This Week's Photo

It's not New York, it's Santa Cruz de La Palma. Wow!

Source: La Provincia newspaper

Listening Key CD 1 Advanced 2

1

1 1987 and 1924

2  ferry (boat)

3  baggage

4  interviews

5  Wall of Honour

6  Bunk

7  Hope and Fears

8  11:10 am

9  Oral History Library

10  ticket office

2

1 T

2 F

3 F

4 T

5 T

6 F

7 F

3

1 China

2 The Naked Face

3 95

4 mirror

5 uncomfortable

6 personal

7 managers

8 chin and lips

9 make-up

10 nodding and smiling

4

1 B

2 B

3 C

4 C

5 A

6 B

7 A

5

1 C

2 A

3 A

4 B

5 C

6 C

7 B

6

1 Service Guide

2 names

3 keep people waiting

4 smile

5 red flag

6 smoking

7 car

8 wake-up call

9 blue arrows

10 taxi

7

1 modern languages

2 teacher

3 exhausting

4 romantic

5 history of science

6 (new) planet

7 clothes

8 events

9 plot

10 500 words

8

1 uncle

2 the past

3 London

4 stable

5 sensitive hands

6 back

7 1650

8 sentimental

9 clean

10 conservationist

9

1 F

2 T

3 F

4 F

5 T

6 T

7 F

This Week's Poem

If youth were a star,

it would be shiny.

If youth were a common cold,

it would be short.

If youth were a flower,

it would be a sunflower.

If youth were a cloud,

it would be white.

If youth were a drum,

it would be noisy.

If youth were a tree,

it would be nice to have a nap.

By Raquel and Tahona

Week beginning Monday 22nd October

This Week's Photo

A retrospective of the Finnish great's work, Here, Far Away, has just been published in the UK. Click here for a selection of his finest shots, ranging from the heated streets of Varanasi in India to the frozen wastes of the Russia's White Sea. The earliest was taken when he was just 14 years old.

 

Source: The Guardian

This Week's Language Tips

Everyday or every day? Maybe or perhaps? Find out here.

This Week's Music

 

Bel Bee Bee is a teenager. She is just seventeen, though she seems to be older. She is some 160 cm tall, she´s got nice brown, short, wavy hair. When you talk to her she usually smiles and her face seems to shine. She still lives at her house, with her family, where we held this interview last week. That afternoon, she was wearing blue jeans, a yellow t-shirt and different socks.

-          Hi, Bel Bee Bee, what’s your first name?

-          Belén, my full name’s Belén Álvarez Doreste.

-          But you usually sing in English; where are you from?

-          I was born in Las Palmas, I´m a Canarian girl, like my whole family. However, I prefer to sing in English, but I don´t really know why.

-          Do you sing your own tunes?

-          Yes, I´ve been composing songs since I was thirteen. I've loved music since the very moment I was born, and for me, it’s very simple to make up music.

-          Belén, what are you studying know?

-          I’m studying drums in the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. I`m also studying 2º de Bachillerato; I chose the Science option.

-          And what would you like to become in future?

-          Well, I enjoy composing music a lot, and at the moment I´ve got a management offer. I think I can be a pop singer in a few years. But as I don’t know if  the world economic situation will turn harder, I´ll also study Engineering.

-          Well, Bell Bee Bee, thanks for this interview. Hope your best thoughts come true. Good luck!!!

 

 



This Week's Grammar

In our NI2 Class, we've been looking at the Second Conditional.

We saw how we use the Second Conditional to talk about hypothetical conditions in the present or future that will PROBABLY NOT happen. We wrote some poems to illustrate this grammar point. Can you identify the structure? What verb tense follows "if"? What verb tense occurs in the other part of the sentence? Where do we put the comma?

If happiness was a needle, many people would be dead.
If happiness was a flower, you would have a flowershop.
If happiness was a cloud, my son would always be in the sky.
If happiness was a common cold, I would always stay in bed.
If happiness was a tree, I would like to be Robin Hood.

Luis

If happiness were a common cold,
I wouldn’t have enough tissues.
If happiness were a star,
It wouldn’t have enough place for the moon.
If happiness were a flower,
It would have a lot of allergies.
If happiness were a cloud,
It would be raining the whole day.
If happiness were a tree,
It wouldn’t have problems with the environment.
If happiness were a needle,
It would be painful.

                                                                                                                                                  Ofelia

If love was a real faithful friend,
It would never cheat you.
If love was an umbrella, 
It would protect you from the rain.
If love was the summer season,
It would be represented by a garden with plenty of roses.
If love was for all of life,
You would never die because of it.


Armando and Yuribia.

