Find below an article from Mother Jones magazine focusing on the distinct burden of being a climate scientist right now. Note that you have the opportunity to listen to the text as you read it.
Next week, some students will present a summary of its contents in class, and we will hold a follow-up class discussion.
Here follows the presentation on different workouts Julio gave in class last week. Thanks a lot Julio for your work, this is a great review of vocabulary related to body and motion, and lots of fun too!
Shortly before Christmas we read and discussed about Technology 2.0. and its latest developments, some of them being totally mind-blowing to me -and others in class.
Just a few days ago we could all see on the News the highlights of the world's most important consumer electronics tradeshow which takes place every January in Las Vegas: The International CES.
Out of all the innovations they could possibly show for the consumers to buy, here's my proposal: if a smart stove could suggest recipes to suit your mood that day, would you buy it?
As you may know, December the 10th is the International Human Rights Day, soI'd like to propose to you a somewhat different writing task for this week: This time you will devote your time and energy to writing to real people who are the victims of the violation of most basic international human rights law worldwide. You may also write to the authorities who are permitting all this.
Let me warn you that this is an optional writing task. So you're free to choose. It won't be marked, but I will help you with the grammar if you want to.
Find below the Amnesty International homepage for this campaign, and the toolkit with all the resources you need, including the specific cases they are currently campaigning for, and sample letters.
After watching the episode of Modern Family which deals with parenting issues, now it's time to review the words and expressions we worked on together in class. Below you can find the vocabulary sheet and the episode with the subtitles. You should watch it again, a second viewing is surely gonna be of great help to understand all the expressions we learned, and to catch all the jokes!
And this is one of the most visited videos in 2011, a breathtaking recording of animal interaction in a nature preserve called Kruger, in South Africa. Judge by yourselves: fake or real?
Pretty amazing, huh? But there's always room for some critical reflection here: Do you think the man may be somehow involved in the way animals interact here? Maybe you wanna think about the dimensions of park safaris like this one...
... I know you guys were all heart broken the other day in class... But believe me, it's always better when we see and face reality as it is, and are not deceived by the appearances, don't you think? Now you can tell your friends that the poor lemmings never commited suicide. It's been a ubiquitous myth, but we buy it no more. And where does that myth come from? In 1958 Walt Disney produced White Wilderness, part of the studio's True Life Adventure series. This documentary featured a segment on lemmings, detailing their strange compulsion to commit mass suicide. But this was all fake! In fact, it was staged: the lemmings supposedly committing mass suicide by leaping into the ocean were actually thrown off the cliff by Disney filmmakers! The epic "lemming migration" was staged using careful editing, tight camera angles and a few dozen lemmings running on a snow covered turntable.
As Karl S. Kruszelnicki puts it in his article, considering a company like Disney, where one rodent, namely Mickey Mouse, was Royalty, it's rather odd to think that Disney could be so unkind to another rodent, the lemming...
A few weeks ago we were discussing parenthood issues in class, remember? We actually watched one episode of Modern Family, in which we saw three intertwined families dealing with their garden-variety family life, from the most stereotypical one to the gay couple and their adopted Vietnamese girl. Well, after watching it we had a class-discussion on the different issues depicted, and one of your fellow students wrote up a review which brings up one issue we didn't comment on but it's certainly important. Please, click on the link below to find out more about this. Thanks, Garasi, for your work and for sharing your opinion with us.
Now that we're done with the mid-year exams, we might as well just stop for a while, have some time off to think and reflect on what we have achieved this year, which is quite a lot! (more than we would think, for sure), and shake off the stress we carry around as we are in motion, fast motion, from work to school, from school to our daily chores, etc... People from the Slow Movement know about this feeling, and some years ago started sending out this message for us to regain a more humanlike pace, and stop living like powered up robots.
What follows is a description of this movement posted in wikipedia, and a really nice talk by worldwide-known advocates of Slowness.
