Monday, December 30, 2019

Pronouncing the Spanish L

You may not have noticed, but the L in English has two sounds that are quite different from each other — and if you can remember that, you can easily learn the sound of the L in Spanish. The two L sounds occur in the word little — and the sound of the Spanish L is basically the same as the first L but not the second (a sound, by the way, that native Spanish speakers often find quite difficult). In other words, the Spanish L is always pronounced with the tongue at the front of the roof of the mouth similar to the L in words such as love and alike. It is never pronounced with the vowel-like sound found in words such as ball or cell. Phrases used by native speakers in our audio lesson on pronouncing the L are lo siento mucho, hola,  ¿quà © tal? and igualmente, gracias. The pronunciation of the L should not be confused with that of the LL, which used to be a separate letter of the alphabet.

Saturday, December 21, 2019

War in Owens Dulce et Decorum est and Sassoons Base...

War in Owens Dulce et Decorum est and Sassoons Base Details World War I brought about a revolution in the ideas of the masses. No longer would people of warring nations apathetically back their governments and armies. A concerted and public effort on the part of a literary circle turned soldiers attacked government propaganda. Questioning the glories of war and the need for nationalism, an anti-war literary genre developed in the trenches of Europe during World War I. Gruesome imagery juxtaposed with daily events brought war to the pages of literature. Despite the formation of this new anti-war literary genre, few popular poets chose to tackle the theme of war and its purpose. Of the few poets, only two, Siegfried†¦show more content†¦Through this facilitation of Horaces quote, Owen subtly and objectively splits the romanticism and the reality of war. Owens use of slant rhyme, his mastery of alliteration, and his employment of consonance and dissonance highlight his poems (Magill 2157). Owens mastery of sound in Dulce et and the use of the s sound in the line Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,(9), creates the effect of gas hissing out of a canister. Repetition of the word drowning in the lines, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning./In all my dreams my helpless sight/ He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning (14-16) objectively forces the death of the young soldier onto the reader. Owens gruesome, unbiased imagery, presents a realistic story; the mixing of the deadly and the beautiful, the green sea(14) of chlorine gas to drown the soldier, represents an aspect of this brutal realism (Magill 21 à »60). This realism serves to warn the reader, without indoctrinating him, of the dangers of war. The devices in Dulce et, as in Owens other poems, flexibly adapt his to any form of poetic interpretation (Magill 2156). Through his continued efforts to master the form of poetry, Owen learned to escape the parody apparent in Sassoons work while still holding onto the intensity of war as a subject m atter. The ability to present the story in the true modernist style, rising above subjectivity to include the audience in the story, characterizes OwensShow MoreRelated‘’the Experience of the Great War Stripped Men of Their Masculinity’’Explore the Ways in Which Barker, Sassoon and Owen Portray This in Their Writing.2204 Words   |  9 Pages‘’The experience of the Great War stripped men of their masculinity’’explore the ways in which Barker, Sassoon and Owen portray this in their writing. Sassoon and Owen as poets and Barker as a novelist, explore through their works of literature the changing and challenging notions of masculinity experienced as a result of The Great War. Furthermore, all three writers suggest that the often overlooked reality of the conflict was the creation of a subversion of the stereotypical ‘heroic soldier’.Read MoreA Comparison of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoons War Poetry1665 Words   |  7 PagesA Comparison of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoons War Poetry Lieutenant Wilfred Edward Salter Owen M.C. of the second Battalion Manchester Regiment, was born March 18th 1893 in Oswestry, Shropshire. He was educated at the Birkenhead Institute and at Shrewsbury Technical school. Wilfred Owen was the eldest of four children and the son of a railway official. He was of welsh ancestry and was particularly close to his mother whose evangelical Christianity greatly influenced

