Class # 14 Monday 20/12/10

Part 1: Checking HW (verb-noun collocations-HAVE,MAKE,TAKE). Page 25

Part 2: Improving our understanding and use of advanced vocabulary: Metaphors. Page 26

Part 3: Reading for detail

Part 4: Class presentations (monologues). Page 26, exercise 5

Christmas Homework: Reading&Listening&Writing

Christmas homework (Reading&Listening): Auggie Wren's Christmas Story by Paul Auster

Hi everyone,
I just sent you all an email with a short story attached to it so that you can print it out if you want.
If you don't mind reading the story in the blog, you can do so as well.
While you read click on the following link and listen to the author himself reading the story aloud: Paul Auster reads "Auggie Wren's Christmas Stort" for NPR

Read&Listen to it as many times as you want!

After reading, please write a book report (introduction/plot summary/your opinion of the story). The report's due date is Monday 10/1/11.The length of the report should be about 200-250 words.

The short story "Auggie Wren's Christmas story" inspired Wayne Wang's 1995 film, Smoke, for which Auster wrote the screenplay.

Harvey Keitel as Auggie Wren in the film "Smoke"(1995)

William Hunt&Harvey Keitel

I heard this story from Auggie Wren. Since Auggie doesn't come off too well in it, at least not as well as he'd like to, he's asked me not to use his real name. Other than that, the whole business about the lost wallet and the blind woman and the Christmas dinner is just as he told it to me.

