"Arizona among 16 states reporting tainted melons"

This new comes from the Google news. It was published on the 23rd March (2008). There’s a salmonella outbreak in Arizona. About 40 people in 16 states have become sick because of tainted cantaloupes from Honduras. Now, the melons are being reported and the Food and Drug Administration is investigating this issue.


New vocabulary:
Among (entre)
Tainted (contaminat)
Cantaloupe (tipus de meló)
Spokeswoman (portaveu)
Grocer (botiguer)
Purchased (comprat)
Salmonella outbreak (brot de salmonel•la)
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"Lansing area can expect snowy Easter"

This new from the Google News (March 23, 2008) comes from the Lansing State Journal.
The weather forecast says that maybe, this Easter, there will be wind and snow or rain, especially in Lansing (Michigan), with temperatures between 15 and 35 degrees. Spring is here but winter doesn’t want to leave.

New vocabulary:
Forecaster (home del temps)
Expected (esperat)
Gust (ràfega)
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"Dollar rally against euro and yen"

This new from http:// news.bbc.co.uk on 20th March (2008) talks about the current situation that involves the dollar, the euro, the yen, etc. The dollar has had a soft recovery, but it’s still weak. Analysts speculate about what can happen next weeks but they aren’t very optimistic.

New vocabulary:
Sharp (punxa)
Drop (desnivell / caiguda)
To boost (empènyer / aixecar la moral/ impulsar)
Rate (índex / taxa)
To bounce (rebotar)
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"What the summit achieved on CO2"

This is a new from http:// www .bbc.co.uk appeared on 16^th of March (2008). It talks about the future in the EU and what can happen with the CO2 emissions after and before the Copenhagen summit (2009). We can see Mrs. Merkel’s opinion. We can also see that it’s a critical problem because a change benefits some people, but annoys other people too.

New vocabulary:
To achieve (aconseguir)
Greenhouse (hivernacle)
Tough (dur)
Leakage (fuita)
Fallback (alternativa)
To outrage (indignar)
Trader (comerciant)

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"McLaren rule out ‘Spygate’ appeal"

News from http:// news.bbc.co.uk/, 26th September 2007. Topic: motor sport (sports). The article talks about the spying row happened in the 2007 Formula One Championship. The FIA found some e-mails sent by Fernando Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa. Also, the team suspended the chief designer, who had documents of Ferrari in his house. At the end, McLaren were found guilty of espionage and deprived of the points got.

New vocabulary:
To focus on (centrar-se en)
Huge (enorme)
Ongoing (en curs)
Appeal (crida)
Rule out (descartar)
Row (escàndol)
Abating / to abate (apaivagar-se)
To be found (ser declarat)
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"Chupa Chups tries to keep it real"

This is a new from “Catalonia Today” (17th January 2008). It talks about the company created in Catalonia in 1958 and its most famous brand: a simple sweet stuck on a stick. There’ve been created around 127 flavors and some of them are very strange, like 7UP, Pepsi, Marcilla Coffee, natural herbs, etc.
This product has always been surrounded by glamour, marketing campaigns and famous people like Dalí or the Spice Girls.
The founder of this money printer died in 2003 and in 2006 a multinational bought that brand. Now, chupa-chups is trying to survive in a very competitive world with different thoughts than the world which saw when it was born.

words/expressions learnt:
flavor (gust)
stuck ((adj.)enganxat)
stick ((n.)pal) Read more!

Frankenstein: summary and differences between the film and the book

The story of Victor Frankenstein is a fiction story. It was written by Mary Shelley. It tells the tragedies of a man who disobeyed the nature trying to avoid the death and creating life. But he forgot something in his experiment: the importance love and care. His egoism and ambition lead him to the suffering and the solitude.

The story ends with tragedy, death and sadness, but there’s hope too, because it gives a warning. This story teaches what we can’t ever do, what needs to be changed to avert doing mistakes in the future. We need to know that life is something very serious. This message is received by the captain of a boat and his crew, who will bring this knowledge to the rest of the world.

There are some differences between the book we have read (an adaptation of the original) and the film directed by Kenneth Branagh (1994):

First of all, Victor had more brothers in the book than in the film, and his mother died because of a disease, not because of some problems in the birth of Victor’s brother. In the book, Victor meets Henry Clerval when they are child, not in the university (film). Moreover, Henry doesn’t know his intentions, but in the film he is always with Victor and he advises him to stop the experiments.
In the book, the monster strangles Elizabeth, but in the film he pulls out her heart. Also, in the book, Victor doesn’t do anything with Elizabeth’s inert body, while in the film he revives her.