Friday, December 13, 2019

Dorian Gray Essay Free Essays

The Picture Of Dorian Gray Essay There are certain aspects of Dorian Gray’s personality that make me think he is schizophrenic, such an example is multiple personalities. In the beginning of the story, Dorian was a young, attractive boy with cunning wit and a semi-feminine charm. It was just an ordinary day and all of the sudden, Dorian meets Basil Howard. We will write a custom essay sample on Dorian Gray Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now Infatuated with his good looks, the beauty of Dorian hit Basil like a Mata bus. As Basil began painting a picture of Dorian, he met Lord Henry, a close companion of Basil and he too was struck by Dorian in a different way. He had interests of studying him instead of admiring him. Finally, Basil finishes the picture and in the first two chapters of the book and in one paragraph, you have met three contributions of Dorian’s conscience: the painting, Lord Henry Wotton, and Basil Howard. The painting was an obvious representation of Dorian’s conscience in my opinion because as his soul grew weaker, as did his conscience. As Dorian aged, he became evil and he never thought for himself, he either adopted Lord Henry’s views or Basil’s. Dorian clearly listened to Lord Henry more because in the long run, he became evil. â€Å"It had, perhaps, served often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that had a certain corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death itself– something that would breed horrors and yet would never die† (Wilde 122). According to the bible, your soul is immortal and I think Dorian is expressing this in his thoughts. In this quote, Dorian wants to cover up his conscience and his soul to avoid listening to it. The portrait represents his constant nagging conscience and bad decisions he has made in the past. Lord Henry and Basil Howard were the good angel (Basil) and bad angel (Lord Henry) on Dorian’s shoulder. Lord Henry always tried to speak aphorisms and spoke of himself as a higher power, such as: â€Å"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals† (Wilde 51). Lord Henry was always trying to force his opinions into Dorian’s head and the sad thing was, he ate every word and practiced it in his life. Lord Henry represents the bad angel/conscience and it was also the side he listened to more often than any other. On the other hand, Basil represents the good angle/conscience. Throughout the book, Basil always tried to steer Dorian in the right direction. Dorian looked up to Basil in the beginning but, as his infatuation became stronger with Lord Henry, the respect dwindled and Dorian listened less and less. The prayer of your pride has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be answered also. I worshiped you too much. I am punished for it† (Wilde 162). Even in a time of horror, Basil stood behind Dorian and tried to help him in a hard situation but, Dorian did not listen and turned to the dark side when he said: â€Å"Each of us has Heaven and Hell in him, Basil! † (Wilde 161). Dorian had finally shut the door on his good conscience and killed him within minutes. In Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde is telling his readers it is harder to follow the better side of your conscience. There are many temptations to do the right and the wrong thing and this story is an example of when you always make the wrong choices. The ending of this story also showed the final bad decision when a change is presented right in front of you and yet the weak character still follows a bad influence. Wilde is teaching us a lesson in life, to always follow your heart as you take in bad and good influences. Works Cited Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Barnes Noble, 2003. How to cite Dorian Gray Essay, Essays

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Homeschooling should replace normal schooling for the betterment of students in Hong Kong free essay sample

