One of the Lads

Hi everyone

Tomorrow we will deal with your last story from Frozen Pizza, so here you are a review about One of the Lads by Mariló from group L

The title of this story is ‘One of the Lads’ and it suggests a story about a gang of young boys who study in the same school.

The story is about Luke Thomas, a Chelsea supporter who belongs to a gang of troublemakers: Luke himself, Big Dave, Mick, Gerry and Steve.

Luke copies the rest of the gang so completely that his teachers and his parents believe that he is the same as the others. None of them pass any exams so they leave school without any qualifications, but Luke decides that he wants to be a carpenter and so his new teachers and his parents are very pleased and proud of his work. However he can’t share out this feeling with the gang because “the lads”, as they call themselves, only think and talk about fights.

One day, they decide to visit Amsterdam and watch England - Holland, and this day everything changes for Luke. He decides to go back home and accept a job from a handmade furniture company. He hadn’t said yes yet because I had known that the lads wouldn’t agree to it.

As regards the story's linguistic interest, the author‘s style is informal. She uses everyday words in the dialogues and a lot of adjectives in descriptions, for example: “Dave put his glass down firmly on the table that was damp with spilt beer”.

Some new words I’ve learnt from the story are:

• Verbs: mutter (murmurar), swear (jurar), nodded (asentir con la cabeza).
• Noun: crowd (tumulto).

I like this story very much because it’s about a teenager who decides to change the things that doesn’t like in his life and abandon the gang.

I recommend this book to all type of persons that think that changing their lives is very difficult

Role Play

Dear Students:

Please have a look at the following youtube links to listen to some advice as to what to do and what no to do in your role play task.

The type of exam they're talking about is not exactly the same as your interaction task and it all seems quite old fashioned, but in my opinion it's quite easy to understand these women, so at least you can practice some listening.

Have a nice weekend!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa9lU4KJ26Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCfyLOvNbok&feature=related

Relatively Speaking

Dear Students:

I've gathered some links which contain exercices on relative clauses just in case you need further practice.

Click here to work on defining and non-defining relative clause distinction.

Click here to work on non-defining relative clauses only.

Click here to work on pronouns 'who', 'which' and 'that'.

Click here to work on relative pronoun omission.

Click here for more exercises on relative pronoun omission.

Click here to take a short test on everything.

Have a nice weekend!

The Old Oak Bowl

Hi everyone

As you may already know, the next story you have to read is 'The Old Oak Bowl'

Jose María from group L has written the following review, so I hope it will help you with your reading...

The story I’ve written about is “The old oak bowl”. It’s about an English man called Robert Walker who is a history schoolteacher. He is old, and his life is a bit boring. Robert thinks that people have to behave properly all the time. This is the reason why he doesn’t say his opinions about some topics. For example, he firmly believes that English people are only the people who have English ancestors.

In the story, we can see how he thinks and how he acts in different situations. His favourite hobby is to restore old wooden pieces. In fact, although he restores a lot of other people’s objects, he doesn’t accept any money and only says “it’s just my little hobby”. In one of these cases, a woman gave him an old oak bowl from about the thirteenth century, and Robert fell in love with it.

That night he had a dream. There was a monk with the bowl. It contained some herbs and the monk was speaking a strange language. When he told his dream to another history teacher, the teacher told him that the language the monk was speaking was probably French, because in 1066 there was a Norman invasion and a lot of foreigners arrived to England. Moreover, he told Robert that “Robert” is a Flemish name. Robert couldn’t accept it, because it contradicted his strong beliefs. But the following week, he took some books from the library and investigated about it. It was true! He couldn’t believe it! After this discovery, he continued reading a lot and he finally had to accept it. Most of the English people were, in fact, “foreigners”. This changed the way he saw things, and he asked himself if it was time to retire and spend his time restoring old wooden objects.

In my opinion, it is a good story because it shows the main character’s personality very well and his beliefs about an actual and controversial topic: immigration. It shows us different points of view about it and I think this is a very good thing. The language is not very difficult and it can be easily understood. In conclusion, I recommend you to read this story.

Spanish for your Nanny

Dear students

Who says language teachers are not socially commited? Here you are an example of how a Spanish teacher fights the typical attitude of high society women...

Have fun and a nice bank holiday too!

(Thanks to Eloísa for this video. More sketches in www.monkeywithashotgun.com)

Frozen Pizza

Hi everybody

I hope you had time to read the short story Frozen Pizza. If not, this great review by Carolina (group L) will help you for sure.

I’m going to write about one of the stories I read: “Frozen Pizza”. When I read the title of the story I couldn’t imagine what the chapter was about. I thought that it was only about junk food. But at the end I realised that there was an important thing in that story: the family.

In the story there is a young man who went to England to improve his English. He thought that living in a family would help him improve his English, but when he arrived at the house he saw that he should have stayed at university. The family was very strange. They didn’t talk to each other and they didn’t even meet up for dinner. The next day the young man went to the university housing office and he moved out because he didn’t like them. But the woman who lived in the house didn’t understand why.

The author’s style is informal and easy. I hardly used the dictionary. Moreover, the story is interesting and funny and I liked it very much. I liked the situation in the bedroom and in the kitchen with the woman, it’s fantastic! Poor young man!

As regards this story’s linguistic interest, I’ve learned some new words such as “stencil” which the woman explains to the young man. She tells him: “It’s like a thick piece of paper with shapes cut out and you stick it on the wall and paint inside the shapes”. The sentence that grabbed my attention is at the end of the story: “Unsuitable, except for independent teenagers. Note: no conversation practice, no home meal, frozen pizza” In my opinion, that sentence sums up the story perfectly.

I liked the story because that could happen. I have some friends that had a similar experience abroad. The other stories in the book are interesting too, although I didn’t like all of them. I think that some of them are boring.

In conclusion, I would recommend this book to people who want to improve their English because the language is easy and colloquial.

Pineapple Radio

Hello dear students!

I'd really like to encourage you to listen to this funny and dynamic radio interview about money by Fátima, Ángela and Paula from group J.