Song of the Week - All Groups - Manta Ray by Anohni & J Ralph

Manta Ray
Written by J. Ralph & Anohni
Produced By: J Ralph
From the album: Racing Extinction (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Tonight the 88th Academy Awards will be handed out in Los Angeles. Among the nominees for Best Song is this lovely ballad from the documentary, Racing Extinction. Written by the soundtrack composer J Ralph and Anohni (Hegarty from the band Antony and the Johnsons), Manta Ray addresses the film's ecological themes.

Anohni is the first transgender person to be nominated for an Oscar but she is boycotting the event after being declined the opportunity to perform the nominated song at tonight's ceremony. The singer/songwriter has written eloquently about her reasons for the boycott on her website http://www.antonyandthejohnsons.com/news/news.html. This year's Academy Awards has been controversial due to its poor record on diversity.

In the trees
Between the leaves
All the growing
That we did

All the loving
And separating
All the turning
To face each other

I divide
In the sky
In the the seams
Between the beams

All the loving
And separating
All the turning
To face each other

Without biodiversity
I'm nothing
It's like I never
Existed

Without my home
With no reflection
I cease to exist

And my children
Are dying now
Inside me

All I love
All I know
All I've known

I am dying now
Inside me
My children

Post CPE Lesson 16

Class
"Figures often beguile me particularly when I have the arranging of them myself." Mark Twain Chapters From My Autobiography (1906)

Listening and Discussion
(1) Swedish Refugees and the problems with statistics - from the programme More Or Less http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03gzh7x
(2) The Oscars - from The Film Programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0717j1w

Vocabulary for statistics

variable (check stress)

Bayesian

outlier

a huge spike in (numbers)

an even spread

a knock on effect

Vocabulary for competitions - a lexical set
to build up a head of steam = to develop power
to peak too soon
to gain/get (the) traction
an upset
a solid choice

a safe bet

to sneak in to root for 

a tight race

a victory lap

a photo finish

to charge ahead

Vocabulary - general 
















a smidgen
dastardly

(to have) bigger fish to fry
moot = a subject open to debate also see: a moot point

bamboozled

to stand up to a repeat(ed)/second/third etc view(ing)(s)/reading/listening etc see: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/stand-up-to second definition.

to sing for your supper

huffing and puffing

Corrections

Countability

a news, a research X

(some) news, (some) research

Parts of speech

cynic (noun), cynical (adjective)

Comparatives

more simple X

simpler

Pronunciation

execute, executing c.f. executive

ANIA C2 Lesson 6

Class

Review of tenses

State and event/dynamic verbs

Historic present for books, films and plays.http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/histpreterm.htm

Notes
Tenses - Relating the past to the present, state verbs (perception, mental states & feelings, relationships and states of being) and event/dynamic verbs (momentary acts, activities, processes).

When state verbs are used in the continuous form to emphasise the temporary nature of the situation or with a change of meaning.
Compare:
He's very helpful.
He's being very helpful.
He appears to be quite cold.
He's appearing in a play.
They have a house in the country.
They're having a party on Saturday.
Can you see the mountains from here?
Karen is seeing quite a lot of Geoff at the moment.
I think you should take the job.

I'm thinking about changing jobs.

Going further

Listening & Pronunciation - Accents 
Bernie Sanders video - New York accent

Language Training - Grammar - Aspect - simple, continuous and perfect http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/11442655/The%20English%20Tense%20System

Speaking - 33 ways to improve your speaking http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/33-ways-to-speak-better-english-all.html

D'AMICO Shipping B1 Lesson 11

Class

Listening Skills

Travel expressions

Understanding the speaker's attitude from word choice and intonation

New Language Leader Intermediate pp. 16 - 17

Vocabulary

Travel

Trip

Journey

Furthest/farthest = the most distant

To find yourself

To go on a trip/a journey

To broaden your mind/your horizons

Package holiday

Corrections

The fly was very long. X

The flight was very long.

Homework

Reading p. 17, questions 5a and 5b.

