Event canvas

[Learneng]

First of all I would like to thank Luke for creating a completely separate section for me to practice my writing. I'll try to write whenever I can. I'm naming this section as an "event canvas", where I'll write the happenings  of my life. I hope you all will like it. Please feel free to comment.
Thanks,
Learneng


  My company provides tutors to individuals, who would like to improve their English. I wasn't aware of this until recently and was very happy when I found about it. I enrolled myself a couple of days ago for this course and my classes will start from tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it and hoping that it will benefit me. My tutor asked me to give her any unedited piece of writing so she can determine my level. I couldn't find anything because most of my writings were checked by either my daughter or were Googled. I can't imagine my life without either one of them. When my daughter is not around I completely depend on Google. My new mantra is "when in doubt Google it". Since I didn’t have anything I decided to write my goals for this year. Here it is:

My goal is to be proficient in English by the end of this year and I’m sure the ESL class will help me achieve my goals. I would like to write grammatically correct sentences in English without making any silly mistakes, which unfortunately I don’t do a lot.  Not sure whether it’s because of lack of self confidence or lack of practice.  But I would certainly like to be a little more confident. Also, I want to improve my communication skills. I want to convey my thoughts without thinking a thousand times in my mind of it being wrong.  Many times, when I’m in a meeting or with my peers, I want to say something but I restrain myself thinking that it might be wrong. I hope I’ll be able to communicate my thoughts with my peers with confidence and should be able to speak fluently.

[Learneng]

I’ll have my first ESL class today. The program will run for 1.5 hours a week for 10 weeks plus 30 minutes of online editing time. I’m a bit skeptical about how much one can learn in just 10 classes. Let’s see…I’ll keep you posted.

I had a very quite day, yesterday. I tried to finish many pending chores, which I wasn’t able to finish in the past one month. One of them was uploading the pictures on the web. My parents were here a month ago and I have taken a lot of pictures of them. We went sightseeing in and around Washington and New York. My daughter made six CDs of all the pictures and gave it to my parents. But my siblings were asking me to upload the pictures online so they can see them now instead of waiting for my parents to visit their places.

I have been able to upload all the pictures after a couple of initial hiccups on the web. My siblings were very happy. Although, it took me a while to sort out all the redundant pictures but in the end, I was happy with the outcome. In the age of digital photography and no hassle of developing all the pictures, we take so many unnecessary photographs. I still remember the good old days when I used to wait for a roll to be over and then wait for pictures to get developed. Now, with the instant technology, there is no fun or enthusiasm left. If you are not satisfied with the picture take another one and so on. I might have disks and hard drives filled with our pictures but haven’t seen them in a decade. Well so much for the new technology.

[Learneng]

My ESL class went well. She gave us a lot of home assignments. One thing I liked in the class and I’m sure it will benefit all of you is that she showed us a video and told us to write about it in 15 minutes. Video doesn’t have to be particular subject any random video would do. I really liked the idea of watching a video in English and then writing about it. It’ll not only increase your writing skills but will also increase your listening skill. I highly recommend to all of you to try this method. This is the video she shared with us:

It’s not easy being blue …
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/its-not-easy-being--blue/111836660

We didn’t have enough time so we couldn’t complete the assignment in the classroom but she told us to watch it one more time and write about it. Once I finish writing, I’ll share it with you all.

She gave us many important web links. These are free web site for grammar and vocabulary and many more. I’ll give you those links as soon as I get some spare time.

Until than I wish you the best,
Learneng

[luke]

Hi Learneng,

I like reading your blog entries, they were captivating. Finding out about the ESL class is good news for you, although your writing is already very good. I think your teacher must have been very happy to see your writing, as there isn't a lot left to correct!

Incidentally, I checked the link but couldn't get it to work. It might well be because I am in China and behind the famous 'Great Firewall,' so if any other users can try it out, that would help a lot.

Keep them going!