Answers to Listening NI2

NI2 – CD1

KEY:

CD Track 1:

1.      3443

2.      SE1 8PB

3.      43

4.      1963

5.      Moore

6.      B

7.      C

8.      C

9.      B

10.  C

CD Track 2:

1.      B

2.      C

3.      B

4.      1^st July

5.      Cutting down

6.      Bad headaches

7.      (exciting) adventure

8.      Expected

9.      Determination

10.  Road

CD Track 3:

1.      3 years

2.      Job

3.      Wales

4.      A

5.      C

6.      C

7.      B

8.      B

9.      A

10.  C

CD Track 4:

1.      Techniques and training

2.      British economy

3.      Awareness

4.      Impossible

5.      Replying/responding

6.      Answering the telephone

7.      Respect

8.      E-mail code

9.      Brainstorm

10.  Countered

This Week's Call for Help!

This Week's Essay

Why does any History matter?

Think of the ways in which people – maybe you – justify the study of history. I expect two themes come up: relevance and ‘how we got where we are’. I’d say, though, that no history is relevant … or alternatively that all history is equally relevant.

What do people mean when they say that history is relevant?

It’s, let’s face it, usually a justification for modern history. To understand the modern world, the argument runs, we have to understand its history. So, to understand the problems, say, of Iraq, Afghanistan, or Ireland, or the Balkans, we need to know the history of those regions. Sounds reasonable, but actually we don’t. It’s no more use to study the modern history of those regions than it is to study the end of the Roman world.

 

Why? Well, let’s look at the problem more closely. Let’s take, for example, a modern Ulster Unionist or Irish Republican, or a Serbian nationalist (or a nationalist from any other area – including Scotland). Does a knowledge of the history of Serbia or Ireland help us understand his actions (let’s assume it’s a he)? No it doesn’t. For one thing, we’ll soon discover that the ‘history’ that he uses to justify his case or actions is cock-eyed and wrong. Does it help just to know the events he makes reference to, that he keeps harping on about – the Battle of Kosovo Pole or the Battle of Boyne, say? Does it help to know that in reality King Billy’s army was paid for by the Pope, or alternatively that Cromwell’s troops killed rather more English soldiers than Irish civilians at the sacks of Drogheda and Wexford? Does it help to know that for most of their history Serbs and Croats and Bosnians rubbed along together in their communities just fine (think about it; if they hadn’t, ‘ethnic cleansing’ wouldn’t have been ‘necessary’)? Does it help, when confronted by Greek nationalism (such as there’s a lot of at the moment), to know that in the 1830s 80% of Athens spoke Albanian? That the only reason that (allegedly) Socrates could still read a Greek newspaper if he came back to life is that Greek was reinvented on more classical lines, and purged of Slavic and Turkish words in the late 19th century (as was Romanian, which is the only reason why it’s as close as Italian is to Latin)? No. It might get you punched in the face but it won’t help you understand why.

 

To read more, click here.

This Week's Speaking Idea

¿Quieres practicar el inglés u otro idioma con gente nativa?

Pues, ven a nuestras reuniones del LEG-up (Language Exchange Group) en TE LO DIJE PEREZ, donde hacemos un intercambio de idiomas una vez por mes.

También quedamos dos veces por mes en el sur. Las reuniones son divertidas y vivas, en un ambiente de apoyo mutuo con muchas risas. Juntos (¡y con cerveza!) nos ayudamos a hablar mejor el inglés o español mientras conocemos a las nacionalidades diferentes que conviven aquí en Gran Canaria.

Además se puede rellenar un formulario breve para que te sugiera con quien hablar uno-a-uno en tu zona de la isla.

Hay que tener suficiente nivel del idioma que quisieras practicar para poder mantener una conversación básica.

Más información aquí.

This Week's Listening Idea

Listen to News Regular listening practice based on the weekly news, with pre-reading vocabulary, reading, gap-fill exercise, comprehension quiz and answers. Each Tuesday EnglishClub publishes a short audio news report in easy English from the previous week. With this resource you can practise your listening, reading, writing and even speaking. Preview the vocabulary and read the gapfill text. Play the news report and try to fill in the blanks. Answer the comprehension questions by writing full sentences. Use the discussion question to write an essay or discuss the story with other students. Pretend to be a news anchor by reading each story out loud. Study the news story each week and watch your English skills grow! Click "show Answers" to view the full text of the story and check the answers. For more info, go to: http://edition.englishclub.com/category/listening-news/

Week beginning 15th October

Languages in Spain



 

Image source: Wikipedia

 

The most widely-spoken language in Spain is Castilian. It is also called Spanish. Castilian is

the official language of Spain, and it is used in government, the media and education. For

89%  of the population, Castilian is the mother tongue. It is also spoken in South America,
 

Central America and Guinea as a mother tongue, as well in the USA, Marrocco, the UK,

Philippines, Germany, Italy and other countries as a result of immigration.
 

