Random Quote
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
---- Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
TOEIC on the way out!
Via Gord a link to Jodi who discusses her thoughts about a the Chosun article detailing The End of the Road for TOEIC. I have always stated that the TOEIC test is a fundementally useless test for indicating communicative English ability. However in Korea (and probably elsewhere) TOEIC scores are used to determine success of job applicants and the difference of 10 points or less could decide ones future career, so it is good to read the following:
Korea is the world’s last bastion of the Test of English for International Communication or TOEIC, but the compromised test may at last be on its way out. Some 12 corporations including GS Retail have dropped a TOEIC score requirement for job applicants, and three others like Doosan had lowered the minimum requirement, according to a survey of 27 major companies. SK, Industrial Bank of Korea and Pantech & Curitel also did away with test score requirements from the second half of the year, while Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics lowered the barrier.
“Until last year, we required applicants to have TOEIC scores of 830 and above, but we judged that the TOEIC isn’t an appropriate indicator of actual English skills, so we stopped asking for TOEIC scores from the second half,” says Lee Jeong, the head of personnel at Industrial Bank of Korea.
In case you didn’t read it, I highly recommend reading Jodi’s thoughts on this - I basically agree with everything she said.





Nathan B. wrote 18 words on Sunday Jan 1, 2006 at 08:34 PM
Happy New Year, to you! I hope you’ll still have time to blog in the next few months!
Sean. wrote 23 words on Monday Jan 2, 2006 at 05:42 AM
Nathan,
Of course. Though blogging will be light until I start teaching again in March. Right now I’m doing full time Korean studies.
Tim Nall wrote 34 words on Thursday Jan 12, 2006 at 02:11 AM
Hi Blinger,
Long time no surf the Net, but had no homework today.
Saw your comments about the TOEIC. There’s an article about it here:
http://www.geocities.com/twocentseltcafe/teach/toeic.html
The TOEIC Test: Discussion and analysis
Later,
Tim
Sean. wrote 22 words on Thursday Jan 12, 2006 at 05:46 AM
Tim,
Thanks for the links - I looked at your email also and fixed that. Will look at your links later today.