In spite of these differences, the story is very original and it makes some conflictive questions about the progress of the science. I am a bit surprised because this problem was questioned in 1818 and it’s still a relevant topic. I think the book is better than the film because when I read the book I imagined some things different than what I’ve watched in the film.

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Summary: Sleepy Hollow

The doctor Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) goes to Sleepy Hollow from New York City to investigate some murders that have happened in the village. There is something mysterious: a headless horseman appears at night and decapitates people with his sword. But the strangest thing is that the horseman takes away the heads and nobody founds them.

People can’t hide through the forest because they are frightened of him.

Ichabod investigates with Young Masbath, the son of one of the victims, and Katrina Van Tassel, the mayor’s daughter. They discover the tomb of the rider, but his skull isn’t there.

When they reveal some dark stories about the village, they find the cause of these happenings: A woman has stolen the skull and manipulates the rider killing the people of the village.

At the end, the headless horseman recovers what’s his. Then, he finishes with the woman and rests in peace.

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Description of a person

Her face is like an old scenery. Under the wide forehead there are two bright and wise, alive and eager eyes, protected by thin eyebrows.
An aquiline nose grows imposing, giving a bit of majesty.
The mouth, with thin and soft colored lips, when she smiles, shows the white and perfect teeth. Her chin is moderately stand out, a little bit sharp.
The time and the weather have left wrinkles all over the face. Each expression is followed by a skin movement that creates lots of small mountain chains separated by deep faults. She has short hair because she says that the age of long hair has passed for her. The definitive grey has invaded it with some white streaks.
She walks a bit hunched, taking the years on her back, but she doesn’t need any help: With her skinny hands and thin legs, she moves wherever she wants.
Her character is very strong and it’s hard to change her mind.
Now she wants to travel. It’s her thrill. Problems and duties have gone away and her husband isn’t here. Her children have given her some grandchildren.
With peace and happiness she faces the last years of her life. “I’ll sleep when I’ll be dead” she says. That’s my grandmother, an 83 years young woman.
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My level of English around Europe

LP-118241.doc

Hosted by eSnips

CONCLUSIONS: Well, I’ve finished the tests and it says that my level of English is the B1-B2.
But I think that this isn’t very serious because there are some bugs. For example, there was an exercise that said something like “choose the word that is the opposite of the word in CAPITALS of this sentence” and... there wasn’t a sentence!!!

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Second Oral Presentation

PRESENTATION: We had got a PowerPoint to show our presentation, with a lot of photos of dishes and other
things. We wanted to make them feel like eating with those images.

BODY LANGUAGE AND EYE CONTACT: I was more relaxed than in the first presentation. I looked to the audience or to the screen, changing depending on the content of the information. At first, I was holding the paper but I leant on the table because my hand was shaking. At the end, I left it on the table because it was impossible for me to read and I wasn’t nervous. Another thing that I think it was better than in the first presentation, is that when I didn’t remember a word I used a synonym and I continued.

CONTENT: We introduced new information to the audience. We looked for information about the food culture, the traditions and the dishes in the internet. The information was quite detailed and I think it was original.

LANGUAGE: We checked the grammar in the dictionary and we looked for expressions and words related to the world of food (dishes). I used a lot “as you can see” or “also”.

PRONUNCIATION & ENTONATION: I extended the words but I think I did it less than in the first presentation. Apart from this, I think that my pronunciation isn’t very bad.

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Description of a landscape

It’s a sunny day in February. It’s half past two and I’m sitting on a bench, in a small park surrounded by a road in front of me and on my left side. It separates the park from the town. On my back there are three houses in building process and a hole with space for another one. Finally, on my right hand there is an uninhabited field, maybe it’s waiting for its turn to be occupied by new buildings and families.

The sky is cloudless, with light sky blue color and a blazing sun. The park is all covered by an irregular layer of grass, touched by the breeze, except for a square of sand in the middle.

The grass spreads over the ground with green and light brown areas because of the night frost. Trees are naked and some daisies have grown together announcing the coming spring.

In the square of sand there are some swings made of wood and tires.

Twelve benches are shared around the park and there are some fungus living there, creating a cover with yellow, white and brown stains.

Streetlights now are switched off, waiting for the night, when they will open their eyes.

Small birds are singing loudly, but sometimes their song is lost by the sound of cars and the noises of the trowels.

If I look beyond the road, first of all, I can see some new houses and workshops of the town, an old town that was built on a little hill thousands of years ago. Beyond those houses, there is the town centre with a half Gothic and half Romanesque cathedral on the peak of the land, showing the power that, once, had made this town become one of the most important villages of the region.

