How to learn English the fast way with ESL podcasts
by Chad DeBolt
Would it be convenient if you can further hone your English language competencies by simply doing the lessons at your own leisurely pace, and by not attending class sessions? This is possible, and you can make it happen with the help of ESL podcasts. ESL podcasts or the English as a second language podcasts are helpful audio files that you can download from the internet and play it when you free or even doing your everyday work. The moment you download the ESL podcasts, you can easily listen to it on your laptop or you can load it the ESL podcasts to your MP3 player. Play the ESL podcasts when you jog or when you commute to and from work.
What your ESL podcasts can do
Downloading the ESL podcasts from certain websites is just one option; interested students like you can also subscribe to ESL podcasts. These ESL podcasts will then be delivered to your end automatically on a day-to-day basis and this works like your early morning paper delivery. These ESL podcasts that are available online may have some variations in styles and structures, but the main intention of these audio files remain the same. These podcasts are designed to be played back and help you learn the language at your own pace. In many ESL podcasts that are available online, these files may include conversations between two persons, one speaking in the language and the other speaking using another language. Two speakers also talk the same language on these audio files, and these speakers often converse in the language in varying degree of difficulty, from beginner to intermediate. In many of these ESL podcasts, other contents include definitions, sample sentences, comprehension questions, additional explanations, and notes on culture and other tips on how to improve your English language competencies.
ESL podcasts allow for mental gymnastics
There are three major reasons why ESL podcasts can help you in your desire to fine-tune your language competencies. These podcasts allow your mind to be exercised, podcasts complement other methods and these podcasts are highly convenient. Let’s take podcasts as forms of mental gymnastics. The good thing about ESL podcasts is that this will allow you to work on oral exercises, and in the process allow you to perform some form of ‘mental gymnastics’. The real intention here is to effectively take in the ‘language patterns’ so that you may practice it until such time that the skills that you have learned can be practiced in real-time. Another reason why ESL podcasts are helpful is the fact that the use of these audio files can complement other methods of learning. You can attend classroom sessions, and after class when you are going home you can plug in your earphone and load the audio file for a refresher.
ESL podcasts are highly convenient tools for learning
And of course, the biggest selling-point of these ESL podcasts is that these are highly convenient. You can hone your English competencies while you are on the train, or waiting for your turn in the line. This is the beauty with ESL podcasts and the main reason why it’s the choice of some language students. The use of these audio files gives credence to what others say that learning should be a continuing process, busy schedules notwithstanding.
If you would like to learn more about ESL Podcasts visit http://esl.culips.com
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Reasons You Need A University Education
by Justin Sloan
The world in which we live is constantly evolving. We are demanding more and more from our citizens than ever before and in order to live up to the demands of the world we need a solid education upon which to base our skills and knowledge. There are many alternatives available for receiving an education these days, which is good news for those who have not yet managed to obtain a four-year college degree. Truthfully, that degree is the difference in literally hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a lifetime than not having a degree.
Four Reasons for a Four-Year Education
Money. The first reason that you should consider a university degree is the fact that it will substantially increase your earning potential. If nothing else appeals to you, this is typically the one reason that most people return to school after years in the work place. If you are in high school and haven’t really had to deal with the bills and burdens that many adults face it’s difficult to explain how important any edge when it comes to earning ability truly is. However, you should be aware that you need to choose your major wisely if money is your sole motivation. Not all careers pay equally when compare to the education required to enter them.
Insurance. This may seem like a strange term to use when discussing why you should get a university education but this is perhaps the best insurance you can find as far as employability goes. Having a university degree gives you a competitive edge over those who do not. In many cases you will find that education is beginning to trump experience as employers are seeking workers with more rounded skills rather than those with very specific skills. The modern university typically requires a brief exposure to all kinds of information and coursework that isn’t necessarily related to your major. This provides graduates with a broader understanding of the world (at least that is the assumption).
Employability. Believe it or not, those with degrees are much more employable than those that do not have them. There was a time when the trend was to employ those who had experience over those who had education. That trend is rapidly evaporating as companies want employees that can fill multiple roles more and more often. The limited exposure to certain ideas or ideals and principles that most people receive as part of their university education makes you a more employable candidate because you should be able to adapt and adjust, as this was required during your educational process.