Auggie and I have known each other for close to eleven years now. He works behind the counter of a cigar store on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn, and since it's the only store that carries the little Dutch cigars I like to smoke, I go in there fairly often. For a long time, I didn't give much thought to Auggie Wren. He was the strange little man who wore a hooded blue sweatshirt and sold me cigars and magazines, the impish, wisecracking character who always had something funny to say about the weather, the Mets or the politicians in Washington, and that was the extent of it.
But then one day several years ago he happened to be looking through a magazine in the store, and he stumbled across a review of one of my books. He knew it was me because a photograph accompanied the review, and after that things changed between us. I was no longer just another customer to Auggie, I had become a distinguished person. Most people couldn't care less about books and writers, but it turned out that Auggie considered himself an artist. Now that he had cracked the secret of who I was, he embraced me as an ally, a confidant, a brother-in-arms. To tell the truth, I found it rather embarrassing. Then, almost inevitably, a moment came when he asked if I would be willing to look at his photographs. Given his enthusiasm and goodwill, there didn't seem any way I could turn him down.
God knows what I was expecting. At the very least, it wasn't what Auggie showed me the next day. In a small, windowless room at the back of the store, he opened a cardboard box and pulled out twelve identical photo albums. This was his life's work, he said, and it didn't take him more than five minutes a day to do it. Every morning for the past twelve years, he had stood on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street at precisely seven o'clock and had taken a single color photograph of precisely the same view. The project now ran to more than four thousand photographs. Each album represented a different year, and all the pictures were laid out in sequence, from January 1 to December 31, with the dates carefully recorded under each one.
As I flipped through the albums and began to study Auggie's work, I didn't know what to think. My first impression was that it was the oddest, most bewildering thing I had ever seen. All the pictures were the same. The whole project was a numbing onslaught of repetition, the same street and the same buildings over and over again, an unrelenting delirium of redundant images. I couldn't think of anything to say to Auggie, so I continued turning pages, nodding my head in feigned appreciation. Auggie himself seemed unperturbed, watching me with a broad smile on his face, but after he'd seen that I'd been at it for several minutes, he suddenly interrupted and said, "You're going too fast. You'll never get it if you don't slow down."
He was right, of course. If you don't take the time to look, you'll never manage to see anything. I picked up another album and forced myself to go more deliberately. I paid closer attention to the details, took note of the shifts in weather, watched for the changing angles of light as the seasons advanced. Eventually I was able to detect subtle differences in the traffic flow, to anticipate the rhythm of the different days (the commotion of workday mornings, the relative stillness of weekends, the contrast between Saturdays and Sundays). And then, little by little, I began to recognize the faces of the people in the background, the passers-by on their way to work, the same people in the same spot every morning, living an instant of their lives in the field of Auggie's camera.
Once I got to know them, I began to study their postures, the way they carried themselves from one morning to the next, trying to discover their moods from these surface indications, as if I could imagine stories for them, as if I could penetrate the invisible dramas locked inside their bodies. I picked up another album. I was no longer bored, no longer puzzled as I had been at first. Auggie was photographing time, I realized, both natural time and human time, and he was doing it by planting himself in one tiny corner of the world and willing it to be his own, by standing guard in the space he had chosen for himself. As he watched me pore over his work, Auggie continued to smile with pleasure. Then, almost as if he'd been reading my thoughts, he began to recite a line from Shakespeare. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," he muttered under his breath, "time creeps on its petty pace." I understood then that he knew exactly what he was doing.
That was more than two thousand pictures ago. Since that day, Auggie and I have discussed his work many times, but it was only last week that I learned how he acquired his camera and started taking pictures in the first place. That was the subject of the story he told me, and I'm still struggling to make sense of it.
Earlier that same week, a man from the New York Times called me and asked if I would be willing to write a short story that would appear in the paper on Christmas morning. My first impulse was to say no, but the man was very charming and persistent, and by the end of the conversation I told him I would give it a try. The moment I hung up the phone, however, I fell into a deep panic. What did I know about Christmas? I asked myself. What did I know about writing short stories on commission?
I spent the next several days in despair, warring with the ghosts of Dickens, O.Henry and other masters of the Yuletide spirit. The very phrase "Christmas story" had unpleasant associations for me, evoking dreadful outpourings of hypocritical mush and treacle. Even at their best, Christmas stories were no more than wish-fulfillment dreams, fairy tales for adults, and I'd be damned if I'd ever allowed myself to write something like that. And yet, how could anyone propose to write an unsentimental Christmas story? It was a contradiction in terms, an impossibility, an out-and-out conundrum. One might just as well imagine a racehorse without legs, or a sparrow without wings.
I got nowhere. On Thursday I went out for a long walk, hoping the air would clear my head. Just past noon, I stopped in at the cigar store to replenish my supply, and there was Auggie, standing behind the counter as always. He asked me how I was. Without really meaning to, I found myself unburdening my troubles to him. "A Christmas story?" he said after I had finished. "Is that all? If you buy me lunch, my friend, I'll tell you the best Christmas story you ever heard. And I guarantee that every word of it is true."
We walked down the block to Jack's, a cramped and boisterous delicatessen with good pastrami sandwiches and photographs of old Dodgers teams hanging on the walls. We found a table in the back, ordered our food, and then Auggie launched into his story.
"It was the summer of seventy-two," he said. "A kid came in one morning and started stealing things from the store. He must have been about nineteen or twenty, and I don't think I've ever seen a more pathetic shoplifter in my life. He's standing by the rack of paperbacks along the far wall and stuffing books into the pockets of his raincoat. It was crowded around the counter just then, so I didn't see him at first. But once I noticed what he was up to, I started to shout. He took off like a jackrabbit, and by the time I managed to get out from behind the counter, he was already tearing down Atlantic Avenue. I chased after him for about half a block, and then I gave up. He'd dropped something along the way, and since I didn't feel like running any more, I bent down to see what it was.
