CNN Posting : Dozens dead in Japan volcano eruption

 This was especially shocking news to me, because I traveled Japan in this July.
I loved the place I experienced. That was Tokyo, and I heard Mt. Ontake located 200km west of Tokyo, and the volcano is known as the second highest volcano in Japan.
Because of the eruption, 99 people has been dead or injured. It sounds really disasterous.

Daily Life : Dynamic Duo at CAU

Yesterday was the second day of LUCAUS, CAU's annual festival.

For the day, Dynamic Duo came to CAU!!

Their rapping was awesome, espicially I liked BAAAM!!, one of their famous songs.

This evening, YB will come to CAU, and I am really anticipating his live.



Daily Life : I got new smartphone

I bought new smartphone yesterday!!
As you can see, it is 'LG G Pro2'. It has 5.9 inches Full HD display.
The display is amazaingly big and vivid.
I was always unsatisfied with iPhone's small screen.
(I told about this in one of my postings)
Now, I am totally satisfied with this big screen!!
But,,, there's one disadvantage of that. I can't put it in my trouser pocket.....
Anyway, I like it!!

Tasks in Class : Skill Practice Assignment II : Creating my own corpus and condance with Animation Scripts

 To make my own concordancer for middle school students, I used the written scripts of "Toy Story", "Finding Nemo", "Mulan", and "the Incredibles" as my corpus data.

 

Tasks in Class : My 4th Discussion Forum

1.Explain the two listening techniques: top-down vs. bottom-up and tell us when you employ each technique for what purpose.
 
 In short, top-down listening is for catching general idea on what you heard. The listeners don't have to know every bits of words perfectly, because through using their own background knowledge, such as contexts, topic, or situation, they can offset what they missed. In contrast, in bottom up listening, it is on the central focus to grasp every details of what they heard bit by bit. In this listening, listeners use strategies like dividing or analyzing listening contents.
 
 I thought when the learner's listening competence is in beginning level, using bottom-up strategy is much more desirable. The listeners have to develop their listening skills to some degree for utilizing background knowledge as a assistive strategy. Thus, bottom-up listening can be used for equipping learners with basic listening skills and knowledge. When they are geared with those basics, you'd better use top-down listening.  Top-down listening is much more close to real-world listening. It is more authentic and practical than bottom-up listening. Therefore, only with bottom-up listening, learners will comprehend few things in real conversation. Through top-down listening learners can develop their fluency more effectively.

2. What type of listening materials do you think good for top-down or? bottom-up strategies? Review the listening materials and select some for each.
 
 First up, I reviewed movies, audiobooks, and TOEIC listening CD as listening materials. Movies and audiobooks have something in common in the aspect that authentic languages are used in both them. It means they contain real-world language. However, there is difference between them. Movie scripts are mainly spoken language, but audiobooks' language is more related to written language, because its source is written texts. Meanwhile, TOEIC listening material is made for testing. It is very far from authentic use of language. Speeches in it are artificially made by its designers. That means it uses more clear and plain language than movies or audiobooks. For these reasons, I thought TOEIC listening materials fit well with bottom-up listening, and Movie is more proper for top-down listening.

3. What is podcasting? Discuss the benefits of doing podcasting for L2 learners.
 
 Originally, podcasts were audio files that broadcasted through internet by various people, but video files can be podcasts. It doesn't have fixed frame or rule, so anybody can be the broadcaster easily and freely. Also, the listeners or viewers can easily access to it just by downloading it from iTunes or from many webpages.
 
 As I mentioned, its diversity of contents is its primary trait, and that can be huge benefit in L2 learning. That is, with podcasting, we can cover each learner's various interests. This is very important point, because fulfilling learners' interests are directly related to their intrinsic motivation which becomes huge power to make them continue to study. Also, using podcasting in language class can be mentioned as a kind of CBT. Understanding Podcasting's contents become major goal, and language learning get relatively less attention in the classroom. We can induce subconscious and implicit language learning through it. Lastly, there are podcastings for learning English. It uses relatively easy English than normal podcastings. That would be very helpful for the learners at the beginning level.    

CNN Posting : U.S. begins airstrikes in Syria

 This news clip shows that U.S. started air strike on the region under ISIS's control.
I wish this action to be good start for eliminating ISIS and their crimes on sinless people.
Also, I wish those attacks to be successful and to make minimum damage on civilians.

