The Evolution of music

You can tell they were having fun

Time bandits

Here is an extract of the movie Andrew mentioned yesterday in class. Don't forget: Time is money!

Childhood Memories

 In this very short interview Sir Tery Pratchett (a famous British writer) talks about a childhood memory. Notice the use of "would"?

Family

It's a bit confusing, but maybe the diagram will help you! A revision on family vocabulary, relationships and so on.

Directions

Here you can see some examples of the imperatives, instructions and vocabulary that we used last week in class.

A letter

Hello,

Seeing that we're going to spend some time together, I thought you'd like to know a bit about me. I'm in my mid-thirties. I'm Spanish, born and raised, but I have lived in the UK for a total of about one and a half to two years.

I'm married and I have three beautiful daughters: Elena, Paula and Irene. They're all 19 months old (they're triplets). So, in a matter of days, we went from there being two of us in the house to five. That meant that suddenly everything was too small: our car, our flat... even our days were too short.

I've been teaching English for about half my life. I started teaching when I was still studying and I have taught English in private academies, at University and now here at the EOI. I also spent one year teaching Spanish in Edinburgh. I have had a huge variety of students: children, teenagers, university students and now I teach mainly to adults. I'm very lucky in that I get to work with a lot of different people and I always try to learn from their experiences.

My main interests are reading literature, discussing politics and playing drums and guitar. I'm now training to become a triathlete, but I'm afraid long distances are still a long way away. I love doing sport, though, so I keep training whenever I have some free time (which is not very often)

In the future I hope to finish the album we are currently recording with my band, and I'd love to finish a mid-distance triathlon.However, my main ambitions are to be happy and healthy, and never to lose interest in the people and world around me. Fingers crossed!

Would you like to tell me about yourself?

All the best

Miguel

Fridays

These are the Fridays when we have a class this year.

If you have a class on MONDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS:
*October: 4th and 18th
*November: 15th
*December: 13th
*January: 17th

If you have a class on TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS:
*October: 11th
*November: 8th and 29th
*January: 10th

Libros 2º Nivel Básico

Libro de Texto:
English File Third Edition (Elementary)

Libros de lectura recomendados:
* British and American Festivities (Gina D.B. Clemen) Black Cat Readers
* Children, Animals and Strange Adults (Saki)
* New Yorkers, short stories (O Henry)
* Hampton House (Jenny Dooley)

List of Recommended Books for 2nd Advanced

* One Day (David Nicholls)
* Holes (Louis Sachar)
* Small Steps (Louis Sachar)
* Notes from a Big Country (Bill Bryson)
* Notes from a Small ISland (Bill Bryson. Plus anything else by this author)
* How to be an Alien (George Mikes)
* Tales of the Unexpected (Roald Dahl. Plus anything else by this author)
* Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie)
* Junk (Melvin Burgess)
* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Mark Haddon)
* Bookends (Jane Green)
* The Harry Potter Series (J.K. Rowlings)
* The Adrian Mole Series (Sue Townsend)
* The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
* A Song of Ice and Fire (George R Martin)
* The Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith)
* The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
* Bridget Jones's Diary (Helen Fielding)
* Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome)
* I Don't Know How She Does It (Allison Pearson)
* The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
* The Boy in the Striped Pijamas (John Boyne)

What is happening at Fukushima

I'll leave you a link to a blog where a researcher from Boston's MIT explaining what is really going on at Fukushima:
http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

Speaking Italian?

You can see that foreign language learning isn't something that you can do just by looking right. You also have to study. Enjoy!

Martin Luther King Day

Today is MLK Day, a holiday in the USA. I strongly recommend you to check his most famous speech, which you can find in this blog, with a transcription. It was published in January 2010, so use your menu on the right and go for it!!

Digital Nativity

How would the story go if Jesus had been born around now instead of 2000 years ago? Well, here you have your answer! And, of course, it involves mobile phones, Google Maps, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook!

Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg has been all over the news in Spain these last few days because of what he said when he was interviewed by Conan O'Brien. If you look for the videos on youtube you'll find a lot of angry people writing comments, either because they hate the Spanish show or because they hate the actor. I actually think that both groups are partially right: the host of the show (Pablo Motos) has an ego the size of Jack Nicholson's, and he normally uses his guests to make himself look good. However, Jesse Eisenberg was completely wrong when he thought that Spain carries a grudge towards the USA because of WWII. First: Spain was not involved in World War II (that's not entirely true, Spain was having enough problems after its own civil war, so it was officially neutral, even if it somehow tried to help the Germans) Secondly: because it was a dictatorship, it did not receive any American help, so, my dear friend, no American "ships and planes full of help" arrived in Spain. Get your facts straight before speaking.
And finally, because this blog is for a language class (an English class): don't be so proud about being linguistically incompetent! Learning is always a positive thing, even if it is learning foreign languages!

Who wants to steal a million?

This is the documentary that is mentioned in your textbook. Here we hear how a contestant in Who Wants to be a Millionaire cheated, and was caught months later:

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries to remember the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. This day, or alternative dates, is also recognised as a special day for war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries

Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November (11-11) to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918, as the major hostilities of World War I were formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice. (Note that "at the 11th hour", refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 am.)

