RIO 2016 OLYMPICS - Let's be up-to-date and blog around

Hello everyone!

Long time, no see you!! 

But now, we have a good purpose to meet again.

Despite all the fuss about our President's impeachment process, the Rio 2016 Olympics will happen from August 05 to 21. Are you ready to get familiar with the vocabulary and discuss on the event?

Let's first browse the official site:

1) The Olympics Games and Schedule

NBC Article on Challenging and Fun Facts about the Olympics:

2) Rio's Governor Declares ' State of Calamity' ahead of Olympic Games

3) 16 Fun Facts about Rio 2016 Olympics

Professor Ulisses Wehby gives all the Sports pronunciation and valuable tips:

3) How to pronounce the sports and general vocabulary

For our discussion, now answer the following questions on COMMENTS: 

What are your favorite sports and why? 

Are you going to the event? If so, what games are you going to watch? 

Hope you like participating on the blog and share your thoughts with more virtual friends to enlarge your networking in English.

Best,

Flávia

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... !!!! Let's talk about movies! Have you seen them?

Dearest students,

Now, let's mix more pleasure with the English language!

Let's go to the movies and share your views on what film, or who should get the Golden Statuette.

The best picture nominees are: 

1) The Big Short ( Trailer )
2) Bridge of Spies ( Trailer )
3) Brooklyin ( Trailer )
4) Mad Max (Fury Road) ( Trailer )
5) The Martian (  Trailer )
6) The Revenant ( Trailer )
7) Room ( Trailer )
8) Spotlight ( Trailer )

Also, there are other movies running for the Oscar, as you can read on the following reviews (word used to describe the opinion of specialists) . Do you agree with them? Use this blog post to give your comments on them.

For a start, do you know how to say all the Oscar nominations? Here they are in alphabetical order:

(please visit the Oscar official site for more info on the names:Oscar Nominees ):

1) Best picture
2) Actor/Actress in a Leading Role
3) Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role
4) Animated Feature Film
5) Cinematography
6) Costume Design
7) Directing
8) Documentary (Feature)
9) Documentary ( Short Subject)
10) Film Editing
11) Foreign Film
12) Makeup and Hairstyling
13) Music (Original Score)
14) Music (Original Song)
15) Production Design
16) Short Film (Animated)
17) Short Film (Live Action)
18) Sound Editing
19) Sound Mixing
20) Visual Effects
21) Writing (Adapting Screenplay)
22) Writing (Original Screenplay)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Let's start by analysing Barack Obama's final State of the Union Address of Jan.12, 2016

Dearest all,

Hope you all had great celebrations  with your family and friends at Christmas and New Year!

Hope you are all alive and kicking to a great linguistic start (for my new students) or restart (for my existing ones)!!

To boost your listening comprehension, I invite you all to watch part (30 min) of Barack Obama's last State of the Union address (SOTU) of January 12. This is his last mandate year.

While watching it, please have in mind some questions to guide your comprehension. See below. 

I wish you all a great course ! A lot of challenges ahead I hope to give you.

See you in class and here on this blog to build a good linguistic network with your virtual peers.

Count on your participation here.

A little note: for those who want to follow the hot debate between the American Democratic Candidates, here's the link to the last televised one on Jan 17th: 
Jan.17th Debate of Democratic Party Presidential Candidates

Enjoy!!

Flávia

Go to Obama's State of the Union Address of Jan. 12, 2016  and answer the following questions. Select some of them ( 3 to 4) to answer in order to post on the blog comment box.

1) (the first 10 minutes)

    What can you notice about Obama's speech tone: optimistic/pessimistic,  agressive/         peaceful, assertive/defeatist, and/or courageous/fearsome?

2) (at 13:51')

     What does Obama say about the US economy?

3) (at 15:46')

     What does he say about technology and jobs?

4) ( at 15:53')

     Obama states that nowadays companies are located everywhere and can face tough competition. According to him, how can this affect workers, company loyalty and wealth concentration? Do you agree? Why?

5) (at 16:42')

    How can the following Americans' general belief Everybody who works hard should get a fair shot be affected by the present difficult economic trends mentioned by Obama? 

6) (at 17:20')

     He referred to a bipartisan (both Democrats and Republicans) reform that was very important. What was it? Do you agree?

7) (at 17:30 till 18:20')

    What does he say about high school graduation rates? Also about graduates,  teachers for kids and college? How do you see all these past and future measures?

8) (at 19:22 till 20:00')

     What is the comment Obama made on retirment that got laughs from the audince? What else did he say about the retirement process?

9) (at 20:15')

    What does Obama advise in relation to social security and Medicare health program?

10) (from 21:49 to 22:50')

     Obama hypothesizes a case of an American who loses his job. What does he intend to show with this story? Do you think his solutions are a good way to help an unemployed person? Why?

11) (from 23:00 25:00')

   Obama refers to lots of  conflicts of interest and disagreements between the parties (democrats x republicans) and sectors (private x public). Choose some of them you consider important to the world economy.

12) (at 25:57')
   How can you answer Obama's question: How do we reignite that spirit of innovation to meet our biggest challenges? After this question he brings up examples of American breakthroughs - which ones are the best in your opinion?