Spanish innovation

In this video you can see how Spanish people from Almería have managed to grow tomatoes in the desert. A very interesting documentary. Ignore the subtitles in Spanish. His English is very clear and easy to understand.

Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut

I'm sure you have heard of Commander Chris Hadfield, the Canadian austronaut who stayed aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 35 from December 2012 to May 2013. He taught us a lot of things related to their daily life outspace and took a lot of pictures which were posted through twitter and Facebook.

 

This is a very intestesting video:
          

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency fielded questions about life and research on the orbital laboratory during an in-flight educational event April 16 with students gathered at Lockview High School in Fall River, Nova Scotia. Hadfield, who is the first Canadian to command the station, is scheduled to return to Earth in mid-May after a five-month misión.

Published 16/04/2013

It's a shame we couldn't ask him any questions. I'm sure there are lots of things you'd like to know after listening to him.


I'm sure you have sometimes been urged or even forced to do some exercise, but have you ever been tied up to the floor?

Watch here how Chris Hadfield does his daily exercise.




You can watch all his videos in YouTube. I'm sure you'll love them!


 

Obama to visit Mandela's former jail

Tour of Robben Island sets tone for keynote speech

Reuters




Obama met Mandela in 2005, when he was a US senator



U.S. President Barack Obama planned to tour an important historic site in South Africa on Sunday, the prison that once held the country's former president Nelson Mandela, who remains in hospital.
Obama is to visit the bleak former detention facility on Robben Island after landing in Cape Town to pay tribute to the ailing anti-apartheid hero and set the stage for a speech urging Africans to strive for prosperity and democracy.

Obama is due to cite the legacy of Mandela, who was imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 of the 27 years he spent in jail before becoming the first black president of South Africa, in a speech at the University of Cape Town later in the day.
Current South African President Jacob Zuma was also held on the wind-swept island off Cape Town under the apartheid regime that ended in 1994 with Mandela's election victory.
Some protesters gathered outside the University of Cape Town ahead of Obama's speech, holding placards attacking U.S. foreign policy reading "Obama mass killer" and "End drone wars now".
The 94-year-old Mandela's faltering health has been a sombre backdrop to Obama's eight-day Africa trip. South Africa's government says his condition is "critical but stable".
Obama met Mandela's relatives In Johannesburg on Saturday to deliver a message of support instead of directly visiting the frail former president at the hospital where he has spent the last three weeks.

• Obama meets with Mandela family

The U.S. leader describes Mandela as a "personal hero," and has reminded audiences in Africa in recent days that his first political activism was to urge his U.S. college to divest itself of South Africa investments to protest against apartheid.
On Robben Island, Obama will once again visit Mandela's cell in the former penal colony, repeating a previous visit he made as a U.S. senator in 2006.
This time his tour guide is to be 83-year-old former inmate and anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada
In his speech at the university, Obama will look back to an address the U.S. politician Robert Kennedy gave in Cape Town in 1966 comparing the struggle to overcome apartheid with the U.S. civil rights movement.
Senator Kennedy, the younger brother of U.S. president John Kennedy, was assassinated while running for president in 1968.

Fight for democracy, prosperity

Obama, himself a historic figure as the first African American president, is expected to remind a young audience at the university that Mandela and those in the U.S. civil rights movement persevered against daunting obstacles in bringing about social change that many thought impossible.
The U.S. president will then challenge his audience not to be content with that progress but to push ahead with battles to lift Africans out of poverty, combat government corruption and improve health and living standards across the continent.
He will also aim to restore some of the lustre of the U.S. relationship with Africa by stressing the U.S. desire to move beyond being an aid donor toward greater economic partnerships.
The speech comes in the middle of an Africa trip that has taken Obama to Senegal and South Africa and will conclude Monday and Tuesday in Tanzania.
Obama has sought to use the trip to emphasize Africa's potential as a business partner for the United States and to overcome the perception that he has ignored the continent.
Many Africans are disappointed that despite the U.S. president's African ancestry — his father was a Kenyan — his only previous visit to the continent while in office was to Ghana in 2009.
The president will unveil a $7 billion U.S. initiative to double access to electric power on a continent where only one in three people have electricity.
While in Cape Town, Obama will also visit a health centre to highlight U.S. efforts to combat HIV/AIDS on the continent, which have contributed to a 32 per cent drop in the number of AIDS-related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2005 to 2011.