Confidence. There is nothing quite like believing in yourself. Getting a four-year education is one way to build confidence not only on a personal level but also on a professional level. Whether or not you realize it, this is often the best reason for pursuing a university degree. This reason, as a matter of fact, will actually affect all of the other things I mentioned above. If you have more confidence in your ability you will be more willing to go out there and get the job done. As a result, you will earn more money and you will insure that you are an asset to your company by proving yourself to be just that.
Regardless of your personal reason for pursuing a university degree there are very few wrong reasons to get your degree. Good luck in your educational pursuits. I know they will serve you well.
Information on teaching first grade can be found at the Teaching Quotes site.
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Arne Duncan brings new vision to the post Of Secretary Of Education
by Julia Aidan
Many people were a bit leery of President Obama’s choice of the Superintendant of the Chicago Public School system, Arne Duncan, to take the reins at the U. S. Department of Education. However, the choice is not too surprising as the two men are close personal friends and share many of the same ideas about education reform. The president has outlined what he calls his Five Pillars of Education and put it into the hands of Secretary Duncan to create the initiatives to drive the education department into building these five pillars.
While there are a few issues concerning early childhood education and access to college education for more students, the bulk of the initiatives created by Secretary Duncan pertain to the K-12 range of education. These initiatives are going to cost a great deal of money, but the president, Congress, and Duncan are in agreement that these programs are vital if our children are going to be able to compete in the global marketplace.
The first set of initiatives put into place calls for adoption of new, cutting edge curriculum that will teach our children the skills they will need in the 21st century. Improvements in mathematics, science, and literacy education are considered to be keys to offering children a level of education that will prepare them to enter college. Trends show that, more than before, well-paying jobs of the 21st century are going to require college education. New evaluations of progress and achievement are to be created that provide accurate data about student learning and retention.
A new system of data record keeping is to be implemented that allows schools to track student progress from the day they enter kindergarten until they graduate high school. This data can be used to identify problem areas for students and subjects where teachers are not successfully helping the children understand the material to satisfactory levels (based on achievement scores).
Secretary Duncan plans to implement a system of merit pay for teachers who are exceptionally proficient at instructing their students at a level that allows them to learn the material and retain the bulk of the knowledge. Recruiting teachers is also a part of this initiative, with bonus pay for going to areas that need their particular skills and knowledge. The goal is to upgrade the standards of certification for teachers and hold them more accountable for student progress as a measure of their ability to teach.
One of the most innovative strategies Sec. Duncan has in mind is examining the programs that have proven successful and replicating them in other districts in an effort to improve performance. He wants to lengthen the school day and the school year so that teachers have more time to spend with their students. After school programs will be of increasing focus in many cases as well.
The goal in most cases is to form partnerships between schools and community organizations so that schools become the center of a community. Increased parental involvement in their children’s education is considered to be a key ingredient to helping all children progress and become well-educated, productive members of society.
Initiatives are in the planning stages to ensure that even students with disabilities or who are learning English as a second language are afforded the best opportunities to advance and take full advantage of the benefits of education and the ability to work as productive citizens in a global job market.
360-EDU has more information to assist with professional development for teachers. You’ll find information regarding teaching certification and online teaching degrees as well.
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Law Enforcement Exam Strategies: How to Pass the B-PAD (Behavioral Personnel Assessment Device)
by Don Cirillo
What is the BPAD (Behavioral Personnel Assessment Device)?
It’s SHOW TIME… The BPAD, also known as the Video Simulation Exercise is an assessment exercise which requires you to watch a scenario on a TV monitor. The scenario represents what police officers experience on the job. You will be asked to respond as though the people on the screen are talking to you. Knowledge of police procedures is not required for this test. But it sure helps. Most experienced police officers would do very well on this portion of the test.
It evaluates an individual’s interpersonal, communication and problem-solving skills in dealing with a variety of people in difficult situations, like those that police officers encounter. So the more you know about how officers respond to a variety of difficult interpersonal situations the better your B-Pad performance will be.
B-PAD Basics
When taking the BPAD you will view video-based simulations on a TV or computer monitor. The simulations are based on real life police interpersonal encounters. You are then expected to respond verbally, as if talking to real people in a real situation. Your responses are videotaped and then scored using standardized criteria. It is based on the premise that the best indicator of future behavior is observed behavior under similar situations.
Important Tip:
By presenting your answers in a logical sequence, you will elevate your scores considerably. It will show the examiners you think logically and have planning and organizational skills. Examiners don’t score you on finding the perfect solution, but how well you find a solution and communicate your findings.