Far away, weakly shaped, there are some mountains, hidden under the white snow that, in a few weeks, will start to thaw giving way to the new season.

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First Oral Presentation

OBSERVATION OF MY CLASS PRESENTATION:

NAME AND TOPIC: Childhood Toys

PRESENTATION: I had got a PowerPoint to show my presentation but I didn’t want a very long presentation and I joined the photos in a collage, that I think it didn’t leave the audience indifferent.

BODY LANGUAGE AND EYE CONTACT: I was very nervous and tense (as you can see with my posture). I looked to the audience, to the screen, and to the audience again, but not always to the same person. I didn’t read, but I became stuck for instants, then my gestures betrayed me (I took my nose because I was nervous, it’s like a barrier, and I put my hands into my pockets). After this incident I relaxed a bit, maybe because I had the collage.

CONTENT: I didn’t want to introduce new information to the audience. I wanted to make them remember their favorite toys when they were child, because I think that now we are busy with our worries and we don’t remember when we were the happiest person of the world with a simple box of crayons. I didn’t look up information. I looked for photos. I tried to make it original and detailed.

LANGUAGE: I checked my grammar in the dictionary and I looked for some expressions and words related to the world of toys. I used some sentence linkers like moreover (I learned it with this presentation).

PRONUNCIATION & ENTONATION: I think one of my mistakes was to extend the words. It happens a lot of times (well, during all the presentation). I had a very big interruption. Apart from this, I think that my pronunciation isn’t very bad.

SELF-EVALUATION: Well, if you let me do it, I won’t evaluate myself because I can’t stand to do it.

LITERAL TRANSCRIPTION:

Hello, good morning everybody! My name’s Adrià, I’m sixteen and I live in Vila-Sacra. I play handball in the Esplais Handball Team, I like drawing and I love cars.

Today I’m going to talk about something that maybe makes you be...makes you feel... (I wanted to say “makes you feel identified”.)

Moreover, Christmas is coming, and it’s their time. And maybe you’ve seen a lot of advertisements on TV. I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about.

Yes, toys. But they are not single toys; they are your childhood toys.

It doesn’t need to be a very big or expensive object. It’s sometimes a simple toy but you can play with it a lot of hours, days... and they are very special. Maybe, then you can gat a new one but it surely won’t be the same.

Here you have some of these toys:

First, there is a ball: with a ball you could play everywhere, with anyone (I wanted to say “anybody”). And I’m sure that your balls always finished on a roof, on the neighbour floor, but it was a great time to play with that. (I improvised because the original sentence was very complicated.)

Then, there are some crayons: With a crayon (a box of crayons) you can have (draw) a lot of pictures and it’s the best way to release your imagination and it’s very simple “also” (it’s also very simple/cheap). But I think there were a lot of papers (Lots of papers drawings and you draw until the crayons were very little (small).

There are (is) a bike. It has three or four wheels at start because you don’t know to ride but then, when you learn riding (to ride) you’ll never forget it. Well, a bike, I think, when you get a bike, when you are little, is like when you are eighteen and you get your first car; you are like a big child.

Then, there are the construction toys, with blocks or magnets. Once, with construction toys, I’m sure that you built a very big castle, the greatest castle of the world and then you broke it to keep it into the box. But the castle always was better than last but wore than the next one.

Finally, there are a lot of dolls. There are a lot of types like persons, animals, aliens, robots...And each one for each person but all of them with a lot of stories.

Well, there are a lot of more toys, but now I’ll show you my favorite childhood toy. These are my small cars. I played with them all of my home (I think It’s not very correct). They were on the doors, windows... everywhere, but. Every thing was good to make race, to make a parking, also (even) a traffic delay, you know? There are a lot of types but my favorite was a green one and there was also an ambulance (well, between my favorite car and the ambulance there were more cars but...). That’s all of my presentation but now I want to ask you: which are your childhood toys...

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Formal letter (by Marina Sarquella and Adrià Carmona)

8, Migdia Street
Vilasacra
Girona
17485
17th April 2008

The Major
Vilasacra
17485
Town Hall
28, Castelló Street


Dear madam,

We are writing to you because this is our 6th year in this village and we have some ideas to improve the welfare state of Vilasacra.
First of all we think that the public transport is not so good and it’s necessary to give a better service by increasing the number of buses.
Secondly, we have seen that in Summer there aren’t enough activities to do and a public swimming pool could be a perfect idea for children and adults.
In our opinion , the village is quite comfortable and well coming, but maybe it needs to be lively by organising some weekend activities.

Thank you for your attention , and we hope that you think about our ideas.

Yours faithtfully,

MARINA SARQUELLA & ADRIÀ CARMONA

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