Saturday 30 January 2010

CALENDAR

APLE LESSON OUTLINE FEBRUARY 4TH

10 minutes: Listen to this conversation about getting a refund in a shop. Do activity II and if you have problems, have a look at the vocabulary as well. When you finish the quiz, tell me your result.

25 minutes: Practise some more listenings about getting a refund. Listen to 4, 6, 7 & 14 in the part I and 7, 9 &13 in part II. The same as the other day, write the difficult vocabulary you can find as a comment here.

15 minutes: This post is dedicated to all the students who can appreciate beauty. Please read the following story and enjoy the videos:

JOSHUA BELL


'A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people would be going through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work. The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the finest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people.
The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the finest musicians in the world playing the finest music ever written........How many other things are we missing?'

Watch the experiment at the metro station in Washington:







Listen to the video and make a comment with the answers to the questions below:



1. Why is home so special for Joshua Bell?


2. What was his main priority when designing his current house?


3. What are the main differences between playing at a concert hall and playing at home?


4. Name some of the musicians he has worked with in his "At Home With Friends" album and his opinion about them.

Friday 29 January 2010

WEEKEND HOMEWORK

Dear Students,
Here's a new voicethread about The Lost Generation video you watched a couple of weeks ago. Watch it again on the outline for January 14th (scroll down on this page) and comment about it.
Good luck. Hope you like it.




Javier

Tuesday 26 January 2010

APLE LESSON OUTLINE JANUARY 28th


This week it is time to practise about flats, houses, renting, buying, etc.

15 minutes: Go to this site, listening to the conversation hiding the video one or twice until you get to understand it. Then, do the multimedia quiz game on the right.

20 minutes: We are going to practise listening about all the steps of the process, from meeting the realtor (agente inmobiliario) to actually moving in. Make at least one listening in each of the 12 categories. Make a list in Word of all the new vocabulary you have found, look for the translation and copy and paste it here as a comment. Don't forget to write your name at the beginning or at the end so that I can know who you are!!!!

10 minutes: Let's finish practising. More apartments for rent. Do at least sections II and III.
5 minutes: Watch this video about the Winchester Mistery House and answer this questions about it.



1.- Who was the house built by?
2.- When was it started?
3.- How many rooms are there in the house?
4.- How long did it take her to build the house?
5.- According to Sarah, who was haunting her?
6.- What two things did she like?
7.- How much do you have to pay to visit the gift shop?

Friday 22 January 2010

Stephanie Meyer's homework

Deadline: Thursday 28th January.


Saturday 16 January 2010

APLE LESSON OUTLINE JANUARY 21st

Hi, students,
These are your tasks for this week.
10 minutes: watch episode 11 and 12 of The Flatmates: and do the language point and the quiz (in theory you have already done the previous ones).
25 minutes: watch at least twice this video from Stephanie Meyers, the famous authoress of the Twilight Series. Take notes of all the information she gives on a piece of paper. Your homework for the weekend will be to answer orally some questions about the video on a voicethread, but this time only with your notes, not being able to watch the video again. The voicethread with the questions will be ready on Friday evening and the deadline for your task is Thursday 28th.

15 minutes: Practise short listenings here and do the activities. For each minute listening, there is a different one.

Fill in the blanks:
I ____________ how many accidents I’ve had in my life. I’ve had a few serious ones where I’ve ended up in ____________ . Traffic accidents are the worst. They’re always painful. I ____________ had too many work-related accidents. I suppose that’s because I do ____________ work and that’s not so dangerous. Most of my accidents are those around the house. I’ve lost count of the ____________ of times I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer. I’m also really good at standing up and ____________ my head on something. I’m not as bad as my friend ____________ . He’s a real accident looking for somewhere to happen. Almost every time we meet, he has some story to tell about his ____________ accident. He’s ____________ unbelievable. I think I’d be very ____________ if I were his mother.
Correct the spelling:
Being an actor must be treag. I really wish I could act. I’d love to have the confidence to act in tnfor of people. Being a member of the audience at the theatre is great, but acting on tsage is better. I wonder what it’s like to be a movie actor. I think you need to be beautiful or anshomed to be a successful Hollywood or Bollywood actor. They all look great. Actors are very cuylk. They get paid huge mtauosn of money to do what they love doing. My favourite actors are all dead now. I lrlaye like the actors in the old lkbac and white movies. They all looked so cool. Actors in the old days seedme to be more masogluro than today’s actors. The best thing about being an actor is that all of your friends are famous too.

advertising
Unjumble the words:
What is advertising? Is truth is it the or it telling making things look better than they really are? Or is it lying? Companies pay lot money adverts a of for. Some of the ads you see in glossy magazines look like art. The commercials movies mini like look TV on. Do they really change our behaviour? Do adverts make you buy things? I think advertising a of some is form lying. Is BMW really “The ultimate driving machine” their in say they like ads? British Airways used to say they were “The world’s favourite airline,” stop to had but it saying because it wasn’t true. Personally, get of ads I tired watching on television. They always interrupt a good programme. I like ads in magazines. usually They’re interesting quite.

Wednesday 13 January 2010

APLE LESSON OUTLINE JANUARY 14th

Happy New Year to you all. I am a bit disappointed about the fact that only four students have done their English homework on Voicethread. I don't think that is a good way to start the year. Think about your New Year's Resolutions for 2010 (twenty ten).
15 minutes > watch episode 9 and 10 of The Flatmates: and do the language point and the quiz (in theory you have already done the previous ones).

20 minutes > watch at least twice the interview Ophrah did to Penelope Cruz about the premiere of the film "Nine" and answer these questions about it.



1.- Had Penelope ever sung proffesionally before this film?
2,. How long did she rehearse for this film?
3.- Why is Abbey Road so famous?
4.- Why did she lock herself in a room the day of the song recording?
5.- When and how did she decide to become an actress?
6.- What's Penelope's mother's job?
7.- Why was she exhausted at the Oscar Awards Ceremony?

15 minutes > watch this video, try to understand and give your opinion about which option is more likely to happen in the future, the first one or the second one. Who do you think is the author of the video?

Thursday 7 January 2010

VOICETHREAD: Christmas Homework

Have a look at the picture and guess who the woman is. Try to find out as much as you can about her life. Don't forget to mention who you are. I hope you still remember your user and password for voicethread.



Well done, all of you who worked hard on the voicethread. Eva and some other, Eladio Viñuela died about 10 years ago, so Margarita is no longer married. Lara, your volume was really low, try to speak louder next time. Andrés, you can delete the comment and start a new one if you start laughing or don't know what to say. Alvaro, there was nothing in your comment, sorry. By the way, if you have a usb microphone from the Wii, Xbox or PlayStation (Singstar, Sing it, etc.) you can use it to record here. The quality is really good.