33 ways to improve your speaking.
http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/33-ways-to-speak-better-english-all.html

Legal English at Bennett Languages Civitavecchia Lesson 14

Lesson 14 
Presentations
Peer Feedback and Error Correction

Well done everyone on your excellent presentations tonight. they all were interesting and clearly organised. 

Areas to work on:
Signposting language: move on to, turn to, that brings me to the end of my presentation
Countable/uncountable nouns: litigation, proof
Pronunciation:  spouse, defence, government

Going Further

33 ways to improve your speaking http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/33-ways-to-speak-better-english-all.html

33 Ways To Speak Better English - All Groups

Most students I meet say that they want to improve their speaking and complain that they don't get enough opportunities to practise. Some students believe that they need to do lessons to improve their speaking and feel frustrated when they don't always have the time to do this. However, at the risk of doing myself out of a job, there are many things that you can do without the aid of a teacher that can help you improve your speaking. The article in the link below presents 33 tips on how to improve your speaking that you can do on your own. Many of these we have talked about in class, such as paying attention to pronunciation (especially word and sentence stress, vowel sounds and the use of the schwa /ə/), learning phrasal verbs and collocations and how to "chunk" language as well as activities such as reading out loud and recording yourself. So will you take up the challenge? Try a different one of these for 15 minutes each day and monitor the difference!


http://britishenglishcoach.com/33-ways-to-speak-better-english-without-taking-classes/

More on Varieties of English

ANIA B2.3 Lesson 6

Class

Pre-meeting small talk

Business Advantage p. 16 - 17

Speaking skills - conversation starter topics

Listening skills - noticing intonation, tone and ellipsis

Homework

Reading/speaking - 33 tips for improving your speaking on your own http://britishenglishcoach.com/33-ways-to-speak-better-english-without-taking-classes/

D'Amico Shipping B2 Lesson 11

Class

Speaking Skills - developing conversation, sounding interested and positive (applicable to both work and exam contexts) 

BEC Vantage p. 20, p.118

Vocabulary Skills - Collocation

Communication at work  p. 38 - 39

Homework

P. 39, questions 7 & 8. Reading and multiple choice cloze.

Corrections

Particularly activities x

Particular activities

I can do this question to my boss x

I can ask my boss this question

Vocabulary

Hectic = very busy/stressful

Soften negative adjectives with a bit, rather

Sideways

see also : A sideways glance. 

Going Further

Listening - song of the week http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/song-of-week-all-groups-girl-loves-me.html

Speaking/Reading 33 Tips for improving your speaking on your own. http://britishenglishcoach.com/33-ways-to-speak-better-english-without-taking-classes/

Song of the Week - All Groups - Girl Loves Me by David Bowie

Following on from last week's reading on secret anti-languages http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160211-the-secret-anti-languages-youre-not-supposed-to-know

is a song from David Bowie's last album Backstar. Girl Loves Me features examples of both Polari, which was mentioned in the article, and Nadsat, the artificial language created by Anthony Burgess  for his characters in the novel A Clockwork Orange. A form of Russian influenced English, Nadsat was used as a special argot by the teenage characters in both the book and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation. A Clockwork Orange was one of Bowie's favourite books swell as George Orwell's 1984 which is also referenced in the song. The line, "sitting in the chestnut tree" is a reference to the Chestnut Tree Cafe - the criminal meeting place used by the protagonist, Winston Smith, in Orwell's novel. 

Examples of Polari include:

titi = pretty

nanti = no/not

omi (omee) = man

Examples of Nadsat include:

cheena = woman

malchick = boy

moodge = man

polly = money

Listen to the song and see if you can decipher the meaning of the song. 

For a discussion of the lyrics go to http://genius.com/David-bowie-girl-loves-me-lyrics

[Verse 1]
Cheena so sound, so titi up this malchick, say
Party up moodge, nanti vellocet round on Tuesday
Real bad dizzy snatch making all the omees mad - Thursday
Popo blind to the polly in the hole by Friday
Where the fuck did Monday go?
I'm cold to this pig and pug show
I'm sittin' in the chestnut tree
Who the fuck's gonna mess with me?