BPAD Tests Your People Skills
As a law enforcement officer you must be able to work effectively with people?” B-PAD video tests assess your people skills and common sense judgment. You will not be tested on your job knowledge or personality; rather you will be tested on your interpersonal competence. B-PAD measures behavioral skills and abilities not readily measured by conventional methods.
Why do Law Enforcement Agencies use B-PAD for testing?
B-PAD is a preferred form of testing because it’s a valid and fair method for assessing candidate behavior under standardized testing conditions. For instance, the oral interview requires candidates to state what they “would do” in response to a hypothetical situation, on the other hand the B-PAD requires that the candidate demonstrate his or her skills by role-playing a response.
What to expect when taking the BPAD
When taking the BPAD you will receive both oral and written instructions. Then you’ll receive instructions again from the video moderator and be given the opportunity to view and respond to a practice scenario. Scenarios depicting incidents such as an irate citizen, angry motorist, an insubordinate employee, etc. Each scenario is from one to two minutes long. Once the scenario is completed, the word “respond” appears on the screen and you will then have a set amount of time (usually about 45 seconds) to respond to the scenario as if you are responding to real people in a real situation.
How to prepare for the B-Pad
You prepare for the B-Pad the same way you prepare for the role playing exercise. It’s actually the same thing except, instead of reacting to a real person you’re reacting to a video tape.
Irate Citizen Performance Tips:
The Irate Citizen exercise tests the candidate’s ability to analyze and correct citizen related problems and to calm down an irate citizen. The irate Citizen in the video tape will be adversarial and test the candidate’s ability to maintain his composure and handle stress.
The raters will assess communication, interpersonal sensitivity, judgment and professionalism. Your success in this exercise depends on your ability to display these qualities.
Example of an irate Citizen exercise:
You may receive a note that reads something like this; Officer Jones see Joseph Smith at 1218 North 78th Street regarding a citizen’s complaint. A squad was there earlier and the citizen was not happy with the service.
The candidate then knocks on a door and the video tape begins: The citizen opens with a statement like: “I can’t believe you finally got here. I called four times.”
The irate citizen will continue by saying something like; “The reason I originally called is because somebody broke into my car and the squad took 45 minutes to arrive. They just took the information, they didn’t take fingerprints and they left.”
Suggested Response –
“Hi, I’m Officer Jones, I’m sorry about your inconvenience. Although you called four times, I just received the call about ten minutes ago. I got here as soon as I could so I could help you with the problem.”
The candidate must contend with the citizen’s irritated mood while he attempts to solve the problem. This is a ploy to test the candidate’s reaction. If the candidate becomes agitated and loses his composure, he will fail the exercise.
Always Remember Part of the Test is Your Composure.
If the candidate remains calm and continues attempting to solve the problem, the irate citizen role player is usually instructed by the test administrators to calm down. If the candidate accomplishes this, he or she will receive high scores for this exercise. Strategy:
Things to keep in mind when handling the irate citizen:
1. Your role-playing.
2. You represent the organization.
3. Your task is to: a. Calm down an irate citizen. b. Offer solutions to help solve the citizen’s problem.
4. How you handle stress and maintain your composure is part of the test.
5. Remain calm and respectful at all times.
6. Use logic and be professional.
7. Explain organizational policy but don’t apologize for it.
8. Keep track of time limits. Solve the problem before time runs out.
9. Indicate you will talk to all parties involved, investigate the complaint and get back to citizen with the results of your investigation. Give specific dates and times for getting back to irate citizen with the results.
Example of an irate Angry Motorist:
You pulled over a female driver, she gets out of her car, comes up to you screaming about how you are harassing her because she is a female and asks if you do that to all the female drivers. She then takes out her D/L and throws it on the ground.
Suggested Response ‘
You say to the women, “I need you to pick up your Drivers License and hand it to me. Then go sit in your car and I will be with you in a minute.” If she does not comply, say, “please go back to your car.” You then pick up the drivers license and issue her a littering ticket as well as the original citation.
Be polite, but be assertive when you must. Always remember, YOU have to control the scene - don’t let them control you. The BPAD can be a bit intimidating but if you keep these principles and concepts in mind when taking it you’ll have a much better chance for success.
