our Developed immoral world - checking 2014 headines today - Genuine Frauds

New Jounalists at work at   MAG CATALONIA TODAY.

ORAL TASK 2-  C1 SORRY or WORRYING...

  

You are preparing an article titled 

our Developed immoral world

for the new issue of the  MAG. 

Discuss with your partner  

these 3  rusty news  you want to use

You may find worth  evaluating 

what exactly the headlines mean. 

   

          TIPS: 

•  So long to catch them red handed? 

• React to ONE headline

• Heard of similar events around?

• elaborate: odd or normal?

1) German motoring club ADAC reveals ‘car of the year’ fraud

The 19-million member Allgemeine Deutsche Automobil Club  is Europe’s largest motoring organisation. In a nation renowned for worshipping the car, it has for decades served as a powerful political lobby and ostensibly as a champion of drivers’ interests. 

But today that reputation was shattered following an admission by Michael Ramstetter, the ADAC’s communications chief executive, that he had for years falsified voting results in the club’s annual so called “Golden Angel” competition – a highly regarded membership ballot which chooses Germany’s favourite car of the year.Mr Ramstetter, 60, admitted to Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung that he had increased the number of ADAC member votes tenfold for this year’s award which went to the Volkswagen Golf. “I have been bloody silly,” he  said.

           The Independent             

ADAC admits making up car award votes

2) Vatican cleric Scarano charged with money-laundering

A senior Italian cleric (accountant over 20 years) has been charged with laundering millions through the Vatican bank, police say. 

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is already on trial and under house arrest on separate charges of plotting to smuggle 20m euros ($26m; £17m) into Italy.
The former Vatican accountant and two other people were served with arrest warrants on Tuesday, police said.

3)  Theft of Data Fuels Worries in South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — A string of senior executives at three credit card companies in South Korea offered to resign on Monday after a huge theft of client data that may have affected 20 million people in this nation of 50 million.

Prosecutors arrested a 39-year-old technician hired by the Korea Credit Bureau, a ratings firm hired to help improve their systems to protect client data. It was subsequently disclosed that the man stole personal information on 104 million credit cards.

The man, identified only his last name, Park, stole the data from May 2012 to December 2013, copying it onto a USB device, prosecutors said. 

The data included the names, phone and South Korean social security numbers, email and residential addresses, salaries, monthly card use and other credit-rating information of clients, the Financial Supervisory Service, a regulatory agency, said in a statement. In many cases, card numbers were stolen as well.

oral 2_ Euphemisms and oxymorons - Holidays at work

Working holiday campaign

    Don’t be a moron this summer.  

Anyone can stand a Couch Potato July ahead?

      Go outside your comfort zone…

Workcamps are not vacations, so you don’t expect to do tourism. You may do some cultural visits, but it’s not the aim of the project.  

You’ll be part of a local project and you’ll be living with local people, try to think about the impact of your presence there in a positive and in a negative way.

Take part in a new activity:  click here

TASK 1.  Tell your partner which is the one you'd like to attend.

            You can join your european voluntary project 

 in SCI Catalunya office 

a) give support in the task of:

a1) sending and hosting volunteers, 

a2) helping local groups, 

b) make promotion of workcamps, 

c) offer and participate in trainings, 

...... and a lot of other things!

ORAL TASK 2.  Discuss with your  partner

                      Working holiday campaign

• the greatness /silliness of doing a working holidays experience.

•    the adequacy of the pictures above

CODA.   Find your favourite OXYMORON  and 
             compose a long sentence. Check your friends!

Two words with contradicting meanings used together.
Something that appears self-contradictory, often a ridiculous comparison. 
Conjoining contradictory terms.

Some paradoxical oxymorons you may know as they become clichés:


   group 1  

• Irregular pattern

• Real utopias

• Bitter sweet

• Deafening silence

• Forward retreat

• Noisy silence

• Quiet riot

• Serious joke

• Sweet sorrow

   group 2  


Unjust Law

Tax Return

Airline Food

Alone Together

Taped Live

Peace Force

Anarchy Rules

Affordable Housing

French Resistance

Rap Music

From American politics   Chuckle a little bit:

• The news reported that he had died of death by friendly fire.

•  Eight years of "Compasionate Conservatism"

• Amazing " Open-minded Conservative"

   group 3 -  with  4 sets  

SET 1       Legally drunk     Exact estimate     Act naturally  
                 Resident alien        Genuine imitation        Good grief

SET 2           Passive aggression      Clearly misunderstood      Peace force
                  Extinct life            Plastic glasses               Terribly pleased 

SET 3          Computer security          Political science        Definite maybe
                    Pretty ugly               Same difference      Almost exactly

SET 4           Silent scream                New classic        Childproof

                Terribly pleased                Diet ice cream   Exact estimate 

OLWrP_END of TERM_. Cosmopolitan accents in Girona. The English HOUR presents... a listening project

INTEGRATED SKILLS.

