Seasonal Forests

Remember the motto Think global, act local we were talking about in class? Well, now we're gonna go from the local to the global: Here follows an awesome documentary on Seasonal Forests all over the world, by BBC Planet Earth. Please, enjoy the scenery, the images are just stunning . But, of course -and  not to forget what we're here for, before watching the video, complete the worsheet below:

Seasonal Forests: Students' worksheet

Work on the new vocabulary, and read the listening comprehension questions, you should be able to answer these as you watch the video, or once you've watched it.
And now, enjoy the documentary:

Planet Earth: Seasonal Forests

(NOTE: If you want to have English subtitles on it, download this file Seasonal Forests_English subtitles, and save it in the same folder as the .avi file above. Then use theVLC media player to reproduce the .avi file.)

Have a beautiful and relaxing week!

Moral Dilemmas

A moral dilemma arises when we have to choose to do one of two equally unpleasant things. To be in a moral dilemma is to be faced with a situation in which no matter what you do, you think you do wrong. Thankfully, most of us do not come across dire situations that present a moral dilemma, but we all have experienced the bitter feeling of having to take hard decisions in our lives, haven't we? In these situations it is never easy to tell right from wrong. Let us see one experiment in ethics, aimed at studying people's feelings and reactions:

 The cave explorers:

"An enormous rock falls and blocks the exit of a cave you and five other tourists have been exploring. Fortunately, you spot a hole elsewhere and decide to let "Big Jack" out first. But Big Jack, a man of generous proportions, gets stuck in the hole. He cannot be moved and there is no other way out. The high tide is rising and, unless you get out soon, everyone but Big Jack (whose head is sticking out of the cave) will inevitably drown. Searching through your backpack, you find a stick of dynamite. It will not move the rock, but will certainly blast Big Jack out of the hole. Big Jack, anticipating your thoughts, pleads for his life. He does not want to die, but neither do you and your four companions. Should you blast Big Jack out?"

 We will discuss this moral dilemma in class next week... But meanwhile... Do you guys remember the movie Se7en? This very famous film from the 90s, about two homicide detectives on a desperate hunt for a serial killer who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world's ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins? Well, its very last scene depicts one moral dilemma Brad Pitt's character apparently is having: Should he kill the deranged serial killer who has decapitated his wife, even if this means the serial killer triumphs from beyond the grave? Does he really want to spend the rest of his life trapped inside the logic of the killer's warped, psychopathic system? But could he live without avenging his wife's death?

Abbreviations in English

Hello there,

A while ago we went through some commonly used English abbreviations in class, and a few days later one of your classmates emailed me a file with a really nice list of them. As you could see, English is actually full of them, especially in instant messaging. Some of them are all time classics, just like the one above, do it yourself, a motto back from the seventies which comprised this idea that we are all creators, no need to hold back our hidden creativity! (BTW, it also means "bricolaje"!) So feel free to come up with a new abbreviation of your own and spread it around!

Click on this link to see the list of abbreviations

And thanks, Luis Alberto, for sharing it with us!

Malapropisms and Spoonerisms

Malapropism is a form of mis-speech which usually provokes much hilarity among those who witness it. It occurs when the speaker wrongly uses a word or phrase to mean something different, just because the words sound similar, for example: He had to use a fire distinguisher. Sometimes, speakers are totally unaware of the fact they are using it wrong, and that's when people start laughing. One of the great icons of malapropisms is no other than the former US president George W. Bush, whose malapropisms were so well-known that they were collected and published in a book called Bushisms. But, of course, as he once claimed, "They misunderestimated me"...

Spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words that results in the switching of the first letter of two words in the same sentence. Some of them are pretty creative and hilarious, just like the Queen and the Dean above... I remember one of my friends from Edinburgh saying "It's roaring with pain", instead of... who can guess?

Here follow some malapropism and spoonerisms for you to have a laugh. And, if you would like to add some more to the list, be my guest! We could share some new ones in class next week.

