that particular story at the bottom of the page after you have stopped it. This is a bit more complicated, but on this site you can easily e-mail videos to your friends!

Friday, April 08, 2005

The Cyber Listening Lab

This is a very good site that will help you with your listening skills. Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab If you click on any of the subjects listed under either easy, medium or difficult, you will be able to hear brief conversations. You can play these selections again and again and practice your pronunciation. One thing that you need to have to listen is a media player. You probably have one on your home computer already and it's called Window's Media Player. You can tell if you already have that one by clicking on the subjects. If you can't hear anything, then the computer that you're using doesn't have it. If you don't have that one though, you can also download one called Real Player and you can find that one at SuperPass - premium audio and video programming - Real.com If you look to the right side of the page, you'll see Download Free RealPlayer. You can download this on your home computer if you don't have Windows Media Player already. Don't click on the yellow bar that says Try Super Pass Free because they'll start charging you for that after you have it for 14 days.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

SAM

Friday, April 01, 2005

KPTV.Com News Videos

www.kptv.com

Click on the link above (where it says www.kptv.com) and when the new page appears go down to the middle of it and you'll see the words Featured Videos. Can you see the little red camera symbols? If you click on any of the underlined words next to them, you'll be able to see and hear the news videos. If you only play one, you can click on the little arrow under the screen and play it again when it's over. Or, if you go all of the way to the bottom of the list and click on the words Check All and then click on where it says Play All Checked you'll see over 15 minutes of them!

Merriam Webster Talking Dictionary

http://www.m-w.com

Saturday, March 19, 2005

WELCOME TO OUR NEW CLASS BLOG!

The word blog is short for the word weblog. The web part of the word stands for the internet (www) and the log part stands for a kind of diary. A diary is a book where people write about what happens in their lives every single day. A blog is like a website in some ways because its a place that people can come to visit on their computers. I'll add new things to our blog regularly so be sure to visit it often. When we have our next class I'll teach you how you can write in our blog too!

Friday, March 18, 2005

New Sites for Today

Welcome to VietGATE

Welcome To VietFun!

Kicon

Friday, December 16, 2005

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Friday, December 02, 2005

Friday, November 04, 2005

Friday, October 21, 2005

Friday, August 26, 2005

Friday, August 12, 2005

Friday, August 05, 2005

Friday, July 29, 2005

Friday, July 22, 2005

Friday, July 15, 2005

Friday, July 08, 2005

Friday, July 01, 2005

Friday, June 24, 2005

Friday, May 27, 2005