This is part of the article from New York Times website. You can get more information through it.

 The United States and five Arab allies launched a wide-ranging air campaign against the Islamic State and at least one other extremist group in Syria for the first time early Tuesday, targeting the groups’ bases, training camps and checkpoints in at least four provinces, according to the United States military and Syrian activists.

The intensity of the attacks struck a fierce opening blow against the jihadists of the Islamic State, scattering its forces and damaging the network of facilities it has built in Syria that helped fuel its seizure of a large part of Iraq this year.

Separate from the attacks on the Islamic State, the United States Central Command, or Centcom, said that American forces acting alone “took action” against “a network of seasoned Al Qaeda veterans” from the Khorasan group in Syria to disrupt “imminent attack planning against the United States and Western interests.”

Officials did not reveal where or when such attacks might take place.

Al Qaeda cut ties with the Islamic State earlier this year because the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, disobeyed orders from Al Qaeda to fight only in Iraq. Just days ago, American officials said the Khorasan group, led by a shadowy figure who was once in Osama bin Laden’s inner circle, had emerged in the past year as the Syria-based cell most intent on launching a terror attack on the United States or on its installations overseas.

The latest campaign opened with multiple strikes before dawn that focused on the Islamic State’s de facto capital, the city of Raqqa, and on its bases in the surrounding countryside. Other strikes hit in the provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasaka, whose oil wells the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, have exploited to finance its operations.

The extent of the damage caused by the strikes remained unclear. Centcom said the wave of fighter planes, bombers, drones and cruise missiles struck 14 targets linked to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Hot News : 2014 Incheon Asian Games has begun

 

 Opening ceremony of 17th Asian Games was held on the last friday. I heard that some of my friends thought is was totally a mess, and I agree with that opinion partly. Anyway, here I upload time table of games. Let's check games' schedules for not missing them.

 

CNN Posting : How listenting to music helps your brain

"Music can be used for curing brain injury"

The man in the video says.



I really like listening to musics during studying something

I thought, however, that it distracts my concontration,

so when I start studying I turned off the music player.

Now I realized that this was very great way to improve my brain's ability.

I really didn't know that.



Video told us that we need to listen the different type of music for the diffrent case.

Then what is the best type of music for my concentration on studying? I really want to know.

Hot News : iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

 The whole world is waiting for new iPhone. I'm using iPhone5s, and its small screen feels really uncomfortable for typing or watching videos and webpages. I truly want bigger screen size.

New iPhone6 would be good choice for people who felt like me.

CNN Posting : Disappointment among 'yes' voters

I was very curious about the result of the referendum.



As you can see, the more voted for 'NO', so Scotland remains as the northern part of UK.

I heard that there was a riot of people who raged at the result.

I don't know exactly what advantages or disadvantages are followed by the result, but I wish all the britishes and scottishes to find middle ground of the continuous dispute.

Daily Life : New Sneakers

  I bought this sneakers today. Its model name is Reebok Classic GL6000. I like its colors.

It fits well on my feet, and feels very comfortable. What makes me really happy was I could buy it at discounted price. If you just download ABC Mart app and register, you can buy a pair of shoes at discounted price. They discounted 10000￦!! Is there anybody who wanted to buy new shoes? Then go to the nearest ABC Mart right now!!

CALL Review I : Teaching Vocabulary with "Glossary Maker"

 I was introduced many CALL tools which could be used in vocabulary learning and teaching, and  I will review one of them in this posting. It is in the website called "Wordsmyth” (http://www.wordsmyth.net/) which provides various useful tools for you. The chief reason that I chose it as subject of this review is its easiness and simplicity for using. in real public schools’ classroom context. After reading this review, you will understand why I thought like that.
 
 From now on, I will introduce details of the tool. Loot at the pictures. These pictures will show you how to use it and what result you can get.

 If you have finished the five steps, then click the "next", then you will see this page.
In this page, check every definitions that you want to include in your final glossary. Plural choice is available for one word. If you finished, click the next botton.

Then you will see your own glossary. You can print it or save it on your computer.