"It turned out to be his wallet. There wasn't any money inside, but his driver's license was there along with three or four snapshots. I suppose I could have called the cops and had him arrested. I had his name and address from the license, but I felt kind of sorry for him. He was just a measly little punk, and once I looked at those pictures in his wallet, I couldn't bring myself to feel very angry at him. Robert Goodwin. That was his name. In one of the pictures, I remember, he was standing with his arm around his mother or grandmother. In another one he was sitting there at age nine or ten dressed in a baseball uniform with a big smile on his face. I just didn't have the heart. He was probably on dope now, I figured. A poor kid from Brooklyn without much going for him, and who cared about a couple of trashy paperbacks anyway?
"So I held on to the wallet. Every once in a while I'd get a little urge to send it back to him, but I kept delaying and never did anything about it. Then Christmas rolls around and I'm stuck with nothing to do. The boss usually invites me over to his house to spend the day, but that year he and his family were down in Florida visiting relatives. So I'm sitting in my apartment that morning feeling a little sorry for myself, and then I see Robert Goodwin's wallet lying on a shelf in the kitchen. I figure what the hell, why not do something nice for once, and I put on my coat and go out to return the wallet in person.
"The address was over in Boerum Hill, somewhere in the projects. It was freezing out that day, and I remember getting lost a few times trying to find the right building. Everything looks the same in that place, and you keep going over the same ground thinking you're somewhere else. Anyway, I finally get to the apartment I'm looking for and ring the bell. Nothing happens. I assume no one's there, but I try again just to make sure. I wait a little longer, and just when I'm about to give up, I hear someone shuffling to the door. An old woman's voice asks who's there, and I say I'm looking for Robert Goodwin. 'Is that you, Robert?' the old woman says, and then she undoes about fifteen locks and opens the door.
"She has to be at least eighty, maybe ninety years old, and the first thing I notice about her is that she's blind. 'I knew you'd come, Robert,' she says. 'I knew you wouldn't forget your Granny Ethel on Christmas.' And then she opens her arms as if she's about to hug me.
"I didn't have much time to think, you understand. I had to say something real fast, and before I knew what was happening, I could hear the words coming out of my mouth. 'That's right, Granny Ethel,' I said. 'I came back to see you on Christmas.' Don't ask me why I did it. I don't have any idea. Maybe I didn't want to disappoint her or something, I don't know. It just came out that way, and then this old woman was suddenly hugging me there in front of the door, and I was hugging her back.
"I didn't exactly say I was her grandson. Not in so many words, at least, but that was the implication. I wasn't trying to trick her, though. It was like a game we'd both decided to play - without having to discuss the rules. I mean, that woman knew I wasn't her grandson Robert. She was old and dotty, but she wasn't so far gone that she couldn't tell the difference between a stranger and her own flesh and blood. But it made her happy to pretend, and since I had nothing better to do anyway, I was happy to go along with her.
"So we went into the apartment and spent the day together. The place was a real dump, I might add, but what can you expect from a blind woman who does her own housekeeping? Every time she asked me a question about how I was, I would lie to her. I told her I found a good job working in a cigar store, I told her I was about to get married, I told her a hundred pretty stories, and she made like she believed every one of them. 'That's fine, Robert,' she would say, nodding her head and smiling. 'I always knew things would work out for you.'
"After a while, I started getting pretty hungry. There didn't seem to be much food in the house, so I went out to a store in the neighborhood and brought back a mess of stuff. A precooked chicken, vegetable soup, a bucket of potato salad, a chocolate cake, all kinds of things. Ethel had a couple of bottles of wine stashed in her bedroom, and so between us we managed to put together a fairly decent Christmas dinner. We both got a little tipsy from the wine, I remember, and after the meal was over we went out to sit in the living room, where the chairs were more comfortable. I had to take a pee, so I excused myself and went to the bathroom down the hall. That's where things took yet another turn. It was ditsy enough doing my little jig as Ethel's grandson, but what I did next was positively crazy, and I've never forgiven myself for it.
"I go into the bathroom, and stacked up against the wall next to the shower, I see a pile of six or seven cameras. Brand-new thirty-five-millimeter cameras, still in their boxes, top-quality merchandise. I figure this is the work of the real Robert, a storage place for one of his recent hauls. I've never taken a picture in my life, and I've certainly never stolen anything, but the moment I see those cameras sitting in the bathroom, I decide I want one of them for myself. Just like that. And without even stopping to think about it, I tuck one of those boxes under my arm and go back to the living room.
"I couldn't have been gone for more than three minutes, but in that time Granny Ethel had fallen asleep in her chair. Too much Chianti, I suppose. I went into the kitchen to wash the dishes, and she slept through the whole racket, snoring like a baby. There didn't seem any point in disturbing her, so I decided to leave. I couldn't even write a note to say goodbye, seeing that she was blind and all, so I just left. I put her grandson's wallet on the table, picked up the camera again, and walked out of the apartment. And that's the end of the story."
"Did you ever go back to see her?" I asked.
"Once," he said. "About three or four months later. I felt so bad about stealing the camera, I hadn't even used it yet. I finally made up my mind to return it, but Ethel wasn't there any more. I don't know what happened to her, but someone else had moved into the apartment, and he couldn't tell me where she was."
"She probably died."
"Yeah, probably."
"Which means that she spent her last Christmas with you."
"I guess so. I never thought of it that way."
"It was a good deed, Auggie. It was a nice thing you did for her."
"I lied to her, and then I stole from her. I don't see how you can call that a good deed."
"You made her happy. And the camera was stolen anyway. It's not as if the person you took it from really owned it."
"Anything for art, eh, Paul?"
"I wouldn't say that. But at least you put the camera to good use."
"And now you've got your Christmas story, don't you?"
"Yes," I said. "I suppose I do."
I paused for a moment, studying Auggie as a wicked grin spread across his face. I couldn't be sure, but the look in his eyes at that moment was so mysterious, so fraught with the glow of some inner delight, that it suddenly occurred to me that he had made the whole thing up. I was about to ask him if he'd been putting me on, but then I realized he'd never tell. I had been tricked into believing him, and that was the only thing that mattered. As long as there's one person to believe it, there's no story that can't be true."
"You're an ace, Auggie," I said. "Thanks for being so helpful."
"Any time," he answered, still looking at me with that maniacal light in his eyes. "After all, if you can't share your secrets with your friends, what kind of a friend are you?"
"I guess I owe you one."
"No you don't. Just put it down the way I told it to you, and you don't owe me a thing."
"Except the lunch."
"That's right. Except the lunch."
I returned Auggie's smile with a smile of my own, and then I called out to the waiter and asked for the check.

