[pic] Top of Form [pic] Bottom of Form • Home • Members • Students • Teachers • Forums • Testing • Reference • Articles • Resources • Shop • Ask a Teacher… • Learning English • Analysing Language • English ESL Questions • Website and Forum • Teacher Forum • Members’ Forums |[pic] |Top of Form | |  |User Name | |UsingEnglish. om ESL Forum ; Learning English ; Editing |[pic] | |& Writing Topics |[pic]Remember Me? | | | | |[pic][Essay] A speaking contest about Ha Long Bay |Password | |(speaking compositions) |[pic] | | | | | | | |Bottom of Form | Tags |Register |Forum Rules |FAQ |Calendar |Today’s Posts |Search | | |[pic] | |  |LinkBack [pic] |Thread Tools [pic] |Display Modes [pic] |   #1   | |[pic]30-Oct-2011, 01:27 | |jody_weasley [pic] | |Newbie | |  | |Join Date: Oct 2011 | |Posts: 1 | |Home Country: Vietnam | |Native Language: Vietnamese |Current Location: Vietnam | |Member Type: Student or Learner | | | |[pic]A speaking contest about Ha Long Bay (speaking compositions) | |[pic] | |Hello you guys. | |As you know, these days are last days to vote for new 7 wonders.

I’m from Quang Ninh, Viet Nam, in which Ha Long belongs to. We are going to hold a | |speaking contest “My Ha Long” and I am a participant. Below is my speaking composition. Please read and edit it for me (if I have any vocab or grammar | |errors). I also wish you express your feeling about the passage (do you think it is attractive enough to draw your attention and you will vote for Ha | |Long, etc… ). | |Thank you very much! | |I look forward to see your comments soon [pic] | | | |Quote: | |Ladies and Gentlemen!

Welcome to Quang Ninh, a wonderful land situated in the northeast of Vietnam, My hometown is not only an industrial area but also| |a famous travel destination. However, first of all, let me tell you a local legend. Long long ago, a Dragon descended from the sky and spat out | |thousand of pearls when Viet Nam was being attacked by foreign ships. The pearls then became a multitude of small islands and prevented the enemy from | |advancing further. Nowadays, the natural architecture is one of the most spectacular sight not only in Vietnam but also on the whole world. Its name, | |which is based on the folk-tale, is literally translated as “Descending Dragons”. It is Ha Long Bay – a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. And now, we will| |take a napshot about the wonder to know more about it as well as raise the admiration of nature’s creation. | | | |Administratively, the bay belongs to Ha Long city, Cam Pha town and a part of Van Don district. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and | |isles in various sizes and shapes. It also is the center of a larger zone which includes Bai Tu Long Bay to the northest and Cat Ba Island to the | |southwest. These zones share similar geological, geographical, climate and cultural characters. | | |The bay consist of a dense cluster of over 3000 limestone monolithic islands; each topped with thick jungle vegetation, rising spectacularly from the | |ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Dau Go is the largest one in the area. It is also the place in which General Tran Hung | |Dao and his sholdiers hid the wood to defeat the Mongol invaders. The wonderful hands of nature, along with the imagination of people, makes stones, | |islands, caves, which have no sense, become lively by tales and beautiful names. 989 of the islands have been given names. Many of them have acquired | |their names as a result of interpretation of their unusual shapes.

Such names include Voi Islet (elephant), Ga Choi Islet (fighting cock), and Mai Nha | |Islet (roof). | | | |Ha Long Bay also includes two big islands, Tuan Chau and Cat Ba, that have permanent inhabitant as well as tourist facilities as standardized hotels | |and beautiful beaches. Besides, there are a number of beautiful beaches on the smaller islands, for example: Titov, Quan L? n, Soi Sim… Especially, | |when you’re on the top of a mountain on Titov Island, you will find out an interesting secret: from different heights, you can see completely new | |scenes of Ha Long Bay. However, it is always “a stone wonder on the sky” as Nguyen Trai said. |In the past, Ha Long was known for the tale about the Dragon and her children. Nowadays, the children of Dragons and Tales are working hard all day and| |night among the spacious sea. A community of around 1,600 people now live on Ha Long Bay in four fishing villages: Cua Van, Ba Hang, Cong Tau, Vong | |Vieng in Hung Thang commune, Ha Long city. They live on floating houses and are sustained through fishing and marine aquaculture. Additionally, the | |areas ply the shallow waters for 200 species of fish and 450 different kinds of mollusks. Ha Long Bay is natural, it obviously is the living space of a| |large number of valuable animals like bantams, antelopes, lizards, monkeys,… hich need protecting from illegally hunting | | | |Another specific feature of Halong Bay is the abundance of lakes inside the limestone islands. For example, Dau Be island has six enclosed lakes. All | |these island lakes occupy drowned dolines within fengcong karst. | | | |H? Long Bay has experienced at least 500 million years in various geological states oforogeny, marine transgression and marine regression. During the | |Ordovician and Silurianperiods, H? Long Bay was deep sea.

During the Carboniferou sand Permian periods, H? Long Bay was at shallow sea level. Due to a | |simultaneous combination of ideal factors such as thick, pale, grey, and strong limestone layers, which are formed by fine-grained materials; hot and | |moist climate and slow tectonic process as a whole; H? Long Bay has had a complete karst evolution for 20 million years. There are many types of karst | |topography in the bay, such as karst field. | |Some of the most remarkable geological events in H? Long Bay’s history in the last 1,000 years, include the advance of the sea, the raising of the bay | |area, strong erosion that has formed coral, and, pure blue and heavily salted water.

This process of erosion by seawater has deeply engraved the stone,| |contributing to its fantastic beauty. Present-day H? Long Bay is the result of this long process of geological evolution that has been influenced by so| |many factors. Tourists visiting H? Long Bay are not only treated to one of the natural wonders of the world, but also to a precious geological museum | |that has been naturally preserved in the open air for the last 300 million years. | |With the remarkable features, H? Long Bay has been recognized as World Heritage Site by UNESCO 2 times, in 1994 and 2000 for its outstading, universal | |aesthetic value and its outstanding geological and geomorphological value respectively. |Ha Long is the place in which mountains meet ocean, land meets sky. It is the most wonderful combination of heavenly and historical beauty. Its life | |lasts forever along with the length of history and the severe of time. It is also the life of people working hard on among a wonder. It is immortal | |among waves of which we pride as a a beautiful part of the West Sea of Vietna. | | | |And now, it’s time for us to try our best to support for H? Long becoming one of new 7 wonders. It will be a chance to improve the preservation for the| |sight here and promote Vietnam’s pictures to our friends in 5 continents as well. |