1stIntermediate_session29Sep08
If you didn’t come to class yesterday or you couldn’t do all the activities recommended, now you can take your time to do them at your convenience:
Useful links:
Avilés EOI website
English File Intermediate Website
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- Listening and vocabulary: Choose from the list of listenings about your book’s first important vocabulary topic: Food and restaurants
- Reading, writing and speaking. I’ve borrowed this interesting activity from Mª José, another teacher: personal-questions
Dear students
Dear students,
A new academic year has just arrived and here we come again!
New mates, new classroom, new books… and probably a new teacher too.
To those who have already been my students, I’d like to say welcome back, but if you’ve never been in my classes before, I’m glad to be your teacher this year. To all of you I wish you a good year and I hope all your expectations, and mine!, for the forthcoming months will come true.
See you in class!
Elena Espina
The Guardian Q & A
Julie Walters, 58, was born in Birmingham. After training as a nurse, she studied drama at Manchester Polytechnic, then joined the Everyman theatre in Liverpool. At 33, she landed her first film role, in Educating Rita, for which she won a Bafta and her first Academy Award nomination. She has since starred in films including Calendar Girls, the Harry Potter series and Mamma Mia! She is married with a daughter, Maisie, and lives in Sussex. Her autobiography, That’s Another Story, is published next week by Orion.
When were you happiest?
Seeing Maisie’s face for the first time.
What is your greatest fear?
Every mother’s fear: something untoward happening to her child.
What is your earliest memory?
The smell of the hood on my pram when my mother wiped it with a damp cloth.
Which living person do you most admire?
My dentist!
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The desire to please.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Intolerance.
What was your most embarrassing moment?
Having a dutch cap fitted and the woman saying, ‘I know you, don’t I?’
Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you have bought?
A RAV4: I live on a farm.
What is your most treasured possession?
Things Maisie made when she was little.
Where would you like to live?
Where I live. We’ve been here 13 years, farming organically.
What makes you depressed?
People’s inhumanity.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My round shoulders – although they have been very useful at times!
Who would play you in the film of your life?
Tracey Ullman, because everyone used to confuse us.
What’s your most unappealing habit?
I do it only when I am on my own – eating like a pig and licking my plate.
What is your favourite book?
The Borrowers – it got me reading.
What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
A nun. Then I could wear the habit and smoke and drink… I went to a convent.
What is the worst thing anyone’s said to you?
When my daughter was very ill when she was two, we were at a fete and someone came up and said, ‘Is this the famous daughter with leukaemia?’
What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Eating chocolate.
What do you owe your parents?
Drive, sense of humour, bravery.
To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
To my family, for being totally stressed half the time.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Maisie and my husband, Grant.
What does love feel like?
It puts everything in perspective. It can also be painful.
What was the best kiss of your life?
Grant’s first one. I met him in a bar in Fulham 23 years ago.
Which living person do you most despise, and why?
It used to be Thatcher. I suppose Bush.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Ian Charleson, a lovely man who died. Also my mum and dad.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
‘As the actress said to the bishop.’ It comes out like a nervous tic.
What is the worst job you’ve done?
Testing ill people’s stools at a hospital.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
I don’t go in for disappointment.
How do you relax?
Soaps and the Guardian crossword.
What is the closest you’ve come to death?
I was with a friend in Corfu, swimming to a rock off the coast. A storm whipped up, it was really choppy and when we got there I was too exhausted to get on the rock. I thought, ‘I’m going to drown’ but this bloke pulled me out.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My family.
How would you like to be remembered?
As someone who was good.
Where would you like to be now?
On holiday with my family, lying on a beach with nothing to do.
Tell us a joke.
An elephant met a mouse in the jungle and the mouse said, ‘Bloody hell, you’re absolutely enormous.’ And the elephant said, ‘Well, you’re really, really little.’ And the mouse said, ‘Yes, but I haven’t been well.’
The boy in the striped pyjamas or pajamas?
The boy in the striped pyjamas/pajamas is the title of a best-seller by the Irish writer John Boyne . The book, “set during World War II, tells a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences”.
What I most liked about reading this book was the fact that the drama was not really explicit, but that was even the most dramatic about it: the lack of awareness on the part of the children with respect to what was happening in and ouside the camp. It was so naive, and moving and sad at the same time!
A film based on this book will be released next weekend in Spain. I’ve just had a look at the trailer today, and although the movie might be good and interesting to see, I still recommend you the book better.
Both the book and the film based on it have the same title but the last word is written sometimes pyjamas and other times pajamas. Well, in fact both spellings are correct: pyjamas in British English (Br E) and pajamas in American English (Am E). One of the aspects of American and British English differences is spelling, about which you can test yourselves on this site: CLICK HERE
Have you had a few problems with the test? Perhaps you would like to read more in depth about spelling differences in the Wikipedia or just to read through this list, which also takes Canadian English differences into account.
But if you still feel disappointed with yourself because you find this topic a bit hard to digest, cheer up because spelling is not? so important to understand written English. You can have a bit of fun trying to read this from www.say-it-in-english.com:
IQ Test
Can you raed tihs? Olny srmat poelpe can. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig, huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
If Everyone Cared
I thought you might watch this interesting video, just for fun. But, on seconds thoughts, there’s more than a nice song and some special effects. Why don’t you listen for the message behind the lyrics? The title of the song gives you the clue: “If everyone cared”. Do you agree with this Canadian band, Nickelback? What would happen if everyone cared?
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