LiveScripts - Guiones

Sailing on the Sea of Dreams

2012-02-09T23:49:00.000-08:00

Dreaming the Future of Dreaming

It will not be long before neurologists map out all altered states of mind - dreams, lucid dreams, meditation, trance, rapture, orgasm, epilepsy... - and relate them not only to the mystic and religious revelations of prophets and shamans from the beginning of mankind but also, on one hand, to artistic and scientific creativity and, on the other hand, to our everyday and everybody's divine intuition.

Dream research will also show that these states of illumination can be accomplished by sheer true desire and love as well as traditional fasting, prayer, music and dancing - or yoga. Science and the media will make this phenomenon so obvious that any religious leader or therapist will never ever again claim to have any monopoly of a Truth that belongs to all of us - just like dreaming.

Dream research will branch out into as many categories as fields of expertise, with groups of specialists working and dreaming together old and new solutions, particularly in social sciences and economy. Dreaming diaries will display a standard design, and after being used - preferably with cinematographic language - their pages could be stamped and legalized for interchange among scholars.

Dreaming cruises will still be more popular than they are today. There will be Dreaming Temples again. People will still celebrate Christmas, the 4th of July, Saint John's Eve, being totally aware they are actually celebrating the solstices and our connection to Mother Earth. Rituals of birth, coming of age, marriage and death will be experienced in another richer way and a 'good night' expression will become a particularly meaningful kind of farewell: Happy dreams!

Domenec Mendez

CSDL 2012 - The Da Vinci Code Collaborative Writing

2012-02-04T02:41:00.000-08:00

Syntactic andStyle Analisis of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

As an exampleof Collaborative Writing

DanBrown required 88 sentences in his prologue of The Da Vinci Codeto lure more than a hundred-million readers and hook them up to hismystery novel about the Holy Grail, the sacred femenine and thesupposed marriage between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ. Obviously,all grammar and style features, however simple might seem at first,have successfully arisen everybody's interest: quite a few verblessnoun phrases, mostly copulative and intransitive verbs in simple orcoordinate sentences, subordinate clauses linked with colloquialconnectors, fifteen gerund clauses, frequent dislocation ofcomplements -anastrophes- and use of adjuncts, quite a few apparentlynaive repetitions, numerous omissions of relative pronouns andauxiliary verbs, and figures of speech reduced to little more thanone single personification.

Mostof these features are more common in spoken language and, therefore,confere the prologue a very colloquial -almost informal- style whicheases up the reader's understanding of the action at the same timethat it increases our curiosity about the reasons for the murder andthe secret kept worthy of one's life.

Asan educator and amateur writer, it is impossible to resist thetemptation of a more extensive analysis of the rest of chapters toconfirm -or not- these and other features of the novel in an obviousattempt to break the code of Dan Brown's artistic feat. My victimshave been four classes of credit and non-credit English languagestudents including a class group of teachers and professors. Eachstudent has been given a chapter of the novel to analyze and, then,deliver a guided composition with their results which put togetherwith an introduction, objectives and conclusions would conform aperfect example of collaborative writing, ready to publish andperdure for further researching endavours and comparisons with otherlinguistic sources like movie transcripts, classic novels, articlesfrom newspapers or magazines, spoken records, etc...

Mystudents' conclusions have proved more accurate than anticipated,uncovering a subtle connection between the grammar choices -innarrative or direct speech- and the characters' psychological traits.Therefore, revealing a deeper richness of style than usuallyattributed to the author. Besides, we will have to agree that theplot is extremely complex which together with the vast variety oftopics researched or mentioned account for the tremendous success ofthe novel. Dan Brown has striken a cultural nerve, someone said;personally, I modestly think he has drawn from Jung's collectiveunconscious, that is, everybody's secret knowledge, convictions anddreams.

CSDL 2012 - Linguistics and Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

2012-02-04T02:35:00.000-08:00

Linguistics and Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence.

All attendants to the course on Multiple Intelligences organized by Pilgrims at University of Kent, United Kingdom, last Summer, were to perform a final class project that we decided to call: MIMU (an acronym standing for either Multiple Intelligences Museum or simply My Musem). The performance was meant to recreate each one of the seven intelligences in Gardner's theory in relation to applied linguistics and share our designed activities with the rest of attendants to other Pilgrim's courses -about three hundred students every two weeks.

So when our trainers gave us a formal explanation of our assignment, it triggered off the memory of a recent pub conversation about the Maori dance held before rugby matches which one of my colleagues had shown on stage in a school festival; and it occurred to me that we could rehearse and peform a simplified version of the dance as a warm-up, an energizing or ice-breaking activity.

My colleague -a history teacher in a bilingual program, current rugby coach and ex-semi-professional player- was puzzled at first, but eagerly accepted my suggestion and we had a ball with our museum visitors. It turns out, the Programme Director used to practice rugby at school and he joined us in one of our dances while we were videotaped for promotion, so we were publically congratulated with all classmates performing our Maori dance.

One of the conversations with a primary school teacher and visitor of our bodily-kinesthetic work station was particularly interesting. We concluded that while kindergarden and primary school have unintendedly but effectively considered all five doors or entry points to convey meaning and content to students, including music, dancing, songs, games, etc... that approach usually stops at secondary education. The whole experience has led me to collect all my bodily-kinesthetic activities in an attempt to share them with the rest of the teaching community, learn from everybody -which is the purpose of this presentation- and publish our activities and conclusions:

1. A web-quest to identify a set of Paleolithic and Neolithic venuses served the pupose of illustrating a different esthetic perspective of human and female representation to prevent anorexia and bulimia, then students used clay to recreate one venus of their own.

2. Newaza – Ground Techniques to link with a coursebook unit on extreme sports,

3. Massage – Giving each other a Rub to show trust and care for others,

4. Human Castles to link with a coursebook unit on traditions and customs,

5. a Karaoke session with choreography to memorize linguistic content.

III Edicion del Salon MiEmpresa - Madrid

2012-02-02T09:38:00.001-08:00

This entry is meant to express our gratitude for the invitation to the conference above.

