English Advanced C1.1: 2009

BOOK LIST Advanced 1

BOOK LIST Advanced 1
• Townsend, Sue. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾. The funny journal of a teenager who believes he’s an undiscovered intellectual and in love.
• Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner The Kite Runner tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who befriended Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.

It is also important to understand that there are various interpretations of this book, ranging from the way in which the Taliban treated its "own" people to the relationship between the two boys being a representation of the microcosms of society.

• Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Mark Haddon's bitterly funny debut novel is a murder mystery told by an autistic version of Adrian Mole, the fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone, a mathematically gifted and socially hopeless teenager raised in a working-class home.
• Chevalier, Tracy. The Girl with a Pearl Earring. In Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring, the narrator, Griet, is a quiet Dutch girl from a family that has fallen on hard times. She takes a job as a servant in the household of the famous painter Vermeer, but due to circumstances quite outside her control, she begins to cause turmoil in the family, at the same time that she becomes entranced by her intense but taciturn master.
• Boyne, John. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a fictional story that offers a unique perspective on how prejudice, hatred and violence affect innocent people, particularly children, during wartime. Through the lens of an eight-year-old boy, we witness a forbidden friendship that forms between Bruno, the son of Nazi commandant, and Schmuel, a Jewish boy held captive in a concentration camp during the reality of World War II.

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One-on-one tutoring,

In his One-on-one tutoring , author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open. Why don't we follow his example and start something similar here on the island?.

Al Gore warns on latest climate trends

At TED2009, Al Gore presents updated slides from around the globe to make the case that worrying climate trends are even worse than scientists predicted, and to make clear his stance on "clean coal."

You can watch the video and activate the English subtitles here:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/al_gore_warns_on_latest_climate_trends.html

Ecological Intelligence

Daniel Goleman has followed up his previous bestsellers, Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, with a new one — Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. Ecological intelligence is a way for us to avert environmental catastrophe, and it depends on our knowing whether products are truly environmentally friendly or not. These days many products look “green” — or they’re marketed that way — but when you scratch the surface, you realize that these new products are often more damaging than the “non-green” products they’re meant to replace. This week, Goleman was interviewed by Bill Moyers. With this 17 minute video , you’ll get a quick introduction to what “ecological intelligence” means, and how you can become a smarter consumer. Along the way, Goleman recommends two handy web sites that will let you assess the environmental friendliness of products. One is called GoodGuide. The other is SkinDeep. You can also listen to Daniel Goleman on KQED The Forum. Finally, you can also read an interview here: http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200904-omag-green-goleman

13,500 Sing “Hey Jude” in Trafalgar Square

Last Thursday, in London’s Trafalgar Square, a big crowd of 13,500 got together and sang “Hey Jude.” The project (arranged somewhat spontaneously by T-Mobile) gets better as things move along — kind of like the song itself.

01 Personal

You will find more information on this topic here:

http://englishba2.blogspot.com/search/label/01%20personal

Amateur Transplants - Anaesthetists Hymn

Listen to the song and fill in the gaps:

Everybody wonders what anaesthetists do
while the patient is _________.
Everybody wonders what we do for three hours
while that machine goes beep.
Everybody reckons we drink coffee and we ________ and we're generally subversive.
Everybody reckons we do crosswords and sudokus and we _________ all the nurses.

But do you really think that's all we do?
Well let me tell you now it isn't true.

Cause we sometimes check the _________,
and every now and then we write ________.
And if we have to intervene,
we ________ a bit of white stuff.
And we offer to alter the light,
or the _________ of the bed.
Or fiddle with the radio, change the CD,
we even check the patient _____________.
And if they move, we turn up the vapor,
and then we go back, to reading a paper.
Cause when the patient's asleep,
we just sit and listen to the beep,
we just sit and listen to the

Once upon a time I took pride in my job,
but now I think it's time to ___________.
Cause I just sit here every day
and listen to blips of the heart

Now you may check your answers:

Everybody wonders what anaesthetists do
while the patient is asleep.
Everybody wonders what we do for three hours
while that machine goes beep.
Everybody reckons we drink coffee and we gossip and we're generally subversive.
Everybody reckons we do crosswords and sudokus and we chat up all the nurses.