Cooperative work.
Ready, steady, learn!

a) Listen to take notesb) From notes,  write both questions with answersThen, offered them to class mates so they can ... 

c) listen with a focusand ...d) test themselves (check with KEY)

Honing our listening skills with THE ENGLISH HOUR interviews

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Bored stiff with your English study time ... Put aside any dull homework... 

Try this project: El punt AVUI- THE ENGLISH HOUR interviews

For an index:  see the 12 talks     here   

OLWrP_November.

This month,

Let's do  our 
  listening test with
 The English HOUR

TASK 1.  Listen to the first 10 min .

Catalan connections with Marcela Topor (20/04/2016  

--  25 min) interviews today  Irish historian  Mary Nash.

Video: http://www.elpuntavui.tv/video/163578867.html

Q1.  She admits an interest on Hispanic history issues.  How long has she lived in Spain? and in what sense is she important to us?

           

Q2. How did she decide to start her search on gender studies in Spain?

Q3. How was it that she went to undergraduate studies again?

Q4. What was the topic of her research with professor Giralt?

Q5. In which sense was her choice of studies outrageous?

Q6.  What were the difficulties to get acces to her historical materials? Name three

Q 7.  Mary Nash accepts a bit reluctantly the adjective... you were brave". How does she  accept it?

Q 8.  Mary Nash had to fight to get her work recognised. In which ways did she explain it?

Q9. When asked if she could agree on the gender equality in the academic sector nowadays, what did she say?

Get ideas for your SPRING ORAL PROJECT here:

http://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com.es/2016/04/the-last-straw-my-spring-oral-project.html

REVIEW on The English HOUR.   November project.

TASK2.  Explore the rest of the Mary Nash's recorded programs.

Now set 40 minutes ahead with no noise, interference:

TAKE NOTES!! from minute 10:05 to min 18:50. 

TASK 2.1.  Listen to the  talk and go ahead on her work as a historian, the subject matter.

TASK 2.2.  Prepare  a Listen-to-Write text.  200 words.  in 35 minutes

KEY to our listening test. 

Q1.  She admits an interest on Hispanic history issues.  How long has she lived in Spain? and in what sense is she important?

 0.45:  a:  Almost a lifetime! and she opened a new field Women studies! (now Gender studies) 

Q2. How did she decide to start her search on gender studies in Spain? -long answer

2:21  a: A fellowship in Turin. She discovered the Mediterranian... She came to Barcelona in the early 70's. 

Q3. How was it that she went to undergraduate studies again?

 2:51  a:  she could not get her Univ  of Cork degree accepted. She turned up a student again.  With her researcher background she went into new interests. The Barcelona  librarians had guarded  worth clandestine info in "hell" (closed vault.). 

Q4. What was the topic of her research with professor Giralt?

4:20  a:  women's agency and protagonism in the Republica and the civil war. 

Q5. in which sense was her choice of studies outrageous?

4:44  a:  The tutor  did not understand her studies, but was liberal about her work, tolerated her transgression on a new field. 

Q6.  What were the difficulties to get acces to her historical materials? Name three

5:26  a:  Go to Salamanca, under military  rule, .... not to be sent to jail, young woman more difficult. Being told she invented the "proof of her work" as nobody knew the documents. 

Q 7.  Mary Nash accepts a bit reluctantly the adjective... you were brave". How does she  accept it?

6:35  a:   I was young, rebellious, living with an Irish passport researcher helped. 

Q 8.  Mary Nash had to fight to get her work recognised. In which ways did she explain it?

7:25  a:  the field of WOMEN history was not established yet. Hard to accept it as a "real" field of research.7:50   Few women in the faculty as professors at top positions 1970's  

Q9. When asked if she could agree on the gender equality in the academic sector nowadays, what did she say?

8:35  a: Not in Brussels, neither Spain nor Bcn. Professorships 25%, associated professors ... slightly more. There is a glass ceiling and a large dropout. In a sense it is equal per se, BUT there are still many discriminating practices, with  large profile and awesome work done by women.

the road of improvement -integrating skills

"Yesterday I was clever, so I changed the world. 

Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

 –  Persian polymath Rumi (died 1273)

We did these things scattered  in our classes. 