LiveScripts has a tremendous growing potential still in difficult times like this and not only in our country but also worldwide, particularly in emerging markets like China, Malaysia or even India.

More than fundings, this endavour is in need of agreements with companies and institutions trusting in our full potential.

Thank you.

Mission Statement

2012-02-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

LiveScripts, G-64961121, has a legal framework to market a magazine featuring complete movie transcripts in original version with their translation as reading guides previous to the projection; and addressed to the general public, teachers and students. We pay royalties of trasncripts published in paper. Therefore, this blog includes a number of movie transcripts, some with their translation, activities, key answers and link to the video. See Index for a list.

Another block of entries focuses on activities related to bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, and teaching resources like guided debates, links to personal publications, proposals to administrations, business plan and external contributions.

LiveScripts-Guiones, G-64961121, poseeel marco legal para comercializar una revista con los diálogos deuna película en versión original traducida como guía de lecturaprevia a la proyección, y dirigida al público en general, docentesy estudiantes. Incluimos, por tanto, las transcripciones completas deciertas películas, algunas con su traducción correspondiente,actividades, soluciones y enlace al vídeo.

Otro bloque de entradas se focaliza enactividades relacionadas con la inteligencia corporal-cinestésica yotros recursos didácticos como debates guiados sobre paridad degenero o la vida tras la muerte, así como enlaces a publicacionespersonales, propuestas educativas, plan de empresa y contribucionesexternas.

V EASLCE - Yague Speaks

2012-02-02T01:54:00.000-08:00

"NATURA LOQUENS":

Eruptive Dialogues, Disruptive Discourses

Yagüe Speaks

by D. Mendez

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 and the Amendments of 1994 under President Bill Clinton granted indians the right to use psychoactive cactus peyote for ceremonial purposes, a practise recalling the consumption of soma among the Indo-Iranians and the Mithraic Misteries of Rome -perhaps preserved today in the Eucharist liturgy so well portrayed in Hair. On these regards, the Tree of Knowledge might well stand as a symbol for both the Neolithic revolution and the primal cause -in the shape of an amanita muscaria, for example- of our linguistic capability and abstract thought just like Terence McKenna suggests.

Therefore, not only does nature in the form of ayahuasca speak but also shouts the disolution of boundaries and the unity with everything -beyond the symbiotic relationship between animals and plants in our interchange of oxigen and dioxid. The vomits paved the way to orgasmic sighs and the fractal patterns evolved into living entities whose silent message spoke of Jung's collective unconscious or Gaia's consciousness directing our paths of warriors, like in a school of fish or flock of birds, towards -figurative and literally- a single world army.

Only Unity will liberate us from the chains of anxiety, insatisfaction, fear and consumism on which biased publicity pray. If folk tales of Snowhite and Cinderella hide the rebirth of the sacred feminine, Tom and Jerry encarnate the new balance of ying/yan and The Dancing Trees of Walt Disney's Fantasia 2000 echo this experience: Nature has a will of her own.

10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WOMEN'S STUDIES - Isis

2012-02-02T01:32:00.000-08:00

10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WOMEN'S STUDIES // X JORNADAS INTERNACIONALES DE ESTUDIOS DE LA MUJER

TOPOGRAFÍAS DOMÉSTICAS Y GÉNERO // NEGOTIATING GENDERED SPACES

Isis

or the eneolithic morality of the sacred feminine

by D. Mendez

Needles to say, one of the gendered spaces to negotiate is that of spiritual guidance. Accused of encarnating evil since the Genesis of history, expelled from early Christianity by the Synod of Nicaea and condemned again during the Catar heressy, women have just recently recovered part of their spiritual leadership in the inter-religious, multicultural Riverside Church of Manhattan, Protestant temples and tribal rituals, but she is still ostraziced of most others.

Nevertheless, modern scanning techniques of brain activity (Carter, 1999; Rubia, 2003) have depleted ecstasy and priesthood of their past male-dominated legitimacy and have turned religion into only a tradition as old as the written word. But prior to this, there seems to be quite some evidence of gender parity in the sacred matters of the paleolithic (Adovasio, 2008).

Moreover, according to historical research (Eisler, 1987) and linguistic evidence, early neolithic settlements with more egalitarian social structures were swept away by tribes of cattle breeders, dispossessed and mercenaries with a martial and patriarcal ideology -the expansion of Indo-European languages and the Hebrew exode described in the Bible being two obvious paradigms.

Therefore, more than sharing the altar of our churches, our most urgent challenge consists precisely of bringing back those more egalitarian moral values: the philosophy by which a simple couple of a man and a woman represent all pairs of opposites -day and night, life and death...- and our embrace stands for the union of opposites, the fertility of our fields, the prosperity of our lives (Mendez, 2010).

This approach points out a new alternative to Dutch and Swedish policies to deal with prostitution, that is, a more resposible attitude than simply ignoring this sordid reality (Ayen, 2010): sacralizing sexuality and legalizing the oldest profession as the religious cult to Ishtar it was once and is still practiced in modern India.

This train of thought reminds me of Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood (Paint your Wagon, 1968) as forty-niners during the Gold Rush in the town meeting in which the only remedy for Marvin's jealousy -married to the only woman in town- consisted of assalting a coach, kidnapping six French bawds and taking them to No Name City:

“Soon there'd be another saloon... And another gambling hall... And hotels!

Property would shoot straight up. They'd make more money selling old claims than gold.

These men didn't come out here to forge a nation!

That's for men with a big dream, with visions of America's greatness. l'm warning you, if you want to turn us into a dreary boom town metropolis filled with nothing but millionaires, all you gotta do is put up one little, tiny two-storey cathouse!

l say let's put it to a vote, and any man opposed is a traitor!”

If Eva's original sin meant women's submission to men, the acknowledgement of the sacred character of human sexuality could bring about the redemption of humanity as well as the overcoming of our crisis of ideologies and markets.

