History through the eyes of the potato - Leo Bear-McGuinness

CLASS UPDATE 11/12/05 & HOMEWORK

First part: Progress Test 1 (We'll have the marks next Friday)


Second part: We have seen the episode of "Castle" series: "Flowers for your grave" and we have answered the questionnaire of Tom´s post.


Homework: We have to finish the episode and the questionnaire (questions 18 to 27).

18. How did Castle speed up the investigation?

    19. Describe the crime scene.

    20. How didn’t she die?

    21.What did they find in the apartment?

    22. Why is Castle so upset?

    23.  And Kate?

    24. How did the other writers solve Castle’s problem?

    25. What did he give Kate?

    26. What did he take?
    27.  Now Kate and Castle agree. How do they argue their cases?

CASTLE: Episode I. “Flowers for your grave.”

Hello, everyone.
Here are some questions I've prepared for you on the first episode of "Castle."
We'll be using them in class tomorrow, but in case you can't make it, you've got them on your blog.
See you in class.
Tom.

B2.1 CASTLE: Episode I. “Flowers for your grave.”

http://ororo.tv/es/shows/castle#1-1

1.      Why is Nick castle a celebrity?

2.    What can you say about his personality?

3.    Describe the crime.

4.    Where has the detective ‘seen’ this before?

5.     What can you say about her personality?

6.    Why does the blonde think Castle is an idiot?

7.     What can you say about the two new characters?

8.    Did you catch any of his previous offences?

9.    Why was he never prosecuted

10.                       Who is the second victim?

11.  Why does Castle want copies of the photos?

12.Are his mother and daughter living up you your descriptions of them?

13.Why is Castle surprised?

14.Why is Kate blushing?

15. What’s in all those boxes?

16.Is she pleased to see Castle? Why (not)?

17. If ‘smart, good-looking women become lawyers’, why is Kate a cop?

18.How did Castle speed up the investigation?

19.Describe the crime scene.

20.                     How didn’t she die?

21.What did they find in the apartment?

22.                      Why is Castle so upset?

23.                      And Kate?

24.                      How did the other writers solve Castle’s problem?

25.                      What did he give Kate?

26.                      What did he take?

27.                       Now Kate and Castle agree. How do they argue their cases?

Major Lazer - Powerful (feat. Ellie Goulding & Tarrus Riley)

This song is very good, I like it. I´m blogging this because the lyrics are very easy to understand.

I hope everybody can understand the lyrics. Under this line I´m going to leave the lyrics:

"Powerful"
(feat. Ellie Goulding & Tarrus Riley)

[Ellie Goulding:]
Oh my my my, what you do to me
Like lightning when I'm swimming in the sea
From the very first time we loved
From the very first time we touched
Walking on wires and power lines
When you put your body on top of mine
Everytime that you lift me up
To the heaven and stars above

[Tarrus Riley:]
O lord of mercy
I'm begging you, please
I'm feelin' drained
I need love
You charge me up
Like electricity
Jumpstart my heart
With your love

[Tarrus Riley & Ellie Goulding:]
There's an energy
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful
I can feel it
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful
There's an energy
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful
I can feel it
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful

[Ellie Goulding:]
I couldn't leave if I wanted to
Cause something keeps pulling me back to you
From the very first time we loved
From the very first time we touched
The stroke of your fingers
The scent of you lingers
My mind running wild
With thoughts of your smile
Oh, you gotta give me some
Or you could give it all
But it's never enough, no

[Tarrus Riley & Ellie Goulding:]
There's an energy
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful
I can feel it
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful

I can feel it
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful
There's an energy
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful
I can feel it
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful
I can feel it
When you hold me
When you touch me
It's so powerful

[Ellie Goulding:]
When you hold me in your arms
Burns like fire and electricity
When you're close I feel the sparks
Takes me higher to infinity

Arrow

Last Friday, we were told to write about our favourite series.

Now, I'm watching a series that I really like, that is called "Arrow", which is about a DC's "superheroe".

"Arrow" is about a millionaire man that, after five years, we "came back to life" (everyone thought that he died when his boat sinked, but he didn't). When he came back to his city, he tried to fulfill the promise that he did to his father just before he died: to fight the crime and make his city a safe place to live, so he became into "Arrow", an archer that fights against the vandalism.

Today, it's in the fourth season, and every chapter makes me feel more and more interested. I watch it every week in pelis24.com. Are you going to miss it?

Heroes time!

    There are two fantastic series that I am really loved. One of them is Heroes and the other is the prequel, call Heroes reborn. Both of them tell the story of ordinary people with extraordinary abilities.



From Heroes I only recommend the first season.

Heroes Trailer:

 

Heroes are about: The lives of common people, who discover they have superpowers, intertwine in order to save the world from different threats.

-Save the cheerleader, save the world!-

Heroes Reborn Trailer:

Heroes Reborn is about: A year ago, a terrorist attack in Odessa, Texas, left the city decimated. Blamed for the tragic event, those with extraordinary abilities are in hiding or on the run from those with nefarious motives.

