Extra Exercices of Barack Obama & Martin Luther King

Questions for preparing Martin Luther King’s text:

1. What rights did black people have in the USA in the 1960’s?
They haven't any rights.

2. What was “segregation”?
The separation between black and white people.

3. What did states as Georgia, Mississippi or Alabama have in common in the 1960’s?
That they were the states where the racism was more pronounced.

4. Who were the “Pilgrims”?
A pilgrim is one who undertakes a pilgrimage (long journey or search of great moral significance).

4. What is a “spiritual”?
This word comes from the word: Spirit, which means the soul, the natural part of being and it's identificate with the mind or the brain.

Vocabulary

Rooted: arrelat.
Rise up: aixacar.
Creed: ideologia.
Hold: celebrar/aguantar.
Swelter: cansar-se.
Heat: calor.
Rough: aspre.
Crooked: tort.
Straight: recte.
Flesh: carn.
Despair: desesperació.
Hope: esperança.
Swelter: cansar-se pel sol i no poder fer res per remediar-ho.

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Questions for preparing Barack Obama’s text:

1. When did women get the right to vote in the United States? (par. 2)
In 1920.

2. What was the “New Deal”? (par. 5)
The state encouraged people to buy things.

3. Paragraph 6 refers to “the bombs” falling on “our harbor”. Which bombs and which harbor is B. Obama referring to? (par. 6)
He refears to Pearl Harbor.

4. What was the “Montgomery bus boycott”? (par. 7)
It was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation.

5. To know who the “preacher from Atlanta” was, check
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
The preacher from Atlanta was Marthin Luther King.

6. When did the Berlin wall fall down?
In 1989.

7. What happened in the Edmund Pettus Bridge, outside Selma, in 1965?
There, the voting rights marchers were violently confronted by law enforcement personnel on March 7, 1965. The day became known as Bloody Sunday.

Vocabulary to look up:
Ballot: vot.
Cast a ballot: emetre un vot.
Slavery: esclavitud.
Creed: credo.
Despair: desesperar.
Conquer: conquerir.
Witness: testimoni.
Preacher: predicador.
Sum up: resumir.

7.-Podcasts

I haven't got the podcast of the joke, and on Friday I was going to recover the dialogue, but she didn't come.

6.- Your first oral presentation video

Hi everybody!

Okay, in this Oral Presentation I’m going to talk about a famous sitcom you’ve surely seen one time in your life minimum... The Simpsons! I’m going to talk about this sitcom because I’ve been watching them on TV all my life, and I’ve laughed a lot, so I think it’s related with the topic of humour.

HISTORY:

Well, first of all I’m going to talk about its history. The Simpsons, which were created by Matt Groening, began being emitted as a part of The Tracy Ullman Show, but the emission of the family shorts became so popular that Fox TV Channel developed in a half-hour prime time show, which supposed the first Fox Series to land in the TOP 30 of most watched emissions in USA.

The Simpsons is a satirical parody of the middle class American lifestyle.

Since the sitcom began 20 seasons have been emitted and 1 film has been realised.

MAIN CHARACTERS:

-Homer: He’s the father of the family, but the most irresponsible member. He’s very stupid, an alcoholic, lazy… but although it seems it can’t be true he works as the Safety Inspector of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. It’s so stupid that he’s the only person who suffers the Syndrome of Homer.

-Marge: She’s homer’s wife, but also the opposite of her husband. She’s clever, responsible and it’s shown as the Stereotypical American Housewife.

-Bart: He’s 10 years old and a great troublemaker, he’s always in problems. It’s like his father, so he’s an irresponsible.

-Lisa: She’s 8 years old and the opposite of Bart. She’s very intelligent and an activist: she’s always defending the nature.

-Maggie: She’s 1 year old. Apart from the film she has only said one word in all the 20 seasons: “Daddy”. And she loves guns.

SECONDARY GUNS:

As there’re approximately 200 secondary characters I’m only going to talk about my favourite ones.

-Abraham Simpson: He’s Homer’s farther, and he’s always explaining ridiculous stories from the Second World War.

-Barney Gamble: He’s Homer’s best friend and also an alcoholic. He’s always belching.

-Lenny & Carl: They’re Homer job colleagues. Homer never knows who the black is and who the “white” is. To me they’re in love each one of each other but they don’t admit.

-Moe: He’s the owner of Moe’s Tavern, which is the bar where Homer goes to drink, and also the victim of Bart & Lisa telephone jokes.

