Teachers & Students

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Outstanding People & Outstanding Abilities

Daniel Browning Smith

Five time Guiness Record holder, The Rubberboy is the most flexible man alive and the most famous contortionist. He has been in many professional basketball or baseball games and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, ESPN's Sports Center, Oprah Winfrey, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Cirque du Soleil, Best Damn Sports Show Period, The Discovery Channel, Men in Black 2, HBO's Carnivale, and CSI: NY and American got a talent. He dislocates his arms to crawl through an unstrung tennis racquet. He performs contortion handstands and unique acrobatics.

Outstanding People & Outstanding Abilities

Wim Hof (born 20 April 1959, in Sittard, Limburg) is a Dutch world record holder, adventurer and daredevil, commonly nicknamed the Iceman for his ability to withstand extreme coldness. He holds eighteen world records including a world record for longest ice bath. In 2007, he attempted, but failed (due to a foot injury), to climb Mount Everest wearing nothing but shorts. Hof has been criticized for his stated justifications for this attempt, "Edmund Hillary's ascent of Mount Everest was a testament to human achievement; my climb of Mount Everest in my shorts will be a monument to the frivolous, decadent nature of modern society."

Hof broke his previous world record by staying for 1 hour, 13 minutes and 48 seconds immersed in ice at Guinness World Records 2008. The night before, he performed the act on the Today Show. Dr. Kenneth Kamler monitored the event to explain the effects of using the Tantric practice Tummo to control your body temperature. Tummo has been practiced by Yogi monks in Tibet. Wim describes his ability to withstand extreme cold temperatures as being able to turn his own thermostat up by using his brain.
In February 2009, Hof reached the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in his shorts within two days. It took him only another two days to climb down.
In 2009, Hof completed a full marathon (approximately 42.2 kilometres or 26.2 miles long) above the polar circle in Finland in temperatures close to −20 °C (−4 °F). Dressed in nothing but shorts, Hof finished in 5 hours and 25 minutes. The challenge was filmed by Firecrackerfilms, who make productions for the BBC, Channel 4 and National Geographic.
Hof broke the ice endurance record in 2010 by standing fully immersed in ice for 1 hour and 44 minutes in Tokyo, Japan.
Personal life
Wim Hof was born in the Dutch town of Sittard, 2 kilometers away from the German border, and seven kilometers from the Belgium border.
From the days of his youth in the southern part of the Netherlands he got interested in esotericism, Buddhism, Indian traditions, cultures and languages. He grew up in a Catholic regime, with six brothers and two sisters as well as his dad and mother.
Hof has four children with his late wife, and a son (born in 2003) with his second wife Caroline.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Modern IT (Internet Technologies) in EFL teaching

New technologies are certainly great teaching resources. I personally started using my laptop and video projector and I realized that that benefited me and my students. My work has become more interesting, easier and cleaner. Chalk and talk everyday turns your classroom into a boring place for you and your students. With the new technologies my students are more interested in attending my classes. The new technologies have made my work easier too. As an example, preparing visual aids and showing them is no more hard work. There are lots of ready made pictures in the Internet that you can edit and present effectively using PowerPoint.

Now I use my laptop mainly for presenting and practicing language. First of all you need a video projector besides your laptop. This is usually bought by the school as in my case. Then you need a screen in place of your blackboard. A white-painted wall would do. So that's all the material you need.

As to the lesson I use PowerPoint to present it. PowerPoint is Microsoft presentation software that can be used to display text and images and play sound and video. A PowerPoint presentation is composed of slides that are displayed one after the other. Within a slide you can decide the order in which the components (text, image...) would be displayed.

I usually start my lesson with presenting new language items using pictures or videos. Then I move on to a practice stage. The practice stage is usually a listening activity or reading activity. During a listening or reading activity the students listen to or read a text or dialogue and do some exercises. The questions are displayed using PowerPoint and the students answer the questions.

The use of Internet has brought many changes in English teaching. The contemporary students are upgrading their knowledge by surfing on the net a lot. If the teacher is able to share something new and inspiring, students would pay more attention and concentration to English. Sharing of important ideas through community services would enhance teachers one more level up. Innumerable English learning videos are available through well-known search engines and websites. If one makes use of these, English teacher can make his lecture/teaching more effective and inspiring one. Instead of continuous teaching using black board, the teacher can use visual aids like projectors, white board. It would be more useful for any teacher.

And of course the best way-is the connection with the Internet in your classroom! It gives a lot of opportunities. Nowadays there is a great number of English teaching programs online (students can record their voices, take part in improvise dialogs, test themselves, read online newspapers, listen to radio broadcasts, do dictation exercises, etc.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

How to make your routine life interesting?

Life is very lovely, if you see that your life is boring it means that you don't do thing to change , I mean that you are the reason for this result, so please write notes for some activities that you interesting in , and choose everyday one of these activities to do, you'll feel that you are waiting for the next day to do the next activity, by result you'll get advantages like developing yourself, using time perfectly, seeing what kind of activities exciting you more, and find your hidden skills you have. Try to:

Cook something

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

Cooking doesn’t need to be elaborate. Sometimes the best meals are the ones that take little effort. One excuse not to cook is that there isn’t enough time to do it. I know most people are busy, but you don’t need to cook every night.

All it takes is one night a week to cook something. If you cook something new just one night a week, you’ll get good at it. Eventually you’ll be able to try bolder recipes. And remember that even if one recipe doesn’t turn out well, you can always try something else.

See the sunrise/sunset

How can something so simple be so beautiful and serene? The peaceful nature of a sunrise or sunset doesn’t have to be experienced on the same day. That would be a long day to wait for both.. At no other time of the day does the sky light up like this.

A sunset is the time for reflection. What did you do today? Where are you going in life and are you in the right direction? A sunrise is a time for renewal. You have the whole day ahead of you. The birds and animals are out. This is a good time to feel gratitude for everything you’ve got.

Go on a trip

Unlike most trips, you don’t need to know where you’re going. Often the spontaneity of the trip is the source of most of the fun.

Meet More People

If you find that you are short on friends when it comes time to plan an event or find something to do on a weekend, then the answer is simple: meet more people. Join a group, pick up a hobby, sign up for a physical/sporting activity. When you have a large group of friends to choose from, life will instantly become more exciting.

Try Something Different

Instead of gravitating towards the same old activities, try to do something different. The best way to go about this step is to choose an activity that you would normally never choose