Tuesday, March 4, 2014

A student essay on urban sprawl

Read an essay written by Iris Lin, who is working on building her TOEFL-taking skills at New York Language Center. This essay is an integrated writing task where students read a short passage, listen to a short lecture on the topic, and respond to a question.

You'll find the first two paragraphs of her essay below; the full essay and Iris's background are at our main blog.

           Urban sprawl is the growth of cities in an unplanned manner. U.S. cities and towns are experiencing urban sprawl, leading to the rise of anti-sprawl movements such as New Urbanism. Urban sprawl has some negative and positive effects. In the passage, we learn about how New Urbanism principles can help solve the problems of urban sprawl.

            Urban sprawl problems include four parts. First, suburban cities grow outward and use land that should be left to nature. Second, single-family homes cause sprawl. Third, there are traffic jams between suburbs and cities. Fourth, there is lack of social interaction. For instance, in the 1990s,L.A., Atlanta, and Houston experienced urban sprawl. It is very harmful, and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club call sprawl “irresponsible,” a “cancer,” a “virus,” and misuse of the land.

For the full essay, please head over to our main blog. 

A quick note: To streamline our messages to our visitors, NYLC will now post all articles and student writings at our main blog. Please stop by for a visit and spread the word! :-)

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Haiku by Felipe


I am a good person
the book is very nice
I work slowly.


That is a nice car
I love the flowers
you're a good footballer.

Living in the city is a bit difficult
I need a good job
summer is a very nice station.


Felipe Ramirez Bautista is from Mexico. He was born in Ometepee, Guerrero, near Acapulco, and moved to the United States at the age of 21.  He started working in the fields as a child to help his parents, and he has worked very hard to give a better life for his family. He is studying at New York Language Center, and he is very disciplined.  He thinks that New York Language Center teachers teach very well. He invites you to study at this school.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Accessories & Body Art in Early Civilization



photo: NYLC student on an excursion to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
Jin Feng at the American Museum of Natural History with classmates from NYLC. 

by Jin Feng

Although nowadays we have totally different cultures from each other, our ancestors had unbelievably common interests in accessories and body arts. We can discover that from the exhibition about human origins and cultures. Not matter where they were from, Africa or Asia, America or the Pacific, before they wore clothes and wrote history, they already started to make holes in their nose, earlobes, cheeks, under lips, and any place else on their body. They wore masks, necklaces, earrings, rings, bangles, belts, headgear, etc. made of bird’s feathers, animal’s bones, shells, seeds, stones and wood.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

A tiramisù recipe from scratch!

Annamaria is sprinkling the finishing touches on her Tiramisù during our small
birthday party for Eliana in the TOEFL class. She shares her recipe below!

by Annamaria Malvolti

I would like to share with you a little history of tiramisù. In Italy, we have a lot of amazing desserts, but tiramisù is the one that is famous around the world as the most delicious and fancy Italian dessert. Its origin has been claimed by different Italian regions. However, it was "born" in 1970 in Treviso, in the north of Italy, from an idea of putting together simple and nutritious ingredients. Do you know what tiramisù means? It literally means "lift me up". Figuratively, it means "make me happy" or cheer me up.

These are the ingredients that we need to serve 8 people:

In EUROPEAN UNITS:
400 grams of ladyfingers
6 eggs
1 cup of espresso or coffee
120 grams of sugar
500 grams of authentic Italian mascarpone cheese
unsweetened cocoa powder

Two trays of tiramisù for Eliana's birthday!
IN AMERICAN UNITS:
400 grams of ladyfingers
6 eggs
1 cup of espresso of coffee
10 tbsp of sugar
2 1/3 cups of authentic Italian mascarpone
unsweetened cocoa powder

UTENSILS:
2 large glass bowls
1 whisk
1 soft spatula
1 deep pan casserole dish or aluminum tray for less formal occasions
colander

Now, let's get cracking and make it from scratch!

