Con B2 and B2.2: Another short ecological video clip

This is short  With beautiful images and not difficult to understand.  Kate

Conversation B2 Students coming here: go to newer post of Mar 8 for added doc with related vocabulary. K

Click here

Discussion Questions:

What questions does the author of this video clip ask about humans?

What does he say our mission seems to be?

What does he defend?

How does he describe human beings? Our earth?

In what ways do you think man is destroying the Earth?

How much do you worry about the following issues:

- global warming and climate change

- ecological balance and endangered species

- animal rights and cruelty to animals

-pollution in general

- replacing carbon-based energy with clean energy

- reducing your personal "carbon footprint"

- the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear power plants

Do you think any of these issues are exaggerated? Why or why not? Which are most important?

B2.2 Fri. the 20th and Sat. the 21st SUMMARY

A great summary by Hicham from the Saturday group. It couldn't be more complete if it had been done by me!!!

Hi mates, here you have my Saturday 22th February's class summary.

Foremost and before all else, I want to apologize to Kate about the low rate I had in the last test. I’m astonished about the low level I have shown; it’s true that I did the test in solely 30 minutes just before handing it  in to Kate at the beginning of the class in the cafeteria without having reviewed either the vocabulary or the grammar, but it’s not an excuse at all. I thought I had much better level, but to my surprise, I don't. Anyway, I’ll have it into account for the next test.

1.       In a first moment, we had an interesting exercise which was a mix of writing and speaking, the exercise consisted of writing news about the following topics and tell them aloud to all the class:

·         Conflicts / Violence.

·         Economic News.

·         Political news.

·         Crime.

·         Climate and ecology.

·         Human interests / Sensational news (By the way, Kate told that the translation to the English of “prensa rosa” isn’t “pink press” but “sensational press/yellow press/gossip press”).

2.       The following task was the vocabulary exercise B in page 44 about ordering sentences relateds with conflicts starting by the ones in bold. It was an intriguing one, because to order the sentences in the right way, we had to understand them all.

3.       Listening exercises A, B, C, and D in page 45 about 4 stories:

·         Industrial espionage.

·         Harassment at work.

·         Full body scanner at the airports.

·         Protest about a pig statue at the entrance of a village.

4.       Break.

5.       Speaking 5.A in page 45. There was 7 sentences  to debate, but the most discussed one were:

·         We should never negotiate with a terrorist or not.

·         Wars are a necessity evil or not.

6.       Vocabulary A, in page 46 matching the nouns in the box with their collocations and finding out which ones are both nouns & verbs and which ones are nouns only and what’s their verb.

7.       Reading in pages 46 and 47: “Hope Springs Eternal” and “The truth & reconciliation commission”. At the end of this section, Kate launched a debate about whether the South African transition is comparable to the Spanish one… Personally, I have my profound and deep doubts if they are comparable or not. Normally comparINGe things is not more than highlighting the similarities/resemblances and the differences/contrasts/divergences; The Spanish and the South African transitions aren’t comparable, they have different figures/characters and different plots. The people who suffered during the years before are different, the Spanish ones suffered because of they thought oppositely and had A different ideology to the regime’s, and in the South African ones suffered because of the desire  and greed of the invaders (Germany and England) who wanted to control the riches of the country. The only similarity between them is the suffering although there have been more rapes cases in South Africa.

Learnt vocabulary:

Eyesore (noun)

Global warming (noun)

Money laundering (noun).

House arrest (noun)

OVERTURN (a verdict) (verb)

Bailout (noun and verb).

Junk Bond (noun).

Overthrow (verb).

Make amends (phrasal verb).

Cold blooded (adj).

The writing is on the wall (Idiom).

B2.2 summary and homework of last class for Fri. and Saturday classes

Rene from the Friday group made this summary:

Friday 14/ February

Summary

At the beginning of the class we made some sentences using 2nd and 3rd conditionals with some words studied at the beginning of the unit, then, we studied and practice giving negatives or private information making short conversations in pairs.

then we reviewed the home work: Grammar C and Vocabulary B, and also we completed exercise of grammar and vocabulary in page 43.

We listened to some people in a conflict situation in a shop, a domestic conflict about housework and at work and made sentences wiht WISH and min role-plays regarding them.

After the break we played a bid game using present perfect sentences; studied the vocabulary "War and Peace" in page 44 and then the listening in page 46.

For homework we have to do B and A OF Vocabulary in page 44 and also the reading in page 46.  Kate reminded us that next Friday is the last date to send her the Grammar Test. Have a nice week.

And another, more detailed summary from Adela:

Hey mates!

The last day in class, the first part we discussed some mistakes that we had in the grammar test, after that, we did an exercise to review the conditionals and use words like “slam, sulk ..." and to specify what function they had had in our sentences.

We continued with another exercise in which we had to create a dialog to use expressions which introduce negative information, such as "with all due respect, to put it bluntly ... “.

We ended this first part correcting exercises C of grammar and vocabulary on page 43.

In the second part of the class, we heard three conversations about different conflicts, we had to say who the protagonists were, where they were and what was the conflict, besides we had to use what we had heard to write a sentence with “I wish" and other one with an expression to introduce negative information.

After, we did teams to play auctions, between several sentences, some of them with mistakes, we had to bet our money (100) for those which more reliable.

We ended the class with the listening exercise on page 45 and talking about the use of language to refer to conflicts.

For this week we have to do the exercises B and D on page 44.

B2.2 and all students: Interesting video about sustainable growth

This video clip is connected with conversations and listenings we have done in class and is fairly easy to understand.CLICK HERE:If you click onto youtube at the bottom right and then onto something that looks like an envelope, you will have subtitles in English. At the beginning, what's written is quite wrong - for example, they say "how much bull* can the world suffer" and the subtitles say "how many all can I supper!" - but after that they get better!  * bull is short for "bullshit" which is a slang way of saying "lies". It is interesting.
For those of you who had trouble with the first section of the Grammar Test, I'm including a work sheet  on the use of the Present Perfect, Present Perfect Continuous and the Past tenses.  

Click here:

B2.2 Friday and Saturday classes

Last week I told you I would post a Grammar Review test for you to do and email me or hand on the

14th or 15th. Click here for Grammar Review test

Another activity to keep you busy is the FIRST POST ON THIS BLOG. JANUARY 25 2012.  It's connected with the idea of love songs in commemoration of Valentine's Day. It's an attractive post and activity and in the past students have enjoyed it and shared a lot.

Its title is AT LAST: ETTA JAMES (Valentine's Day)

Saturday group: Remember there is NO CLASS on February 8th.

AND Alejandro from the Friday class didn't send me the summary, so:

VERY BRIEFLY:

Before the break, we did  different  activities to review
 1.  reacting to sentences about an emotional experience,
2.  Use of  MUST and MUST HAVE  as logical conclusion about someone's feelings, as opposed to SHOULD / SHOULDN'T HAVE  that shows regret for something done or not done.
3. Use of 2 nouns together, the first as a modifier.

 Then we spoke about reading habits and related questions in small groups (top of p. 40)

After the break, we listened several times to a Listening activity about Oprah Winfrey and book clubs and did the related questions, vocabulary and speaking exercises.

Finally, we talked about the 5 books on .41 and filled in the correct answer.

FOR HOMEWORK, I ASKED YOU TO WRITE A PARAGRAPH ABOUT A BOOK YOU LIKED.