B2.2 Students: Phrasal Verbs

Hicham sent me a very complete list of phrasal verbs to share with the class. Phrasal verbs are in Unit 3, so it's very appropriate.

Click here

I have a shorter document that approaches Phrasal Verbs from another angle, namely the meaning of the particles and the grammatical rules regarding their use.

Phrasal verbs1 Click here

Phrasal verbs 2 Click here

Phrasal verbs 3 Click here

Phrasal verbs 4  click here:

Conversation B2: for Mon Dec 2 or Tues. Dec 3

Hi Groups

I have been concerned about a drop in attendance in both groups. Please attend as regularly as possible and remember attendance is a factor in your final grade!

First:

This is the link to the Common Sayings for the M-W group and absentees.   Click here

We will spend the first hour doing activities related to this.

Then in the 2nd half, we'll talk about food and recipes.  Click here

And for related Listening activity Click here

B2.2 Nov 22-23 Excellent summary by Hicham of the Saturday class

Saturday 23th November class summary

Hi mates, I’ll try to make a summary about the last class Saturday 23th November. The class had many sections like conversations in groups, Reading and listening.

Kate began the class talking about the 50^th John F. Kennedy (JFK) assassination anniversary.  She told us that the murder is still for her a personal historical marker and described her feelings the few days after she learned about it. She mentioned also what John Kerry (US secretary of state) talked about in his latest interview; that he has serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald (the murderer) acted alone in killing JFK and “Who really killed JFK?” is still the million-dollar question for the past five decades.

The second section was a group conversation about our personal historical marker while Kate was picking up some mistakes to discuss afterward. The most common personal markers were without a doubt the 11^th September and 11^th March terrorist attacks in New York and Madrid.

The third section was making difference between British and North American stereotypes in a list.

The fourth section was reading and discussing texts on the page 17 about people describing what strange and weird customs they found in others countries. The one that most caught my attention was that in China they use separate taps for the cold and hot water in the same sink and you should to fill up the sink first to have the water at the desired temperature. (Actually that was England, which makes it more unbelievable! Kate)

In the fifth and final section we had a listening about three people explaining their own perceptions about British stereotypes, like all Scottish people wear kilts and British recite Shakespeare verses and so on.

Homework for the next Saturday:

Do some exercises at the beginning of the third Unit.

Write a paper about Spanish stereotypes.

Some learnt vocabulary:

Rant (v): To complain hardly about something.

Acquire (v): To obtain something.

Get away with a mistake/error/crime (v): To not be punished for it.

Acquit (v): To absolve someone of a crime.

Fishy:  Inspiring doubt or suspicion.

Left leaning (Politics): Democrat, Liberal, Socialist, Communist…

Right leaning (Politics): Conservative, Neo-Conservative, Republican, Libertarian, Constitutionalist.

Banter: Teasing, joke.

Bug (v): To annoy, disturb, irritate, bother.

Kilts: Scottish skirt.

This is a link to a short video clip from the TV series The West Wing. It is related to the idea of misconceptions and cultural identity. We can't dedicate much class time to it, as we have so much to cover. But try to see it and we will use it in the 1st 5 minutes as a warm-up. 
  
Link: http://www.upworthy.com/we-have-been-mislead-by-an-erroneous-map-of-the-world-for-500-years?c=ufb2

(There is a sub-title option but a lot of the subtitles are wrong!)

A few vocabulary items:
- dues / dues-paying members = fee or quota one must pay to belong to a group or club / poeple who pay this
- bias = prejudice
"blow your mind"  = shock you /"romperte los esquemas" (colloquial)
freak me out = similar expression

A few ?'s:
1. What are the common misconceptions the visitors to the White House point out? What is the goal of the group they belong to?
2. What is the cause of these common misconceptions and how would they like the US President to correct them?
3.. Why do these common misconception show a prejudice?
4. What has probably been the negative result?
5. What is "freaking out" CJ Craig ( the woman)?

Con B2 and B2.2: Another example of British humor!

This is starting to be a "joke blog".  PLEASE READ MY LAST POST, which to me is the funniest!!