PREPARATION:

First of all, crack and separate 6 eggs, and put the yolks in one large glass bowl. Add half the sugar to the yolks and beat with a whisk until the sugar is completely dissolved. Now it is time to add the mascarpone cheese and stir it in till we have a creamy mixture of mascarpone and sugar.

In the other bowl, beat the egg whites vigorously with the rest of the sugar until it forms stiff peaks or a thick, white consistency. The result should be a white foamy mass. Now, delicately put the white foam into the bowl with the mascarpone mixture and gently mix everything together. (Remember, beating the egg whites with the sugar briskly is essential to end up with a dense consistency.)

Saturday, May 11, 2013

My last days in New York

Selin hanging on to the U.S. flag in Brooklyn with her friend, Zeynep.

by Selin Tekin

Last Monday was my first whole day at home. Normally, I have really good reasons to go out, but since that day, I couldn’t find any reason to head into the city, so I decided to study for the TOEFL. First, I woke up and decided to prepare breakfast. After that, I listened to music, then I watched a sitcom. Before I knew it,  it was already 5 pm, and I decided to run in a park near our house. When I got back home, I went shopping with my cousin. As you can see, I did everything except study and the next days continued like this.

Actually, I want to talk about the one day that was different--last Saturday. First I decided to see my old classmates, and we had dinner together. Then we went to a bar to have a drink and talk about my last days here. After the bar, we wanted to go to one of our friends' birthday party in Hudson Terrace. Actually, I definitely hate nightclubs and I always say no to parties, but this time was one of my good friends' birthday and I felt obligated to go.


Sunday, April 14, 2013

Problems with directions & prepositions

Selin (center) with some friends experiencing their first Holi festival in Queens. 

by Selin Tekin
TOEFL Preparation Class

These are text messages that led up to my first Holi experience.

The day before the event:
     Chris:  I can’t come tonight. There is a concert in Bushwick that I really want to see later tonight.
     Me: Ok. See you later.

Four hours later:
     Chris: Tomorrow is “Holi” in Queens.
     Me:  What is Holi?
     Chris: Indian festival where people throw colored powder at each other in a park
     (As usual, I didn’t pay attention to the details in the text.)
     Me: Seems nice. Ok I will ask my friend if she wants to see Brooklyn. We are gonna go to Brooklyn. But if she wants to see Holi we’ll go there.
     Chris: Don’t wear nice clothes!!!
     (Again I didn’t pay much attention to the text.)

The next day:
     Chris: Hey!!  You coming to Holi?
     Me:  Yes we’ll be at Port Authority at 1 pm. Seems as if we’ll be late.
     Chris: Ok take your time. We can meet at Singh’s Roti Shop. On Liberty Avenue. Last stop on the A train. A train to Lefferts Boulevard.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Writing creatively with new vocabulary

This exercise lets students write creatively using vocabulary learned and practiced in class.

by David Sanchez Redondo
TOEFL Preparation Class

A boring summer evening is the best time to rethink your life or start a new hobby. That was what Jane should have thought before opening her umpteenth can of beer. She did not even make a SUBTLE gesture of getting up from the sofa when the telephone rang, suspecting it would be her mother as it usually is every evening. The TACTICS she usually used not to speak to her were very KEEN, but deep inside she felt guilty. A few years ago, when her father passed away, she ABRUPTLY changed her personality.

Her relationships were DEBILITATING, too. She was always elusive with people and everybody thought that she was doing illicit things. Now and then, Sofia, her best friend, would try to ELICIT from her what was happening in her mind, but without success. Definitely, she had lost her SPONTANEITY and the happy personality that used to characterize her.

SUBTLE - present but not obvious
TACTIC - strategy
KEEN - sharp; strong
ABRUPTLY - happening suddenly
DEBILITATING - weakening
ELICIT - draw out; extract information
SPONTANEITY - acting without planning