Foam Party at School-yard Many Years ago

2012-01-28T05:32:00.000-08:00

End of Course Foam Party in the School-yard

This is a very old picture I just found by chance from many years ago. We were just celebrating the end of a hard school year, and I wonder whether the activity could have further didactic applications from the point of view of bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence like, for example, illustrating the cultural revolution of the sixties, the French May of 1968, the Oil Crisis of 1973.

Any other suggestion?

Physical Education in FLT - Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence

2012-01-19T03:33:00.000-08:00

Rochelle is our Conversational Assistant from California. One of our last classes was about Health Issues, and since she is an expert on diets and exercises, she did not hesitate to bring her own devices to our language class and invite everybody to give it a shot. My students were delighted with the experience and so was I. Rochelle, you are wonderful!

This is a summary of bodily-Kalisthenic activities and proposals, hope you enjoy them:

Paleolithic and Neolithic Venuses against Bulimia and Anorexia,

Newaza - Ground Techniques,

Giving each other a Rub,

Haka - Maori Dancing as an Ice-breaker,

Why a Pub in a Classroom?

Human Castles,Karaoke session,

Lindy Hop Dancing

Physical education and FLT
Foam Party

Ladder workouts - pasadas de escalera

School orchards - huertos escolares y urbanos

Lindy Hop Dancing

2012-01-16T03:50:00.000-08:00

Hi again,

Mingo asked me to provide you with some caving story or to explain what my dancing is about. Although right now I do feel like telling a story, it's not going to be one about caves but about the latter topic: for the last year I've been taking dancing lessons for a dance called Lindy Hop.

As you might have guessed, dancing is something that never had crossed my mind, until more or less a year ago, when my girlfriend casually mentioned, that she had appointed us for some dancing lessons. I was shocked. Me dancing?
Since she made clear that the decision already had been taken and the lessons paid, there was nothing I could do about it except to hope that by some twist of fate I still could escape from it. No miracle happened and D-day arrived far too early.

In the meantime I had been told that the dance in question was called Lindy Hop and that it's danced to Jazz music - not the contemporanian one but rather that of bigbands from the thirties, of Ella Fitzgerald and so one. In short, it’s one of various styles of dancing to Swing music. Since I don’t dislike that kind of music at all, I came to the conclusion, that it could have been worse.

The day of our first lesson I was so nervous that I even felt sick. At the beginning of the class everything was apparently under control, but soon disaster struck. It came in the form of the order to switch partners. I couldn't believe it. I was forced to stay close to women totally strange to me and I not only had to touch but even grab them! Furthermore I was told to keep on moving as awkwardly as I had been taught before, trying to remember a most complex pattern of steps and twists, while standing emberassingly close to my everchanging partners. What in name of other's gods had I done to deserve that? (I'm an atheist, by the way.)

But once I accepted the new situation like a kind of divine punishment for the sins somebody else had committed in my name, it soon turned out to be real fun. During the rest of the class (and every class since then) the partner switching went on on a 2-to-3-minutes-base, interrupted by further instructions given, so that by the end of the class I rejoined my girlfriend and for the first time in my life actually danced with her. With the passing of some time and more lessons, both of us got slowly hooked to Lindy Hop.

By now you might ask yourself what exactly Lindy Hop is and what the differences to other dances are. I’ll try to enlighten you as well as I can, but please have in mind, that I’m absolutely no expert at all at this. The following is only what I believe to remember of the information I gathered together during the last year. I haven’t consulted any sources of information in order to write this for you.

It’s said that the name Lindy Hop has to do with Charles Lindberg’s “hop” across the Atlantic that took place in the twenties. Lindy first evolved in US-cities and was exclusively danced by black people, especially in Harlem, New York. And that’s why it’s less stiff and more elastic compared to other dances like waltz or cha cha cha. Lindy’s godfather was a lad called Frank Manning who invented most of the steps and inspired most of the later dancers who then figured out the rest of them. After the Second World War Lindy disappeared and got kind of forgotten until in the eighties (again, please don’t nail me down on the numbers) it started to regain popularity. Some Swedish dancers then contacted Mr. Manning in order to ask him to teach them how to hop properly. Despite of his age he taught them, giving the spark for a new Lindy community to grow. It’s still Sweden where the popularity of this dance is highest, but during the last twenty years it also started to appear in more and more cities around the world. Today a large number of annual Lindy festivals take place, the most important in a Swedish village called Herräng, but also in most big European, North-American and South-East-Asian cities Lindy happenings take place and lessons can be taken.

In Barcelona for example, several dance-schools and associations offer Lindy lessons and so does one in Terrassa, which is called the Terrassa Hoppers. That’s the one my girlfriend and me attend on a weekly base.

As I mentioned before, Lindy is a more elastic and less strict dance when compared to the commonly known partner dances. At our level that might not be important, since we usually stick to our memorised patterns and soon get lost if something doesn't turn out properly but more advanced dancers, by contrast, give space to each other while dancing and they often encourage their partners to improvise. The best way to understand Lindy is by watching an advanced couple on the dancefloor. If you ignore their footwork for a moment and just look at their bodies, they seem to be connected by a rubber band and constantly stretch apart only to almost bounce together a moment after, preventing this by twisting around each other or passing under the partner’s arm. To reach a point of fluid dancing, though, an important amount of time spent into practicing is required, because hopping well is a quite difficult task.

This summer my girlfirend and me participated in the Herräng Dance Camp, the Swedish festival I've mentioned before, in order to boost our dancing skills. We inscribed to a week of classes in the intermediate course. At that moment we didn't know that Herräng was the world's cathedral of Lindy Hop with both, dancers and teachers coming from all over the world. During our week there we were tought by six different couples of teachers, all of them considered to be world class hoppers and we even had a master class given by an old Lady called Dawn Hampton who back in the golden age of Lindy Hop was Frank Manning's dancing partner. Herräng was a very interesting experience to us and quite a different way to make vacations. Furthermore we got to know interesting people from all over the world and we're already keen on returning there in 2012.

