04.17.12
Posted in VOLUMEN PRÁCTICO INGLES SECUNDARIAS Y ESCUELAS at 11:44 am by Administrator
We have noted the following:
Page 151:
should read as follows:
5. Lines 58-60. “the grating in his throat….. prevented him from eating anything
Page 194:
SHOULD READ AS FOLLOWS:
13. Los hermanos gemelos suelen ser como una y carne = Identical twins are
usually inseparable /as thick as thieves.
Page. 218:
SHOULD READ AS FOLLOWS:
La venganza nunca prescribe.
Revenge has no time-limit/is never barred by statute of limitations.
That’s all we have noted… but if you find something else, as usual we’ll be glad to hear about it and correct it
Permalink
04.01.12
Posted in MISCELANEOUS at 9:05 am by Administrator
You’ll have to excuse the length… but I really think it is worth it and should entice people to read it… it’s a masterpiece of irony, brilliant description of situation and character and I’ll leave you to enjoy the extract:
Oliver Twist. End of Chapter 2. (Oliver, on his 9th birthday, has been sent by the board from the orphanage to the workhouse)
The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered – the poor people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work. “Oho!” said the board, looking very knowing; “we are the fellows to set this to rights; we’ll stop it all, in no time.” So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house,or by a quick one out of it. Withthis view, they contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supplyof water; and with a corn-factory to supply periodicallysmall quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; kindlyundertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctors’ Commons; and instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse and the gruel; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty. The relief was inseparable from the work-house and the gruel; and that frightened people.
For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the system was in full operation. It was rather expensive at fist, in consequence of the increase in the undertaker’s bill, and the necessity of taking in the clothers of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two’s gruel. But the number of workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies.
The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at meal-times. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more -except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quaterof bread besides. The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, their spoons being nearlyas large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view o catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companioussuffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn’t been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cookshop), hinted darkly to his companiouns, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask fo more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.
The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook’s uniform, stationed himselft at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged thermselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons.
(And here is a link to the musical Oliver: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=ly7PONiKGUs&NR=1
The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, bowl and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:
“Please, sir, I want some more.”
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
“What!” said the master at length, in a faint voice.
“Please, sir,” replied Oliver, “I want some more.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4iEdMMjqdA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=9lEDDsBKSxU
So… I hope you’ll enjoy it. Sorry but I have only been able to find it with non-English subtitles, but I found another one, perhaps closer to Dickens’ description.
Permalink
02.29.12
Posted in MISCELANEOUS at 2:04 pm by Administrator
In 1812, the year Dickens was born, 66 novels were published in Britain and no writer was aspiring to do it professionally. The literacy rate in England at the time was below 50% and novels were regarded as silly, immoral, toxic or just bad. Jane Austen mentions in her “Northanger Abbey” that “No species of composition has been so much decried” and we should not forget that she died in 1817 but most of her novels were not published until a year later, in 1818, when Dickens was only 6. It was during the reign of Queen Victoria that the novel took root and during her time some 60,000 novels were published. When Dickens died, aged 58, he was mourned as the first literary celebrity and his characters were acclaimed as moral touchstones.
Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth, on 7th February, the second of 8 children. His father was a clerk at the Naval Pay Office and his job also took him and his family to London and Chatham, where Dickens was happiest. The family found it difficult to live within the father’s income and in 1823 they permanently moved to London, faced with financial disaster. A year later, his father was arrested for debts and to help the family out, a relative of Mrs Dickens offered Charles work in a blacking business which he managed. Charles’ job consisted of labelling bottles for six shillings a week. The rest of his family had to move with his father to the Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison. This episode would mark Dickens and only his wife and his closest friend and biographer, John Foster, knew about this.
Charles Dickens’ father was released from prison after three months and a few weeks later he could send Charles to school where he did well until he began to work in the office of Gray’s Inn attorneys in 1827. While he was working there he taught himself shorthand and eighteen months later he started working as a freelance reporter in the court of Doctors’ Commons where he reported parliamentary debates, winning himself a reputation for speed and accuracy. In 1833 he started publishing his Sketches by Boz in various magazines and at 22 he joined the reporting staff of the Morning Chronicle. A volume of those Sketches appeared on his twenty-fourth birthday and was very well received.
