Looking into the future.

Here are three views of the future as imagined by science fiction movies. Which do you think is the most convincing?

1 Minority Report (2002)



2 Soylent Green (1973)



3 Bladerunner (1982)

Frankenstein

If you wish to listen/read the book click here for the printed version and click here for the audio book.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon. Adaptations have included stage shows, a series of five books first published between 1979 and 1992 (the first of which was titled The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), a 1981 TV series, a 1984 computer game, and three series of three-part comic book adaptations of the first three novels published by DC Comics between 1993 and 1996."

For more info from Wiki click here.

Stephen Hawking

"Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes, and his popular works in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. These include the runaway popular science bestseller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.^[1]"

^{For more on Hawkings from Wiki click here.}

Using Yahoo to learn English

Here is a good place to practice your listening and reading skills is to listen to the Yahoo People of the Web site which has a short video accompanied by an article. If you were teaching you could do;

1 some warm up exercise based on the subject. E.g. Ask your teen students how they could become a millionaire at their age.

2 Then show the video and ask the students to write down as many details as possible.

3 They then work in pairs to share their noes and then write up an short summary of the piece.

4 Finally, they compare their version to the article that goes with the video.

This could be used as a warm up exercise for a debate or discursive essay writing lesson.

Eating facilities

Last lesson we were talking about student restaurant here. Check out this site which gives details of the student facilities in Dublin. What is your opinion?

Correction code

The object of this code is to let you look at your mistakes on your own and learn from them.

sp Spelling e.g. Friends not frinds.

gr Grammar e.g. Lots of money not many money.

pr Preposition eg. I live in London not I live at London.

pu Punctuation e.g. I like milk not i like milk.

vt Verb tense e.g. I went to Spain in 1995 not I have gone to Spain in 1995.

wo Word order e.g. I like dancing very much not I like very much dancing.

ww Wrong word e.g. I missed the bus not I lost the bus.

mw Missing word e.g. I saw a bird not I saw bird.

r Repetition i.e. saying the same again and again and again etc.

Welcome

Welcome to everyone in Proficiency 2. Here are some ideas you can use to help you learn English outside class.

This is a list of different things you can do to improve your English outside class.

1 Use the internet - How ?

a Surf the web on a regular basis - 10 to 15 minutes a day is enough.

b Use chat rooms - Mirc or Yahoo have easy to use (and FREE) chat services.

http://www.mirc.co.uk
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/chat/chatbylycos.html

c Listen to radio or download podcasts from the net.

www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Or download a book and listen to it. It costs nothing.

http://freeaudio.org
http://www.scottsigler.net
http://librivox.org

d Set up your own blog (web page). It's easy and costs nothing. Also it is a great way to practise your writing skills and come into contact with others

www.blogger.com
www.myspace.com

e Use Skype (www.skype.com), which allows you to make free phone calls over the internet in order to find speaking partners from all over the world. MSN and Yahoo also have similar services.

www.kantalk.com is a good place to start.

f Watch Youtube (www.youtube.com) in order to see clips in English. There are plenty of videos aimed at those learning English, e.g

http://thedailyenglishshow.blogspot.com/.

For longer programmes see;

Google Video (http://video.google.com)

2 Watch DVD's - without subtitles - at least once a week. This is a great way of preparing for the listening test.

3 Read something other than your course books. Literature, short stories, magazines, newspapers; In fact just about anything you can find in English. All reading is good practice for the Reading Comprehension part of the Cambridge exams. All these things can be found at the kiosks in Aristotelian square or in central bookshops.

4 Record yourself. If you have a cassette recorder, mobile phone that can record or a microphone for your PC, record yourself speaking. It's a great way of correcting errors in your spoken English. You can record part of a film you've seen, a page from an audio book, a listening exercise from the course book etc. Listen to the original and try to copy it as closely as possible.

5 Speak only English in class. This is probably the only chance you'll get to speak English before the exam so make the most of the opportunity.

Nobody expects students to do all of these things but if you try some of them during the course of the year then you'll see a great improvement in your language skills and of course you'll greatly increase your chances of getting a good grade in the exams.