 Isn't it very simple? With few clicks you can have nice glossary that can be handed out to students without any extra modification. You can type the title of your glossary, and it can be something like "Lesseon 3", "Chapter 3", or "a category of words". You also can choose the level of it. According to your selection of level, definitions of words will be shown differently. In addition, you can select 11 options (look at the first picture) for the glossary. It is selecting what to contain or not. Depending on your needs, check the items.
 
 Anyway, noteworthy feature of this tool is that you can choose definitions of a word. You can contain just one definition or plural definitions for a word. Why is this noteworthy? It is because there are few words which have only one definition, and that means students need to know the various meanings of a word. Although, some definitions in a word are related semantically but others are not. This could be serious problem in a learning process. However, we tend to ignore other meanings of a word, so just memorize only one meaning that we need to know to read a specific sentence. This is truly a problem. Therefore, with this option, you can make your students study various meanings of a word.
 
 This glossary can function as introduction of a chapter. Before entering in the chapter, you can help your student to learn what new words means by using its hand-out version. When learner faces strange word that they have never seen, they can feel little frustration, and it can make them demotivated. Thus, with such warming-up, we can prevent such happening.

 Lastly, I will show you its practical usages in learning. It is good to hand it out in that glossary form, but for more active engagement of students in learning, you can make it into these forms. Look at the pictures. 

 And then, follow the steps as shown above. Then you can have these results. The first picture is "Matching Quiz" form, and the second is "Multiple Choice Quiz" form.
 

 When a chapter finished, you can use this hand-out as a test. The test can be reminder of what students learned in the chapter. Students can check what they acquired or not by themselves.

CNN Posting : U.S. steps up efforts in Ebola fight



 

Ebola, maybe most of you have heard about the disease. 

 

This is key facts about Ebola virus.

 

Key facts

• Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.
• EVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%.
• EVD outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.
• The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
• Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus.
• Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. No licensed specific treatment or vaccine is available for use in people or animals. 

 Now, the virus have spreaded only in some countries in West Africa, but without effeot to stop the spreading of virus, it will become the pandemic that can kill numerous people in the whole world. First of all, all the countries must help those countries in the West Africa for stopping more spread of the virus. It is the best way to prevent it to spread other part of the world.

Tasks in Class : My 3rd Discussion Forum

1. Discuss the following terms: DDL, corpus/corpora, concordance

 A corpus means a large collection of texts, and corpora is its plural form. Any texts like books or web page’s writings, and newspapers can be corpus. Even someone’s speech can be a corpus, if it is written in a text. We can use it for studying various linguistic properties, and it is material of a concordance.

 The definition of concordance is an alphabetical list of words in a book or a series of books in which we can search where a specific word is used and how the specific word is used in the book. By using it we can find information related to the word very quickly and easily.

 Lastly, DDL (Data Driven Learning) is a kind of approach of language learning. According to DDL learners obtain linguistic intuition such as where to locate a specific word or proper collocation by utilizing concordance programs. That is learning is driven by authentic language data. Also, there is little or no explicit teaching of rules, but there is learner’s own discovery of rules, principles, and usage patterns of the target language.

 

2. How can you gather English corpus data? Give us specific sources.

 Realistically, we can’t type all the texts in a book, because it takes extremely long time. Then can we search and copy texts in web pages? It can be good source for a corpus.  However, sometimes it can be undesirable source for a class context, because there are much ungrammatical use of language. For the reasons above, I thought using e-books as the source would be recommendable. Now, almost every book has its e-book version, so we don’t have to worry about the lack of materials.

 

3. What kinds of benefits can we expect in using corpus in English class?

 By utilizing corpora, students can learn diverse sentences in the corpora which are used in real meterials. That is not unrealistic sentences which are made just for syntactic analysis or for explaining the meaning of a new word. Sentences could be found in corpora are practical and realistical sentences. It shows more native-like using of English.
 
 This is related to "Lexical Approach". Many Korean public teachers don't teach about collocations, semi-fixed or fixed expressions. In this problem, we can find using corpus as the solution. Using corpora, students can learn about those things. 

 

4. Discuss the corpus-based activities that English learners and teachers can use.
 
 I tried to figure out how we can utilize corpora in the connection with the "Lexical Approach". How about the activity in which students select most appropriate (native-like)
collocation among four options by searching corpus materials. 