In addition to Castilian, there are over five other languages or dialects in Spain: 9% speak

 

Catalan-Valenciano, 5% Gallego, 1% Vasco (Euskera), and 3% speak a foreign language.

 

These facts mean that some people are bilingual.

 

Castilian is a very old language. It started as the vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, but it has

 

changed over many centuries. After the Muslim invasion, varieties in this Romance language

 

evolved giving us Catalan, Navarro-ragonese, Astur-Leonese and Gallego-Portuguese.

Nowadays, the main differences between the English and Spanish alphabet are: the

existence of “Ñ”, the article is generic in English but in Castilian it can be female or

male, and the question marks or exclamations in English are at the end of the sentence only.

We also have different words from other languages as well as Castilian words, for example

“escáner” (an English word), “menú” (a French word) or “pizza” (an Italian word). As

well as “sangría” for a refreshing drink, “paella” or “tapas” for typical food, the most

 

important word that we have exported to the world is “siesta”.

 

Many people in Spain can speak English, but we are very pleased if visitors can use some

 

Castilian words as well.

 
Paz NI One

This Week's Report

 The most-widely spoken language in Spain is Spanish. It is the mother tongue of about 79% of the population followed by Catalan, Galician and Basque in that order.

 Basque is the only non-Romance language with an official status in Spain.

 Spanish is the official language in Spain and it is used in government, the media and education. The rest of the languages have official status in their communities as well. A lot of people in these communities think their language is the main language and Spanish is secondary.

 In addition, there are Spanish cities like Ceuta and Melilla in the north of Africa where the Muslim people speak Arabic as frequently as Spanish.

 Spanish is an old language and it comes from Latin, but it has changed over many centuries. It has different words from other languages, for example, for “football” we say “fútbol” as well as “balonpie”, the traditional Spanish word.

 Spanish is also spoken in South America (except Brazil), Central America, Mexico and the USA.

 In Spain, many people speak English but they are very pleased if visitors can use some Spanish words as well.

 

Mónica NI One

This Week's Interview

I interviewed Marge at her home in Springfield. She was wearing a pretty green dress with red shoes and a string of pearls. We were sitting on a comfortable sofa in her living room accompanied by her little daughter who was having a siesta: Maggie.

Have you ever regretted that your life and that of your family’s shown on TV all over the world?

Yes, I have. Only sometimes. But we took this decision knowing the pros and cons of being famous. As my children grew up, they needed more and more independence and privacy. It has sometimes been difficult, but feeling people’s appreciation also makes us very happy.

When was the last time you felt upset with Homer?

Just two hours ago! We had booked a seat at the theatre for tonight. He has just phoned me to tell me that he is going to Moe’s to celebrate a friend’s birthday… He always finds a perfect excuse when we have planned to go to the theatre. Everybody knows that we argue a lot…

You seem to not get older. What is the secret of your charm?

I try to sleep 8 hours a day and not to get stressed with daily problems. I do yoga and Pilates twice a week. I like cooking food based on olive oil. I try to avoid eating a typical American diet at home : hamburgers, chips, nuggets… But I don’t always achieve it, lol.

Will you disclose your recipe for doughnuts some day?

Mmm I don’t know, really. Lisa is the only person who certainly knows this secret because she likes helping me in the kitchen. Maybe she will publish the recipe in the future. In fact, she is more intrepid than me… By the way, do you want to taste a doughnut? I cooked them this morning . . .

By Yuribia. NI2

This Week's Competition

There's a (small) prize waiting for the first person who can correctly guess where this magnificent photo was taken and at what time of year!

Week Beginning 1st October

This Week's Hot News!

Philadelphia Skyline

This year, EOI Santa Brígida are organising an AMAZING trip to New York, Washington and Philadelphia. Wanna go? It will be during Carnival week, 8th - 17th February. See the School's website soon!

This week's Extra Activities for NI2 and NA2

Phrasal Verbs     The Media      Adverbs     Phrasal verbs: separable or unseparable?    

Question formation     Position of Adverbs     Practical English     Text Builder

Discourse markers     Have     Pronouns     Colloquial English     Work     Family

Text Builder (Advanced)

Next Week's Cultural Event

EOI DE SANTA BRÍGIDA

 

EVENTOS CULTURALES

 

 

  ANGLO-CANARIAN RELATIONSHIPS:

socio-cultural, linguistic and literary aspects

 by

 

D^ra Dª Isabel González Cruz

 

WEDNESDAY 3RD OCTOBER 2012

AT 7.30 PM IN THE LIBRARY

For more information, click here

 

Image source: http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/educacion/culturacanaria/inglesa/ingleses.htm

Back to Normal (whatever that is!)

Classes resume, as usual, today, Tuesday 2nd October.

Remember that we have a guest speaker on Wednesday 3rd October at 7.30 pm.

Looking forward to seeing everyone, again!