Today is the first day for the IELTS lesson. And we learned some skills about the Part 1 of Speaking exam. Here are some tips:

a. Give full answer and add extra information about the topic (expand your answer).
b. Don’t make the examiner work hard.
c. Try to be interesting.
d. Be friendly.
e. Don’t fidget!

And following are some information about the IELTS:

What is IELTS?
1. IELTS stands for the International English Language Testing System.
2. It is designed to help universities and colleges test the skills of people who want to study in English.
3. It is also used as a general test for immigration and employment in many countries.
4. Candidates can choose to sit either the Academic Test or the General Training Test.
5. The IELTS test is divided into four sections: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking.
6. There is no pass or fail mark in IELTS.
7. Candidates are marked on a band scale of 1 to 9.
How can you get the best score possible?
8. Firstly, you need to know the test format.
9. Secondly, you should do practice tests.
10. Finally, you should make sure you use English every day.
11. Many students do an IELTS preparation course at a language school to help them prepare.
Preparing for the Listening Test
12. You will learn to notice intonation patterns and different types of English.
13. You also need to practise listening for general and specific information.
Preparing for the Reading Test
14. You will need to skim for general understanding and scan for specific information.
15. You will also learn to develop your vocabulary.
Preparing for the Writing Test
16. This includes learning how to write paragraphs, introduction and conculsions.
17. You will also organise information logically and use examples and evidence to support an argument.
Preparing for the Speaking Test
18. You will practise your pronunciation, intonation and fluency.
19. You will learn to use common phrases and interact with other speakers.
20. Finally, you will learnn to speak for an extended time on a topic.

Study English - IELTS Preparation

今天又跑了一趟义安城，不为别的，是因为在学校刷卡时出现故障而我只知道义安城四楼里面有个POSB的branch。结果是卡是好的，问题只能是学校的机器有问题，后来发现确实是这样。就在branch外边有好几个买运动服装和鞋的店铺，上次在那里的时候已经看到有卖凉鞋的，这次权衡再三，决定进购一双，S$39.9。赶回学校上下午开始的Academic 1，上课之前要买书，因为现在已经是Academic 1啦，Foundation 6的课程只是上一本书的最后四个modules，课本是Cutting Edge Intermediate，S$45，现在的是Cutting Edge Upper-Intermediate，也是S$45。而Academic的课程要穿插着IELTS的课程，一个星期分成两部分，其中三天学Cutting Edge，另外两天学IELTS。既然有IELTS就得有IELTS的书，学校选的是Macmilian出版的IELTS Foundation，S$23。更让人郁闷的是Cutting Edge系列是在中国印刷的，而且书上也没有标价钱。最后Tommy被发现倒在血泊中。。。

这几天在看一本书，封面如下。现在只看了三分之一不到，看过的部分好像只有MAO的自私和心狠手辣，以及见风使舵的本领。难道井冈山会师、四渡赤水和万里长征都只是利益和个人恩怨在驱动着，党说的崇高理想在那里？这本书或许有很多偏见，而且越看越像把毛爷爷往死里写。想了想，还是不给出下载链接了。

At the end of module 12, which is also at the end of the Cutting Edge Intermediate book, there is a song lyric named Out of Reach. But there are some missing words between the lyric, we need to listen the song and fill the missing words in. It seems that I have known this song for a long time, maybe I had heard it before. There are some scenes come from a movie which has the Huge Grant as the main actor when I watch this song’s MTV in Youtube, this song must have been one of the movie’s soundtrack. So I unlocked my DOG to search the connections between the song and one unknown movie. You know, in China, we call the Google as DOG just like a nickname. I couldn’t found the relations according to IMDB, however, there is another song which was mentioned by David while he was playing a Charades game with us. Its name is Can’t get you out of my head.

Gosh, I got it. Out of Reach was the soundtrack of Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Can’t get you out of my head was for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Bridget Jones’s Diary 2).

Gabriellle - Out Of Reach

Knew the signs, wasn’t right
I was stupid for a while
Swept away by you
And now I feel like a fool
So confused, my heart’s bruised
Was I ever loved by you?

Out of reach, so far
I never had your heart
Out of reach, couldn’t see
We were never meant to be

Catch myself from despair
I could drown if I stay here
Keeping busy everyday
I know I will be OK
But I was so confused, my heart’s bruised
Was I ever loved by you?