That same year, three days after his birthday Dickens was approached by Chapman and Hall and asked to write the text for a series of comic sketches by the popular artist Seymour. This would be the beginnings of The Pickwick Papers. The idea at first was that Seymour would draw the sketches and Dickens would provide the stories based on them to be published monthy and for which he would be paid £14 a month. However, Dickens argued that it would be better if the plates would arise from the text rather than the other way round and got his own way. Two days after the first number appeared, he married his fiancée, Catherine Hogarth. Although not an overnight success, the Pickwick Papers soon became very popular and the characters the centre of popular cult. They were published for over a year and, while still running, Dickens started writing and finished Oliver Twist. The following year he published Nicholas Nickleby and the one after The Old Curiosity Shop , which reached 100,000 copies. He finished Barnaby Rudge in 1941 and then set off with his wife for the States. Although he went full of enthusiasm for the young republic he came back disillusioned, recording his experiences in American Notes in 1942.
His first setback in terms of novel-writing came with Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) as this novel did not repeat the success achieved by his previous novels. Nevertheless he soon started with his series of Christmas Books starting with A Christmas Carol in 1843 which were very successful. Between this year and 1843 he often travelled abroad to Italy, Switzerland and Paris.
After writing Dombey and Son in 1846-48, a more serious and carefully planned novel, he started David Copperfield in 1849. This is his most autobiographical novel, exploring in it his childhood and youth, although it was thinly disguised.
In the 1850s he became more and more interested in public affairs, founding Household Words, a weekly magazine combining entertainment and social purpose. It was followed by All the Year Round in 1859.
During that decade he published Bleak House in 1852-53 and Hard Times in 1854, both covering social issues, the former focusing on the Court of Chancery, sanitary reform, slum clearance, orphans’ schools, the newly-formed Metropolitan Police Force, the emancipation of women… in brief, England at that time. Little Dorrit was published in 1855-7 and it was a denunciation of the government and administration’s mismanagement of the Crimean War. Indeed, he considered the title “Nobody’s Fault” as a possible title for the novel. A Tale of two cities followed in 1859, dealing with the French Revolution and the period of terror in France. His last two finished novels were Great Expectations published in 1860-1 and Our Mutual Friend in 1864-5. Great Expectations is narrated in the first person by Pips, the protagonist, as he reflects on the three stages of his “expectations”, starting on the Kentish marshes and eventually discovering the importance of human values. In Our Mutual Friend there are several plots, the main of which centres around John Harmor who returns to England as his father’s heir. The novel is a dense, comprehensive account of Victorian society, where materialistic values are paramount.
His last, unfinished novel was Edwin Drood (1870) although it might have been called “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”. He died that year.
If you feel too lazy to work out the dates, age, etc. … check the Comments to the quiz and you’ll find the answers. And enjoy Dickens!
Permalink
Posted in MISCELANEOUS at 12:47 pm by Administrator
As promised, this is another contribution to commemorate Dickens throughout this year 2012. We’ll be including some extracts from all his works – though not in chronological order -and our version in Spanish. We’ll also try to provide some background to the novel.
In the Preface to the book, dated in November 1859, Charles Dickens wrote:
“When I was acting, with my children and friends, in Mr Wilkie Collins’ drama “The Frozen Deep”, I first conceived the main idea of this story. …. As the idea became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself into its present form. …Whenever any reference (however slight) is made here to the conditions of the French people before or during the Revolution, it is truly made, on the faith of the most trustworthy witnesses. It has been one of my hopes to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time, though no one can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Mr Carlyle’s wonderful book”. Indeed, Carlyle’s The French Revolution, published in 1837 was often consulted by Dickens while writing the novel, among other sources.
And here are the opening lines of “A Tale of Two Cities”, a mastery of paradox:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only… It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five”
Y aquí, con toda humildad, nuestra versión en español:
“Eran los mejores tiempos y eran los peores, era la edad de la sabiduría y la edad de la estupidez, era la época de las creencias y la época de la incredulidad, eran años de Luz y años de Tinieblas, era la primavera de la esperanza y el invierno de la desesperación, lo teníamos todo* y no teníamos nada, íbamos todos directos al Paraíso e íbamos todos directos por el camino contrario; para abreviar, era una época tan similar a la actual que algunos de los expertos que más ruido metían insistían en que sólo se la recibiera, para bien o para mal, en el grado de comparación superlativo … Era el año de gracia de mil setecientos setenta y cinco”.