Class # 13 Wednesday 15/12/10

1: Progress test: Unit 2
2: Reading about the California gold rush (page 24): Reading for specific information+describing people
3: Listening about the California gold rush (page 25): Listening for specific information+connecing items in a photo with the story of a gold rush millionaire+completing sentences to retell the story
HOMEWORK: Page 25, Vocabulary exercise: Collocations with HAVE, MAKE and TAKE

Class # 12 Monday 11/12/10

1. Video: London

2. Assignment for unit 2: Replying to a job advert

3. Transcript of the listening ( 1/12/10)

Homework for Monday 13/12/10

After yesterday's class discussion I think it's essential for you to learn how to make a point during an open class discusssion about a "hot topic" such as the air controllers wildcat strike in our country.

So, as homework, please follow these steps:

• Step 1: Click on the following link How to discuss (BBC learning English)

• Step 2: Listening. You may need to install RealPlayer (it's for free). Click on the following link if you can't listen to the explanation about making a point: Install RealPlayer

• Step 3: Listen again reading the script at the same time.

• Step 4: Read the "Language for making a point" chart and take notes in your notebook of those expressions you want to learn and use in next Monday's class discussion. The chart offers 8 different expressions to make your point.

• Step 5: In the "What have you learn?" section you can listen to a really short quiz (only 2 questions and the speaker gives you the answer!!). If you want to listen to it more than once feel free to do it. You can also use the script at the same time that you listen and take notes of any useful phrases that you want to add to your vocabulary.