Tasks in Class : Skill Practice Assignment I : Sports Vocabulary Crossword Puzzle

Name of Sports

Yongkyu Lim

This interactive crossword puzzle requires JavaScript and any recent web browser, including Windows Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Apple Safari. If you have disabled web page scripting, please re-enable it and refresh the page. If this web page is saved on your computer, you may need to click the yellow Information Bar at the top or bottom of the page to allow the puzzle to load.

EclipseCrossword © 2000-2013 Welcome! Click a word in the puzzle to get started.   Congratulations! You have completed this crossword puzzle. If you would like to be able to create interactive crosswords like this yourself, get EclipseCrossword from Green Eclipse—it's free!

CNN Positing : Former Iraq General says that U.S. mishandled ISIS

I read other viewers comments on this news clip.

Someone insists that U.S. should deal with the problem by military attack before they become too strong to control. They are worrying ISIS's repeated threat that they will attack U.S.

However somebody claims that U.S. needs to concentrate on its own country instead of external affairs.

Two days ago they executed one more person. He was British worker David Haines.
Moreover, in their video they anounced that they will continue this murder until they achive what they want. This is too horrific. How we can stop them? I wonder whether we can stop them.

CNN Posting : American gets 6-year sentence at the trial in North Korea

Nobody in the world ,except North Korean, agrees that he is a criminal.

But, everybody in the world know what North Korea want to get through these incomprehensible trial.

It is getting attention of U.S to themselves.

I wish this to be solved right away, and also other Americans captivated in North Korea to be released.

My recommendation : Soongsil university's cafeteria

 With my classmate Minho, I came to Soongsil university cafeteria!! We really wanted to discover new taste, and we found great food here!! We spent only 5000₩ for the two foods, we thought that it's really cheap. Here you can have not only cheap, but also good meal. I think Soongsil's cafeteria is better than CAU's.  I've always thought that CAU's cafeteria's foods are much more expensive than many other schools'. I expect our cafeteria to provide cheaper and better foods than now!!

Tasks in Class : My 2nd Discussion Forum

1. Which ones are familiar to you? Which one are not familiar to you?
 
 I'm very familiar with 'Writing the Word', because most English teachers told that it will be very effective way to memorize new word, so I always wrote new word repeatedly on a notebook. 
 On the contrary, I have no idea about 'Realia', and I haven't seen any case that it is practiced. Maybe it is because teachers have difficulties in bringing all the real items to the class.
 


2. Which ones do you think the most useful? Tell three methodologies you want to use for your students.

 I think using 'illustrative sentences' will be the most helpful way for memorizing new word. With illustrative or example sentences, learners can find a target word in context, and it will activates memorizing process. Students can learn not only the definition of a target word, but also how and when it can be used properly.
 
 I chose three method that I want to use in my class in the future. First thing is 'Shift of Attention'. Through this way teacher can induce student to engage in lecture, because this method needs students' effort. Secondly, I thought 'pronouncing the word' would be very helpful. Many Korean learners don't consider pronunciation as an important factor in English, because they want to develop reading skills rather than speaking or listening skills. But, this is very bad idea. Without improvements in speaking or listening, their reading can't be upgraded as it is expected. This means, without pronunciation, leaner's will go through hardness in memorizing new words. Therefore, this method will be good resolution for this problem. Lastly, I picked using 'pictures and drawings'. This will make student's feel familiar with new definition. And various and favorable pictures can function as and attractor of students' attention.
 


3. What is lexical approach? Discuss Michael Lewis's four categories.
 
 It's main idea can be explained that putting emphasis on devoloping learner's lexical ability and knowledge, especially in how words can be collates with other words.
 
 Michael divided it into four categories. The first category is words and polywords which mean relatively small group of lexical items. They are considered as essential vocabulary for learners to memorize. (Polyword : a phrase that acts like a single word) Secondly, he said collocations. It can be understood as the way in which words typically occur with each other. Native speakers intuitively know which words more frequently combine than others. Therefore, developing related knowledge makes L2 learners use more native-like target language. The third and forth categories are 'fixed expressions' and 'semi-fixed expressions' respectively. They are prefabricated laxical items in a speaker's memory. They can be referred to as 'ready-made chunks of language'.
 