SPRINGFIELD:

Springfield is the town where the great part of the episodes takes place. Matt Groening chose this name because is the one which is most repeated between the different towns in USA. There’s a Springfield minimum in every state of USA. But recently Matt Groening told that’s inspired in his natal city: Portland, Oregon.

CURIOSITIES:

-The major part of the characters are yellow, and all the characters, it doesn’t matter if they’re yellow, black…, have only four fingers in each hand.

-The major part of the characters have an own sentence:

-Homer: “Dough!”

-Bart: “Ay caramba”

-Lisa: “If someone needs me will find me in my bedroom”

-Mr. Burns: “Excellent”

-Nelson Muntz: “Ha, haaa!”

-Apu: “Thank you for your purchase, come back another time”

-etcetera

-Every season begins with a Halloween Special Episode, which are formed by three short stories each one, which try to be frightening but they finally are very funny.

-The Simpsons are known as “The Most Famous Family of America”.

HOMER FUNNIEST MOMENTS:

And finally I’m going to show you a video I found it where appear some of the best moments of Homer who is my favourite character. You’ll see that is really stupid.

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Oral Presentations Evaluation:

NAME	TOPIC	3 FACTS I HAVE LEARNT	DO I HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?	GENERAL IMPRESSION
Chanez + Fiona	Sitcoms	-Sitcoms beginnings were Radio programmes. -Sitcoms are very popular today. -Their favourite sitcom is The Prince of Bal Air.		Great pronunciation, they’re fantastic.
Marina Sarquella	Main themes from Pride & Prejudice	Three themes: -Love -Reputation -Social Classes		Very good pronunciation
Adrià Carmona	Types of humour	-There’re a lot of types of humour	-Which is your favourite type of humour?	Very interesting, really funny, and very good pronunciation.
Carles & Claudia Rosillo	Weddings around the world	-Indian wedding begins on the night. -Arabian’s one is very different of our one.	-Are you going to marry? -Do you want to marry me Claudia?	Although at the beginning were very nervous the result was fantastic.
Alejandro	Andreu Buenafuente	-Buenafuente has worked in TV3, A3 an La 6.		Very funny.
Neus Pagès & Marina Julià	Different kinds of love	Three kinds of love: -Platonic -Passion -Arranged marriage		Very good and original
Oriol Oliva	Humour in Spanish TVs	-TV3 is the most humorous channel -He prefers Plats Bruts more than another sitcom. -He doesn’t talk about Antena 3		Very calm, and good pronunciation
Elisenda Lladó & Laia Salo	Relationship between Darcy and Elisabeth	-Although the two characters didn’t want they’re in love since they met.		Very good!
Ariadna Comes	Life in 18th and 19th centuries	-Illustration was a great movement. -Rousseau is one of the most important persons of the time		Very good an interesting!
Bernat Santos & Baldiri Gironella & Iñaki Fernandez	19th Century	-A lot of poor people. -Few rich people.		A little bit boring, but they speak fluently.
Anna Genís & Miriam Falgàs	How to be a gentleman	-Give facilities to the girls. -Say always: sorry, excuse me, you first…	-Anna, do you want to go with me to a dinner this night?	Great pronunciation and very funny!

5.-A summary of the film you watched in aula d'idiomes

In 1846, in Lower Manhattan's Five Points district, a territorial war raging for years between the gangs of the Nativist faction (comprising those born in the United States from earlier English & Dutch Protestant immigrants) and the recently arrived, predominantly Irish Catholic immigrants, is about to come to a head in Paradise Square.

The Nativists are led by William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting. The leader of the immigrant Irish, the Dead Rabbits is Priest Vallon, who has a young son, Amsterdam. Cutting and Vallon meet with their respective gangs in a horrific battle, concluding when Bill kills Priest Vallon, which Amsterdam sees. Cutting declares the Dead Rabbits outlawed and orders Vallon's body buried with honor. Amsterdam is found and taken to the orphanage at Hellgate. Sixteen years later, Amsterdam returns to New York. Arriving in Five Points, he reunites with an old friend, Johnny Sirocco. Johnny, now a member of a clan of pickpockets and thieves introduces Amsterdam to Bill the Butcher, for whom the group steals. Amsterdam finds that many of his father's old loyalists are now under Bill's control. Amsterdam soon works his way into the Butcher's inner circle. Amsterdam learns that each year, on the anniversary of the Five Points battle (February 16), Bill leads the city in saluting the victory over the Dead Rabbits, and he makes plans to kill the Butcher during this ceremony, in front of the entire Five Points community, in order to exact public revenge.