Dirk Hamdorf - October 2011

Come on Guys, a Little Bit of Common Sense!

2012-01-16T03:28:00.000-08:00

Welcometo our school,

weshare with you the thrill of breaking linguistic barriers and sharingour experiences with the rest of the world,

there'snothing more challenging and enriching than getting to know othercultures, their social and even working conditions.

Weonly hope you students don't expect to learn a foreign language

justby coming to class,

that'dbe totally unrealistic and immature!

Ina way, a language school's like amusic school,

youNEED TO PRACTICE your instrument -thatis, your voice- outside so

Homework

isessential to complete your learning process; otherwise, pleaseforget it, don't waste your time and ours.

READINGout loud and SPEAKING must be part of it, not for too long,but at least five or ten minutes of your daily homework routine:

Readthe transcripts of any LISTENING activity while playing it; then, tape your voice. Wait for a few days, and replay both your ownrecording and the listening track. Can you recall most of themessage?

PLEASURE& COMPANIONSHIP

areusually the keys to keep up these challenges, so try to enjoy theride with someone else:

Readlyrics, Listen to songs, Sing along and Learn them.

Readmovie transcripts and watch them, then memorize a few sentences, playwith pronunciation and entonation.

Reviewthe upcoming lesson beforehand, complete the new VOCABULARY& GRAMMAR activities on your workbook and check it outwith the answer key. Then,make a point of practicing the new stuff in the SPEAKING activitiesof the next class.

Keepin mind that we're all competent speakers of our mother tonguewithout any grammar explanation whatsoever, and so are speakers fromother languages,

Which,of course, doesn't release us teachers from the resposibility toexplain GRAMMAR or answer your doubts, but it gives you enoughautonomy to practice SPEAKING in the classroom with limitedsupervision for

bothpurposes: accuracy andfluency.

Rememberthat understanding, completing and checking any activity from thestudent's book, workbook or grammar book is only half of yourassignment, the other extremely important half is to transformthose examples into personal statements with an emotional load andthe commitment to verbalize them right away.

Beingrepeatedly exposed to the new code and using it is obviously the bestway to increase your activevocabulary and language structures -particularly in advanced courses.

Ifyou follow these instructions, you can rest assured that your realcommand of a foreign language and your self-esteem will increasedramatically; were you visiting or working in another country, yourlinguistic adaptation should be fast and smooth; otherwise, you mightpass a certificate exam, but you won't experience the deepsatisfaction of sharing your music, that is, using a language withease and fluency.

Screenwriter Paul Laverty's Article on Route Irish

2011-12-20T12:11:00.000-08:00

We are all familiar with the ritual of the body of a dead soldier returning from foreign soil; solemn music, the national flag, escorts and salutes recorded in detail by the nation’s media. Words of consolation flow from politicians and generals to broken-hearted relatives, many so young they often clutch infants. It wasn’t quite that way for Deely, the sister of Robert, an ex-Paratrooper who was ambushed in Iraq. He was flown back from Kuwait and arrived at Glasgow airport. The undertaker told Deely there were ten bodies on the plane that day, two of which were unidentifiable. Robert’s coffin looked “like a big orange crate”. There was no fanfare, no union jack, no journalists and not one question. His death, as far as we know, wasn’t added to any list. The reason is simple. Robert was no longer a Paratrooper, but a private contractor. Some call them private soldiers, or Corporate warriors, or security consultants. Iraqis call them mercenaries.

The business of war is being privatised slowly and deliberately before our eyes. Robert’s orange crate of a coffin tells us so, as do the statistics. Patrick Cockburn, a well respected commentator on Iraq, estimated that there were around 160,000 foreign contractors in Iraq at the height of the occupation, many of whom, perhaps as many as 50,000, were heavily armed security personnel. The conduct of the war, and occupation afterwards, would have been impossible without their muscle.

Thanks to Paul Bremer, the US appointed head of the Coalition Provisional Authority each and every one of those contractors was given immunity from Iraqi law in the shape of Order 17 which was imposed on the new Iraqi Parliament. (Order 17 lasted from 2003 till the beginning of 2009.)

Nobody is interested in counting how many Iraqi civilians have been killed or injured by private contractors, but there is a vast body of evidence to suggest that there has been widespread abuse. Blackwater’s massacre of 17 civilians in the middle of Baghdad was the most notorious incident, but there were many more that went unreported. One senior contractor told me, on condition of anonymity, that he spoke to a South African who told him killing an Iraqi was just like “shooting a Kafir”. Other bone fide contractors, proud of their professionalism, told me of their disgust at the violence of “the cowboys”. If a contractor was involved in an incident which caused a fuss, they were whisked out of the country by their company. Impunity, by order.

While lowly contractors gambled with lives and limbs on Route Irish, the Chief executives of those same companies made fortunes. Mr David Lesar, chief executive of Halliburton, (former CEO being Dick Cheney) earned just under 43 million dollars in 2004. Mr Gene Ray of Titan earned over 47 million between 2004 and 2005. Mr JP London of CACI earned 22 million. The devil is always in the detail. Private contractors charged the US army up to 100 dollars to do a single soldier’s laundry bag. In an official report dated January 2005 the Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen revealed that over 9 billion dollars had disappeared in fraud and corruption, and that was only during a very limited period of the Provisional Authority. Financial impunity too.

As one contractor told me the “place stank of money”. Little wonder poorly paid soldiers and elite Special Forces left in such numbers to join these private military corporations, as they saw their chance of a life time “to load up”.

These men “load up” with more than cash.

We are now used to seeing images of carnage and slaughter “over there.” We are accustomed to stories of missing billions, corporate greed, abuse, torture, and secret prisons. The Lancet’s detailed estimate of 654,965 dead as at June 2006 is almost beyond the mind’s capacity to grasp. It all seems now at a safe distance in time and place. Iraq fatigue, we are told, is upon us.

But “over there” is on its way back home to the UK and the United States. Iraq is inside the heads of “our boys”.