[Learneng]

Thank you Luke, You always boost my confidence. The link is working for me, may be it’s the firewall as you mentioned. I would recommend you to Google the video of the “Blue man”. It’s quite an interesting story.
------------------------
Hi All,

The assignment was due yesterday but it was crazy at work and I couldn’t finish it on time. Today, I’m going to watch the "blue man" video and send her my writing by the end of the day. In the meantime, I would like to share her corrections she made to my previous writing about my goals. It helped me and might help you as well. You can find my writing (my goal......speak fluently) in the first post and here is her analysis of the same:
1.   Articles a/the/nothing: “It was pleasure to meet you” vs. It was a pleasure vs. He took pleasure in knowing his children were safe.
2.   Pronouns – include or drop?: “Not sure whether it’s because of ….” Vs. I’m not sure whether it’s because of …
3.   Parallelism: “I hope I’ll be able to communicate my thoughts with my peers with confidence and should be able to speak fluently.” vs. I hope I’ll be able to confidently communicate my thoughts to my peers, speaking fluently.   
4.    Awkward & repetitive: “ … convey my thoughts without thinking a thousand times in my mind of it being wrong.” vs. … convey my thoughts without wondering a thousand times whether it’s wrong.
5.   Ambiguous sentence: “I would like to write grammatically correct sentences in English without making any silly mistakes, which unfortunately I don’t do a lot.” What don’t you do a lot? Write grammatically, or make silly mistakes?
6.    Punctuation for independent clauses: “I don’t have any unedited email, therefore, I’m writing a bit about my goals.” vs.  I don’t have any unedited email; therefore, I’m writing a bit about my goals. 

Learneng

[benleon]

Hi Learneng,
Thank you for sharing with us the tutor's analysis. I found it very helpful and important to know the existence of paralleism and what consititute an ambiguous sentence. It will certainly give me a new dimension in story reading.

Benleon   

[benleon]

Hi Learneng,
Oh, that blue man, I had watched that video before. It was put up in the Yahoo news section some time ago. My view after watching the video is that it is not nice to be in any colour at all, if you are the only one. Being too outstanding, so to speak, has its own problem, you know.
As regards the English used in the video, it is very descriptive compared to the English spoken in our country. Ours tends to be much shorter and has a jerky effect, consisting of the subject, the verb and the direct object. What I really like to find out from listening to the video is how much of the written English can be used in the spoken one. I might be wrong about this that some English can be used for writing only and adjustment is required when used in spoken English.

Benleon   

[Learneng]

Hi Ben,

I'm glad you found the corrections useful. We don't realize these common mistakes we make until someone points them out. We know what we want to convey in our writing but it is not necessary that others will understand. It is very important to write clear and concise. And hopefully I'll be able to pursue that by the end of this class.

BTW, your English is very good and I like the way you construct your sentences. I have never heard about the "Blue Man" before and was shocked to see. Yes,  the video is very descriptive and for me, it was easy to follow the English of the video and memorize it. Did you try this exercise (watch the video and write about it)?  You are right, some words or sentences look better when written but don't sound right when spoken or vice-versa.

Learneng

[Learneng]

Hi All,

Below is my writing about the "Blue Man's" video. My writing may be slightly different than the video because I wrote most of it in my class. The teacher was unable to find the given link so she Googled it by the name and showed us a random video.

You might also notice a lot of mistakes in my writing (given below) but according to her we are not allowed to go back and correct/edit our work. So, I didn't change anything. She wants to see how good we write the first time itself. Her main aim is to make us confident, so we can write  correct English without correcting it many times. According to her slowly we'll be able to write the correct English at once.

Here it is:

Today we watched a show about a person named Paul Carlson, whose skin is bright blue in color. It all started when he took colloidal silver to prevent his skin from peeling. In the beginning he was just applying the silver on his skin but later he started to consume it. He did not consult any doctor before taking it. The silver didn’t help his skin problem but it stopped the inflammation of the skin; therefore, he continued the intake of silver. Due to the continue consumption of silver his skin turned bright blue and he doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t want to stop. Apparently silver intake helped him with the other problems he had i.e. sinus, spine problem and arthritis. His doctor was also present on the show at the time of interview. When asked to his doctor about his medical condition and the side effects of the silver, she mentioned how Paul looks from outside his inside is exactly the same.

Learneng

[Learneng]

Hi All,

I was very late in submitting my assignment, therefore the teacher wasn't able to correct it. Hopefully, our teacher Luke can provide some suggestions, if possible.