The Slow Movement promotes a cultural shift toward slowing down life's pace. It began with Carlo Petrini's protest against the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, Rome, in 1986 that sparked the creation of the Slow Food organization. Over time, this developed into a subculture in other areas, such as Cittaslow (Slow Cities), Slow Living, Slow Travel, and Slow Design.
And now watch the video. I suggest that you sit back on your chair, breathe, make yourself comfortable, and, importantly, leave the cell aside, no whatsapps to be checked and that kind of stuff... just relax and listen to these people talking about how to start shifting our minds.
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.
Some people are always thinking about the worst things that can happen to them... Some other people are constantly wearing these rose-tinted glasses that make them totally oblivious to possible dangers, and most of us prefer to see the glass half full most of the times, while staying on the realistic side of life.
Tali Sharot is a researcher who after conducting several lab studies believes that we are born to be optimistic, and that we are actually biased to look on the bright side of life.
Click on the link below to review vocabulary and expressions, and get ready to watch her talk again. Next week I would like you to share your comments and ideas in class, so click on the open questions to get started!
You have probably realised by now that learning a second language means taking risks, and regaining your own creativity! You need to be creative, imaginative and, above all, you need to lose your fear of being wrong!
Here follows the talk Kevin Robinson gave at TED several years ago, where he speaks about our current education system, and some things that we should change if we want to make the most of our human capacities.
But first, before watching the video, review the list of vocabulary and expressions he uses, which a) I think you should know, and b) are gonna help you follow the thread of the story, ok?
Do you wanna see more bold people acting? then you guys gotta chek this out. The Yes Men are a group of culture jamming activists who practice what they call "identity correction" by pretending to be the powerful people and spokespersons por prominent organizations. They create and maintain fake websites similat to the ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows. What they come up with while doing all this is simply amazing! A perfect film to stir up a hot and lazy summer day...
Please, don't miss Victoria Grant, the 12 year-old Canadian girl who boldly explains the corrupt banking system we're suffering right now. Question is: How come banks get richer and richer while we get poorer and poorer? Well, according to Victoria Grant, simply because we're being robbed! Don't miss the girl! And thanks, Cosmina, for the heads up!
And this is one of the most visited videos in 2011, a breathtaking recording of animal interaction in a nature preserve called Kruger, in South Africa. Judge by yourselves: fake or real?
Pretty amazing, huh? But there's always room for some critical reflection here: Do you think the man may be somehow involved in the way animals interact here? Maybe you wanna think about the dimensions of park safaris like this one...
... So do lemmings really commit suicide? This has been a question sometimes heard in conversations about wild life in the last fifty years... Well, the answer is no, lemmings do not commit suicide. Where does that myth come from? In 1958 Walt Disney produced White Wilderness, part of the studio's True Life Adventure series. This documentary featured a segment on lemmings, detailing their strange compulsion to commit mass suicide. But this was all fake. In fact, it was staged: The lemmings supposedly committing mass suicide by leaping into the ocean were actually thrown off the cliff by Disney filmmakers! The epic "lemming migration" was staged using careful editing, tight camera angles and a few dozen lemmings running on a snow covered turntable.
As Karl S. Kruszelnicki puts it in his article, considering a company like Disney, where one rodent, namely Mickey Mouse, was Royalty, it's rather odd to think that Disney could be so unkind to another rodent, the lemming...
Hope you had a nice timeout these past days. And hope you're ready to get back to English! For starters, here I attach the great presentation Nuria gave on World Hunger and some of the real causes lying behind. Thanks a lot Nuria, for sharing your work with us!
Collapse is a documentary on Michael Ruppert, a police officer turned independent reporter who predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness, way before it happened. He's now an investigative journalist and peak oil theorist. Whether a crackpot or a visionary, his theories leave no one feeling indifferent. This film, controversial as it may be, is probably going to catch your attention, especially after the discussion we had yesterday in class. And thanks David for sparking the debate.
