50 years ago, Martin Luther King gave one of the best known speeches on Earth, "I have a dream" speech. Actually, this sentence was not originally in his written speech, he improvised it becoming one of the most important quotes in our century. The Washington March, on 28 August 1963 is a landmark in the Civil Right Movement. In order to commemorate this day, the MLK Foundation shares a link where you can read and listen to Dr. King and his famous speech with information added so you can gather more ideas about it. Enjoy it!!
Martin Luther King delivered one of the most famous speech in history, "I have a dream", in Washington, D.C. Every time I listen to it, I get a bit emotional since it is still valid for every one of us. Hope you enjoy it!
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Today we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of one of the most important Victorian writers, Mr. Charles Dickens. The English department is preparing some activities to approach Dickens' world to our students. You can join us in the celebration commenting on this entry or on Twitter by using the hashtags #Dickens2012 and #englishtdp.
Today's doodle by Google
“My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.”
For those lucky guys who are travelling to Berlin just in a few days, as well as for those of us who are staying here, here's a little bit of information about Berlin.
Remember that Berlin is a city full of HISTORY, where you'll be able to see and touch the great wall that divided Europe for so many years.
Reading other blogs, I've found this wonderful entry of my workmate Abel. We heard the story from a book one of us was reading, and it is indeed an amazing one. Read his post and discover more about a person we all should admire even if we have never heard her name before: Henrietta Lacks.
We have to assume it. Our worst enemy when we want our students to study nowadays is Facebook. I found this pic in a group from facebook -yeah, I felt into disgrace as well!!
On Friday 28th, We are going to watch a nice film, The King's Speech, with one of my favourite actors, Colin Firth. If you go to the nice and brand new site for Cinema per a estudiants, you can do several interactive activites and learn more about the King, his therapist and how he influenced his people with his first war speech.
I'm not sure if you know, but the English department loves cooking and food. One of the most famous cooks in the English-speaking world is Jamie Oliver. He's made different programmes for TV and he alone raised awareness about healthy food. You can learn a lot of new recipes by looking at his videos.
On Monday, we are going to watch the story of Hachiko, a faithful dog. The story is based on real facts, as anyone can check in your blogs. If you want to learn more about the film, click here and do the activities on the dossier prepared for you. Remember to submit your answers to your teacher...and enjoy the film!
Come and celebrate St. Patrick's Day at the Foreign Languages Department! Thursday March 17th is St. Patrick's Day, the saint patron of Ireland. This holiday is getting more and more popular and more people are celebrating it worldwide. If you want to get a gold coin from the Leprechaun's treasure follow these steps: 1) Wear something green. 2) Come to the foreign languages department and ask a teacher about the treasure in English. 3) Get your gold coin! It would be nice if you could take a picture of yourself in green with the gold coin and then send it to the department email idiomesiestorredelpalau@gmail.com We'll make a nice collection of St.Patrick holiday goers!!!
A nice story that I have found in a new discovery, storybird, a collaborative storytelling site: it's called Who You Are. Click on the title to read it.
One mobile phone company in our country is using a choir of children singing the song "Waltzing Matilda". Asked by my mother about the song, I looked for it on the google. As a good freak, I discovered a different story from what I'd expected. Because of the title, I thought about a dance and a girl. But the truth is that the song talks about carrying your goods in a bag while travelling on food. This song is considered as one of the unofficial Australian anthems and is used in many sporting events, especially those related to rugby. I found the following video on youtube, which talks about the plot and mentions vocabulary which is specifically Australian, and some of these wordsa are old-fashioned, too. There are some typical symbols from Australia as well.
Some of the vocabulary you can find: swagman: Swag is a bed roll which bundle the belongings of a man, the swagman, who travelled the country looking for a job Waltzing means to travel while working as a craftsman Matilda is the swag, in a metaphoric way, giving it the name of a woman, since it was the only companion of the swagman. billabong: a pool of deep water billy: a little tin for boiling water. Jumbuck: a sheep tucker bag: a bag for carrying tucker, which means food. squatter: big land owner troopers: policemen
In 1969, the NASA achieved a dream: the first human beings arrived to the Moon. A competition against Russian government that was fulfilled with Armstrong's famous sentence: "One small step...". Can you complete it by listening to the video?? be honest and do not look for it on google!
As some of you know, one of my best friends, Sandra, is living now in Melbourne. She's got a blog where you can find some of her experiences living upside down. You may find some videos as well where you can listen to real Australian accent. It is not Strine, but can you spot some differences with British or American English? click on the links to discover it!
