Places I would like to learn better - mixbook

http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/travel/interesting-places-5298659

Lion Man

In the world, full of cruelty and violence, it is so hard to exist... And not only for people. Every year in the world millions of innocent animals die out, they become victims, become trophies and decorations on human bodies.

But there are angels on our earth who bear special mission, becoming keepers and defenders of disappearing animals. They believe each live being has soul, has the personality.

My report is about the person, who became an angel for Savanna world, the person who has managed to prove that wild animals have souls. This story touched me very much...

Kevin Richardson - "Lion Whisperer” 

Kevin Richardson (born 1974) is an animal behaviorist and has done extensive research on native animals of Africa. He has been acknowledged into a pack of hyenas and pride of lions. He works with hyenas and big cats such as cheetahs and leopards. He specializes with lions and runs the Kingdom of the White Lion facility in the Lion Park in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Known around the world as the "Lion Whisperer”, Richardson is also an author and film producer.

Early life 

Richardson was born in the Nightingale Clinic in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa in 1974. He spent his childhood in the neighborhood of Orange Grove. He is South African yet is of English descent. He cared for multiple animals as a kid and grew up spending most of his time in his backyard. When he was about 16, he met Stan Schmidt, through dating his daughter, and Richardson started his career as a zoologist.

Zoologist career

Richardson went to university and started learning zoology, but quit after two years after repetitive lessons on marine biology instead of mammals. Richardson started his adult life believing that he would never work with animals as a career. He thought that his work with animals would be a hobby. He started taking courses in physiology and anatomy in college and started career physiotherapy, and ended up helping people with exercise physiology. When he was 23, he came across the chance to work with two 6-month old cubs at the Lion Park near the outskirts of his home in Johannesburg. He still works with the grown up cubs, Tau and Napoleon.

Lion Care

 Richardson has worked with big cats and relies on instinct instead of static rules. He has slept next to, fed, and lived with his lions. Along with his lions, he has worked with cheetahs, leopards, and hyenas. He prefers lions to any other big cat. His relationship, however, is not an instant one. Most of the lions he works with, he has known since they were cubs. He still continues his bond with Tau and Napoleon, the lion brothers that introduced him to big cats. His unique relationship with the genus Panthera has dispelled many myths concerning the care of lions. Richardson shows that lions and animals in general have personalities, feelings, and are social creatures. He shows that with mutual respect, many species can coexist together. That does not mean there are no dangers; Richardson, throughout his career, has had many close encounters.

Mission

The population of lions has dropped from about 350,000 to an estimated 25,000 in a 15 year span. Richardson hopes the media attention of his movies will raise public awareness and educate them on the conservation needed to protect Africa's animals.Lion hunts in South Africa are worth more than 90 million dollar a year says the Professional Hunters Association. 16,394 foreign hunter (more than half of which fly from the US) killed 46,000+ animals from Sept. 2006 - Sept. 2007. Trophy hunter is worth $91.2 million a year and foreign tourist sometimes pay up to $40,000 to shoot a lion. The government supports hunting because of its revenue. Provincial government sell permits to kill rhinos, lions, elephants, and giraffes. 1,050 lions were killed in 2008. White Lion hopes to give people second thoughts about participating in these events.

YouTube in EFL classes

Learning a foreign language is an interesting process and students always need motivation and encouragement during this period. Technology might be one of the factors which affects students’ attitude positively in the learning process. The use of technology brings lot of advantages into the classroom. Students may have a chance to see the real world in the classrooms and they can be motivated easily.
Of course, professional teachers want to take their students from the old and familiar to new and unfamiliar while improving their English language skills. YouTube remains a powerful classroom tool to achieve that goal.
Teachers use YouTube to have student’s research job interview tips, stress patterns, pronunciation problems, and informational interviews. The results have been consistently positive as they may have students write concise video reviews and email teachers some reviews for homework before the next class.
Then teacher can edit the reviews, watch the videos and add his own comments in blue ink, and combine the reviews into a single document that is emailed to all class members. Result: almost every student watches every video recommended and spending far more time on the topic than teacher can allocate in class. It’s both popular and quite effective.
In some classes, teachers use famous songs on YouTube as a listening exercise. Students listen to maybe 3 variations of these songs and discuss which is the easiest to understand, etc…nice for comparison and sometimes the students disagree with each other about which version they like best!
In the EFL classroom, YouTube can be used to provide a variety of learning experiences to students, including watching interview with an author or other native English speakers, or international projects with other classrooms.
The real advantages to this site - at least from a language learning point of view:
1) They offer authentic examples of everyday English used by everyday people;
2) Students are attracted to the "real life" nature of these videos;
3) By creating context (komments) for these short videos you can help your students explore a world of online English learning possibilities;
4) Improving of listening skills;
5) Videos provide EFL learners with real-life English. The English is spoken at normal speed and uses vocabulary and sentence structure that native English-speaking people employ;
6) Good YouTube videos are free to access, short in duration and therefore, much easier to plan into an EFL lesson.
Of course, this is the challenge as well. Students may enjoy watching these clips, but poor sound quality, pronunciation and slang can make these short videos even more difficult to understand.

There also exist Top 100 YouTube Videos for Teaching English –
http://ddeubel.edublogs.org/2010/05/06/top-100-youtube-videos-for-efl/

It Touches The Strings of My Heart... Saxophone

There are so many different trends in the world music; each of them has their own fans and listeners. From outside, it seems that every year more and more new trends appear and they are all popular and interesting. Someone does not betray his love to classical music and continues to run mad after Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. And someone, denying the classics, speeds to a party where electro and techno reigns.

When I was a little girl, I heard from the one window in our house saxophone sounds reached. Every summer, walking with my friends in the yard, I caught sincere melodies – they were emitted by this unusual instrument. Then the sounds faded and for many years the melodies, reminiscent of childhood, are not heard from this window.

My love to saxophone sounds is not just about childhood memories, but also because I consider it’s the most romantic instrument in the world of sounds. I don’t belong to any kind of music fans, I am fond of different directions, but I never leave indifferent about note of saxophone in various compositions. Saxophone in rock, jazz and even its elements in electronic music – I like it very much. It is impossible to compare with something this mysticism, which saxophone brings into the music. What does saxophone sing about? It’s hard to understand; maybe he cries or whispers something very romantic and mysterious. At least I don’t know any person who would not worry about its deep and thrilling acoustics.

It seems to me that saxophone has its own soul and heart. It is difficult to play it and this instrument is very demanding to owner. But if they make friends - the unbelievable stream of magic sounds touches the souls of listeners and makes their hearts to melt.

my baby valentine =)))

Don’t tell about your love

It’s possible to spoil everything

Just prove it with your deeds –

Eyes, tenderness and lips

Cover fragrant flowers

But please don’t tell me this!

*** 

It is so good, that you are in my world!

I’m not afraid! No storms, no snows.

My darling, you’re my all –

My light, my fever and my soul!

 ***

Like a small miracle

You are in my destiny.

I’ll forget myself with you

And everything I have – I’ll give to you!