Copyright (c) 2009 Don Cirillo
Don Cirillo a 25 year veteran of law enforcement has helped many law enforcement candidates score high on their Police Exam. You can learn how you can get better scores on your police exam and become a police officer at (http://www.police-exam.info). It includes test questions, interview strategies, and much more — everything you need to get the job! Reach Don at support@cfiweb.com
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The History of the Sno Cone
by Roberto Bell
Ah the sno cone, most of us has had one as a kid and some of us enjoy them as adults. So just how long have sno cones been around you might ask? And who invented them?
To start, the spelling of snow cone varies according to how it is prepared or sometimes just out of tradition. Most retail shaved ice outlets in New Orleans for instance, spell the name of their product sno-cone without the w. This spelling identifies the product to all New Orleanians and indicates an ethnic heritage to the long-standing tradition. For many others it is simply spelled snow cone.
Tracing back the sno cone’s origin, it is believed that it was invented during the Roman Empire (27 B.C. to A.D. 395). Snow was hauled from the mountaintops to the city, syrup was added and people had flavored snow.
By the late 1800s and early 1900s, when it came to shaving ice or ’snow’, a wood plane was used. Hand held ice shavers were designed solely to produce sno-balls. Numerous manufacturers were creating such shavers by the late eighteen hundreds. In 1920, Samuel Bert of Dallas, Texas invented a snow cone making machine. A year earlier, he sold shaved ice at the 1919 State Fair of Texas. Ernest Hansen, an inventor from New Orleans, patented the first motorized ice block shaver in 1934. Hansen was helped by his wife who created several flavors of syrup to be added to the shaved ice, which came to be known as “snowballs”. It is said that Hansen was inspired to create his invention due to the popular Italian ice sold from pushcarts in the city. Hansen continued work at the original Hansen’s Sno-Bliz in Uptown New Orleans on Tchoupitoulas Street through 2005. Mrs. Hansen died in late 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina and Mr. Hansen died in March 2006.
Shaving ice or gathering snow and adding flavor has been popular around the world. One variation of the snow cone comes from Asia. When Japanese immigrants came to the Hawaiian islands to work, they brought the snow cone with them, using hand-operated steel blades to shave the ice in a method very similar to Ernest Hansen’s. The treat quickly became immensely popular throughout the islands, where the tropical temperatures ensured “shaved ice” sold all year. Hawaiian shaved ice cones are known for the ice’s extremely fine-near powdery-consistency, as well as the unusual flavor combinations used: typically, tropical fruit flavored syrups are used, with many variants including a scoop of vanilla ice cream or Japanese azuki, a red, sweet bean.
In Cuba and many Cuban neighborhoods, snow cones are known as “granizados,” after the Spanish word granizo for hailstones. In Miami neighborhoods, they are often sold in conjunction with other frozen confections in ice cream trucks and stands throughout the city. A classic Cuban flavoring for granizados is anise, made from extracts of the star anise spice.
In Puerto Rico and in many Puerto Rican neighborhoods, snow cones are named “Piragua”, because they are made in pyramid shapes and agua means water in Spanish. Most Puerto Rican snow cone vendors use street snow cone carts instead of fixed stands or kiosks.
In Mexico, Columbia and south Texas, a finely shaved and syrupy ice is called a raspa, or raspado. Raspar is Spanish for “scrape”; hence raspado means, roughly, “scraped ice.” Raspas come in a wide range of fruit flavors and classic Mexican flavors, such as leche (sweetened milk with cinnamon), picocito (lemon and chili powder), chamoy (fruits and chili sauce), cucumber, guanabana, guava, pistachio, tamarind, among others. When these ingredients are combined with fresh fruit it is called cholado.
Snow cones from Lebanon are widely known for their religious purposes in Maronite Catholicism. Snow cones are served to children entering their teenage years, prior to their confirmation in the Church. This practice dates back to the early 1960s, and was first began by Father Francis Ephrem Boustany. Today, snow cones are not limited to the Church. They are a popular summertime treat among both Maronites and Muslims.
In the Dominican Republic and many Dominican neighborhoods, snow cones are called “frio frio”. “Frio” is the word for “cold” and is thus named for the cold chills one gets while eating it.
The dessert ice kachang served in Malaysia and Singapore is another form of shaved ice. Ice kachang originally was served with red beans but now includes various fruits and other sweet toppings.
So how do you prefer your sno cone? And what childhood memory do you recall with sno cones? Snow cones have a long history around the world and are most likely to be here for many more years to come.
Manufacturefun.com offers a wide range of possibilities for businesses, schools or concessionaires. Visit them online for more information on their popcorn popper, snow cone machines or cotton candy machines.
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