WELCOME
Have a good week! Welcome back to school.
CULTURE
Enjoy the rest of your holidays!
HAVE A GOOD LAUGH!
HAPPY 18 HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE!
COUNT THE BLACK DOTS IN THE PICTURE
GOOD LANGUAGE JOKES
A nursery school teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work.
As she got to little Sarah who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. Sarah replied, 'I'm drawing God.' The teacher paused and said, 'But no one knows what God looks like.'
Sarah replied, 'They will in a minute'
Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were playing golf one fine March day. One remarked to the other, 'Windy, isn't it?' No, 'the second man replied, 'it's Thursday.' The third man chimed in, 'So am I. Let's have a beer.'
Where's the English Channel? I don't know - our television doesn't pick it up.
A policeman spotted a jay walker and decided to challenge him, 'Why are you trying to cross here when there's a zebra crossing only 20 metres away?'
'Well,' replied the jay walker, 'I hope it's having better luck than me.'
FUNNY THINGS
Can you find a face in this picture?
Take this personality test.
http://www.naute.com/stories/test.phtml
CRAZY DEFINITIONS
What are armies?
The things you have up your sleevies.
What is aromatic?
An early machine for making arrows.
What is a beetroot?
A potato with very high blood pressure.
What is a cloak?
A croak made by a Chinese frog.
What is a coward?
A man who thinks with his legs.
What is a deadline?
A fence round a graveyard.
What is extinct?
A dead skunk.
What is a pacifist?
Someone who punches you on the nose peacefully.
VALPARAISO, AN UNUSUAL CITY
Click on the following link and you'll access a very good site with information about all sorts of topics related to Valparaiso. You can view it in Spanish or in English. Look for the language option on the right.
http://www.ciudaddevalparaiso.cl/inicio/index.php
OLYMPIC GAMES 2008
The Olympic Games are the greatest sporting event in the world. No matter how many championship titles an athlete collects, to win at the Olympics is often considered to be the ultimate athletic achievement. In the intense pursuit of sporting excellence, stories of true sportsmanship shine. The Olympic motto, ’Citius, Altius, Fortius’, meaning ’Swifter, Higher, Stronger’ best represents the Olympic ideal of excellence, and the OIympic Creed is what these games really mean.
’The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well’.
In these days, this creed acquires even more relevance, because in an increasingly demanding level of excellence, it is hard to resist the temptation of doing things without ’outside help’. It is even harder to do what you have to do based on your own merits.
The 2008 Olympics are about to begin! Only two days to the inaugural ceremony in Beijing, China. The slogan for the 2008 Olympics is ’One World One Dream’, and this expresses the wish people all over the world have in common, inspired by the Olympic ideals, to try their best for the bright future of mankind. In spite of differences in colour, race and language, athletes from everywhere on our planet join to compete in a healthy way and share life experiences.
The link below is the official site of the 2008 Olympics, and here you will be able to find out exactly what is happening every day, have access to online photos, keep up with the latest results, etc. Remember we have an ex-St. Paul’s pupil competing in the shooting competition. Jorge Atalah has practised this sport for years, and takes the spirit of St. Paul’s School with him to Beijing. He already competed in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Good luck to ’Toto’ !
DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?
This is MEAN! And unhelpful, too.
I WOULD LIKE TO BUY A HAMBURGER
As you can see, pronunciation is important!
WHAT IS NECESSARY TO LEARN ENGLISH WELL?
Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don’t start doing things, you will achieve nothing. The fact is, if you want to learn to speak English well, you must change your life. Here are some examples of things you will have to do:
- read a book, article or other in English for half an hour if possible every day, analyzing the grammar in sentences and looking up words in an English dictionary.
- listen to an audiobook or other recording in English, stopping it frequently, trying to understand what is being said, and trying to imitate the speaker’s pronunciation.
- spend your afternoon practicing the pronunciation of the English "r" sound in different words.
- carefully write an e-mail message in English, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence.
- think about an English sentence you’ve read, wondering if it could say "a" instead of "the" in the sentence, and trying to find similar sentences on the Web to find out the answer.
- walk down the street and build simple English sentences in your head (talking to yourself in English about the things you see around you)
- Answer in English when you’re spoken to in English. USE it to communicate.
What kind of person would do all these crazy things? Only one kind. The kind of person who enjoys doing them. If you want to learn to speak English well, you’re going to have to become that person. You cannot hate doing these things. Have you ever heard of a person who became successful by doing something he hated?
The problem with learning and teaching English as a foreign language is that all English learners want to speak English well; however, most learners don’t want to spend time on learning English on their own. (Which is probably why they sign up for English classes and hope their teacher will force knowledge into their heads.)
This lack of motivation means that learners basically don’t spend their own time on learning English, and if they do, they don’t do it regularly. For example, a typical learner might study English phrasal verbs for 12 hours before an English exam. However, he will not read a book in English for 30 minutes every day. He just doesn’t feel that learning English is pleasant enough, so he will only do it if he has to. The problem is that a huge one-time effort gives you nothing, while small, everyday activities will give you a lot.