[Chorus]
Girl loves me
Hey cheena
Girl loves me
Girl loves me
Hey cheena
Girl loves me

[Bridge]
Where the fuck did Monday go?
I'm cold to this pig and pug show
Where the fuck did Monday go?

[Verse 2]
You viddy at the cheena
Choodesny with the red rot
Libbilubbing litso-fitso
Devotchka watch her garbles
Spatchko at the rozz-shop
Split a ded from his deng deng
Viddy viddy at the cheena

[Chorus]
Girl loves me
Hey cheena
Girl loves me
Girl loves me
Hey cheena
Girl loves me
Girl loves me
Hey cheena
Girl loves me

[Refrain]
Where the fuck did Monday go?
Where the fuck did Monday go?
Where the fuck did Monday go?

[Chorus]
Girl loves me
Hey cheena
Girl loves me
Girl loves me
Hey cheena
Girl loves me

[Refrain]
Where the fuck did Monday go?
Where the fuck did Monday go?

Post CPE Lesson 15

Lesson 15 (Saturday 19/02/2016)
Class
Varieties of English - Reading and Discussion

• Why native English speakers are not being understood... in English https://theconversation.com/why-native-english-speakers-fail-to-be-understood-in-english-and-lose-out-in-global-business-54436
• Secret anti-languages http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160211-the-secret-anti-languages-youre-not-supposed-to-know

Tenses - Sentence Halves

Corrections
the youngs, the young, youth, the younger generation

Vocabulary

so so versus so and so 
innuendo
baffle, befuddle, confuse
a baffling predicament
to be on the same page
a wake up call
argot,dialect, patois, cant
bawdy

Homework

Sentence Transformations & multiple choice cloze exercises from the handout. 

Going Further

Listen to the examples taken from the anti-language article:

• Song of the week - Girl Loves Me David Bowie
• Round the Horne

Pronunciation - All Groups - Thirty Dirty Birds - The Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Have a look at the pronunciation lesson on the link below,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKdxOR2Mk04
then listen to the video from the Red hot Chilli Peppers (above). How does your pronunciation compare?

A big thank you to Annalaura for putting me on to this series of pronunciation videos.

ANIA Group 8 C2 Lesson 5

Class

1) Speaking - European Identity discussion continued

Language features of the article

Word complementation:

Can't help + something/doing something

(Little/great) enthusiasm for soemthing/doing something

A (long/great) tradition of something/doing something

Idiom: 

To hang out to dry = abandon in a time of need, to leave to take the blame

2) Different Sentences/Same Mistake

Error correction exercise

N.b. The unintentional mistake in sentence F - shouting at each other. 

Corrections

Critic point x

Criticism

Mandatory (note stress on the first syllable)

Homework

Finish the Different sentences/same mistakes exercise (a copy of the exercise is available blow, click on the image to enlarge)

Going Further

Song of the week - Unfinished Sympathy http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/song-of-week-all-groups-unfinished.html

Accents - Eva Green, the French actress who has mastered a number of accents including R.P. in the series Penny Dreadful

Reading:

• Is the refugee crisis eroding Europe's humanitarian values?http://www.debatingeurope.eu/2016/02/17/refugee-crisis-eroding-europes-humanitarian-values/#.VsZWZzZOVQQ
• "I don't take my mandate from the European people" http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-didn-t-think-ttip-could-get-any-scarier-but-then-i-spoke-to-the-eu-official-in-charge-of-it-a6690591.html
• Why native English speakers are not being understood... in English https://theconversation.com/why-native-english-speakers-fail-to-be-understood-in-english-and-lose-out-in-global-business-54436
• Secret anti-languages http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160211-the-secret-anti-languages-youre-not-supposed-to-know

Listening:
Around the Horne - in the Julian and Sandy sketch (at 24:30) you can hear an example of Polari, one of the secret anti-languages mentioned in the article.