Out of reach, so far
I never had your heart
Out of reach, couldn’t see
We were never meant to be

So much hurt, so much pain
Takes a while to regain what is lost inside
And I hope that in time, you’ll be out of my mind
And I’ll be over you

But now I’m so confused, my heart’s bruised
Was I ever loved by you?

Out of reach, so far
I never had your heart
Out of reach, couldn’t see
We were never meant to be

Out of reach, so far
You never gave your heart
In my reach, I can see
There’s a life out there for me

Read the rest of this entry »

Super Size Me is a real movie about the fast food lifestyle how to affect the people’s health and living method. This movie was directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock.

Spurlock’s film follows a 30-day time period (February 2003) during which he subsists entirely on food and items purchased exclusively from McDonald’s, and the film documents this lifestyle’s drastic effects on Spurlock’s physical and psychological well-being and explores the fast food industry’s corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.

Use the following format when writing your opinion essay (you don’t have to write your third and forth reasons as mentioned below, only two or three reasons is fine, but it’s up to you):

Paragraph 1 - Introduction (you should make your opinion clear during this paragraph)
Paragraph 2 - Your first reason with examples and evidence
Paragraph 3 - Your second reason with examples and evidence
Paragraph 4 - Your third reason with examples and evidence
Paragraph 5 - Reasons why the opposite opinion should also be considered (this helps make your essay more balanced)
Paragraph 6 - Conclusion (you should state your opinions again in this paragraph)

Before writing your essay, check these questions first:

1. How often do you eat fast food? Why do you eat it? Which is your favourite?
2. Do you think fast food is bad for you? Why?
3. Do you think people are eating more fast food than they used to?
4. What effects has fast food had on society today?
5. What do you think will happen to fast food restaurant in the future?

Following is my little essay:

I don’t think we have to blame the fast food companies. I think the fast food companies just a small part of the American culture.

The fast food culture is so popular because people have no choice but to accept it. The modern speed of life is so fast that it doesn’t allow time to make a healthy and balanced diet.

As you know, because of its economy, the USA has been producing a fast food culture and it has spread all over the world. So the people in other countries want to copy the ‘American Life’ to make themselves like living in a modern society.

Someone told me that fast food companies provide the junk food, but that’s the reason to blame fast companies. In fact, even today, there’re a lot fo more healthy diet options in restaurants, and they may even be cheaper.

As I mentioned in this essay, I think modern life culture is to blame.

For God’s sake, no more than 200 words! Caroline’s comment:

you still miss the plurals but you have organised your ideas well.

There are two kinds of dictionaries in the market, electronic and paper dictionary. Which on is your favourite dictionary? I have been attended a lesson for ‘improving ways to access English vocabulary and to help Senior Teacher Neil with his research project’. I brought a electronic dictionary when I came here but finally I found out it had been broken for the screen problem. I had to bought a paper dictionary at ‘Books Kinokuniya’ inside the ‘Ngee Ann City’, a handle dictionary because it’s more cheaper then the electronic in Singapore. Well, the little handle Longman Dictionary cost S$10. ‘Ngee Ann City’ is also called as ‘Takashimaya‘, it’s a an investment and managed by a Japanese Group, and it’s a famous shopping center you can find the information on the Tourism Guide in Singapore.

As for the Electronic Billngual Dictionaries, there’re several advantages as follow:

1. help poor spellers
2. have better portability
3. have a variety of look-up methods
4. easy and fast to use
5. can focus on specific language problems such as ‘false friends’
6. allows students to ’search’
7. easier to understand the definitions

And the Paper Monolingual Dictionaries have the advantages as:

a. doesn’t use the technology ‘wow’ factor
b. better for memory retention
c. teachers understand these better and can help their students
d. teachers understand the languages so can check if students are correct
e. uses better mental processing and makes students ‘think’
f. better for collocations and lexical phrases
g. uses example which put the words in context

Neil asked us to do some exercises to check which one is better to find out the meaning of the words or fill the gap for some short phrase in the class. I think the advance electric dictionaries are enough for learning new words, there are also have billngual and monolingual dictionaries in one electric dictionaries, and there have some example sentences if your electric dictionary is really a high-tech product.

I like the Lingoes Dictionary software for the computer users, it’s simple and you can download different kinds of dictionaries as a component, like the ‘Oxford Dictionary’, ‘Longman Dictionary’, ‘Collins COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary’ etc.

Takashimaya (Ngee Ann City), it has two towers, named as Tower A and Tower B.