(* Aquí podríamos también decir “teníamos todo el mundo por delante y no teníamos nada”… pero yo sigo prefiriendo el sincretismo de la versión de arriba. Vernon y yo lo estuvimos discutiendo sin llegar a un acuerdo… si quereis contribuir… ya sabéis, añadid vuestro comentario).
¿Os suena a algo? Doesn’t it remind you of something? …. and all this published in 1859 … and it’s so topical… so brilliant!
And to finish our homage to “A Tale of Two Cities”, just another quote of what Dickens said to his friend and fellow-novelist ,Wilkie Collins – the author of “The Woman in White” and “The Moonstone” and one of the pioneers of detective stories in the English-speaking world – after he had completed the last pages of the novel:
“It has greatly moved and excited me in the doing and Heavens knows I have done my best and believed in it”.
Permalink
02.27.12
Posted in VOLUMEN PRÁCTICO INGLES SECUNDARIAS Y ESCUELAS at 9:21 pm by Administrator
In question 7, where you are asked to explain the sentence “is just high-street fashion to their gastronomic haute couture” we say that there is metaphor and simile. However, a student asked if that would not be an “analogy”, and the answer we can give is “Yes”. The three terms are indeed related even if their meanings are subtly different.
The dictionary defines a “metaphor” as a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. It’s a kind of “hidden simile”, which is an open comparison, or a kind of metaphor where the comparison is linguistically obvious.
An analogy on the other hand also shows a similarity between things that may seem different, just like a metaphor or a simile. It is often used to provide some insight by comparing a subject to another wich may be more familiar, or to show relationship between pairs, like when we say “A is to B just as C is to D”. An analogy, however is not just a rhetorical device but a logical argument. That is why we still feel that the sentence can also be taken as a kind of simile even if, as Amaia suggested, it is truly an analogy.
Permalink
02.08.12
Posted in TEMAS PROFESORES SECUNDARIAS at 8:00 am by Administrator
A los opositores que han estado preparando los temarios en base a lo que nosotros habíamos escrito para unos temas sobre los que las distintas partes del mundo educativo: ministerio, consejerías de educación de las comunidades autónomas y sindicatos de distinta ideología del sector educativo llevaban negociando durante más de un año y salieron publicados en noviembre de 2011: En la página de www.slshallam.es encontrareis un listado con la comparativa de los que pueden servir del antiguo temario. En breve pondremos otra lista esta basándonos en el temario del 1993 con una relación de los temas publicados con MAD y que son equivalentes. El resto de los temas, si los tenemos elaborados, ya veremos cómo los ponemos a disposición, al menos para nuestros alumnos y algunos fieles más. De todas formas, muchos de los temas elaborados sirven estupendamente para preparar la justificación de las actividades de la programación, el desarrollo de competencias, la evaluación, etc. ¡Ah! y no os desanimeis. Estais mucho mejor preparados y con mayores recursos para afrontar con éxito la oposición. Por lo tanto, si lo que buscan es lo que dicen, vosotros sois de los mejores.
Permalink
02.07.12
Posted in MISCELANEOUS at 5:33 pm by Administrator
Here’s a quiz for you… You can supply the answers and then we’ll see how many each of you got right! There are 20 questions on Dickens altogether :
In 1812, the year Dickens was born…..
- a) How many novels were published in Britain?
- b) What was the literacy rate in Britain?
- c) What was his father’s job?
- In which towns did he spend his childhood?
- How old was he when his family moved to London?
- What happened to him then?
- How old was Dickens when he started to work as a freelance reporter?
- What happened to him in 1834?
- What penname did he use when he joined the reporting staff of the Morning Chronicle?
- How old was Dickens when he published his first novel? And when he married?
- Was his first novel published before of after Victoria was crowned queen? How was it published?