Aphorisms

Just in case you have some time to read something funny and "deep" at the same time.

1. The nicest thing about the future is . . .

that it always starts tomorrow.

 

2. Money will buy a fine dog . . .

but only kindness will make him wag his tail.

 

3. If you don't have a sense of humor . . .

you probably don't have any sense at all.

 

4. Seat belts are not as confining . . .

as wheelchairs.

 

5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is . . .

when you're in deep water.

 

6. How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of

the dark . .

to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?

 

7. Business conventions are important . . .

because they demonstrate how many people a company can

operate without.

 

8. Why is it that at class reunions . . .

you feel younger than everyone else looks?

 

9. Scratch a cat (or dog) . . .

and you will have a permanent job.

 

10. No one has more driving ambition than the teenage boy

  (or girl) . . .

who wants to buy a car.

 

11. There are no new sins . . .

the old ones just get more publicity.

 

12. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong

number at 4 a.m. . .

like, it could be the right number.

 

13. No one ever says "It's only a game" . . .

when their team is winning.

 

14. I've reached the age where . . .

'happy hour' is a nap.

 

15. Be careful about reading the fine print . . .

there's no way you're going to like it.

 

16. The trouble with bucket seats is that . . .

not everybody has the same size bucket.

 

17. Do you realize that, in about 40 years . . .

we'll have thousands of old ladies running around with tattoos?

(And rap music will be the Golden Oldies!)

 

18. Money can't buy happiness . . .

but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Cadillac than

in a Yugo.

 

19. After 60, if you don't wake up aching in every joint . . .

you're probably dead.

 

20. Always be yourself because the people that matter don't

mind . . .

and the ones that mind don't matter.

 

21. Life isn't tied with a bow . . .

but it's still a gift

 

 

TIPs to prepare you oral exam

Next week you'll have to do your oral exams. Probably you are already getting prepared for it but I'd like to give you some ideas to make it easier.

 

• Try to listen to some English everyday (music, news, films, radio, etc.); pay attention to the pronunciation and try to imitate some parts of the texts. Some songs are fantastic!

 

• Prepare the topics that appear in the book. Don’t attempt to memorize everything because the moment you forget a word, then you’ll get stuck. Repeat the speech some times, making changes and trying to improve what you didn’t do well the previous time. If you know very well what you’re talking about, you won’t have any problem to improvise in case it’s necessary.

 

• Prepare some new vocabulary for each topic and use some of the new structures you studied this course. It will be a positive!

 

• Record your speech and listen to it later. Make sure you spot the mistakes and write them down. Next time you record it, pay special attention to these mistakes.

 

• Check the pronunciation of the words you don’t know. Don’t trust your logics. Remember that pronunciation rules in English have nothing to do with the Spanish ones.

 

• If you have a very strong Spanish accent, try to imitate Spanish people mocking English accent. It works!

 

• Speak slowly and paying attention not only to the right pronunciation but also to the accuracy: speak correctly. The exam is NOT a speed competition.

 

• For the individual topic you have just about 3 minutes. You should start with a brief introduction about the topic chosen, then only 2 or 3 ideas (no time for more) and then a good conclusion. Connect the different parts with appropriate connectors and make sure you have covered all the points given.

 

• As for the dialogue you have to keep  a "spontaneous and natural" conversation with your partner for about 5 minutes. Use the techniques you have learnt to agree or disagree; interrupt each other in a polite way; express your point providing examples or supporting your partner's idea, etc. Don't do individual speeches because that's not the aim of the exercise. Just hold a discussion for some minutes. 

 

• If possible, practise with your partner; it'll help you be more confident the day of the exam.

 

Good luck!

Hi all,

You're about to do your exams. I hope you all stay calm, read carefully the instructions and do as much as you can.
Don't get stuck if there's something you don't know or any answer you can't find. Just leave it and when you finish with the rest of the questions, come back to it.
Don't forget to underline in the multiple choice questions the differences among the 3 options. You won't need to remember a lot of information as you can glance at the possibilities and quickly choose the correct one.
And finally, make sure you leave some time to check your writing. Read it again to see if you can understand what you wrote and if there's any mistake, make corrections. Use new structures, new vocabulary, anything you can do in order to impress the teacher: me!

You can do it!