But do you really think that's all we do?
Well let me tell you now it isn't true.

Cause we sometimes check the screen,
and every now and then we write stuff.
And if we have to intervene,
we inject a bit of white stuff.
And we offer to alter the light,
or the height of the bed.
Or fiddle with the radio, change the CD,
we even check the patient occasionally.
And if they move, we turn up the vapor,
and then we go back, to reading a paper.
Cause when the patient's asleep,
we just sit and listen to the beep,
we just sit and listen to the

Once upon a time I took pride in my job,
but now I think it's time to depart.
Cause I just sit here every day
and listen to blips of the heart

The Great Gatsby

Here you have a summary of the novel. Do not watch it if you do not want to know the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Q2sBrFEME

Here you can watch a scene of the film:

You will agree with me that the last paragraph is extraordinary:

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that is was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.**

13 Weather: Speaking

13 Weather

13 Environment: Speaking

13 Environment

10 Food and Drink: Speaking

10 Food and Drink

09 Shopping: Speaking

09 Shopping

09 Fashions: Speaking

09 Fashions

08 School: Speaking

08 School

07 Health: Speaking

07 Health

06 Relations: Speaking

06 Relations

06 Crime and Punishment: Speaking

06 Crime and Punishment

06 Animals: Speaking

06 Animals

05 Travel: Speaking

05 Travel

04 Sports: Speaking

04 Sports

04 Music: Speaking

04 Music

04 Hobbies, Reading: Speaking

04 Hobbies

04 Films: Speaking

04 Films

04 Art: Speaking

04 Art

03 Jobs: Speaking

03 Jobs Speaking

Oceans Rising

Here you can listen to a very interesting radio programme (NPR The Forum)about sea levels, which may rise twice as much by the end of this century than was previously predicted.

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R903160900

Slumdog Millionaire

You can read this newspaper article with gaps first:
http://www.box.net/shared/mcb0sy0qbv

Now you can watch the scenes:

Fill in the gaps as you listen:

Fill in the Gaps Scenes1,2

Here is the trailer for you to enjoy:

Finally, you can watch a review of the film:

The Hours

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

AS you listen to these scenes you can do these activities:

Exercises

Finally here you have the trailer:

The American Future

Through his books and documentaries, Simon Schama, a British born historian, has covered a lot of fertile ground.He spent the better part of a year travelling across America and producing a lengthy TV documentary and a related book called The American Future: A History.In this recent conversation with Bill Moyers, Schama talks at length about America and where it finds itself today. The first 15 minutes focuses on Obama and the challenges he faces. The remaining part gets into themes discussed in The American Future. You can access the videos and transcripts here:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01162009/profile.html

The Oscars

If you want to watch The Oscars, you can go to:

http://www.oscar.com/

Why Him? Why Her?

On the topics of personality (01) and relations with others (06), we have an interesting discussion with Helen Fisher on NPR's The Forum:

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R902191000

New Technologies

9/11

1) You may want to watch some videos about 9/11

You can go to this link for a playlist on the topic:

Click on this link: 9/11 playlist

2) You may also want to watch these videos:

There is a website related to this topic in case you want to read more about it. Click here: 9/11

Happy Valentine's Day

Here you have a listening about the Brain in love from the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1524_love/page3.shtml

Happy Birthday Mr Darwin

To mark Darwin's birthday you can listen to an interesting discussion on npr's The Forum:

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R902121000

Trace element

In Spanish: Oligoelemento

1. A chemical element required in minute quantities by an organism to maintain proper physical functioning

To find out more visit:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trace+element

In Australia there is a group of performers called Trace Elements. Have a look at what they do!