 I have just received a short funny video clip with Orson Welles...... and it has an option  for sub-titles.**NB. DON'T  do subtitles. They are terrible:often completely wrong.  K 27/11

Glossary:

- salt of the earth (idiom) = used to describe a simple, natural, "authentic" person
- waif = young, homeless person
- to turn away = to tell someone leave or not to let them enter
- high-piched vice = voz aguda
- to dress up = to wear fancy clothes or a costume
 - a streak = a tendency or hidden quality, una vena ( an artistic streak, a jealous streak)

The two men are presumably talking about a friend who has just died (passed away).
Here the humor is not so  much in a punchline as much as it in what they are suggesting about this man, without really saying it  ( I guess becasue of their British indirectness and good manners).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb7uKhI7uqU&feature=PlayList&p=A77AD4D43D39C81D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=24

Con B2 ( and B2.2) for a good laugh PLEASE READ!!

My sister just sent this to me and since we are doing jokes, I couldn't resist. This might have happened to you - I just changed cell phones and it is more or less happening to me. Similar things also happen over the phone when they have to understand your voice and what you are saying.

What's the punchline??

Couldn't resist. It is so funny

Hope you don't mind the language - I thought this was hysterical!  We've all been there....

Resetting The Password

  "Sorry, your password has been in use for 30 days and has expired - you must register a new one."

   roses

  "Sorry, too few characters."

  pretty roses

  "Sorry, you must use at least one numerical character."

  1 pretty rose

    "Sorry, you cannot use blank spaces."

    1prettyrose

  "Sorry, you must use at least 10 different characters."

    1fuckingprettyrose

  "Sorry, you must use at least one upper case character."

    1FUCKINGprettyrose

  "Sorry, you cannot use more than one upper case character consecutively."

    1FuckingPrettyRose

  "Sorry, you must use no fewer than 20 total characters."

 1FuckingPrettyRoseShovedUpYourAssIfYouDon'tGiveMeAccessRightFuckingNow!!!!!

  "Sorry, you cannot use punctuation."

  1FuckingPrettyRoseShovedUpYourAssIfYouDontGiveMeAccessRightFuckingNow

  "Sorry, that password is already in use."

 *************************************************

B2.2 Fri N22, Sat. N 23

Hi, Students in both classes have offered to write summaries, so I will only write about the homework assignment.

The first was to begin Unit 3 by writing as many words as possible to describe your personality. Then do Vocabulary A and B. I said that  good source for adjectives and phrases to descirbe your personality is a doc. on Horoscope Sun Signs.  Click here:

With this, you can also talk about whether or not the description of "your" sign fits you: also for your loved ones.

Another assignment I gave on Saturday BUT FORGOT TO GIVE ON FRIDAY was to write a short 100-word about "What Being Spanish Means to Me" and/or "Stereotypes about Spaniards: which ones bug me and which if any may have some truth".

Waiting for the summaries... Good Week! Kate :)

Conversation B2 : Excellent summary of last class

Hello, team!

This is the summary of the last class. I hope it ´s useful.

The time of the class was divided into two parts.

The first part was about “The Jewish Mother Sketch”, a good and funny performance played by Kate and Another woman. It had a very good cast. Kate was on the role of  an older woman and the other woman was in the role of a daughter. Before watching it, we worked in groups of three trying to answer a group of questions with the help of the clues given by the vocabulary. After watching the video we tried to answer a second group of questions. Then, in the whole group we reviewed the answers, we tried to imagine what happened next and we talked about the stereotypes of mothers and daughters in real life.

The second part was about puns (amusing use of words that can have two meanings) and we did the exercises  you can find in this blog: “Puns” and “Waiter!, waiter!”. Kate told us others jokes too.

HOMEWORK FOR NEXT CLASS:

-Everyone of us has to tell a joke to the group.

-We must review the vocabulary we have learnt during the course because we´ll play TABOO and the more we take part, the funnier it wil be!

Have a good weekend, see you next week and I apologize for my writing mistakes.

Almudena.

Conversation B2 M 25, Tu 26 IMPORTANT!!

Hi,

I gave you 2 "assignments" for the next class:

1. Bring in a joke to tell with a "punchline" ... and be sure it "works" in English and doesn't have a pun or idiom that's impossible to translate.

2. Each of you has to take at least 1 of the vocabulary words learned in the course to date and make a TABOO CARD about it.  In the game TABOO, you put a word to be defined and then 4 words that the person who gets the card CAN'T use in the definition. This makes defining more difficult. You can take vocabulary from FACEBOOK, The Jewish mother sketch, vocabulary about cities and neighborhoods,
Astrology adjectives, etc.

Example  AFFLUENT (word)

TABOO words :  rich    posh      upscale     wealthy

MEASLES

illness disease  child/children sick

I'll bring 5 but you must do the rest.