I was stunned to learn from the charity Combat Stress that deals with ex soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress syndrome that on average, it takes approximately 17 years for PTSS to manifest itself. They are bracing themselves (as is the US army) for a massive surge in the years to come.

Norma, a gentle nurse on the point of retiring who had spent years with ex-soldiers, opened the way for this story when she told me “many of these men are in mourning for their former selves.” An ex-soldier showed me a painting he had drawn of himself. “I just want my old self back.”

Order 17 may have been revoked in Iraq but its spirit still reigns supreme: the stink of impunity, the lies, the contempt for international law, the undermining of the Geneva conventions, the secret prisons, the torture, the murder……the hundreds of thousands of dead. As I imagine the intellectual authors of the above, Bush, Blair, and co with Aznar tailing behind, collecting their millions in after dinner speeches and setting up their interfaith foundations I cannot help but think of the nurses in Falujah today assisting the births of babies born with two heads and deformed bodies thanks to the chemical bombs rained on that city. Our gift to the future.

In a shameful speech to the soldiers of Fort Bragg on the 14th of December 2011 marking the end of the US military occupation Obama told the cheering troops they would be leaving with "their head held high". With the usual mix of sentimentality and hypocrisy in which they excel, they mourned their dead and ignored the Iraqi slaughter. In a decent world they would hang their heads in shame, beg forgiveness for their brutality, and start paying compensation to the millions of lives destroyed for generations to come.

Paul Laverty - 14th of December 2011.

Ken Loach and Paul Laverty at Cannes 2010

Collaborative Writing and Guided Compositions

2011-11-30T01:45:00.000-08:00

Collaborative Writing and Guided Compositions

INSTRUCTIONS

1.pick up paragraphs, copy and paste, then adapt the text to suit your needs,

2.formal writing style with some informal expressions to jazz it up-no contractions

3.Please use TimesNewRoman type of 12

4.print it out and deliver by December 12/13

5.introduce ammendments and rename document as DVC- FirstNameLastName 5ABC – chapter

6.send to dmncmndz@gmail.com with name of document as subject

Syntactic and Style Analysis of Chapter …............ from

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

This three-page chapter describes Character's struggles to run away from.../discover the truth/reveal the identity/accomplish his objective of (gerund)

(Name of character) (describe action) in this short/long fast-paced chapter, taking place in... and involving as well (name of other characters).

The action of this chapter takes place in …., is described from the point of view of (name of character) and involves as well (name of other characters). The chapter deals with... and its most striking/surprising aspect is...

As compared to the film, this chapter is included in one scene/takes a few seconds/minutes/is omitted.

I loved/liked/disliked/loathed Tom Hanks' interpretation of symbologist Robert Langdon, as well as Audry Tautou in the role of cryptographer Sophie Neveu. It is interesting to see/I just can not believe that topics such as the holy grail, the supposed marriage between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, their descendence, the sacred femenine, etc... have stirred up/provoked the interest of millions of readers from all walks of life/ranging from scholars, critics, christians, etc...

At a linguistic level, the vocabulary that I found more interesting/practical/exotic for personal use in compositions or conversations is … (no more than ten-include them with a synonimous or short definition).

The most unusual syntactic structures spotted/found in this chapter were coordinate/subordinate/conditional/passive/subjunctive sentences (write a note and include the examples at the end of the composition).

Other topics researched here included are /From all topics of research suggested/, my focus of interest has been on.../my personal preferences led me to analyse...

verb tenses,

sentence types,

connectors, including conditional sentences,

gerund clauses,

phrasal or prepositional verbs,

use of prepositions as connectors,

transposition of clauses, use of adjuncts,

direct speach/indirect speech,

figures of speech,

I selected/preferred these researching topics because I need to impove my speaking command of the foreign language, not only for my job and education but also for holidays; besides, I think that good speaking skills will bring about an immediate improvement of the rest of skills, being listening or even grammar/

I selected/preferred these researching topics because I need to improve my writing skills in college; besides, I feel more secure with a good understanding of grammar, that is, how a language works and what are the rules before practicing orally/

Since I read the novel and watched the film, and since I have also read the rest of novels by this same author, Angels and Demonds, Deception Point, The Lost Symbol, I can also compare style and plot structure or the differences between the book and the film/

Since I dislike this kind of teasing novels but empty of good literature, I have compared syntactic and grammar features with the same characteristics in my favourite kind of novel/ what it is believed to be a master piece of world literature/

These are the elements recounted which were found from a total of ….......... units or sentences of chapter …........

list of elements and numbered notes (if you din't do it before),

Therefore, my research seems to/ does not seem to confirm our hypothesis.

Name

Place and date

NOTES

copy a selection of examples from the novel in italics.

Proyecto final de máster: "Vídeo en el aula"

2011-11-30T01:37:00.000-08:00

Hola de nuevo, Mingo.

¡Gracias! lo postearé.

Te envió al final del mensaje un texto explicativo sobre mi proyecto. Te agradezco mucho el que hagas difusión, de verdad.

Por lo demás, no conozco ningún curso como el que dices, aunque compañeros del máster han planteado proyectos similares pero utilizando Twitter. La verdad es que las nuevas tecnologías dan mucho juego, se pueden hacer muchas cosas. Lo que no sé es cuántas personas pueden hablar a la vez por skype, en caso de que planteeis un curso en grupo.

Saludos,
Vanessa

****************
Soy Vanessa Ramírez , licenciada en Bellas Artes, aficionada al cómic, la música y el cine, y disfruto trabajando con niños y adultos en aquello que tenga que ver con la expresión y la comunicación.

Actualmente estoy realizando el Proyecto final del Máster en Educación y TIC de la UOC, que consiste en una plataforma colaborativa virtual para potenciar el uso didáctico del vídeo en el aula, de forma que:

se potencie la visión crítica respecto las imágenes, reflexionando sobre lo que nos dicen y cómo se pueden usar.
se estimule la expresión y comunicación de ideas y pensamientos en el aula.
se trabajen contenidos de diferentes materias, ayudando en la práctica docente y estimulando la participación de los alumnos.