Also, she told us to visit this website for our vocabulary exercise. http://www.freerice.com/ I liked this site because our earnings (Rice) will go to UN world food program. We all were very happy to know that we are learning new words and simultaneously helping others who are in need. I'll explain the game in brief: You'll see a word and four options. One of the options is the correct one, you need to click on one of them. If your answer is right, it will automatically add rice into your account and will move you to the next level. If not, It'll show you the correct answer and will move on to another question. The incorrect question will appear again after a while.

L

[benleon]

Hi Learneng,
You are right that what we write is not always comprehensible to others. A lot of the time, we tend to write English sentences based on the sentence structures applicable to our own language. where they are similar in structure, it is not a problem to write our ideas that way, but in most cases substitution is just not possible. It is important for me to know where they are similar and likewise where they are different. With your correction and Luke's guidance, improvement is certainly guaranteed.

Benleon       

[luke]

Hi Learneng,

Your blog is doing very well and attracting a lot of comments. I have yet to see the blue man video, but I will try it out on a proxy soon so that I can know what you are talking about.

I wanted to ask about your request. Did you want me to check your writing or not, because I got the impression that your teacher asked you not to? If you do, just let me know and I certainly will.

Well done again, it is interesting reading. Are you happy with the structure? Perhaps you would like a new page for each post? Let me know what you think.

Luke

[Learneng]

Hi Luke,

It’s entirely up to you to do the corrections. I was very late in submitting the assignment; therefore, my teacher didn’t correct it. Today is the last day for our second assignment and this time I completed it on time. You are more than welcome to correct all of my posts.

Regarding the new page, I also thought about it but wasn't sure whether I should make a new page every week or every month. If I make a new page for each post than I'm worried about loosing the continuity.

Learneng
PS: It’s a relief to see the board up and running again.

[Learneng]

Hi All,

I don’t have corrections to my writing, which I did on the video of the blue man but the teacher shared other writings and corrections to all of us. I’m posting one of them because I felt the correction and explanation was very thorough in this example and it benefited me a lot. I hope you all will like it too.

The story about the blue man is very interesting. I have never seen a person’s skin can turn into blue like that. This man was using some sort of silver solution to treat skin irritations on his face. He was drinking the silver solution first and his skin didn’t change color. Then he started to apply it directly on his face, which caused his face to turn blue. I was worried that he could have some other side effects besides turning blue. But when the interviewer asked him why he still takes the silver solution knowing there was side effect associated with it, I was completely surprised that he said there were some benefits taking it, such as it cured his problems with arthritis, acid efflux et al.  I think he should consult with his doctor before doing this.


1.   Verb Forms and Clause Structure:  “I have never seen a person’s skin can turn into blue like that.”  VS I have never seen a person’s skin turn … AND I didn’t know (that) a person’s skin can turn blue.
AND  - I have never seen it – I have never seen blue skin (“have never seen” can act directly on something, and strongly wants to – see skin – see it
BUT NOT  “I have never seen a person’s skin can turn into blue like that. OR

What you’ve written has a stand-alone clause followed by a leaning-dependent clause – but you didn’t use a “that” in front of the dependent clause. If you want to use this form, you have to change the verb in the main clause:
-   I didn’t know (that) a person’s skin can turn blue.
-   He didn’t understand that a person’s skin can turn blue.
-   I don’t know whether a person’s skin can turn blue.
-   He doesn’t care if his skin can (or might) turn blue. He’s going to drink the stuff anyway.

2.   Prepositions & 2-part verbs: “can turn into blue”
–   can turn into a pumpkin – can turn into a frog (all nouns)
–   VS. can turn blue – can turn ugly – can turn bad – can turn traitor

3.   Plurals/Articles:  “knowing there was side effect”
VS. knowing there were side effects (or if only one) knowing there was this (or a) side effect
4.   Precise vocabulary:  “acid efflux”(no such thing) VS acid reflux
5.   Sentence Length: Shorten the entire last sentence

[benleon]

Hi Learneag,
The 1st analysis of verb forms and clause structure is very helpful. I always hesitate on deciding which verb form I should use for the object. Did you see him walk past? or Did you see him walking past? It is area like this I find it difficult to understand because there is no such things as past tense or present tense in my language. Please post more of these analyses, I am sure it would help lot of us here.

Benleon