NA 2 - Discovering Mr Turner

Dear students & readers of this blog

Next Thursday, 5 March, at 20:30, we'll have the chance to watch a very interesting film, offered to us by the FILMOTECA DE EXTREMADURA  in Plasencia.

The film is called MR TURNER, directed by the prestigious British director Mike Leigh, and starred by Timothy Spall. For a taste of it, here you have the trailer:

But who was this "Mr Turner" that deserves a place in history?

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775- 1851) was a British landscape painter, watercolorist and printmaker, quite controversial in his day, but who is considered today as "the painter of light" and inspirer of the 20th century abstract art.

For more info, click here for a short biography.

As it has already been mentioned, Turner was renowned for his landscapes. If you don't have the chance to travel to London to see his paintings, don't miss the following slideshow. Which one is your favourite?

Now, talking about the film, who is who in Mr Turner? Have a look below:

• Joseph Mallord William Turner, a painter, played by Timothy Spall.
• Hannah Danby, Turner's devoted housekeeper and lover, played by Dorothy Atkinson.
• Sophia Booth, Turner's landlady and second lover, played by Marion Bailey.
• William Turner, Joseph's father, who lived with him until he died. Played by Paul Jesson.

For more info, wikipedia!

What were Mike Leigh's intentions when he made the film? How did some of his cast prepare it? Watch the video below and answer the questions below:

1. When did Mike Leigh become aware of JMW Turner's work?

a) In the 60s, when he saw his paintings in a museum

b) In the 60s, when he was studying art

c) In the 60s, when he read about him

2. How many films had been made before Mike Leigh decided to make his?

a) Two

b) Four

c) None

3. How much did actresses Marion Bailey and Dorothy Atkinson know about Turner before shooting the film?
 

a) They were quite familiar with his work, but not with his life.
b) Only a few details of his life

c) They were only aware of the extent of his work.

4. What did Marion Bailey prepare her character?

a) She listened to some recordings from the 1950s

b) She visited the area of Kent

c) She talked to people in their 90s from the Kent area

5. How did Mike Leigh build Mr Turner's character?

a) By building a whole pattern of behaviour and motivations

b) By studying his life in depth

c) By studying the way he talked

(ask your teacher for the answers)

 I hope this helps you understand the character and the film.

See you at the Filmoteca!!

HAPPY 2015! Time for our NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS!!

Dear students & readers of this blog,

So we survived Christmas! That's something to be proud of. All those family get-togethers, all that food and drink, the carol singing...That, and the fact that a whole year of our lives is coming to an end, are probably the reasons why the passage from the old year to the new is always a moment for reflection, when we make the resolution to change something in our lives. It is the moment, therefore, for NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS!!!

As first things come first, the question now is: What is a New Year's Resolution? This could be a good definition:

"A New Year's resolution is a commitment that a person makes to one or more personal goals, projects, or the reforming of a habit. People committing themselves to a New Year's resolution generally plan to do so for the whole following year. This lifestyle change is generally interpreted as advantageous."

Okay, wait a minute, you must be thinking. What are New Year's Resolutions for? How long do we keep them for? Are they any use at all? Actually, most people don't keep them for long. These are the TOP TEN MOST COMMONLY BROKEN NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS (click on each link to learn the reason why we don't keep them)

1. Lose weight and get fit. 

2. Quit smoking

3. Learn something new

4. Eat healthier and diet

5. Get out of debt and save money

6. Spend more time with family

7. Travel to new places

8. Be less stressed

9. Volunteer

10. Drink less

Maybe we break our resolutions because we don't make them the right way. Here are some suggestions for successful New Year's Resolutions:

• Be realistic by setting achievable goals. Winning the lottery, for example, is out of your grasp.
• Describe your resolutions in specific terms. Instead of "I don't want to be lazy," opt for "I want to exercise regularly" or "I will cut down on my television watching."
• Break down large goals into smaller ones. For instance, commit to losing weight by resolving to join a gym and improve your eating habits.
• Find alternatives to a behavior that you want to change, and make this part of your resolution plan. So you want to quit smoking but you smoked to relax yourself? What other forms of relaxation are available to you?
• Above all, aim for things that are truly important to you, not what you think you ought to do or what others expect of you.

(Many thanks to Rosa Benavides, from the EOI Al Xaraf, in Mairena del Aljarafe (Seville), for her help)

If you prefer to read it, here are 6 ways to make your resolutions stick, according to USA Today:

For more videos, check:

• 12 talks to inspire New Year's Resolutions (with subtitles!!)
• New Year's Resolutions by Dr Mark Evans.