Por otra parte, el proyecto pretende aprovechar las interacciones que hacen posible las TIC en sus diferentes vertientes (comunicativa, informativa, etc) con tal de que los docentes interesados en el uso didáctico del vídeo puedan compartir experiencias, hacer preguntas relacionadas, buscar propuestas y recursos, inspirarse en otros trabajos...

La plataforma, realizada con la colaboración de la Asociación Espiral, es la siguiente: http://videoenelaula.wordpress.com/

Me gustaría animaros a participar en ella, para que pueda ser útil y enriquecedora. Podeis hacerlo de diversas formas, explicadas aquí.

¡Muchas gracias!

Vanessa Ramírez León
http://about.me/vanerale

***********

2011/11/30 Vanessa Ramírez <vanerale@gmail.com>
¡Gracias Mingo! te envío el link al post sobre Livescripts:

http://videoenelaula.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/livescripts/

Si te puedo ayudar en algo, aquí estoy.

¡Saludos!

Vanessa

The Young Ones - Demolition transcripts

2011-11-27T08:22:00.000-08:00

While you can find all transcripts from The Young Ones in http://www.ratman.biz/archive/young_ones/index.html, I went to the trouble of picking up this one and cutting down the fourteen original pages to simply four just by taking off everything except characters's innitials, dialogues and organizing the text in three columns with a 10'5 type size. I usually print it out on both sides of a DIN A3 sheet of paper and ask my students to fold it up in half which gives the appearance of a magazine. I might have saved you about an hour and a half of work, but reading it like this should be more appealing for everybody. Now it is easier to drum up a few comprehension questions if you want to, or simply enjoy reading and watching it.

Students are expected to read through them on weekends and we watch a fragment of the tv series the last ten or fifteen minutes of one of the classes of the next week. We believe it is a funny way to improve listening skills which students are likely to keep up even after they have finished their courses because it should be pleasant.

Often, the general population of countries not dubbing foreign movies are said to have better listening and speaking skills in FL. In some cases, like Sweden or Holland, such improvement may be due to other deeper structural reasons like high GDP, a reduced demography, an effective educational system, more similar germanic roots, etc... but some other cases, like Portugal or Greece, watching movies in original version looks like the only linguistic resource to justify such a practical command of a foreign language.

So enjoy reading it.

Karaoke -for FLT purposes

2011-11-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

A student suggested we could either agree to drop by Pub Dainzu or book this multi-purpose joint for a karaoke session. I've been giving it some thought and concluded it might well be one of the coolest and most unforgettable experiences in our course if properly tackled.

Karaoke involves READING, LISTENING and SPEAKING skills; besides, it connects directly with EOI syllabus' objectives of fostering autonomous learners and long-life education, that is, your willingness to keep studing a foreign language after you have obtained your certificate with appealing and effective activities like this one. Moreover, a GRAMMAR and PHONOLOGICAL test based on lyrics chosen would be a requirement -prior to the fun and merry- with the usual 65 % passing mark as a pre-condition to the singing and dancing.

This is the way to proceed:

1. The class delegate or any other student will collect the entrance fee from a minimum of 15 students per class and keep those funds until further notice,

2. Students will organize themselves in groups and select a number of songs from this collection, they will provide the trainer with a list of groups, components and titles selected.

3. We will pick up one song from group and trainer will create a GRAMMAR exam with the lyrics by erasing rhymes and some of the words -just like in our coursebook section Use of English.

4. if students pass that exam, they will still have to pass the test of a short and general rehearsal in our classroom. If group participation, performance and motivation respond to everybody's expectations, we will then:

5. book Pub Dainzu on a Monday and Tuesday, of December or any other month, from 16:00 to 21:15 and have our classes there including the one-hour session of conversational assistant. Then finally, we would devote the remaining one hour and a half to singing and dancing. Singing and screaming compulsory; choreography, attire and nudity optional -just kidding.

So there you are, my part of the job organizing the event is done so far, now it is up to you guys. I really think this is a fantastic opportunity for everybody to improve their linguistic skills, not only merely pronunciation but also entonation and connected speach. Furthermore, some of you have excellent speaking skills but your voice is too low; a karaoke session should do the trick to turn up your volume and build up your confidence. Not to mention the fact that screaming is psychologically liberating.

Entrance fee right now is 12 E per person for a group of 15 to 25 people and it includes two drinks. We could cut it down if other classes joined us.

Guided Debate on Gender Parity

2011-11-10T01:08:00.000-08:00

Institution.........................................................Date..........................

GUIDED DEBATE ON GENDER PARITY

Group Components Self-evaluation Evaluation-Coordianator
Name....................................................................... individual report …............................
individual interaction.........................
Name........................................................... …..................
Name........................................................... ….................. Group mark …..............................
Name.......................................................... …..................
Name.......................................................... …..................

A. POSITIONING PHASE. Write down the names of the components of your group and pick up a moderator. Choose among these statements, change whatever you need or use the blank lines to include your own opinion. Point out your mates's position and define whether you all share the same stand or there are different opposing teams; if possible, in one single round of words.
….......................................................................................................... (10 minutes).

It is better to acquire a good education and job before compromising with anybody, that way, I could pick up a partner without prejudices. After all, lust wears down and only affection and affinity with yours remain.

Better getting a wealthy partner who supports me. After all, lust wears down and only material things remain -”Diamonds are a girl's best friend” like the song goes.

Sex is necessary for pleasure, affection, reproduction and spiritual progress.

Sex is only to be practiced in marriage.

Men and women should have the same rights; and perceive the same salary for the same job.

The state should aid maternity and paternity as it is done in nordic and central-european countries.

Women have been motors of technical and social evolution of humanity in the past.

Women's share in the course of history, politics and science has been obviously forgotten.
Women's share in the course of history, politics and science has been obviously secondary.

Women enbody evil and temptation just like the Genesis describes it which confirms their role submitted to men.

