Resource Center for Teaching and Learning English

In 1804, by defeating the allied army of Russia and Austria in the battle of Asuterlitz, Napoleon came to the ultimate power as the Master of Europe. No country in the Europe dared to confront the Emperor except for Britain. This made Napoleon furious and he sworn to turn the country to ashes if he could set food in Britain. However, Britain was protected by the sea and its legendary Royal Navy commanded by the heroic captain Horatio Nelson. In order to invade Britain, Napoleon had to build a strong navy. He signed and alliance treaty with Spain, forming the Franco-Spanish fleets in hope of ending Britain’s power in the sea.

At that time, people had to use English to communicate since both French and Latin were considered to be too difficult to learn. Although Napoleon had spent a large amount of money hiring teachers to teach English for his crews, he didn’t know that most the the crew didn’t receive the proper education due to corrupt officers and low-leveled teachers. This led to the disastrous defeat of Napoleon’s fleets in the Battle of Trafalgar against Britain when English commands given by the officers were misunderstood by the crews. The problem of English caused Napoleon’s headache. One of his marshals, Jean-de-Deau Soult, advised him to take a trip to visit the temple of a Chinese strategist, Kongming Zhuge Liang. Soult said that although Zhuge Liang had left the mortal world along time ago, his spirit still remained at the temple.

Napoleon immediately booked a plane to Kongming’s temple. One night he was resting in the temple when he saw a man wearing a robe and holding a fan made of crane feathers entering his room. That was master Zhuge Liang’s spirit. Napoleon explained the reason he came and begged Master Zhuge to help him. Master Zhuge immediately whispered something to Napoleon’s ears and disappeared. Napoleon’s eyes were widened as he listened to Master Zhuge. When he woke up, he realized he had met Master Zhuge in his dream. However, he still remembered the Master Zhuge’s words. Napoleon immediately returned to Europe and applied what he had learnt to his army. Many years later, Napoleon won a lot of battles and remained invincible until 1812. The French army was considered at that time to be one the of most elite army in the world.

What did Master Zhuge tell Napoleon? After a long research conducted by world’s leading scientists, the mystery has been uncovered:

Master Zhuge said Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar was caused by the low level of English of the troops. He pointed that in order to solve this problem, Napoleon should introduce the following website to his troops: http:// khoaanh.net

This is a website created by English Department of Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy, with Mr Nguyễn Ngọc Vũ as its admin. The main goal of the website is to provide English teachers and learners a resource center, and at the same time, creating an English-using environment so that users can improve their communicative skills in English.

In this website, you can read articles of every academic field among which are ELT technologies, ELT Methodology, Business English, Linguistics, Cultures, etc.

Also, you can visit website’s forum where you can exchange your experience in teaching and learning English with other members. This is also an ideal place for you to improve your communicative skills in English as most of the posts in the forum are required to be written in English.

If you plan to study abroad, you many need to have a high TOEFL score. The website provides you a rich resource of TOEFL iBT tests built by teachers and students in the department.

When visiting Downloads section, you can find ebooks and other tools useful for teaching and learning activities.

So, what else are you waiting for? Come and join us for a BETTER you :D