WRITE A COMMENT WITH YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

NB 2 - File 4: Time is running out - Talking about times and routines

Dear students & readers of this blog,

In our Basic level class, we have been talking about routines and, to be able to speak about our daily routine properly, we need to use the time and time expressions. Let's make a summary of what we saw.

How can we ask for the time to someone? We have different ways:

- Excuse me, what time is it, please?
- Excuse me, what is the time, please?

There are two ways of giving the time:

- Analogue

- Digital

To learn to say the time from an analogue clock, click on the words ANALOGUE TIME

For the Digital time, you just have to read the numbers on the watch, saying the hour first, and then the minutes.

Want to practise? Click on Bang on Time and start playing!!

We have talked about the time in connection to the PRESENT SIMPLE. Remember that we use the present simple to talk about THINGS THAT ARE ALWAYS TRUE, & about OUR DAILY ROUTINE. Here you have a video that might help you:

But when you want to explain what your daily routine is like, you don't need only to know the present simple. You also need some vocabulary on DAILY ROUTINE ACTIVITIES:

Now some music:


"Time Is Running Out" by Muse

I think I'm drowning
Asphyxiated
I wanna break this spell
That you've created

You're something beautiful
A contradiction
I wanna play the game
I want the friction

You will be the death of me
You will be the death of me

Bury it
I won't let you bury it
I won't let you smother it
I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out

I wanted freedom
Bound and restricted
I tried to give you up
But I'm addicted

Now that you know I'm trapped
Sense of elation
You'd never dream of
Breaking this fixation

You will squeeze the life out of me

Bury it
I won't let you bury it
I won't let you smother it
I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out

How did it come to this?
Oh

You will suck the life out of me

Bury it
I won't let you bury it
I won't let you smother it
I won't let you murder it
Our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out

How did it come to this?
Oh

Poets and World War I

Dear students & readers of this blog,

Last Nov 11 we commemorated the anniversary of the end of World War I, one of the most devastating conflicts in the story of humankind. On such a date, people in Britain celebrate Remembrance Day, to remember those who served and died in the war. The school, and most particularly, the School Library, wants to join the celebrations, by remembering the writers and poets that were involved in the conflict. And we're going to do it in the form of a POETRY READING SESSION next Dec 3. (Please check the school website for more info).

Do you fancy poetry? If not, would you like to discover it?

Before going on to showing you the poems that will be read, you might find this video interesting. It's well-known how afraid we seem to be of poetry. It seems to be something so far from us, so conceptual and difficult to understand. If you watch the video below, you will see that it is not as bad as it seems:

Here are the poems we are going to read. Take some time to get familiar with them:
 

TWO FUSILIERS

by Robert Graves.

And have we done with War at last?
Well, we've been lucky devils both,
And there's no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

By wire and wood and stake we're bound,
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun's glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay.

Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the red bond of blood,
By friendship, blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men breath.

 

SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES

by Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go. 

 

THE SOLDIER

by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

This is how the Tower of London looked like until not very long ago.

As you can see, its moat was flooded with ceramic poppies. As you may know, the poppy is the symbol of the British Legion, and people wear one on Remembrance Day to remember those who died to guarantee freedom and democracy in the world. If you want to learn more, please click here.

For advanced students, here you have the chance to practise your listening comprehension skills but watching this and answering the questions below:

Questions:

1. Why did this initiative start?
2. When did this idea start?
3. How much did they collect last year?
4. How many collectors do they have?
5. According to the two male interviewees, what does poppy symbolize?


For the key, click here.

(Thanks to Laura Parrilla Gómez, from EOI Constantina, for sending this to me!!)

Lest we forget!

Are you afraid of HALLOWEEN 2014?

'Where there is no imagination there is no horror' - Arthur Conan Doyle

Dear students & readers of this blog,

Once more, Halloween is here. It is a festivity especially associated with the U.S., although its origins are to be found quite far from there. Anyhow, Halloween is gradually imposing again on the continent where it was born. Many of us know something about it through films or TV shows. Many others have heard about it, but don't really know much about Halloween traditions, or what people do to get ready for the night when the limit between the world of the living and that of the dead disappears. So let's find out...





FOR NB STUDENTS - Take a look at this video:




What do we know now?

...that Halloween has Celtic origins. The Celtic festival SAMHAIN [pronounced /saun/] celebrated the end of the year, which finished in October.

...that the Celts believed that ghosts, witches and evil spirits entered the world of the living on the night of the 31st October.
...that trick-or-treating comes from the ancient "Souling", when poor people used to go around asking for "soul cakes" to eat in exchange for prayers for the family.