Humour:
The world's most unhelpful phonetic alphabet

D'Amico Shipping B1 Lesson 10

Class

Listening Skills - scenario pp. 12 - 13

Agreeing, disagreeing, giving opinions, making suggestions

Corrections

Depends from X

Depends on

Vocabulary

To lose your temper

To have a bad temper

To be bad tempered

A good match

To give someone a dunny look

To get on someone's nerves

Can't stand someone = don't like, find really annoying

To be smart = well dressed

Functional Language

How about...

I suggest we do ....

That's out of the question

I don't know about that (disagreeing)

I accept that

Homework

Read about the 4 candidates (Elayne and Daniela p.13, Rashid and Mitsuo p. 159). Who would make the best assistant for Chris and Jodie? Come to class next week prepared to discuss why you have selected this candidate and rejected the others.

Legal English Bennett Languages Civitavecchia Lesson 13

Class
Using notes for presentations.
http://www.uefap.com/speaking/spkfram.htm
For more information on structure and signposting language see:http://www.uefap.com/speaking/pres/preslan.htm#what

Congratulations to Roberta for starting off the presentations with a really good talk on The Red Cross. Get involved - go to the Italian Red Cross Website http://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/where-we-work/europe/italian-red-cross/

Homework
Practise your presentations for next week.
Time your talk and make sure you are using plenty of signposting language. Remember that you must explain your overall structure in your introduction and also use signposting language within each point you are making.

ANIA Group 5, B2.3, Lesson 5

Class

Language training 

Present perfect simple & present perfect continuous.

Strategies for coping with fast connected speech.

What we learnt from today's experiment

• Listening occurs in 3 stages - before (predict), during (keep listening even if you don't understand everything) and after (fill in what you didn't catch) 
• Differences between Italian (syllable timed) and English (stress timed) intonation make it difficult to hear every word in English and trying to do so is often tiring and frustrating.
• Listen for key words and you will generally understand the overall idea.
• The words you don't hear are usually grammar words (e.g. articles, pronouns, prepositions and auxiliary verbs) because they are not stressed.
• When learning a new tense think about how it will sound in real life - consider where the stress falls, strong vowels becoming weak and elision (sounds/words running together)

Homework

1) Look at the sentences from today and practise saying them using stressed time pronunciation.

2) Why has the speaker used the present perfect simple or present perfect continuous in each case?

3) Listening - song of the week Unfinished Sympathy http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/song-of-week-all-groups-unfinished.html

D'Amico Shipping B2, Lesson 10

Class

Language in use - present simple versus present continuous

Extra practice - Workbook Unit 2, p.12

Recycling work related vocabulary

Word Square - unit 1, p. 5 (see Valerio for the answers).

Homework

Learning tips - parts of speech

Reading - Why native speakers fail to be understood in English
https://theconversation.com/why-native-english-speakers-fail-to-be-understood-in-english-and-lose-out-in-global-business-54436

Do you have any personal experiences that support this view?

Skim through the article again, which verbs are in simple tenses and which are in continuous tenses? Why?

Listening - Song of the week - Unfinished Sympathy http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/song-of-week-all-groups-unfinished.html

Song of the Week - All Groups: Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack

Unfinished Sympathy (1991)
Performed by Massive Attack featuring Shara Nelson.
Written by Robert Del Naja, Andrew Vowles, Grantley Marshall, Shara Nelson, Jonathan Sharp

From Massive Attack's debut album, Blue Lines, Unfinished Sympathy ushered in the Trip Hop movement of the 1990's and has come to be considered a classic in the canon of British dance music.