He is the very pineapple of politeness                                        Go and shake a tower

Having one wife is called monotony                                          Know your blows

My sister has extra-century perception                                   You have very mad banner

"This is unparalyzed in the state's history"                                 Lack of pies

Gib Lewis, Texas Speaker of the House                                     This is the pun fart

"It will take time to restore chaos and order"                           I must mend the sail

George W. Bush

A friendly visitor of this blog shared with us a short extract of a radio program precisely about Misnomers and Malapropisms, from Minnesota Public Radio. Click on this link to learn more about this tendency we sometimes have to confuse like-sounding words:

Misnomers and Malapropisms on the radio

And remember: Reading is important to avoid talking like some former world leaders...

Huelga General del 14N: carta abierta a mis estudiantes

Hola a todo el mundo:

Ante la huelga general a la que estamos convocados este próximo miércoles, me gustaría compartir con mis estudiantes las razones por las que me adhiero moralmente (moralmente porque estaré cumpliendo servicios mínimos) a esta huelga como profesora de lo público, y como miembro de una comunidad que comparto gustosamente con vosotros y vosotras: las Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas. Quiero exponer aquí que mis razones para apoyar la movilización se resumen en una cuestión conceptual fundamental: el concepto de derecho frente al concepto de negocio.

Ya no queda la más mínima duda de que en la agenda de nuestros administradores está el desposeernos del derecho de aprender, de formarnos, para poder ser a la vez personas más libres, pensadoras, críticas, y en definitiva más ciudadanas. Lo considero derecho, y por tanto lo considero derecho de tod@s.  Nuestros señores administradores no lo consideran derecho, y mucho menos derecho de tod@s. Ellos no se rigen por los derechos, eso sería dejar de ganar mucha pasta: ellos se rigen por los beneficios. Una vez han saqueado nuestro derecho a una vivienda, ahora vuelven sus miradas hacia nuevos territorios que perforar para seguir sacando el máximo beneficio: la salud, el agua, la educación... Sus posibilidades de hacer business con dimensiones tan fundamentales del ser humano son inmensas, y creen que nada les puede parar.

Detrás de la brutal subida de tasas de matrícula en casi todos los tramos de la educación pública, incluidas las Escuelas de Idiomas, está el propósito de acabar con nuestro derecho a aprender y a formarnos. Cada vez son menos las personas que tendrán acceso al "privilegio" de entrar en un aula. Nos han reducido de ciudadanos a consumidores, con unas únicas reglas de juego: las de su propio beneficio. Quien crea que ellos pararán la maquinaria, o que este plan de condenar paulatinamente a cada vez más gente a la exclusión tiene algún límite cercano, se equivoca. Las Escuelas de Idiomas están en el punto de mira de su plan de recortes-beneficios, les encantaría poder hacerlas desaparecer de lo público, y ya han movido varias fichas en el tablero: la súbita subida de tasas en un 250%, como siempre por la espalda, responde exclusivamente a este plan. Está claro que se ven fuertes, pues habrá que decirles que nosotr@s somos más fuertes, que somos más, y que defendemos el derecho de todas las personas a poder venir a clase, y que queremos que nuestr@s compañer@s profes vuelvan a clase también. El miércoles apoyaré la huelga, y el jueves seguiré defendiendo que las Escuelas de Idiomas, desde hace 101 años, también son de tod@s y para tod@s.

US Election System

Last week we learned how the US election system works. As you could see, it differs considerably from a system based on the popular vote. As a matter of fact, four presidents in the history of the US took office without winning the popular vote, Mr. George W. Bush included. Watch the video again, so that you can review the vocabulary for electing a president, and maybe you can write and share your reflection on it with the class.

So what's up with Maine and Nebraska?

Maine and Nebraska both use an alternative method of distributing their electoral votes, called the Congressional District Method. Currently, these two states are the only two in the union that diverge from the traditional winner-take-all method of electoral vote allocation.  

With the district method, a state divides itself into a number of districts, allocating one of its state-wide electoral votes to each district.  The winner of each district is awarded that district’s electoral vote, and the winner of the state-wide vote is then awarded the state’s remaining two electoral votes.  

This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though since both states have adopted this modification, the statewide winners have consistently swept all of the state’s districts as well.  Consequently, neither state has ever split its electoral votes. 

Although this method still fails to reach the full ideal of one-man one-vote, it has been proposed as a nationwide reform for the way in which Electoral votes are distributed.