Are you an E.V.O?


Enjoy ;)

The Sopranos

The Sopranos is a serie based on a family of gangsters in the city of New Jersey. The main character is called Tony and is the father of the family and the leader of the band. The actor who acts in the role of Tony is James Gandolfini, who won a lot of prices due to his performance in the serie. He died a couple of years ago.

Apart from him, there are also other characters very interesenting. I would like to highlight the wife of Tony, Carmella Soprano, a perfect italo-american lady who lives under  the shadow of her husband and looks to another way as regards to the dirty business of the family.

In summary, we can assert that The Sopranos was a very successful serie. Its beginnig was in the year 1999 and, after several seasons, the sirie finished in 2007, which a very intriguing end, that was watched by millions of people.

In a few words, I do recommend you to follow this serie, you will never regret of watching it!

MAD(ison Avenue) MEN

I recommend you “Mad men”. This is a fiction series set in the world of business advertising in the New York of the sixties. 
In the opening chapter we can read in subtitles: (MAD MEN) “A term coined in the late 1950’s to describe the advertising executives of Madison Avenue. They coined it”. 
The plot revolves around the advertising agency Sterling & Cooper (later Sterling, Cooper, Draper & Pryce) located on Madison Avenue and head of campaigns as important as those of the Lucky Strike cigarettes or Richard Nixon Presidential. The main character is Don (ald) Drapper, creative enormously talented but tormented personality who hides a troubled past 
Don Drapper doesn’t like to talk about himself. In chapter three we can watch a scene that tells about his character. It’s night and Don and his wife are in a restaurant with his boss and the boss’s wife. The man is talking about upbringing in childhood by a nanny and he asked Don about his childhood. Don replies: “It’s not that interesting a story. Just think of me as Moses. I was a baby in a basket”. Then Don’s wife exclaims: “To Moses and Don (ald) Draper. A couple of the princes”.

BREAKING BAD

This is a TV series really interesting. A chemical teacher becomes a drug dealer to try to earn as much money as he can. He decides this when his doctor discovers he has a lung cancer, so he wants the money to be sure that his family, including a new daughter that is born soon, will be able to continue living without economic problems when he dies.

Although the story line doesn’t set out a common situation, I like this series a lot because of the realistic way it passes on the experiences of the characters. It shows how the different characters’ personalities are changing little by little, how they react when they have to face new situations totally different to they’ve known before.

Through different particulars and problems, the series sets out us a big variety of moral dilemmas or contradictory speeches of each character, all of that within a fast rhythm, a lot of action and emotions that I’m sure it won’t be indifferent for you if you see it. 

I could watch 3 seasons in only 2 weeks!! I really love it, and I recomend you :)

Progress test review material.

Hello, everyone.
Here are some activities from the workbook, answers included, which will help you review for our progress test. We'll be looking at some of them in class tomorrow, but I'd advise you to do them all.
See you tomrrow.
Tom

Progress test review 11.12.15

Hello, everyone. 
Here are the answers to the Extra practice sections for units 7 & 8, p.121 & 122. You'll find them useful to help you revise for our first progress test next Wednesday, 11.12.15.

Popcorn time

Hello everyone!

After thinking hard about something that could be interesting for you guys, I realize that there is a little program, called Popcorn Time , who allows you to watch many series and films in 1080p and the most important thing, in english, with a huge variety of lenguaje subtitles to choose (illegally of course, so do not tell authorities that I am advertising this kind of things, It would not be fair! :D)
Well, down this lines you will find the URL, wich send you directly to the "official" page where you can download the program and start the amusement.

http://popcorn-time.se/

It works like a kind of Netfix, But if you never heard about it, It does not matter, it extremely easy to use.
Once you have downloaded the program, if you open it you should see two sections, Films and Series, and you only have to choose one, depending on your preferences. Then you have a quick look of the trending series or films, as well as many of the newest ones. To watch a movie or a serie, you just have to press the play button and that's it.
No ads, no virus, lots of entretainment! I truly think it worth it!

So, you would tell me on friday what do you think about it!



Diego

Orange is the new BLACK

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK:e

It’s a serie about a “good girl” called Piper from a good family, that it’s going to marry with his boyfriend.

One day, she was arrested for an old wrongdoing relationated with drugs. Piper  doesn’t want to be jugde  and voluntarilydecide go to prision during one year.

When she is inside jail she meets his old girlfriend wich was there for The same issue and this is a very bad thing for her, because she thing that her ex-girlfriend told  to THE police that Piper was her partner in the drug bussines.

It’snt the only thing that worry Piper, she is worried about her new collegues, she is scared and thinks that she is not like them.

During The first season, she tries to do new friends. Some interns want to be friends too and try together changes inside jail, but thereare a very important police corruption.

Piper makes enemies too, and she is going to fight with hers and try to win.the last woman that stand no her feet will be the leader.