4. How is this idea different from what you have known about language and language learning?

 I've been taught to memorize a single word. There were few mentions about the target word's collocations. This made me to experience many difficulties in English wiring or speaking. Because I had little idea about which word combination would be better choice in the aspects of real usege, and I always hasitated to speak or write new word that I had learned recently. Through this article I found out the cause of my hardnesses in those case. I had to know that for using more native-like English I should have get ability to make more proper combination of words.

Daily Life : Brain : Left vs Right

Left brain: I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.

Right brain: I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feat. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.

 I think my right brain has more dominant power than left brain in my head.

Daily Life : Main Ceremony on Chu-sok day : Je-sa

 This is the most important moment in four days of Chu-sok holiday. It is Je-sawhich means inviting ancestors who've passed away and presenting those food to them. In my family's case these are prepared for my great-grandparents. I miss my great-grand mother, because she loved me so much. And although, I haven't met my great-grandfather, I want to say hello to him through this ceremony. Now, their meal time finished, and that means this is my turn~ haha""

Daily Life : I came to my grandparents' house for 'Chu-sok'

 I'm spending really good time with my family and with delicious foods. Here are my grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousins. Seeing beautiful nature, I feel free from busy and noisy city life.
 I wish you to have merry Chu-sok like me!!

CNN Posting : Meet the terrorists who scare Al-Qaeda (ISIS)

From now on, I'm going to post CNN news clips about global issues which I am really interested in.


As the first clip, I picked one about 'ISIS'. It's the acronym of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. 

ISIS wants to establish a 'caliphate' which means the territory ruled by a caliph who is the religious and political leader at the same time. 

Their goal (since being founded in 2004) has been remarkably consistent: establishing a hard-line Sunni Islamic state. They are extremists. 

And, there was a shocking news on September 2. ISIS captured two American journalists and executed them. The whole world was in shock seeing there cruelty.

Now, all the countries must cooperate to stop their unbelievable actions as soon as possible.

My recommendation : World Best Beers

From left ; Pilsner Urquell , Suntory the Premium Marts , Kirin Ichiban

Suntory and Kirin are from Japan, and Pilsner Urquell is from Czech Rep.

You will be fascinated by those beers' rich flavor!

You can buy them cheaply at CVS. In my case, each costs 2500₩ at nearby CVS. This is unbelievable price!!

Hot News : GALAXY NOTE 4 was unveiled yesterday!!

← This is the picture of the new 'GALAXY NOTE'

I heard that SAMSUNG will unveil new Galaxy Note in this month. So I was expecting the 'SAMSUNG UNPACK' which has been announced as the show that will pronounce the new NOTE's design and specifications. Sadly, I missed the live show because the show was held at midnight in Korean time, but I just read about it on a internet magazine.






This is new NOTE's specifications

What surprised me was it's front camera (for facetime or self-photo)

This camera has higher pixels than any other smartphone's front camera.

This feature attracted me, because my smartphone's front camera's low quality made me to be reluctant to take photo with it. Anyway nobody can deny that this smartphone will be very popular.

Tasks in Class : My 1st Discussion Forum

1. CALL, ICT, MALL, Smart learning

 'CALL' is acronym of 'computer-assisted language learning', and 'MALL' is acronym of 'mobile-assisted language learning'. I think MALL is included in CALL, because most mobile devices can be refered as a kind of computers. 'ICT' is acronym of 'Information and communication technologies'. It means the term isn't used limitedly only in language learning field. So 'ICT' has the most broad meaning that can contain the four terms. Lastly, 'Smart learning' has similar sense with 'MALL', but it also can be used in other learning fields like 'ICT'. It is related with using various cutting-edge mobile devices like smart phones or tablets.

2. Why do teacher need to develop CALL knowledge? What knowledge do you think you need to know for the future language education?

 'CALL' is based on multimedia and web (World Wide Web), especially the web is called as the ocean of information. This means we can get immense amounts of contents to use in language learning contexts. We shouldn't miss this opportunity. And secondly, many Korean students has positive feeling with using computer. Commonly, they like to use computer and are friendly with it. Then, the fact that they can study English ,which is thought to be bored, using computer or any other mobile divices can be a kind of motivation. To utilize 'CALL' we have to have enough capacity for evaluating and choosing proper 'CALL' contents that has optimal quality.

3. I want to engage in 'CALL' environment as a manager of computer-mediated communication among learners, because I really interested in how to make optimal context to encourage students to communicate freely.