“I hate putting a title to anything without a theme, but with "Unfinished Sympathy”, we’d started with a jam… and added an orchestral score later. The title came up as a joke at first, but it fitted the song and the arrangements so perfectly, we just had to use it.“ - Robert Del Naja


[Verse 1:]
I know that I've been mad in love before
And how it could be with you
Really hurt me baby, really cut me baby
How can you have a day without a night
You're the book that I have opened
And now I've got to know much more

[Verse 2:]
The curiousness of your potential kiss
Has got my mind and body aching
Really hurt me baby, really cut me baby
How can you have a day without a night
You're the book that I have opened
And now I've got to know much more

[Bridge:]
Like a soul without a mind
In a body without a heart
I'm missing every part

For more background on the song go to http://genius.com/Massive-attack-unfinished-sympathy-lyrics

Post CPE Lesson 14

Lesson 14
Class
Tenses - Relating the past to the present, state verbs (perception, mental states & feelings, relationships and states of being) and event/dynamic verbs (momentary acts, activities, processes).

When state verbs are used in the continuous form to emphasise the temporary nature of the situation or with a change of meaning.
Compare:
He's very helpful.
He's being very helpful.
He appears to be quite cold.
He's appearing in a play.
They have a house in the country.
They're having a party on Saturday.
Can you see the mountains from here?
Karen is seeing quite a lot of Geoff at the moment.
I think you should take the job.
I'm thinking about changing jobs.

Discussion & Reading
European Identity
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2016/02/09/has-the-eu-failed-us-or-have-we-failed-to-forge-a-european-identity/

Corrections
ask to someone
Suffixes - German  (people, language, adjective) Germany (country), Economics, Economy 
Homework
1. Read the article again. What language features do you notice? E.g. Idiomatic expressions such as hang out to dry, word complementation - (little) enthusiasm for doing something.
2. Listening - Accents http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups-changing-accent-of.html
3. Listening - Song of the week E = MC2 http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/song-of-week-all-groups-e-mc2-by-big.html

ANIA Group 8 C2 Lesson 5

Lesson 5

Class

Pronunciation - stressed timed intonation, neutral stress, contrastive stress.

Activity - Intonation Directions

Language Training - Multiword verbs and fixed expressions

Speaking - discussion European identity

Corrections

Carbon/coal

Economy/economics

The very reason x
The real reason

Homework

Read the article by Marina Prentoulis:http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2016/02/09/has-the-eu-failed-us-or-have-we-failed-to-forge-a-european-identity/

According to the writer, what are the contributing factors to the 'out' vote in the U.K.?

Do you agree that social media may be able to foster a closer knit and engaged European "community"?

Read the article again. What language features do you notice? E.g. Idiomatic expressions such as hang out to dry, word complementation - (little) enthusiasm for doing something.

Going further

Listening - Accents - The Queen http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups-changing-accent-of.html

Listening - Song of the week E= MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/song-of-week-all-groups-e-mc2-by-big.html

Stress and intonation

1) For more notes on pronunciation in general and intonation in particular go to: 

http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/11442648/Pronunciation

2) Viewing/listening practice

• Acorn Antiques from The Victoria Wood Show 1982

In this spoof of a typical British soap opera, the actress makes a mistake with her intonation on the line:
"What is it? Muesli."
Why do the audience laugh?

• The Conversation (1974) 

Although winning the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and being nominated for 3 Academy Awards, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation was somewhat overshadowed by the director's other release that year - The Godfather Part II. However, The Conversation has endured as a bona fide classic and one of the best American films ever made. What's more, Coppola's slow burning thriller about a surveillance expert (Gene Hackman, giving one of his finest performances) who realises that his recordings may have murderous consequences, is even more relevant today as CCTV surveillance and internet privacy are once again causing considerable concern the world over. For students of English the film of particular interest as it highlights the importance of intonation. The film's mystery hinges on one line of recorded dialogue - and where the stress falls in the sentence.

"He'd kill us if he got the chance" turns out to be very different from "He'd kill us if he got the chance"as the lead character finds out too late.

D'Amico Shipping B1 Lesson 9

Lesson 9

Class

Present simple or present continuous

If a verb is in the simple form, it can mean one (or more) of the following:
Complete, finished, permanent, emphasise amount, neutral, formal, habitual.
If averb is in the continuous form, it can mean:

Duration, in progress, temporary, changing situation or trend, at a specific point in time, personal feeling (e.g. surprse, criticism, irritation), informal.

