Last week we were talking in class about interesting opening and closing sentences of famous books. And look what I’ve discovered today on The Telegraph website, a gallery with 30 interesting opening sentences of famous works, starting with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (my favourite).
How many of these books have you read? Which one do you think you would enjoy reading?
Just click on the picture below to see the gallery.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
Thank you, María Valdés, for sharing this article.
But if you really want to know first hand what Thanksgiving is about, you can listen to President Obama himself explaining it here or here.
And as every year, we are embedding our classic favourit, Obama pardoning his Turkey. Don’t miss it if you want to laugh a bit with his great sense of humour.
Today, Obama or Romney are going to be elected President of the United States. The process to decide who is going to rule the most important nation of the world is very long and complicated, that’s why we would like to make it clearer for you.
The first resource is a very simple website where you can read all about the process, the requirements to be eligible as a president, information about the candidates for president and vice-president, the campaign, etc. The same site offers another list of resources that you can find clicking here.
Finally we highly recommend you to watch this video, “Electing a US President in Plain English”. It’s taken from The Commoncraft Show. If you want to read the transcript of the video, you can find it here, under the video you can see “video info and transcript”, click there.
Who’s your candidate, Obama or Romney? What differences can you see between the Spanish and the US electoral system? What do you think about stars openly supporting their candidate? Please leave your answers in the comments section.
In class we talked about the Tate Modern Art Museum, an old factory building on the Thames River which is now one of the most important modern art galleries in the world. Go to the website www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern and see if you can find the answers to the questions on the photocopy I gave you. The answers will be on the wall in your next lesson so you can check them.
I think the Tate Modern is a fantastic place to visit, even if you don’t like the art. Many temporary exhibitions are interactive. The Turbine Hall is the very big hall in the entrance and each year an artist is invited to exhibit his/her art in it. One year, an artist installed a massive sun and people lay on the floor and relaxed in the light (people in England don’t get as much sun as in the Canaries!).
This year, Tino Seghal is the invited artist and his exhibition is performance art. About 30 people run around the hall in a kind of disorganised choreography. Suddenly they stop and start singing (in quite a scary way), and the lights go out one by one until you are alone with the voices in the dark. It’s very impressive. The rest of the time, they come and speak to you and tell you experiences of their lives – are they true? I went in the summer, and the first man told me about his nervous breakdown, then a woman told me about her experiences of travelling alone round the world. You don’t know how to react. One thing is sure – if you want conversation practice in English, then go to this exhibition!!! Watch this video of the singing in the Turbine Hall. Is it art? What do you think?
As every fourth Thursday in November, Thanksgiving is celebrated today in the USA. Years before we have published other articles mentioning this event (you can read them here and here), so you can go back to them and read what this celebration is about.
This year, President Barack Obama himself is going to explain to you what Thanksgiving means for every American. Apart from that, he is also pardoning life to a turkey, as the president of the USA does every year.
After watching the video (shot yesterday) think what you can feel thankful for and feel free to write it down on our comments section.
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