Waiting for a summary!  Kate

Entertainling Xmas play in English: PLEASE GO!!

Hi classes,

I am posting information about a great Christmas play that AN English-speaking theatre group called the Madrid Players puts on every year here in Madrid. It's really a lovely and fun tradition, with typically British humor, nice contemporary music and something for all ages. It's like a crazy version of a children's story with pop music, jokes for kids, a children's chorus, jokes for adults,men playing women's roles and vice versa, a little social criticism and lots of audience participation.

It has become such a well-known tradition in Madrid that for the last few years, Felipe and Letizia have been going with their kids!

Please try to go! Talk to me about tickets!
I'm going to try to include a video clip from last year to give you an idea!
Click here 

B2.2 Fri. N 17 Sat. N18

This is the EXCELLENT summary of the last class done by Adele from the Friday class. On Saturday, we basically did the same things though in a different order. The homework is several posts back: I can paste here.

1. lease look at the GRAMMAR on .p 15 (Emphatic structures) and try to do B. ( We will comment and review in class.)
2. do the reading and associated questions on p. 16 AND p.18.
3. Please download and print this document about stereotypes of the British versus North Americans - similarities and differences.    Click here 
_______________________________________________
ADELA'S SUMMARY

Adela19 de noviembre de 2013 07:04

Hey guys , my name is Adela and this is a summary of the class on Friday 15/11/2013 .

Firstly, we corrected the exercise on page 13 about binomials, then we talked about the vocabulary on page 16 , household objects , we translated the words of activity A and related them with the verbs of the exercise B through a game; we had to choose a word and a verb and represent it without speaking for the rest of the class so they could guess what we were doing and how . We finished this part of the class doing exercises C and D on the same page .

The second part of the class was more entertaining , we did activities A and B on page 14 talking in groups about topics such as religion, climate, lifestyle, etc. in Spain. After that, we shared our opinions with the rest of the class and debated about the elderly in our society and religion (aconfessional or secular state).
Later, we did a listening of two conversations about these topics.
The class ended up with exercise A on page 15 about expressions to indicate disagreement.

We also talked about phonetics ( Fany / funny , for example) and Kate told us that we could read entries for B2 and Conversation classes to practise exercises about this and other issues which can help us.

I do not know if I missing anything ... in any case, have a good week!

Conv. B2 Wed. N20 Thurs N 21

Continuing with the idea of jokes and puns on the one hand and family and generational problems on the other, I am posting a link to a  3-minute humourous video clip. We will see it in class, but you may want to see it before too.

"The Jewish Mother Sketch"     Click here

Also if time we'll doing Jokes with "Punch lines" and Puns.

Conv. B2 Summary of last Wed./Thursday's class by Alejandro

Conv Tue/Thu
Last Thursday we finished with vocabulary and acronyms about the video on Facebook. We have continued working in pronunciation remining the pronunciation of the vowels and trying to obtain some rules for it; after that we watch the funny video of Lucy and Riccardo and we agree with him that it's very difficult to have a good pronunciation when there are more exceptions than good cases in the rules!
We have been talking among us about what we thought on the problems of pronunciation, the pros and cons of having one parent that speak a different language, the funny languages that sometimes small kids invent mixing two idioms, etc. Then we answered questions about the video and the curious case of words that are written with the same letters but the pronunciation is different (BOUGH, THROUGH, ROUGH and COUGH).

For All groups - Conv.B2 and B2.2

Hi Students,

I just received an email from the coodinator informing me that you have the right to log into and take advantage of some online classes called ABA English. The link is:
Unit 1:https://campus.abaenglish.com/es/login

I haven't had time to check it out yet, but I assume it's good.  :)

For Conv. B2 and B2.2 for a politically incorrect laugh!

This is quite politically incorrect but it's very funny and one of my students (Alejandro in my Conv. B2) had seen - or heard -it and wanted to again. ENJOY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so0FUw-BbAs

Conversation B2 Mon. 18/11 Tues.19/11

Hi conversation Groups,

First, please bring the Project Organizer, as we will talk about that.  Click here: (using control /click) or last post.

Continuing with themes connected with the Pronunciation classes, the Thursday group commented that the sentences Lucy said to improve her pronunciation sounded like "tongue twisters" (trabalenguas) and I said I would post a few for fun. A few made me laugh just reading them!   CLICK HERE:

Finally, talking about the difference between the verbs LEAVE  and LIVE, I commented that there is an old Beatles' song that is very good for talking about the advantages and disadvantages of living with one's parents and the difference between generations.

