Assignment 6:ESL Podcast 466 – Having a Good or Bad Bedside Manner

What a wonderful wedsite that ESL is.
Althout I already have the habit to listen Studio Classroom every.
I won't absorb as much as other who takes notes while listening.

The article below is my first trying of taking notes.

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Monday - April 06, 2009
ESL Podcast 466 – Having a Good or Bad Bedside Manner
Tags: Health/Medicine
Audio Index:
Slow dialogue: 1:30
Explanations: 3:12
Fast dialogue: 14:35

Cho: I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a doctor.

*cut out: to be created to do st. / have talent to do st.

Joy: I think you’ll be great. I’ve seen you with patients and you have a great bedside
manner –not like Gregory.

*bedside manner: refers to the way that a doctor or nurse talks to people how they give
medical advice or information / how doctors treat their patients

Cho: Why? What’s wrong with his bedside manner?

Joy: I’ve seen him with patients and he can be really callous. For instance, I was in the
room last week when he was telling one of his patients that she was taking a turn for
the worse.

*callous: not thinking about the feelings of someone else / without considering another
person's feelings

*taking a turn for the worse: to be getting worse / become sicker / more ill

Cho: What did he say?

Joy: He just blurted it out. He told her the diagnosis, and he didn’t even try to soften the
news when she asked about her prognosis. He did absolutely nothing to try to comfort
or reassure her.

*blurted it out: to say st. without thinking about it first

*diagnosis: the doctor's conclusion about the problem

*prognosis: the doctor's opions how the future will be for someone's problem

*comfort: to do or say st. to make the person feel better

*reassure: to let someone be less worry about st.

Cho: I feel sorry for the patient.

*feel sorry for: to understand someone's difficulties

Joy: That’s the point. Gregory didn’t, and it didn’t seem to faze him that the patient was
very upset and close to hysterics.

*didn’t seem to faze: someone wasn't affcted by st.

*hysterics: someone has uncontrol emotion

Cho: That’s terrible. I’ll try to remember to be more compassionate with my patients.

*compassionate: to be kind to someone

Joy: Don’t worry. It’s against your nature to be anything but considerate.

*against someon's nature : not a part of someone's personality

*anything but considerate: to emphasize the second word is not true


Script by Dr. Lucy Tse
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Randall's Sites

Assignments:

Listen to 2 audio clips at your chosen level at Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab. List the topics of your chosen clips and 5 expressions you learn from the listening in your blog before April 6.

I think this is really a good site for any one who wants to improve the ability of listening.
There are many classifications depend on different need or level.
As for me, I have chosen the topics under the classification of Academic Purposes to practice.
In fact, I have a plane to attend the TOEIC exam in May.
Haha, let's back to main topic.

Course 1: Hiking Arches National Park

Level:medium - Topic:hiking - Type:mini lecture - Speakers:one man - Length:02:01

Course 2: Internet Access

Level:medium - Topic:Web Hosting/ISP - Type:radio commercial - Speakers:one man - Length:00:45

Course 3: I Love Trees

Level:difficult - Topic:nature - Type:essay reading - Speakers:girl - Length:01:57


The above three are the audios that I chose.
I think the medium level is suitable for me in spite of I sill have to pay attention on it so much.
I can get the score about 80 to 100 in the exercises.
Then, it's not so smoothly to listen to the audio of "I Love Trees".
The immature accent of that girl was so hard to understand, not to mention the fast tempo that she speaks.
I can only get 60 after I listen it thrice.
Well, I have to choose the most comfotable level for me.
Otherwise, I will feel very frustrated all the time.

Let's talk about the functions..........
The best thing of this website is that it not just offers the script of the audio, it also offers some quizzes such us "listening exercises" and "text completion quiz".
The quizzes do help me a lot for checking the result I listen it.
On the other hand, the "Key Vocabulary" of the audio are just listed in the same page with the script.
All functions are rally thoughtful.

In conclusion, if you don't do learning English day by day.
Despite owning the best tool, you still won't mark any achievement.

It said "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink".

Assignment 4

The tools for me were new, such that concordancers or collocation retrieval systems.


It provided me a new way to learn English.





I have some thought for these tools.





Some times if I wanted to make articles or presented sentences in English.


I would be always confused by the process of translating from Chinese to English.


The worst of all, I made many mistakes for useing the improper words, because my logical is in Chnese type.


If I just used the dictionary for checking, the results always were failure because the examples in the dictionary were limited.



You won't find the example that you want many times.

I found it not a good idea to use dictionaries for helping writting.

Maybe to use concordancers or collocation retrieval systems is a better way.

You can know the specific amount of how others used the word by exercising collocation retrieval systems.