New Language Leader Intermediate

P. 11 questions 6 - 8

P. 127 G3/4 question 3, V2 (prefixes) questions 6 & 7.

New Vocabulary

Naughty = badly behaved (especially children)

Term = school or university semester

To be/get on board with someone/something (especially a plan or idea)

To tackle a problem/difficult task

Can't stand/put up with someone/something

To lose your temper = to get angry

Could/can I borrow a pen?  = Could/can you lend me a pen?

Homework

Listening - Accents - The Queen http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups-changing-accent-of.html

Listening - Song of the week E= MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/song-of-week-all-groups-e-mc2-by-big.html

Legal English Bennett Languages Civitavecchia Lesson 12

Class
Presentation skills continued

• Introductions and conclusions
• "Chunking"for fluency and confidence
• Turning ideas into presentations

For more on signposting language, click here: https://www.englishclub.com/speaking/presentations-language.htm

Homework

Prepare and practise your 10 minute presentation to give to the class next week. 

D'Amico Shipping B2 Lesson 9

Class

Simple versus continuous aspect

If a verb is in the simple form, it can mean one (or more) of the following:

Complete, finished, permanent, emphasise amount, neutral, formal, habitual.

If averb is in the continuous form, it can mean:

Duration, in progress, temporary, changing situation or trend, at a specific point in time, personal feeling (e.g. surprse, criticism, irritation), informal.

From the textbook

Pp. 18 - 19

Listening, department roles

Language in use - present simple and present continuous.

Vocabulary and pronunciation

Skim

Scan

Scheme

Subtle

Homework answers from last week 3/2 (reading pp.16 - 17)

Question 2 - skimming

1d, 2e, 3b, 4f

Question 4 - matching

1c, 2a, 3b, 4d, 5a, 6c

Homework

1) finish the exercises on p. 19, questions, 3,4,5.

2) listening - the changing accents of the Queen

3) listening - song of the week.

ANIA B2.3 Lesson 4

Class

Pronunciation and vocabulary skills

1) past simple regular verbs, the pronunciation of "ed". Voiced and unvoiced sounds.

2) vowels and spelling - "ea" spelling.

Homework

1) record yourself reciting the paragraph about Bond. Can you hear the three different pronunciations for "ed"?

2) finish completing the grid with the words that contain "ea" spellings. Remember that three words have 2 different pronunciations and 2 different meanings.

Going further

• More notes, examples and exercises on pronunciation. http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/11442648/Pronunciation
• Accents - the Queen http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups-changing-accent-of.html

Accents - All groups - The changing accent of the Queen.

What is a cut glass accent? What does a clipped accent sound like?

The link below will take you to an article that appeared this week on the web. There you can listen to speeches made by Queen Elizabeth II throughout her 64 year reign. Linguists believe that her accent has changed over time, moving from a very strict aristocratic form of R.P. with a wide range of vowel sounds to something closer to a middle class English accent with a narrower range. Can you hear the change? Listen to the way she pronounces the "a" in that, the "y" in family or the vowel in poor. How have these sounds changed?

Link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3439129/How-Queen-s-cut-glass-accent-slipping-Videos-reveal-monarch-shifted-speech-recent-years-sound-like-one-us.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Why do you think the Queen's cut glass accent is slipping?

Song of the Week - All Groups: E = MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite

E=MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite, is truly one of the greatest songs of the 80's and still fresh, striking and innovative 30 years on. For those of you who weren't born when the 12" single reigned supreme, B.A.D. was fronted by ex Clash man, Mick Jones, who continued on his former band's journey from the punk stage to the dancefloor. B.A.D.'s music was an amalgam of big beats, witty samples (usually lifted from films) and melancholy keyboard riffs. Even without the samples the music had an undeniable cinematic quality, B.A.D. existed somewhere between the beatbox and the cinema screen, with their Medicine Show turning up in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (the greatest soundtrack that only half was) to terrific effect. 