I will bring in the song and we will do this exercise (print if possible)

CLICK HERE:

If you'd like to listen at home first, here's the link for the youtube with subtitles in English:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rqj43vjU-A

OR, MORE CHALLENGING, WITHOUT SUBTITLES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lG3nXyI41M

B2.2 Summary of last class

Excellent summary made by Leo from the Saturday group. It is also valid for the Friday group.

Here it is:

We began last class talking about the possibility of starting our following classes a little later, and as everybody agreed, we came to an arrangement. So, ATTENTION PLEASE: We start classes at 10:10 (If I didn’t misunderstand it. If so, please, correct me).  THIS IS CORRECT!!

After that, Kate gave us some learning questionnaires back, and we went over the most common mistakes and we corrected part of our homework.

The first activity we did was talking in groups about a neighborhood where we would like to live if we had enough money. And taking advantage of Halloween, we did a second speaking activity: Kate handed out pieces of paper with questions about weird or scary issues, and we had to ask each other, have a little talk, exchange our papers, and search FOR another classmate so that we could have a different conversation.

Before THE break, we corrected last homework and we talked briefly about Spanish economic situation.

When we went back into class, we reviewed the new vocabulary we had just learnt during the class.

Afterwards, we had to do a listening activity, but something went wrong with the CD player, so Kate performed the different roles while she read out. There were three unfinished stories, and we had to find out the end of each one.

Last activity was talking about several topics related with Spain, such as climate, religion, cultural life or community life. We did it in groups, and then each group did a short summary for the rest of the class.

For next class, as homework, we must do:

-          page 13. Binomials activity (A and B)

-          a writing about an urban mith you know, or choose one of the pictures on the botton of page 13 and make up a story (an urban mith) about it.

-          Page 16. Vocabulary activity (A, B and D) and reading activity (A, B and C). Obviously, where it says “discuss”, we have to be sure we understand vocabulary and questions 

SEE YOU ON FRIDAY OR SATURDAY! :) KATE

Con B2: Great summary by Carlos

Last Tuesday our class has been divided in two parts. The first one has been a hard time for Kate. She´s spent more than one hour talking about phonetic. She focused on vowels and diphthongs, (which) WHOSE pronunciation is much more complex than in Spanish language. She did her best to show us the differences between the fifteen vowels of English speech. She compared words like sheet and shit or cat and cut, to show us the differences between long and short vowels. Besides, we learnt several phonetic rules, such as that one that say : " When two vowels go walking. The first one does the talking". Kate stressed about the importance of these rules, although English language has plenty of exceptions.

The second part was more entertaining. We did a roll play, in pairs, where we had to carry on a conversation. Kate gave us small pieces of information, one of the couple told a story based on it and the other one had to express his emotional reaction saying expressions such as "How exciting!" or "How unfair!". We practised a lot with different papers and partners.

Conversation B2 Wed /Thurs. Nov 13, 14

Funny video clip to continue with the issue of English pronunciation but in a funny way.

Opening the document, you will see a link to see it on YouTube, as well as the rest of the exercise

Clck here

See, print and enjoy We will probably see it another time in class, as it's very short!

Conv. B2 Mon.- Tu: Wonderful resource from Raquel lovely summary by Lola

RAQUEL has sent me link to a wonderful BBC pronunciation site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/vowel_short_1.shtml:

It is very complete, but unfortunately can't be clicked onto directly. (You have to put it in your search engline.) However, if you're busy, here are direct "clickable" links to most important parts. :)

Pronunciation tips

• 
  About the sounds
• Videos
• Similar sounds exercises:
• Unit 1
• Unit 2
• Unit 3
• Unit 4
• Unit 5

Download poster with examples (25 K)

Download this video (18.3 MB mp4)

 This is Unit 1: Then click on Units 2,3, 4, and 5 above for the different vowel sounds.

NOW FOR LOLA'S SUPER-COMPLETE SUMMARY:

•  

Hi, I´m Lola and here´s my summary

Last wednesday, at the beginning of the class we had a little chat about Kate's theater group. Kate had invited Conchi to join the group and they did a small  rehearsal. It was a radio play and Conchi did it very well (she imitated the sound of a train  whistle ...) Kate also told us that in the group there were two French people: one of them was a very good player, very expressive, even though his English wasn´t very good. The other french guy wasn´t  so good .