Here is till I saw from the movie.

4.-Summaries of news

“Cosmic Ghost” Discovered by Volunteer Astronomer.

Kevin Schawinski, an astrophysicist, and his colleagues at Oxford University enlisted public support in cataloguing galaxies; they never foresaw the strange object Hanny van Arkel found in archived images of the night sky.The Dutch school teacher, a volunteer in the Galaxy Zoo project, discovered a mysterious object some observers are calling a “cosmic ghost.”Van Arkel toke an image of a strange, one gaseous object with a hole in the center. Quickly, Astronomers who run the site began to investigate and soon realized van Arkel might have found a new class of astronomical object.Any person had idea what it was, and for this reason scientists working at telescopes around the world and with satellites in space were asked to take a look at the mysterious Voorwerp. The acientists and astronomers never found any reliable explanation of this mysterious object.

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McDonald's sued over nude photos.

A US couple is suing McDonald's for $3m (£2m) after nude photos of the woman, which were on her husband's mobile phone, ended up on the internet. Phillip Sherman says he accidentally left his phone, with the photos, at a McDonald's and promised to secure the phone until he could retrieve it. Tina Sherman, who she had to move to a new home after the woman's name, address, and phone number appeared online along with the photos, says she began receiving offensive calls and text messages about the pictures from her husband's mobile phone after he left it at the McDonald's. The nude pictures have been removed from the website that had posted them and McDonald's Corp, the franchise owner and the manager have so far refused to comment on the case.
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The night club Pacha in Valencia gives an operation for breast augmention of the amount of 4500 euros.

The nightclub Pacha in Valencia gifts an operation for breast augmentation
of the amount of 4,500 Euros. As said today the manager of the establishment,
Carlos Monsell.
He also explained that in case the person who touches the draw prefers to undergo another type of aesthetics operation can change the growth of breasts by another intervention, in which you can also choose "the photoepilation or injections of Botox."
The draws for this type of operation have emerged this year in Argentina, where in some provinces, after the heated controversy unleashed on this issue this operations were prohibited.
The festival, organized for next 5 of December, under the name of Pretty Woman, in the promotional poster there is a woman who is going to tear the bandages after being operated.

3.-Discussion Essay

Have PCs made the world better?

It seems that the technologies are extremely necessary in our daily life. In fact, one of these technologies has become indispensable: Personal Computers, well known as PCs. I believe that computers have made the world a better place where we can live but however I have some opinions against PCs.

I think that machines are a great human invention, for example in this century we can do everything with them: homework, search information in a way more easy and comfortable or communicate with people from an other side of the world with the internet, an element that now is very attached to the computers.

But this is where begins the problems, consequently of this comfort our habits are changing. This makes us lazier, because PCs are substituting all the work we had to do till the moment. You know, like everything, PCs have become a problem when we have abused of them, in this case of the technology, concretely Personal Computers.

In conclusion I would say that this machines are necessary and useful, because NOW we depend completely of them.

2.- Opininon Essay. Humor

Is Humour Essential in our Life?

Humour is a quality which is takes a lot of importance in our daily life.

For example, firstly when you’ve got bad experiences, types of humour like laugh a little bit helps you a lot to forget the bad experiences, and will help you to feel better. Also, people who tends to smile more than other people seems that are more positive and it seems that they’re the bosses of the world, because it’s like bad things can’t affect them. Finally it’s confirmed and proved that people works better if they’re in a good mood that in a bad one. And this can be confirmed, because I’ve proved a lot of times.

Although humour is a great sense there’re some situations where you can’t laugh and you have to take seriously because they aren’t funny situations.

In conclusion, I believe humour is essential in our life to survive, but we’ve to take care in some situations because isn’t always appropriate to take things in a funny way.

1.-Your First mail to the teacher

Hello!

I'm Adrià Alfaro, I'm 17 years. I live in Castelló d'Empúries. I play the guitar. I love listen to music, my favourite music is “Oi!”, but I enjoy more types of music, such as rock and reggae. Other of my hobbies is playing with computer and Play Station 2/3.

But I'm a student so I've to study. Now I’m doing second of batxillerat, and I think that’s a little bit difficult, but it doesn’t matter if I fail the next year I will repeat and no problems!XD

What’s sure is that I’m going to pass batxillerat because I want to go to the school of officials of the army and I need the selectivity, so I have to study!

Well this is all!

Bye bye!