B2.2 classes: summary of Friday class and a link about interesting examples of city life (not mandatory for class)

First, there is an EXCELLENT summary of Friday's  class by Mónica. (The Saturday class, though not identical, was similar in general).  Thanks so much, Mónica!

Hi everybody
Last Friday, we had our first CSIM English class in the strange building of “Estudios Estadísticos”, in LAB 3B. As Kate says, we did some “ice-breaker” activities, but before that, she used what was written on the blackboard to make us talk and break the typical big first-class-day silence. Some of the things we could see there were written down were “greetings, asking for examples, showing surprise, asking for reasons, showing interest, give reasons…” She asked all of us to suggest different ways to do all that. After that, we made a Listening and Comprehension exercise: we could hear 4 different little interviews and we had to take note of the name of the person, why they had that name, if they liked it or not and why, and if they wanted to change it. After checking the answers, Kate gave everybody a sheet with some “knowing each other” questions, which were also related to cities. Here we started with “ice-breaker” activities by asking the person (sited) SEATED next to us (and then, to other two people in the class) 5 questions: 2 questions we heard on the tape in the listening and 3 questions from the sheet. After that, we introduced to the rest of the class the people we spoke with, and finally we all had a name: Alejandro, Esther, Miguel, Miguel, Rocío, Alberto, Vic, Elena, Cristina, Alejandro, Carlos and me, Mónica. 
We had a break of 15 minutes and at the return, we worked for the last hour in our book Advanced Outcomes. We did two exercises of adjectives about cities in groups, and finish with another little Listening. Finally, Kate told us our homework, remind us some things for next Friday (like bringing completed our card and the Learning Questionnaire) and told me to do this summary. Then, we sayID goodbye.

I received an interesting video link of a talk by a Venezuelan architecture about ingenious adaptations made by people who live in slums ( run-down derelict areas of cities) to make their environment more attractive or useful for them ( things like inhabiting unfinished or abandoned buildings in a creative way.) It is a little long and is NOT essential for the class, but since it is related to the topic of the lesson and there are several engineers and architecture students in the B2.2 groups, I thought it might be interesting extra listening for you. The images help with understanding and the fact that the speaker is Venezuelan might make him easier to understand.

Here is link, which I stupidly forgot to copy last night!


http://www.ted.com/talks/iwan_baan_ingenious_homes_in_unexpected_places.html