...that people wore costumes to scare the evil spirits away.

...that the word "Halloween" comes from "All Hallows' Eve", which is the day before All Saints' Day.

...that in some English-speaking countries people wear scary costumes and masks and go to parties.

If we could reduce Halloween to numbers, this would be it:

Jack-O'-Lanterns are made out of pumpkins. People put Jack-O'-Lanterns in front of their windows or in their gardens, to frighten evil spirits. Did you know that this tradition originated in Great Britain and Ireland and that, originally, people used turnips?

Would you like to know how a Jack-O'-Lantern is made? Watch the video below:

Anyhow, we have never thought how terrifying this is for pumpkins, have we? So please, don't miss this excellent, and really scary, short film about THE LIFE & DEATH OF A PUMKIN:


(source: tlfclips.com. Thanks, Rosa!)

For the transcript, click here.

And now that we are with scary stories, why not one more? Don't miss SUCKABLOOD!!

• For vocabulary & comprehension questions, click here.
• For the transcript, click here.

Have you been to Halloween town? Watch the following video and sing along:

TO ALL, HAVE A HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

NA2 - Ways of responding: question tags & echo questions

Dear students & readers of this blog,

These days, in our advanced class, we have been revising the different ways one has to respond in English to what other person says. Short phrases like "¿ah sí?", "¿De verdad?" are of frequent use in Spanish. But English uses something completely different, a short grammatical structure that is usually very hard for Spanish speakers to incorporate to their active set of structures to manage. 

This, basically, has to do with the extended use of AUXILIARY VERBS, those underrated and underestimated nice little words. They can be used in all sorts of ways:

• For emphasis: I do believe you.
• In 'echo questions': I'm going to buy a house / Oh! Are you? How wonderful!
• In question tags: You locked the door, didn't you?
• To avoid unnecessary repetitions: My friends loved the film, but I didn't.

That's why, taking advantage of the chance our student's book gives us, we had a look at it again. Because...guess what? English speakers find it veeeeery difficult to use these structures on a regular basis and without thinking.

So let me give you a hand. Here are some wonderful power point presentations I found on the Net. Enjoy!!

ECHO QUESTIONS

Interesting cultural-facts-echo-questions from leticiaeoiplasencia

QUESTION TAGS


 

Question tags from leticiaeoiplasencia

Thanks to the person who generously posted this on the Internet!!

For more on question tags. Click here.

Interesting, isn't it?

NA2 - Unit 1A Sibling rivalry

Dear students & readers of this blog,

Have you got any brothers or sisters? How do you get on with them? What do you have in common? Have you ever felt jealous or envious? Do you compete with one another?

If you have answered 'yes' to any of these questions, then you suffer from 'sibling rivalry'. This rivalry may be positive, in the sense that you may have a bit of healthy competition and stay friends with your brother or sister. But sometimes, sibling relationships are difficult.

The short film you're about to see illustrates what I'm talking about. It's a semi-real, semi animated film, which tells the story of a teenage girl and her relationship with her brother. You will find the exercises we used to practice in class below.

(source: British Council)

• Exercises
• Key
• Transcript

In the following video clip, parenting expert and show host, Bill Corbett, interviews outlines tips on handling sibling rivalry.

Answer the following questions:

• What tips does he give to handle sibling rivalry? Can you give details about each one.

Feel free to write a COMMENT answering the questions above.

Do you know any siblings that are also rivals? Here you have some notorious examples, that are mentioned in our textbook (just in case you want to find out something more about them and what their relationship was like):

• Rudi & Adi Dassler: the brothers who revolutionized sportswear.

• Joan Fontaine & Olivia de Havilland: Eternal enemies. 

• Noel & Liam Gallagher: Life beyond 'Oasis'

• Venus & Serena Williams: Friends in life, rivals at court.

TALK TUESDAYS - Will you join us?

Dear students & readers of this blog,

If you are, or were, a student of the Official Language School of Plasencia, and you miss the chance to be able to practise your English and meet new people or your old friends, or if you have finished your English studies at the school and you need to find somewhere to keep the language living and fresh...

THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!!!!!!!!!!

We are going to start what we have called 'Talk Tuesdays'. Student old and new will meet at the SCHOOL LIBRARY, have some tea with pastries, NEXT TUESDAY 14 OCTOBER, from 7 to 8 p.m. 

This will only be the start. After next week, we will meet every two weeks, but this time, from 8 to 9 p.m. 

 

PLEASE JOIN US!!