After that , we started the speaking part, talking to each other as if we were in at the Psycologist´s. One of us was the Psychologist and the other one the client:  the mother who has problems with her daughter, the girl with problems with her boyfriend... All of the problems were about social network : Facebook, Internet, smart phones and the time we spend with them, that can end up in a real addition, caused all the problems.

When we finished the conversation we talked as a whole group ( or the whole group talked) about Facebook and some bad experiences : such as bullying and how different reactions that can happen according with the gender:  girls  tend to be more introspective and can commit suicide in the worst of cases. On the other hand, boys are more aggressive and they can commit suicide after they kill other people (with guns).

In the second part of the class we were watching a very funny video clip called "Facebook Manners And you"  about  "Facebook" but set in 1950´s instead today.

We learnt new vocabulary and few slang expressions like  "swell guy", to "stick it" , "to cry over spilled milk" etc.

After that we answered post-viewing questions and specific listening task.

We talked about similarities between Facebook and the 1950´s ( Mc Carthy´s witch hunt

For Monday we will finish the vocabulary exercises  and we will practice on English pronunciation.

 

Conv. B2 Mon. /Tues. Pronunciation Documents

Hi groups,

For Monday, we'll finish the unfinshed exercises from Facebook, review a little vocabulary, and do a short mixer about reacting to an anecdote. If you didn't print it before, or don't still have it:  Click here.

Then we will do a series of exercises connected with Pronunciation. I don't know if we will have time for  the 3rd one or we will leave it for the next class, but here are the 3 links. The first two have an audio part of me pronuncing the sounds and words.

Vowel sounds with pictures:

and click here to listen  (You have to "descargar" for icon to appear at bottom left.)

2.  Vowel Pairs Pronunciation Chart Click here:

and  Click here  to listen.

3. Chart # 3

AND GREAT SUMMARY OF LAST THURSDAY'S CLASS by Susana (Also valid for Wed.)

Hello all, here is the summary of November 7th, ConvB2.

Last Thursday class was very interesting, it has been centered on Facebook and othersocial networks. First of all we have talked about the problems of their use (or their abuse) with a role playing: a girl bothered by the change of behavior of  her boyfriend, a mother upset by the attitude of her daughter, etc. The consultation of a psychologist is required: what can I do to compete against a smartphone?! People who became dependent on the social networks often seem  to live in a virtual world, they don’t talk very much, except with their electronic devices. We have talkED about other problems that can worry the users: identity theft, ciber-bullying…  

In the second part of the class, we watched a funny parody about the same thing: the dangers of Facebook. The clip is about the relationship between a girl and her boyfriend and their problems due to Facebook. She is angry because her boyfriend has changed his relationship status to “single” and as result of her false and nasty accusations the poor guy is imprisoned for communism! The clip was set in the 1950’s probably because at that time the senator McCarthy presided over the “House Un-American Activities Committee” that promoted people to snitch ON whoever had suspicious ideas. It was called the “witch-hunt” and some of its most famous and sad episodes take place in Hollywood.

B2.2 : About TED talks in last post

The first one about cities is really interesting. You can download and put subtitles in either Englsih or Spanish -- something I just realized!  Please try to watch it : it's 15 minutes but worth it.  See you in an hour or in a week!  :)  Kate

B2.2: More and better help with (finally) sorting out the Perfect Tenses

Hi Classes,

I hope you're enjoying classes thus far and either have enjoyed your long weekend  (Fri. class) or WILL HAVE ENJOYED ONE by the next time I see you! (Sat. group)

Some of you have pointed out ( I think correctly) that the grammar part of our text quite limited so a colleague led me to some grammar links that I'm sharing with you if you felt that the explanations and exercise in the book didn't clarify things for you as much as you'd have wished.

Here they are:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-perfect-verb-tenses-in-english.html (Not calling you dummies here: just means they make very simple to understand!)

http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/verb-tenses.html

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verbs/present-tense/present-perfect

I'll be happy to look them over if you print or email them to me.  See some of you in 2 days and others on Sat. the 16th.

Oh--- and if you enjoyed the last TED talk on cities ( and how people in poor neighborhoods adapt) I think you will like these!  We can talk about them and the first one BRIEFLY as a warm-up.

