Week Beginning Monday 25th October

Hallowe'en





 Witches, bats, owls . . . there'll be a lot of those flying around this weekend. If you want to find out more about the history behind Hallowe'en, go to Dulce's blog. Alternatively, check out what they're reading about  at EOI Guía.

Do you think this Celtic festival should be celebrated in the Canary Islands? Why? Why not?

This Week's Homework

I assume you have completed all the exercises in Unit One of our Workbook. Mon / Wed group, make sure you have completed everything from Pages 20 to 23 of our Student's Book, including Grammar Bank Pages 134 - 135 2A. Please also do the Reading on SB Page 24.  If you have class on Thursday, do Reading on Page 24 and make sure you know the vocab on Clothes and Fashion, P 148.

This Week's Science

It's Hubble's twentieth birthday in space this week. For more info, click here.

This Week's Technology

"Book" Part 2. It's in German, this time.  Don't forget I'm expecting your Reading homework on 2nd / 3rd November. Enjoy!

This Week's Idiom

"When I heard the bad news I was knocked for six."



Beach Cricket


When you are knocked for six, it means that you are completely devastated. It comes from the highest scoring in cricket, a very popular sport in many Commonwealth countries, especially England, the West Indies and Pakistan.

This Week's English Speaking Countries

The Commonwealth of Nations



Queen Dancing by Beryl Cook



Unit 2 of our textbook looks at nationalities. We've been considering geo-political names in English, and we were asked to explain the British Commonwealth. Here is some info to help us.

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and previously known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states. All but two (Mozambique and Rwanda) of these countries were formerly part of the British Empire.

The member states co-operate within a framework of common values and goals. These include the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism and world peace. The Commonwealth is not a political union, but an intergovernmental organisation through which countries with diverse social, political and economic backgrounds are regarded as equal in status.

The head of the Commonwealth is Queen Elizabeth II. (No wonder she dances!) The official language is English. The estimated population (2005) is 1,921,974,000.

Source: Wikipedia

This Week's Grammar

We've been looking at the Present Perfect. We saw how we use this aspect of the verb in English to look back on past experiences without saying exactly when they occurred. We considered different monuments or geographical features which still exist today and thought about their life.

 


Maspalomas Lighthouse

 

You have seen golden dunes

and then hotels

You have seen fishermen

and then tourists

You have lived quiet nights

and then noise and madness

You have seen a paradise

and then a desert






Church of Saint John, Arucas

 

  

You have seen doves of peace

You have seen lovers inside

You have seen a cross

You have seen new projects and old ideas

You have seen one hundred years of our history

You have seen workers of blue stone

You have announced death when your bell tolls





Las Canteras beach, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria



 You have seen the dreams of children

You have seen the walk of the elderly

You have seen the sea on the sand

You have heard the sea against the water's edge

You have known the son, the father and the grandfather

You have known hatred and love

This Week's "Strange But True"

"God Bless America!" But which?

When someone from an Anglo-Saxon culture talks about America, he or she is usually thinking of  the USA. When someone from, say, a Latin cultural background speaks of America, he or she usually has in mind a country like Venezuela, Mexico, Chile . . . So now you know!

This Week's Prepositions

Into / Onto

Phantom cat jumping onto a chair

• We use into and onto to talk about directions and destinations - where things are going.

Compare:

          She's in  her bedroom getting dressed. (She's inside her room.)
           She went into her bedroom to get dressed. (You actually picture her entering the room.)

          The cat is on the chair.
          The cat jumped onto the chair. (You actually picture the moggy leave the floor.)

• The opposite of into is out of.  Having finished dressing, she walked out of her bedroom.
• The opposite of onto is down from. The cat jumped down from the wall.

• We also use into for change.

          When she kissed the prince, he changed into an ugly frog.
          Can you translate this into Spanish?

• What's the difference between into and in to? And onto and on to? See here.

This Week's Art

The Holy Chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, Paris

I've been listening to a fastinating series on BBC Radio 4. It's called A History of the World in 100 Objects. The programme I've just heard was about the Holy Thorn Reliquary which you can see at the British Museum. It  (supposedly) houses one of the thorns from Christ's crucifixion crown. This crown was brought to Europe by Louis IX of France. Unlike other devout aristocrats of the time, this Medieval king actually paid for his precious relics of the Passion. Indeed, he handed over the pricely sum of 135,000 livres. In contrast, the Holy Chapel (see left) which he built to display the relics cost a mere 40,000 livres.