In E=MC2 the simbiotic relationship between pop and cinema is made manifest in its celebration of the films of maverick British director, Nicolas Roeg. The song is liberally peppered with samples from Roeg's 1970 debut co-directed with Donald Cammell, Performance, the best being a comical exchange between James Fox and Mick Jagger - "Why don't you play us a tune, pal?"  "I don't like music." "Comical little geezer. You'll look funny when you're fifty." What's more, each verse offers a wry synopsis of a film from Roeg's filmography including Walkabout (verse 1), Performance (verse 2), Don't Look Now (verse 3), The Man Who Feel To Earth (verse 4), Bad Timing  (the first half of verse 5), Eureka (the second half of verse 5) and Insignificance (verse 6). The title also refers to Roeg's 1985 head scratcher, Insignificance, an adaptation of Terry Johnson's play in which  Marilyn Monroe (queen of the sack played by Teresa Russell, Roeg's wife) explains the theory of relativity to king of brains, Albert Einstein, played by Michael Emil, using toy trains. You can imagine that the pitch for the movie alone gave many a film executive a heart attack. The chorus trumpets all the qualities that make Roeg's non linear films so quirky, unsettling and unforgettable - the sliding, fluid representation of time, the magic imagery that forces you to widen your mind, to name but two. Roeg's films are puzzles that you want to come back to again and again - a quality which is also true for Big Audio Dynamite's smart, catchy tribute.


E = MC2
By Mick Jones and Don Letts 1985

Somebody I never met but in a way I know
Didn't think that you could get so much from a picture show
Man dies first reel
People ask what's the deal?
This ain't how it's supposed to be
Don't like no aborigine

Took a trip in Powis Square
Pop star dyed his hair
No fans to scream and shout
When mobsters came to flush him out
Gangland slaying underground
New identity must be found
On the left bank for a while
Insanity Bohemian style

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho

Met a dwarf that was no good
Dressed like little Red Riding Hood
Bad habit taking life
Calling card a six-inch knife
Ran off really fast
Mumbled something 'bout the past
Best sex I've ever seen
As if each moment was the last
Drops of blood, colour slide
Funeral for his bride
But it's him who's really dead
Gets to take the funeral ride

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-oh, oh-ho, oh-ho

Space guy fell from the sky
Scratched my head and wondered why
Time slides into time
Across international dateline
Scientist eats bubblegum
Hall of fame, baseball
Senator's a hoodlum
Big chiefs in the hall

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho

Stray thoughts fear to tread
Placed upon the screen instead
She's my flame too hot to hold
Had to settle for her cold

Bloodlust, Greek god, gold discovery
Gone bust, tight wad, slow recovery
Axe job, flame thrower, iron bar and gun
Betting shop, new owner, a walk in the sun

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho

Spread the news: the Maestro's back
With a beat-box soundtrack
The King of brains - Queen of the sack
Executives have heart attack
It's assault course celluloid
The money makers would avoid
Sometimes notions get reversed
Centre of the universe

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho, oh-ho, oh-ho, oh-ho

Post CPE Lesson 13

Lesson 13
Setting up a business

1. Business Plans http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/37941671/Business%20Plans
2. Setting up a company in the U.K. (listening skills)
3. General Partnerships or Limited Liability Partnerships (speaking skills - role-play) https://www.gov.uk/business-legal-structures/limited-partnership-and-limited-liability-partnership

Vocabulary
to float a company/shares on the stock exchange
predatory pricing
C corporation versus S corporation
responsibilities are set out in the LLP agreement (limited liability partnership U.K.), the by-laws (U.S. corporation) or the Articles of association (U.K. company).