- Which novel did Dickens start writing when his first novel was still running?
- How many novels did he publish between his first and 1841? Can you name them?
- What did he do then? Are there any records of it?
- When was his first setback in terms of novel-writing and how did it materialise?
- In which way is David Copperfield different fron Dickens’ previous novels?
- What was Household Words? What did it have in common with All the year Round?
- What were the main topics of Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-7)? And those of A tale of two cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-61) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5)?
- What was the last novel he wrote? What was it about?
- When did he die?
We’ll shortly provide a brief text with the answers… together with some quotes from his books… in English and Spanish.
And here is a link to a website about comments on Dickens by friend Wilkie Collins: http://wilkiecollins.com/
Permalink
01.24.12
Posted in MISCELANEOUS at 3:34 pm by Administrator
EPONYMS
Mostly scientific terms, but not all!
Perhaps the most famous is ….
Christmas…. After Christ
Also:
Hooligan…. after Patrick Hooligan, and Irish hoodlum in Southward . London 1989.
Quisling…. After Quisling, a Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazis (1940): traitor.
Quixotic…. After Don Qixote… foolish, impractical
Boycott… after Charles Boycott, an English land agent in Ireland (1880) who was ostracised for refusing to reduce rents.
Dunce: from John Duns Scotus, whose once accepted writings were ridiculed in the 16th century by humanists and reformers as being enemies of learning. Scotus was a Mediaval philosopher and theologian, (2nd half of 13th and first decade of 14th century ). He became a Franciscan, studied at Oxford and lectured there. His works were mainly commentaries of the Bible, Aristotle and the Sentences of Peter Lombard. He was a critic of preceding scholasticism, but his defence of the Papacy led to his ideas being ridiculed during the reformation. According to some scholars, he was better at criticising others than constructing a system of his own.
Sandwich : after John Montague, 4th Earl of Sandwich (18th century)
Wellington boots : After the Duke of Wellington. Beginning of 19th century.
The ones which are not, in spite of the listening we did in class from one of the Proficiency textbooks (Testbuilder I) (information based mainly on Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary and on Oxford Reference English Dictionary)
Doldrums: according to the Websters, it is probably akin to “dol” OE for foolish. First introduced in 1811. It is used to refer to a spell of listlessness or despondency. Also to a state of inactivity, stagnation or slump.
Gusset: ME piece of armour covering the joints in a suit of armour from MF gouchet (14th century). Also a diamond-shaped or triangular reinforcement or expansion
Pocket: ME poket, from ONF pokete, as diminutive of poke, bag of Germanic origin akin to OE pocca= bag.
Coffin ME from MF cofin and from Latin cophinus (14th century)
Ketchup…. According to Wikipedia it appears as early as 1690 as a Chinese invention and then discovered in the 18th century by the British in Malaysia…. It is found in Swift’s A panegyric on the Deans wks (1730). Various theories about the name, some of them relate it to the word escabeche in Spanish and French.
Trousers: from Irish and Gaelic triubhas. They were close-fitting shorts. According to http://www.etymonline.com, in the 1570s there appeared the term trouse, then in the 1580s it was trouzes and they reckon that perhaps the second “r” in today’s “trousers” was an influence of “drawers”.
Walkman: One of the many Sony trademarks, based on its precursor the Pressman and build in 1978. Others are “Watchman, Discman” etc. (this is according to Wikipedia and other internet sources like http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101223102607AAYIwPt
Permalink
01.02.12
Posted in VOLUMEN PRÁCTICO INGLES SECUNDARIAS Y ESCUELAS at 9:35 am by Administrator
For our students and for those enrolled to access our extra materials, we have uploaded on the “Class materials” http://slshallam.es/Download3.html the listening text we did on Alan Sillitoe. This connects with Text 5 “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”. You need a code to open the document “as read only”, so if you haven’t been sent it and you are one of our students, e-mail us.
Permalink
12.16.11
Posted in Topic Summaries and/or Extended Outlines at 2:46 pm by Administrator
Our students and those who have bought our topics published with Editorial MAD have free access to summaries or extended outlines of topics at www.slshallam.es . The exact page is “topics”. You’ll need a code to open the document, so send us an e-mail…
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