Women have had an extremely important historical protagonism that has not been socially recognized from the Agricultural Revolution of Neolithic to their capacity of physical work during the World Wars.

Despite women progressively joining the work market in fields like education, health, public administration, politics, etc... publicity keeps abusing of her image for her sexual appeal.

Women have been motors of social revolutions like in the first Christian communities -and Catars afterwards- during the French Revolution and the Unions movement that have been silenced.

History is written by winners.

Madame Curie has been the only person to win two Nobel Prizes.

The Patriarchal monotheism -Judaism, Christianims and Islam- have been responsable for limiting women's roles in social and public life.

Women's reproductive function confirms their role as housewives.

This aspect and their work absentism justify their lesser earnings for the same job.

Unemployment would finish if women worked at home.

Men and women have been equally victims of the same oligarchic political and economic system.

…...............................................................................................................................................
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…...............................................................................................................................................
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C. CONCLUSIONS PHASE. By turns and briefly, define what is your stand at the end of the debate, whether the same or different regarding the beginning and the reasons to keep or change your mind. Summarize as well your mates's conclusions....................... (15 minutes).

We all share the same point of view.
There are different opinions in our group.
Mostly, we thinkg that ..............................................................................................................

There are two groups;

1st view ...................................................................................................................................
2nd view....................................................................................................................................

We have all kept our opinion,

Some people have changed their minds by the end of the debate,

If Eva's original sin meant women's submission to men, the acknowledgement of the sacred character of human sexuality could bring about the redemption of humanity as well as the overcoming of our crisis of ideologies and markets.

The treatment of women -maternity, paternity and education- is the key for a real social justice for women and men alike.

…...............................................................................................................................................
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References
Eisler (1987) The Chalice and the Blade. Our History; Our Future. New York: Harper Collins.
Anderson-Zirsser (2009) Historia de las mujeres. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica.

Unconscious Dynamics of Gender Parity -Slides' transcript.

[2] [3]
They say women are such chatter-boxes,
three times more than men, to be precise.
[4]
No wonder some authors attribute to women a higher protagonism in the creation of Language as a result of interacting with their off-springs,
[5]
which implies higher conceptual and abstract thinking capabilities than their mates,
[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
In fact, who do we attribute agriculture? Who usually cooks, sews, educates, heals..?
[14] [15]
It is common knowledge that girls madure and enter puberty before boys do;
and this pattern could be applied to human evolution as a whole;
[16] [17] [18] [19]
which suggests a well-defined role division for each gender,
with men more especialized in defending the clan,
just like other primates show – gorillas for example.
Archaelogical remains and mythological accounts seem to confirm a long period of time
with a certain sexual parity in social structures,
[20] [21] [22][23]
the paintings of hands and vaginas, thousands of venus found all over the world,
the femenine or dualistic character of megalithic constructions,
[24] [25]
Finally, these less sexist agricultural communities were conquered by bands of cattle breeders, refugees, dispossessed and mercenaries with patriarchal structures and their martial revengeful god,
[26] [27]
the Herew tribes described in the Bible could be an example, like Arians, Hitittes, Vandals...
spreading an ideology and morality that has reached our days,
[28] [29] [30] [31]
Eve and Pandora may have been accused of causing all our disgraces...
...but in the last 3000 years, men have proved to be as secretive, mean and cruel
as the stererotyped witches or harpies,
[32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38]
Women are recently asking for equality of rights; but in a historical perspective that could go back in time thousands of years, it looks more like men striving to show the same abstract thinking skills -with which women were first endowedwith
accomplishments like the Industrial Revolution, the arms race or the space program.
[39] [40] [41]
And however paradoxical it might seems, this one could be the unconscious dynamics of
sexual inequality in so many cultures and times:
proving gender parity.
[42] [43]
Today, obviously gender does not determine skills or attitudes,
we all, men and women, can almost do any thing,
[44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51]
we have completed a cycle that started thousands of years ago,
where are we going now?

Sex and the City - Pilot Episode- transcripts

2011-11-05T00:06:00.000-07:00

While you can find all transcripts from Sex in the City in http://www.satctranscripts.com, I went to the trouble of picking up this one and cutting down the fourteen original pages to simply four just by taking off everything except characters's innitials, dialogues and organizing the text in three columns with a 10'5 type size. I usually print it out on both sides of a DIN A3 sheet of paper and ask my students to fold it up in half which gives the appearance of a magazine. I might have saved you about an hour and a half of work, but reading it like this should be more appealing for everybody. Now it is easier to drum up a few comprehension questions if you want to, or simply enjoy reading and watching it.

Students are expected to read through them on weekends and we watch a fragment of the tv series the last ten or fifteen minutes of one of the classes of the next week. We believe it is a funny way to improve listening skills which students are likely to keep up even after they have finished their courses because it should be pleasant.

Often, the general population of countries not dubbing foreign movies are said to have better listening and speaking skills in FL. In some cases, like Sweden or Holland, such improvement may be due to other deeper structural reasons like high GDP, a reduced demography, an effective educational system, more similar germanic roots, etc... but some other cases, like Portugal or Greece, watching movies in original version looks like the only linguistic resource to justify such a practical command of a foreign language.

So enjoy your reading.

Human Castles in English Class

2011-10-20T00:58:00.000-07:00

Our HUMAN CASTLE completely assembled: a Five (number of members locking arms at the base) of Two (number of levels), the rest of the class made the BULK.

Wearing the traditional sash

Our RISERS getting into position

Another band of Human Castle builders studing their position.

It started as 3 of 2

But ended up as a 4 of 2 with a huge BULK of twelve or fouteen.

DISMANTLING our human castle.

This bodily-kinesthetic activity -in terms of Multiple Intelligences theory- was meant to fulfill a number of purposes:

Illustrating the point that English Language is not only useful for education, travelling and business but also to share our unique and bizarre traditions with the world, and the fact that castells were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity last year.

Not just learning new vocabulary -sash, riser, rider, bulk, etc...- but also linking these foreign words with the emotional content of our own traditions in an attempt to expect a better assimilation of the new code.