Homeschooling refers to the education of children at home, typically by parents or tutors, unlike the formal settings of schools. In many countries around the world, children are not legally obligated to attend school. In England, France, Canada, the United States and Australia, it is perfectly legal for parents to educate their kids at home. Homeschooling is becoming more popular every day, with a growth rate of 7 to 15 percent per year over the world. There are about two million children currently learning at home in the world. Homeschooled kids do well on standardized tests, are welcome at college and universities, and as adults, have a reputation for being self-directed learners and reliable employees. This essay is going to examine whether homeschooling should replace normal schooling for the betterment of students in Hong Kong. Homeschooling makes children miss the golden opportunity to practice their social skills. School is the miniature of society. We will write a custom essay sample on Homeschooling should replace normal schooling for the betterment of students in Hong Kong or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page One needs to have not only knowledge of the world, but also interpersonal communication skills in order to survive, not to mention excel in a society. If a child is taught at home solely by his/ her parents, the child misses the chance to meet and interact with other kids. Peer learning has vital benefits as well. By communicating with friends, students can improve their interpersonal skills. Homeschooled children cannot take part in extra-curricular activities like debate, choir and team sports. As interactive learning is such an important component in modern education, homeschooling deprives children of their chance to develop their social skills and network, and even friends. Furthermore, home is not the most suitable environment for learning which lower the effectiveness of learning. Home cannot provide many different hardware which can only be provided by day schools. For instance, the different kinds of experiments must be conducted in a safety equipped and qualified laboratory . The many apparatus like Bunsen Burner, funnel and beaker can only be found in a laboratory. Home can never provide such hardware to support the diverse learning needs of children . The equipment of language labs, music room and library only appear in a school setting. Besides, there are too many temptations at home, such as television and computer games, which would prevent children from concentrating on learning. Homeschooling undermines the development of creative thinking. Parents-to-children teaching is after all the indoctrination of parents thinking and values system to their children. In Hong Kong, most parents are very concerned about their children and hope them have a bright future. Therefore, they may try to give what they think is the best to the children. It is common that parents force their children to have piano lesson, choir practice, drawing class and so on in Hong Kong. Parents tend to forcefully spoon feed what they want their children to know. In many cases, children cannot develop multiple thinking perspectives. They just do what their parents ask them to do. Their creativity and critical thinking, which are highly-valued in todays competitive world, can hardly be formed. On the other hand, it is not suitable to implement home-schooling in Hong Kong. Most parents have full time job. They do not have time to teach their children. Moreover, parents are not professional in teaching when compared to trained teachers. They may not know how to teach their children effectively. Also, it is impossible for parents to know all knowledge of different subjects. In school, teachers are specialize in few subjects and they can concentrate on those subjects to prepare teaching materials. According to Bill and Ana Moody, who homeschool their children, they admitted that it is hard to teach science topics properly at home. They do not have sufficient knowledge of science and science requires to do experiments. Homeschooling brings another problem: how to assess the ability of students? Hong Kong is a knowledge-based society, it is important to have certificates to prove ones academic Usually, one will get a job easily with higher education level. Different jobs have different required education levels. If homeschooling is implemented, there is no standard to assess students unless all students join public examinations offered by authorized organization and the Education Bureau. Homeschooling does not provide a standard to assess whether students has understand the knowledge fully. As every parents and tutors may have design a different curriculum for students, there is no standard of what basic knowledge that students should learn. Some people argued that a unified education system simply cannot cater for the individual needs of each and every student and, therefore, homeschooling is a better way for children to learn as it is more flexible which can cater individuals needs. It can provide a tailor-made learning schedule which can cater learning speed of the children and specific requirements by those who best understand them: their parents. It may allow students a more flexible combination of subjects which cater for individual needs. This would arouse interest in study, giving students the initiative to learn. However, small class teaching , which is quite popular in Hong Kong, can also cater the needs of different children. Due to the decreasing birth rate, schools started to implement small-class teaching and has smaller teacher-to student ratio. This allows teachers to pay more attention to each student in class. Flexible combination of subjects can also be achieved by new curriculum. In the past, usually students were divided into art, science and commerce classes and they were only allowed to choose subjects which are related to each other. Now, students under the new curriculum are allowed to choose subjects freely. For example, student can choose to study Biology, a science subject, and Geography, an art subject. Some also claimed that homeschooling can enhance close family relationship. However, this may not be true. Conflicts and arguments are easily happened when parents stay with their children all the time. Parents may easily lose temper when their children are not listening to them or cannot follow their teaching schedule as they are more emotionally affected when facing their own children. Moreover, children may easily lose concentration on learning as there are too many temptations at home as mentioned before. If parents punished their children for this, the parent-child relationship would suffer. All in all, homeschooling should not replace normal schooling for the betterment of students as there are too many weaknesses of homeschooling though admitted that normal schooling has its flaws. In the current education system, students are required to study a fixed and long syllabus within a short period of time. Students study under tremendous pressure and may eventually lose interest in study. However, homeschooling neglects the social development of children which is vital in modern society. Normal schooling not only let children to absorb knowledge, it also gives chances for children to socialize and provides an all-round education. Also, the advantages and claims of homeschooling can also achieved by other means under the system of normal schooling.