Jeff Speck: The walkable city

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

Carolyn Steel: How food shapes our cities

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

Con B2: For Wednesday /Thursday Facebook ... and the downsides of social media and the internet

Continuing from the last topic about spying and surveillance, we are going to talk about Facebook, advantages and disadvantages and problems.

I'd like you to see a very funny 5-minute video clip and print and do the exercises.

"Facebook Manners and You"        PLEASE CLICK HERE

B2.2 SATURDAY (Good for Conversation B2 as well)

These are the documents I said I'd post for you.

Vocabulary for Crimes

Click here


Expressions that are fromed with "tener + sustantivo" in Spanish and TO BE + ADJECTIVE  in English.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Remember: No class next Saturday as it's "Almudena" so you have twice as much homework:
1. p.13 Vocabulary A +B ( very short)
2. Write about an arban legend or myth: 100 to150 words
3. p. 16 Vocabulary A +B (this is a little difficult)
4. Short readings pp. 16-17.

Now we just have to wait for Leo's summary, whoich we need for the people who were absent (Only 4!)

Conversation B2 Great Summary by Miquel

Miquel2 de noviembre de 2013 10:19

Hello everyone, I’m Miquel and here’s my summary of the October 31st lesson of ConvB2.

On last Thursday class we began to talk about the origin and history of Halloween due from four different recaps.

The name of Halloween is a contraction of the expression “All Hallows Eve (or Evening)”, occurring to be the last day of the year in Celtic calendar and when the real world and the spirits world are supposed to be closer. Celtic tradition thinks that bad spirits would come to real world to steal all the harvest so druids get dressed in an evil appearance look to chase them away. Also, in Christian tradition, people used to dress alike to not TO get hurt by bad spirits, and began the tradition of offering fruits and candies to children, being considered evil servants those who refused to do it. That has developed (on) IN the way that we actually know it as the “Trick or Treat”. Also, and Irish farmerS developed a candle-lighted empty pumpkin which folklore has name it as Jack O’Lantern.

Then, we talkED in a debate about the reasons may have Spanish citizens (on) FOR celebrating Halloween: if it’s considered a commercial day or if it’s just an excuse for people to do something funny and different.

_______________________________________________________________________________

For Tuesday, we will see and discuss the scene that we didn't see on Thursday and then talk about the 2 video clips about the NSA spying and "Big Brother type surveillance".  SO we will do something more"fun" and something else more social or political!!

Con B2 Mon- Wed.

Excellent summary of last week's classes by María THANKS, MARÍA!!

SUMMARY  28/10/2013

We arrived to class as each day, and we started talking about the last day’s
absences while we were waiting people to arrive.

We remembered the videos that Kate ordered us to watch and we checked the vocabulary. We have learned from that videos words like “mislead”, “disclosure”, “withdraw” and expressions like “to second guess” or “to rubber stamp” … which is interesting and useful to be able to talk in English about these last cases of tracking between countries.

After that, we reviewed some phrases that Kate gave us to discover what they mean… and I think we all did that almost perfect.

Then, we started the spEAking part, talking each other about  stunning* experiences we have had, like playing with the Ouija board, voodoo and stuff. We really enjoyED this part because, in my opinion, we are very talkative.

In the last part of the two hours of class, we listened to a cassette tape about a SOME curious experiments abut telepathy, but we spent quite amount of time in discover what the recordING meant, because we didn’t know about the relationSHIP between  the photographs and I think that we started the exercise a bit confused.

* stunning is more like “striking” in an attractive way. Better to use here strange, weird, surprising, even striking.

SUMMARY  30/10/2013

We started the class at 15.30. Firstly, in groups of four, we talked about the different texts Kate had given us on Monday, and we compared the vocabulary of each text. Then, we all together spoke about the different origins of the Halloween party and we realized that, after all, there are more similarities than differences, so we are more similar than we thought. With these exercise we had learned interesting words like “goblings”, “mischief”, “merger”, “lawn”, “stingy”, etc.

In the second part of the class, after solving some problems with (searchlight?) the projector??, we were watching two scenes of  from the film “Ghost” and after that, we had to answered questions about these two scenes.

I think it was an interesting activity because in dialogues they use quite colloquial expressions, and this is very useful to face any normal conversation. There were expressions like “blur it out”, “get yanked”, “churning”, etc. We have done it in groups of three.

For Monday, we have to answer the film questions (which are uploaded in the blog I suppose) and watch the Jon Steward video and all the videos we have mentioned in class during these week.