The matter does not mean the dictionary is bad.

After all, I will still use the dictionary if I have some questions about the meaning of a word.

I have to do that because when I know which is the best word to collocate, I don't really understand it.

Choosing the right tool will benefit learning, so does work.

You can also use one another to complement each other.

I am trying to do and I believe it really help me a lot.

Assignments：Concordancers

Is there any rule governing the use of "big" and "large"?

Sally said "yes".

I used the Oxford & Cambridge to seach the meaning before I did this assignment.

It was suitable to use Oxford for me because the explanation is more clearly.

Searching result is beneath this paragraph.

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big

adj. (big•ger, big•gest) LARGE

large in size, degree, amount, etc.: a big man / house / increase

This shirt isn’t big enough.

It’s the world’s biggest computer company. (informal)


He had this great big grin on his face.

They were earning big money.

The news came as a big blow.

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large

adj. (larger, larg•est)

1. big in size or quantity:

a large area / family / house / car / appetite



a large number of people

very large sums of money



He’s a very large child for his age.

A large proportion of old people live alone.

Women usually do the larger share of the housework.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee.

Who’s the rather large (= fat) lady in the hat?



2. (abbr. L) used to describe one size in a range of sizes of clothes, food, products used in the house, etc.: small, medium, large



3. wide in range and involving many things:

a large and complex issue

Some drugs are being used on a much larger scale than previously.

If we look at the larger picture of the situation, the differences seem slight. note at big

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In fact, when I finished checking the different between "large" & "big", I can't figure out any version with logic.
After all, it's "learner's" dictionary.

Then I tried to find the answer by knowledge A+ where you can just post your questions and there will be someone help you.

(1)They are different in level. ==> Big <>(2)Big has always been used to decribe something abstract, such as importance, and concrete size.

On the other hand, large is almost like big but it doesn't have the meaning of importance.

(3)Sometimes we can exchange them, but it's not free.
Some hint beneath.....

(X) He is making a big amount of money in China.
(O) He is making a large amount of money in China.

(X) The number of tourists in Taiwan gets bigger every year.
(O) The number of tourists in Taiwan gets larger every year.


That's my answer, it seems concordancer can't help me to resolve this puzzle...XD

Assignment 2 Dictionary Exercise

The words I want to exercise the use of the dictionaries are "progress" and "advancement".
Do you remember my first article?
I have mentioned that I want to make a big "progress" by taking Sally's course.
It seems very natural to use the word "progress".
I begin to think if I learned other similar meaning word.

Bingo! The word "advancement" rised on my mind, then.
Maybe someone met the same problem with me.

• First, let check the different by using Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

I just put the meaning of noun, because progress can be used in verb type.

progress

1. advancement to an improved or more developed state, or to a forward position:

Technological progress has been so rapid over the last few years.
I'm not making much progress with my Spanish.
The doctor said that she was making good progress.
(= getting better after a medical operation or illness)
The recent free elections mark the next step in the country's progress towards democracy.
The yacht's crew said that they were making relatively slow progress north-easterly.

advancement

All she was interested in was the advancement (= improvement, development) of her own career.

• Second, let check the definition by using Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

progress

1. the process of improving or developing, or of getting nearer to achieving or completing sth:

---to make progress
---slow / steady / rapid / good progress
We have made great progress in controlling inflation.

---economic / scientific / technical progress
They asked for a progress report on the project.

2. movement forwards or towards a place:

She watched his slow progress down the steep slope.
There wasn’t much traffic so we made good progress.

advancement

1. the process of helping sth to make progress or succeed;

the progress that is made:

---the advancement of knowledge / education / science

2. progress in a job, social class, etc.:

There are good opportunities for advancement if you have the right skills.

After searching the definitions.
I will use these two words in the applicable situation carefully, although they are the same meaning in Chinese.
The dictionaries are really the good tools to distinguish the words that you are really confused.

If I made something wrong or mistake on this article, I will very appreciate if you could give me some advice. :D

Introduction of "MiniKobe"

Welcome to my new blog. This blog is created for "CALL".

My name is Edward. I was born in March 24, 1988.
I always play basketball and watch NBA or MLB game in my leisure time.
The player that my favorite is Kobe Bryant. Maybe he is the best basketball player on the earth.
I enjoy every game he played, that why my virtual ID is MiniKobe.

I major in electronics engineering. It’s my third year to study in NTUST, so I will graduate in one year.
In fact, I haven’t decided what to do in my future.
As others view, maybe it means I am still blind on my career.
I just think life will be change all the time, I don’t have to restrict myself now.

I hope I can make a obvious progress at the end of this semester.