If you are one of those learners and don’t feel like practicing the pronunciation of the "r" sound or thinking about English sentences every day, I have news for you: You’re going to have to make yourself want to do these things. In other words, you’ll have to work on your motivation. Fortunately, there are techniques to help you with that.
Typical learner vs. motivated learner
Paula is a typical learner of English with a generally low level of motivation. She has occasional moments of high motivation — like the day before her English test or that time when she couldn’t communicate with a foreign customer who called her at work. These kind of situations make her think "I’ve got to do something about my English!". However, they happen very rarely — less than once a month. So even if she studies quite intensively (e.g. for two whole days before an exam), the results are poor, because she forgets 90% of the things she learned within a month. This is no surprise: The way human memory works, you need to review things all the time; otherwise you just forget them.
Now let’s look at a different English learner, Judy. Judy reads a special novel for English learners (written in simplified English) almost every day for 30 minutes. She bought an English-English dictionary and uses it to look up English words whenever she doesn’t understand a sentence in her book. It was hard to study regularly at the beginning: Reading books and using a dictionary were not "normal activities" for her. And every English sentence was a challenge.
But now, after only two weeks, she can read much faster. While reading, she often sees words that she has learned in the past two weeks. When she recognizes such a word, she doesn’t have to look it up in a dictionary and she knows she has made good progress. Judy feels she has learned a lot of English recently, and she is eager to learn more. Every day, she looks forward to reading her book. The book gives her the chance to use what she has learned (enjoy her progress) and to learn even more. Because she reads regularly, she forgets little and her vocabulary keeps growing.
Judy is on the right track. She will soon be able to read English-language newspapers and other resources written for native speakers.
Enjoyment leads to better memory
If you enjoy learning English, you will spend more time on it, and you will do it regularly. A high level of motivation will also give you another advantage. It will be easier for you to memorize new words and grammar structures. The reason is that the brain easily remembers information on a subject that you like. (For example, some people like history and know everything about World War II. If you told a "normal person" to memorize all these facts, they could never do it.) So enjoyment of learning gives you double benefits.
(taken from antimoon.com)
THE HISTORY OF HOT AIR BALLOONING
On the 19th September 1783 Pilatre De Rozier, a scientist, launched the first hot air balloon called ’Aerostat Reveillon’. The passengers were a sheep, a duck and a rooster and the balloon stayed in the air for a grand total of 15 minutes before crashing back to the ground.
The first manned attempt came about 2 months later on 21st November, with a balloon made by 2 French brothers, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. The balloon was launched from the centre of Paris and flew for a period of 20 minutes. The birth of hot air ballooning!!!
Just 2 years later in 1785 a French balloonist, Jean Pierre Blanchard, and his American co pilot, John Jefferies, became the first to fly across the English Channel. In these early days of ballooning, the English Channel was considered the first step to long distance ballooning so this was a large benchmark in ballooning history.
Unfortunately, this same year Pilatre de Rozier (the world’s first balloonist) was killed in his attempt at crossing the channel. His balloon exploded half an hour after takeoff due to the experimental design of using a hydrogen balloon and hot air balloon tied together.
The next major pivotal point in balloon history was on January 7th 1793. Jean Pierre Blanchard became the first to fly a hot air balloon in North America. George Washington was present to see the balloon launch.
Now a large jump in time, of over 100 years: In August of 1932 Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard was the first to achieve a manned flight to the Stratosphere. He reached a height of 52,498 feet, setting the new altitude record. Over the next couple of years, altitude records continued to be set and broken every couple of months - the race was on to see who get reach the highest point.
In 1935 a new altitude record was set and it remained at this level for the next 20 years. The balloon Explorer 2, a gas helium model reached an altitude of 72,395 feet (13.7 miles)! For the first time in history, it was proven that humans could survive in a pressurized chamber at extremely high altitudes. This flight set a milestone for aviation and helped pave the way for future space travel.
The Altitude record was set again in 1960 when Captain Joe Kittinger parachute jumped from a balloon that was at a height of 102,000 feet. The balloon broke the altitude record and Captain Kittinger, the high altitude parachute jump record. He broke the sound barrier with his body!
If you want to learn more about how hot air balloons work, visit the following site. http://www.howstuffworks.com/hot-air-balloon.htm
TRAVEL DOWN THE THAMES WITH WINNIE THE POOH
Have a look at this link http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/riverthames/index.htm.
You will be ablo to trace a journey in company of Winnie the Pooh of the Thames River from its origin to the sea. On the way you have the opportunity of learning more about Great Britain and some history in addition!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE
TEST TIME !
The first unit tests are coming up...and you won't even realise when it's time for the final tests and exams. Make a firm proposal to study with time, and not at the last minute. Last-minute studying is not effective, neither is it healthy. Remember that school is paradise compared to what is expected from you after you leave, either at university or wherever else you choose to study. Pay attention in class, don't waste your(and the teacher's) precious time and take advantage of all the opportunities offered to you.