• Step 6: Arranging words: Rearrange the sentences so that they make sense.        For this last exercise (it's only 4 sentences so it's not very time-consuming... don't worry!)  you must defend the opinion that banning smoking from public places is a good idea.

• Step 7: Leave a comment on this entry (or send me an email to theclassdiaries@gmail.com if you can't leave a comment) explaining your opinion about the following points: Do you think the plan to ban smoking in public places in Spain is a good idea?
  Small bars and restaurants that don't have a terrace may be forced to close and will lose their lifetime business. Do you think this will happen?
  Shouldn't people have the freedom to smoke if they want to?

Have a great weekend!
Teresa

Class # 11 Friday 10/12/10

Activity 1: Reading/Fill the gaps/ International News

Spanish Controllers Refuse To Testify About Strike

by The Associated Press

MADRID December 9, 2010, 11:59 am ET

Spanish air traffic controllers whose wildcat strike paralyzed the country's air space and  ____________   more than 600,000 people last weekend refused on Thursday to be questioned by prosecutors investigating the case.

Madrid Provincial Prosecutor Eduardo Esteban said a first group of 12 controllers refused to testify, arguing the investigation should be _________  by a military court following the government's use of emergency measures that put the controllers under military authority last week.

He said he would recommend to give the cases to a court judge, if the controllers persist ________ refusing to testify before prosecutors.

Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido said the controllers could eventually be charged _______  sedition and face jail terms under existing Spain's air navigation law, if by stopping work they halt air traffic or paralyze an airport.

____________  Friday's strike occurring during one of Spain's busiest holidays, affected 600,000 travelers and cost the country hundreds of millions of euros in lost business.

Before Parliament on Thursday, Zapatero defended the government's decision to declare Spain's first "state of alarm" since the country returned to democracy in 1978, saying it was "unavoidable given the calamitous situation."

The measure put the controllers under military control and _____________  them with jail, if they refused to work. By Saturday evening Spain's airports were back in operation.

The controllers union, meanwhile, _____________  the emergency measures before the Madrid region's Superior Tribunal. The group could face disciplinary proceedings by the Development Ministry and possible judicial action by military courts.

The controllers walked off the job after the Cabinet approved a decree that ordered those who miss work because of illness to make up lost hours and said those who call in sick can be forced to get medical checkups.

The protest was the culmination of a ________________ dispute with the government over working conditions, work schedules and benefits.

Spanish air traffic controllers get triple time pay for overtime hours, for instance, and made ____________ of their salary from this, earning an average of  € 350,000 ($463,600) a year.

In February the government slashed their allowed overtime hours drastically, _____________the controllers who saw their pay nearly cut in half, although that is still roughly three times what Zapatero makes a year        (€ 80,000 – $ 105,000). The average yearly salary in Spain is about € 20,000 ($26,500).

Infuriating

Stranded

All

Appealed

Threatened

The last

In

                                                            

By

Long-running

Handled

Last

Terrific

Much

 Activity 2: Open class discussion: Spain in the news.

·         The pressure of the work of an air traffic controller is intense and each shift is underlined by the fear that one mistake could be fatal. Many passengers agree about the fact that preventing aircraft collisions is worthy of reward Do you agree? What other jobs have similar pressure to air traffic control?

·         Some controllers are earning more than € 950,000 a year. Do you think this amount of money compensates the stress of being an air traffic controller?

·         The revelation that some of Spain’s air traffic controllers can earn ten times more than their Prime Minister — and more than 50 times the average salary — has provoked outrage. Is it outrageous that an air traffic controller earns 10 times more that a Prime Minister?

·         British air traffic controllers are paid €70,000 on average but this can rise to around €100,000 a year. Their French counterparts take home €110,000. In Spain, although a small number of air traffic controllers are paid between €810,000 and €900,000 most of them are paid between €450,000 and €540,000 or between €270,000 and €360,000.  All in all, the average salary in Spain for an air traffic controller is € 200,000. Is it fair that Spanish ontrollers make much more than British and French controllers?