The red poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem “In Flanders Fields”. These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour an appropriate symbol for the blood spilt in the war.

For some more information, I suggest the following pages:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Remembrance.html

http://www.calendar-updates.com/info/holidays/canada/remembrance.aspx

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/remembrance/

Accents

Hello, again!
How was the summer? After a looooong pause to recharge batteries, we're finally back.
As foreign language students/teachers/users we usually have problems with the different accents we can find of the same language, but we are not the only ones, just check:

Israel

Anywhere I look this week I read the same: Israel attacks a ship which was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, in Palestine. However, depending on the media I choose to read, the incident looks completely different.

For some, Israel, the Chosen People, the Jews, have defended themselves against a group of communists disguised as charity workers, who were trying to carry guns into Gaza, and who were the first to attack.

For others, Israel, the terrorist state, has proven, once again, that they don't respect international law and has killed some people who were just trying to help the oppressed people of Palestine.

As usual, mass media are biased, and none of them tells the whole truth, while both sides tell part of the truth.

The first mistake most people usually make while discussing Israel is identifying a state with a religion. It is true that Israel is the only officially Jewish state, but that doesn't mean that all Israelis are Jewish (even if it's a wide majority, 16% of the population is Muslim, and there are Christian and other religious minorities. Moreover, not all Jews are Israeli and not all Israeli Jews follow the exact same precepts. Actually, some of the Christian population in Israel define themselves as “messianic Jews”.

So, the origins of this problem are in the very origins of the State of Israel. We are used to having politicians solve our problems, and it is becoming commonplace that they never really solve anything. Well, this was not an exception: while solving the Zionist problem and giving the Jewish people an official state, the didn't do the same with the Palestinians. And while some countries (the USA was the first, closely followed by the Soviet Union) quickly recognised Israel as a State, the surrounding countries (most of them officially Muslim) were more hesitant. Actually, the day after Israel was officially declared an independent state, 5 neighbouring countries declared war and tried to invade it, with the UN sitting back watching. The result of the continuing wars was that Israel gained an additional 26% of surrounding territory, and an estimated 726 thousand Arab and Palestinian refugees (according to UN only 1/3 are really refugees, since the other 2/3 are displaced inside the same territory) This is the main problem, and the one which has not been solved yet. On the other hand, a number of Jews were also expelled from the Palestinian and other Arab neighbouring regions.

So, is this a religious problem? I don't think so. There are Muslims living in Israel, just as Jews living in Arab countries. It is basically a political problem, and a badly solved political situation in the first place.

Now, speaking about the particular incident that took place this week, who's to blame? In my opinion, the Israeli army (as usual) responds with an excess of violence. And (also as usual) the UN does absolutely nothing. The UN should have boats in the area, and it should be an international patrol who check what goes into and out of Palestine, never an Israeli patrol in international waters.

Criminals

Well, this may very well be the last entry for the school year, so I'll leave something funny for you to enjoy before your exams. Two guys are trying to rob some kind of store. One of the thieves is watching the street to make sure nobody is coming and the other one uses a stone to try and break the glass. Can you imagine what's going to happen?

Enjoy and very good luck next week!!

Water

Today is World Water Day, and to mark the occasion I'm joining with some of North America's leading environmental groups to release the latest Story of Stuff Project short film: The Story of Bottled Water.

Like The Story of Stuff, this new film uses simple words and images to explain a complex problem, in this case manufactured demand: how you get people to think they need to spend money on something they don't actually need or already have.

Over the last two decades, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestle and other big beverage companies have spent untold millions of dollars making us afraid of tap water. They've told us that if we want to be sure what we drink is pure and clean-not to mention hip and fashionable-we should buy bottled water.

Unfortunately, it worked.

In the United States alone, we consume approximately 500,000,000 bottles of water each week. Imagine that: while 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water worldwide, other people spend billions of dollars on a bottled product that's no cleaner, harms people and the environment and costs up to 2,000 times the price of tap water.

But there's good news: Last year, for the first time in a long time, bottled water sales fell-not that much, but they went down. Consumers who want economy, portability and convenience are switching to refillable metal bottles. Restaurants are proudly serving tap water. And cities, states, companies and schools around the world are ditching the bottle to save money and do their part for the environment.

Still, we've got a ways to go.

So please, take a minute today to watch The Story of Bottled Water. Then pass it along to your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers-anyone you think might be interested.

You are The Story of Stuff Project's strongest allies: You made the original Story of Stuff an Internet phenomenon, with nearly 9 million views total. Last December, you pushed The Story of Cap & Trade past half a million views in just under six weeks. And in the last ten days, you've helped our new book, The Story of Stuff, enter the New York Times extended bestseller list at #35. Thank you a million times over.

After you've forwarded The Story of Bottled Water to your networks, I encourage you to join a campaign for investment in clean tap water for everyone, like those sponsored by our partners at Corporate Accountability International, Food & Water Watch, Polaris Institute, Environmental Working Group, and Pacific Institute. Visit these fantastic groups' websites to learn more, sign-up and get involved.

Together, we can send Coke, Pepsi, Nestle and the rest of the industry a message as clear as a glass of tap water: We're not buying into your manufactured demand anymore. We'll choose our own demands, thank you very much, and we're demanding clean safe water for all!