Here I compile them hoping you may find them useful.

These are the contents you will find here:

 A) ORAL       SKILLS. 

  B) QUALITY          texts

ORALS TASKS AS IN THE EXAM. 

WRITTEN   TASKS AS IN THE EXAM.

   reflecting on experience: Aldous Huxley:

 'Experience is not what happens to you; 

it is what you do with what happens to you.’

FIRST and foremost, authentic texts.


   A) ORAL SKILLS.

A1. pronunciation  study time.  MOSTLY  neglected by learners,  at their own peril.

Relevant info in our infosheets and in this entry:

Pronunciation reflective work. I would like to get your attention to these subskills today. ORAL SKILLS_ Work with longer passages (40 -100 seconds) you choose WITH a model. Divide the passages into bits of 15-25 seconds. keep a diary if you think you are learning and reflect on the things you find difficult.

           https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2013/11/pronunciation-webpage-dailyesl.html

My own favourite: https://www.ezslang.com/You can not find conversation opportunities, i hear you say....There is fat chance of improving your spoken performance if you do not SPEAK at home, alone. Give it a go.

A2. A study technique: Parallel reading  (from memorable scenes or dialogues)

Relevant info in this entry:

https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2011/10/parallel-reading-with-films-scenes.html



   B). QUALITY texts  include uses of cultural bits of the target language.

We dealt with them in  a handful of occasions in class. I copy here several of them


B.1.  LANGUAGE PROJECT- on any of your TWO readers
We did 12 different worksheets. 

• Compile/ Study 33 interesting expressions, and explain them. 

• Did you miss the chance to write an essay/negative Review?

B.2.  FOCUS ON CONTENT.  I Remind you that language is there.

Study an article, a long one, How is the text coherent?
   a) select  these: 4 adjectives, 4 adverbs, 4 collocations,
    b) 3 interesting grammar parts / 3 syntax  bits / 2 complex sentences.


READ this entry to guided directions
THEN, as an output, create a good lond summary. That is the best chance you indeed activate great chunks of language
https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2019/12/wshwrhow-to-make-most-of-my-article.html

Two entries with different proposals:

• https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2019/12/wrlong-article-good-summary.html
• https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-past-strikes-back.html

B.3. PROVERBS:  https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2010/10/proverbs.html

      ORALS TASKS AS IN THE EXAM.

ORAL 1.  PRESENTATION.   5  min 

1.1. we had our class chances and  the task on the moodle. (see the files there)

1.2. We had a preparation task in United Nations Speech 3 min TASK in moodle

1.3. for  a kind of model, see  our Forum  AWE! influencers in modern  life . 

   Post Your reactions  on the moodle
    See the 4 videos here:
https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2015/04/life-in-modern-times-speeches-tale-told.html

1.4.  For a challenging task, 

 try something different! 

RECORD the piece about                    

Time is fleeing away from us

https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2020/05/monologue-so-much-time-had-gone-by.html

ORAL 2.  PROMPT to spark a conversation.  

  A model sample on this entry:
https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2020/05/oral-debate-2-8-min-f-rontiers-of-u.html

ORAL  3.  Debates.  how many real debates have you listened to IN  English?

Study it.  Relevant language to argue. Try to do  a dictation of ONE minute of the best part of it.
Then, create a bank of personal expressions you DO really feel comfy with.
PICK up chunks of language,  NOT isolated words!

Relevant info in this entry:
https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2016/12/women-more-leftwing-than-men-guardian.html





     WRITTEN   TASKS    AS IN THE EXAM.

TASK-1.  175-200 words   Listen and provide a SUMMARY. Not opinions.

For something different, you can practice with a listening task first. Answer the questions and then do the Summary. Focus on content from  Catalonia TODAY. Twelve options here.
   https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2016/04/cosmopolitan-accents-in-girona-english.html


TASK.2.  200 words  Drawing conclusion form a graph.

Pay attention to the Language bank. Use the collocations from our 6  selected units:
Relevant info in these entries:

• https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2020/05/science-and-futures-unequal-societies.html
• https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2016/04/writing-workshop-new-media-on-brands.html

TASK 3.  275  words  DEAL WITH AN ESSAY

a) An effective introductory paragraph both informs and motivates:
PROPOSAL. A new trend: Fashion victims
Relevant info in this entry:
https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2015/04/writing-essays-new-trend-fashion-victims.html

b) PROPOSAL:  WRITE  an essay on  Race relations and cultural relativity

Relevant info in this entry:
https://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com/2016/05/wr-essay-onrace-relations-and-cultural.html