Corrections

• He could reveal turn out to be lazy
• Patrimony  - in English this tends to mean an inheritance from your father or the endowment of a church not the more general sense of assets or property.
• Ask to someone something but mention (something) to someone.
• Suggest to do doing/(that) he does

Going Further

1. Reading - The Music Business http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/37963837/The%20Music%20Business
2. Pronunciation - Accents - Donald Trump http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups.html

D'Amico Shipping B1 Lesson 8

Lesson 8
Class
Reading Skills - skimming, scanning and topic sentences
Vocabulary - Prefixes
New Language Leader Intermediate pp. 10 -11

Homework
Vocabulary - prefixes continues p. 11 questions 4a, 4b

ANIA Group 8 Level C2 Lesson 3

Class

Mind Over Matter - Open Cloze Corrections
Grammar Check
as orlike? http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/like-versus-as?page=all
number or amount?http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/amount-versus-number
Verb +ing or infinitive
http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/25080022/Verb%20Structure

Homework

1. Accents - Donald Trump http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups.html
2. Discussion & Reading Adele tells Donald Trump to stop pinching her songs for his campaign
   http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/01/adele-donald-trump-songs-campaign
   to pinch = to steal
   What legal remedies do artists have/should have against people who use their music for purposes they don't approve of?
3. Word  Transformation, Sentence Transformation, Expressions and multi-word verbs with come (reverse side of mind over matter handout)

come up with, come across/over as, come around/round to (an idea, proposal), come down with (an illness), come out in (a rash, spots, hives), come down to, come in for (criticism), come up against, come up for, come out with, come of age, come to life, come to terms, come clean, come to hand, come to rest/to a stop, come to nothing/naught.

And for aficionados of 80's pop (especially Gianni)

Legal English Bennett Languages Civitavecchia Lesson 11

Lesson 11
Class
Discussion & Reading Adele tells Donald Trump to stop pinching her songs for his campaign
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/01/adele-donald-trump-songs-campaign
to pinch = to steal
What legal remedies do artists have/should have against people who use their music for purposes they don't approve of?

Verb Structure
Verb +ing or infinitive
http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/25080022/Verb%20Structure

Presentations Skills

• Delivery
• Signposting language

http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/32233573/Presentations

Homework

1. Think about your presentation topic. How are you going to structure it? What signposting language do you need? 
2. Accents - Donald Trump http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups.html

ANIA B2.3 Group 5 Lesson 3

Class

Introduction to the phonemic chart

Vowels - tongue placement (high, mid, low), place of articulation (forward, centre, back), long or short, dipthongs.

Consonants - place of articulation, manner of articulation, voiced or unvoiced.

Hidden Names from Pronunciation Games

Homework

1) PRONUNCIATION 

Spend some time getting to know the phonemic chart on the app you have downloaded. Can you make all the sounds? Can you hear the differences between the various vowels? Can you hear the difference between the voiced and unvoiced consonants?

2) LISTENING

Accents - Donald Trump
http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups.html

Going further

For more notes examples and exercises on English pronunciation go to:
http://seansenglishclassroom.pbworks.com/w/page/11442648/Pronunciation

D'AMICO Shipping B2 Lesson 8

Class

Company structure pp. 14 - 15

Key vocabulary:

To deal with

To be responsible for (compare to be responsible to)

Department/staff is/are (collective nouns that can be singular or plural depending on what you want to emphasise)

Listening p. 18

Homework

Reading pp. 16 - 17

Listening - Accents - Donald Trump dubbed. 

http://seansstudypage.blogspot.it/2016/02/accents-all-groups.html

Accents - All Groups

Last week English comedian, Peter Serafinowicz, posted a video of a Donald Trump speech dubbed over with a London Cockney accent. The video went viral with over 1.5 million views to date.
Below is another video by Serafinowicz in which he has dubbed Trump with a posh R.P. British accent.

For comparison purposes, listen to the video below to hear what Trump really sounds like - the excerpt which the first video dubbed starts at around 9:00:

Tasks

1. Compare and contrast the pronunciation features - what do you notice about each accent (especially vowel sounds, stress and intonation)?
2. How does each accent affect your impression of Trump?
3. Why do people (especially British people) find the videos so funny?
4. What prejudices about Cockney and R.P. accents do the videos exploit?
5. How much do you think we judge people by their accent?
6. What do you aim for in your pronunciation of English?