·         Spanish air traffic controllers work 12-hour days made up of two four-hour shifts and two, two-hour rest periods. They must have a degree, speak good English and pass a medical test every two years. After they are 40, they must undergo the test every year. A long list of medical complaints, including heart or digestive problems, will rule them out of the job. The minimum entry age is 18 and the maximum working age is 55. Air controllers must pass a series of exams, including one on aeronautics and other psychological tests before being accepted for training. These tests aim to establish if they are able to withstand fatigue and high levels of stress. If they pass, they undergo 15 months training.

Do you have the requirements to be an air traffic controller?  Would you like to be an air traffic controller?

Activity 3: Useful phrases

Using conversation phrases to show someone around your house (p.22)

Homework

Hi everyone,
Here's the homework:
1. To practice idioms (UNIT 1) click in the following link  Idioms and take the quiz. When you finish click "Grade me" and send me your results via email or by leaving a comment on this entry.
2. Click here and  read the New York Times article about Spain. Then, leave a comment of 50-80 words (or send me an email if you can't leave a comment) giving your opinion about the situation.
See u next Friday,
Teresa

Class # 10 Wednesday 2/12/10

Part 1: "The Dead of Jericho": Characters, Setting, Plot,Vocabulary & Quotations.GROUP WORK
Part 2: "The Dead of Jericho": Comprehension Test. PAIR WORK
Part 3: Listening
Part 4: Reading
PArt 5: Telling anecdotes (Unit 2, page 21)

Class # 9 Monday 29/12/10

1. Practising Adjective Structures: " I find it embarrasing to speak in front of an audience" or "It is embarrasing for me to speak in front of an audience"
2. Practising the 12 single vowel sounds in English (page 18, Unit 2)
3. Chart # 3: Verbs followed by prepositions

Homework for next Wednesday 1/12/10

Verbs followed by prepositions (Unit 2)

Click on the following link: Verbs+Prepositions 

• Take the quiz
• When you finish, write a comment on this entry telling me the score you obtained
• Don't forget to write your name in the comment

Thanks!

Class # 8 Friday, 26/11/10

1. Speaking&Reading: What do parents look for in their future "son-in-law"?
2. Headings for an internet text
3.Test calendar for the school year (Reminder: You need to have at least 3 marks for each skill in order to obtain a 10% "help" in the final exam in May)

Class # 7 24/11/10

 

 

• 
• Review UNIT 1: Indirect Questions (Puzzle)

Book: Unit 2

Listening to and repeating single vowel sounds (Pronunciation)
Matching sayings with their meanings (Vocabulary)
Discussing/Listening to what parents look for in their children's future partners

• Grammar + homework: Adjective structures

Class # 6 22/11/10

Extra material for Unit 2:

Reading an article about unusual jobs from a newspaper
Categorising verbs from an article according to their patterns

Class # 5 Wednesday 17/11/10

End of unit 1 test

Handouts&Extra materials (Class # 4)

Part 1: Listening/Speaking (Understanding/Asking for & Giving personal information)
Part 2: Common mistakes found in the students' compositions
"If time allows" activity: follow this link!

Handouts&Extra materials (Class # 3)

Part 1: Clothing idioms

Part 2: Describing people's appearances

Part 3: Informal letter

Part 4: Listening (Understanding/giving personal information about family&friends)

This is the end of UNIT 1. We'll have the end of unit test on Monday Nov. 15th

Have a good weekend!

Handouts&Extra materials (class # 2)

Part 1: Indirect Questions

• Grammar notes
• Listening

Part 2: Idioms

• Speaking/Reading
• Fill the gaps "Colourful Idioms"

Handouts for the 1st day of class

Activity 1:

Focus: Agreeing/Disagreeing (So do I-Neither do I/I do-Idon't)

Activity 2: Question tags (You like apple pie, don't you?)