The first season started a little bit slow for me but in the last three episodes the intensity grow up, and in the last minute of the last one, you are wondering to watch the next season inmediately.

Snakes and ladders.

Here's the snakes and ladders game we did the other day. Underneath, you'll find the instructions, with the answers at the bottom of the page.

Enjoy.

Tom.

CLASS UPDATE 27/11/2015 & HOMEWORK

 CLASS UPDATE 27/11/2015 & HOMEWORK

Speaking	We talked about some activities that we have done to earn money. We talked about the series that we saw last week and what were they about. We practiced our pronunciation talking in pairs using the phrases in page 166: CD2: 30.
Listening	We listened the audio from the page 67, exercise 6 (a, b) (Exercise 6 b answers are in page 166: CD2: 29).
Reading	--
Writing	We wrote five regrets based on the exercise 10 (page 67).
Grammar	We corrected the exercise 5 (page 67). We did the exercise 8 (page 67).
Vocabulary	We reviewed the money vocabulary from the page 66 (which is explained in page 145).
Other	We played the game “Snakes and ladders” based on money vocabulary.
Homework	Post on the blog the title of a series that you like. Read the text “A tipping nightmare!” from pages 68 and 69 and do the exercise 3 (a, b, c).

HOMEWORK 27/11/2015

CSI MIAMI

Our homework was wrote about a series that we had to watch so I decided to see CSI Miami which is a series I really liked because of the main character Horatio Caine; the actor is David Caruso, in my opinion is a good actor and he is such an intelligent and thorough policemen, he is always following the different proves that they found. I like Eric Delko too because he is always working to find the murderer and to help the other people, such as the victims.

In the series you can see each investigation from forensic analysis of the crime scene, combining the use of a variety of scientific methods in police work, such as proves that they made in the laboratory with the machines or when they are looking for information on the computer and that kind of things.

Horatio is the Supervisor of the police equipment who are Calleigh Duquesne, an expert in bullets and in all kinds of weapons, Eric Delko , an expert in the laboratory with Ryan Wolfe , Natalia Boa Vista and Walter Simmons . With them, also works homicide detective from the Police, Frank Tripp.

I really like watching this series but the only problem is that they speak too fast and it’s complicated to understand without subtitles.

Straight outta Compton

Last friday morning, Tom gave us some homework: to watch at least 15 minutes of a TV series. Instead of doing this, I preferred to go to the cinema and I watched the film "Straight outta Compton"
This movie is about NWA, which was and American hip hop group from Compton, California, that emerged in the mid 1980s.
They provide us with a before and an after in the gansta rap, and their very explicit lyrics were very controversial, involving them in problem with the police.Their voice ignited a social revolution that is still reverberating today.
The story about the three members: Ice Cube, Dr. Dree and Eazy E, explain us how was the lifestyle in the guetto and the unfair treatment that the afroamerican poblation received from the police, apart form the trouble in their music career.
 I really recommend the movie, even If you aren,t a NWA,s fan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsbWEF1Sju0

IT Crowd: Yesterday´s Jam

IT Crowd: Yesterday´s Jam

Tom encourage us to have a look to the web page “ororo.tv”. We had to choose and watch a series at least 15 minutes. I selected the series IT Crowd. The first chapter: Yesterday´s Jam.

IT Crowd is a comedy about two men who work in the IT department of a company. They deal with computers, technical support and TICs. They are introduced like nerds in both meanings: The Staff who work with computers from a lost basement (forgotten in the fridge, like yesterday´s jam), apart of the rest of their colleagues, and people who have a different point of view about social behavior.

The first Chapter begins with their boss taking on the new manager of IT area. The new manager is a cute girl  who has no idea about computers and this two men from IT department behave like if it was the first time they see up close a woman. First they are suspicious but in the end they find a way of being together.

IT Crowd is about different stories of this particular team in their workplace and about their private lives. This series uses a delirious irony to speak about modern life, daily matters and how to solve them in the most shocking way.

I do recommend it. 

CLASS UPDATE 20/11/2015 & HOMEWORK

Speaking	We worked with the homework between us (p65, ex 6a and 6b). We did an exercise about a party at the jet set. We had to create a character following some indications on a paper and we worked phrases with wish.
Listening	We did an exercise of the DVD-rom about a mother and her son, based on the topic of the money.
Reading	--
Writing	We wrote three phrases using the vocabulary on p66 ex 1a, that were based on us.
Grammar	We practise wish/hope/if only/ it's time at the speaking of "The jet set party".
Vocabulary	We did the ex1a p66 - phrasal verbs about money.
Other	We did ex of the DVD-rom about the money.
Homework	Watch 15min of a TV series in English (with or without subtitles). P66, ex4 / p67, ex 5a to 5d (p147 for grammar).

I'm sorry for the wait, but a I don't have time before. I wait that all done at the class it's in the post, if not please try to say me for change or included it.

Thanks!