Provoking real emotions of surprise, hesitation, fear, interest,challenge, enthusiasm and satisfaction to express one's feelings with the right language and idomatic expressions -which is an important part of the syllabus.

And of course, bringing the group together in a collective feat which might unconsciously apply to our goal: making an effort to learn a foreign language; then again, adding a little bit of variety and fun to our classes.

We guys at the base only carried over one person on our shoulders and we agreed it was quite an effort already, so we just could imagine the tremendous strain of holding six, seven or eight people on top!!


Another base about to be formed

Base and upper level into position

There it is, we made it!!

A nice perspective from the inside of the base and bulk

dismantling our castle

to start all over again!

And complete another gigantic castle of emotions and fun!

Additional Class materials

2011-10-15T23:04:00.000-07:00

Additional Materials

For those of you who would like to read the transcript of the first episode, follow this link;

Optionally, you can complete some of these activities;
and finally, check it out in the answer key.

Hope you enjoy it, remember transcripts are not intended to understand the plot, but just to familiarize yourself with the linguistic content and, therefore, being able to understand a higher percentage of vocabulary.

Be realistic with your expectations, obviously, if you are not used to do much listening practice with original version films, it will be harder to understand, but if you really have pleasure with it, you'll do it again, and improve your skill.

Previous link leads to a short Power Point presentation on the topic, follow this other link if you would like to read the complete article.

Unconscious Dynamics of Gender Inequality

Click on the picture to read this article on gender parity, we will have a Guided Debate on this issue in Unit 3 Looking Ahead.

Monologues for second and foreign language acquisition

2011-10-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

Coursebook Listening Activities

Audio tracks from coursebook.

MONOLOGUES

Monologues for Auditions -that is, memorizing a piece of text and reciting it with the proper pronunciation, entonation and stress- is obviously intended for movie and theatre casting selection; however, its application in second or foreign language acquisition can have amazing learning advantages.

Fresh monologues to surprise your audience are not easy to come by -or else try to google it. Publishers expect future stars to buy them; nevertheless, our coursebook and workbook provide perfect monologues for our practice and enjoyment.

First, memorize at least two sentences from any speaker; once you've learnt them by heart, listen to every detail carefully and play with words, emphasizing different parts. Try to assume you are not you, but an actor or actress auditioning for a play.

From a psycholinguistic perspective, the entonation pattern learnt out of those few sentences will be unconsciously applied to any speaking output. It won't happen overnight, but it should if done systematically. Besides, it makes sense to test your speaking skill for accuracy instead of fluency and vocabulary as we normally do.

First rehearsal will be next Monday and Tuesday, October 17 and 18.

Break your leg!

Rowan Atkinson as Devil

2011-10-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

Hello. It's nice to see you all here.
Now, as the most perceptive of you probably realized by now, this is Hell and I'm the Devil.
Good Evening!
But you can call me Toby if you like,
we try to keep things informal in here as well as infernal.
That's a little joke of mine; i tell it every time.

Now you are all here for... Eternity, which I hardly need tell you it's a heck of a long time.
So you'll all get to know each other pretty well by the end.
But for now I'm gonna have to split you up into groups.

Will you stop screaming? Thank you.

Now murderers, over here,
looters and pillagers, thieves if you could join them,
and lawyers you're in that group too.
Fornicators if you could step forward.
My God there're a lot of you.
Could I split you up into adulterers and the rest?
Male adulterers if you could just form a line infront of that small guillotine in the corner.

The French, are you here?
If you could just come down here with the Germans. I'm sure you'll have plenty to talk about.
Atheists, over there, you must be feeling a right bunch of nitwits. Nevermind.

And finally, Christians. I'm afraid the Jews were right. If you could come down here that would be really fine. Are there any questions?
No, I'm afraid we don't have any toilets. If you read your Bible, you might've seen that it was “Damnation without relief”,
so if you din't go before you came, then, I'm afraid you're not going to enjoy yourself very much, but then I believe that's the idea.

Well, it's over to you Adolf, and I'll catch you all later at the barbacue.

My Blackberry is not working

2011-10-15T06:23:00.000-07:00

Customer - I bought sth from you last week and I am very disappointed.

Shopkeeper - oh yeah, what's the problem?

my blackberry is not working.
What may be? It ran out of juice?
No, no it's completely frozen!
O yeah, i can see that, i'll tell you what, let's put it on Orange.
That's got a few black spots, you see?
Oh dear, yeah, sorry Benet.
So what will you do to get my blackberry working?
it could be an application issue, the way you install that blackberry.
it was on my desk top.
You could try using a mouse to drive the blackway to the trash, and after you've done that, you might wanna launch the blackway from the desktop.
Well, I really tried that a few times, I mean, and all I did was a mess up Windows.
Well, it might be worth waiting a couple of weeks, they've got the lightiest blackways coming in then.
Could you give me a date?
Certainly.
Let me put that date in my diary.
Anything else i can help you with?
Yes, I also have a problem, to be honest, with my Apple.
Oh Dear, that's an old apple, isn't it? When did you buy that?
Last week.
Last week? I've got two new apples since then. What's the problem with it?
Well, I tried to put my Dongle in it and it won't fit,
Oh yeah. How big's your Dongle?
Well, I don't know much about these things, but my wife's seen a few dongles in Giants and she says a little bit on the small side.
Well there's not a lot I can do about it.
Tell you what, let me try booting it. nize crashed. Anything else I can help you out with?
Well, finally, yeah, my grandson's birthday's soon, you see? he's already got an Apple and a Blackberry. I mean, have you got anything else he might just like?
Well, I do have a special offer on these, i'm an archaid fan myself but the kids seem ta like it. an eggs box (XBOX), three sixty.

Squash Championship at Servei d'Activitat Fisica of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

2011-10-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to everybody involved in organizing the championship
and to all players taking part, I was only 8th of 16 contesters but I enjoyed my games anyway. Best wishes of success to everybody!