A story with a musical background, by María

In class we worked on the creation of four characters for a story. One of them was Mary and this is the story María (the name is just a coincidence) wrote for her out of the outline we managed to make up. She also suggested some music to listen to while reading it:

The music: Weary Blues, by Madeleine Peyroux




The story:

MARY´S LIFE

I was born in 1926 in a beautiful house which is actually opposite the place where I live now. Of course, many things have changed since then…
My mother was a pretty, high-society girl who fell in love with a charming man, my father, being too young. Youth is as amazing as dangerous because it makes you do things that you know are wrong, and so my mother did.

The handsome man was working as a musician in a nightclub where every night you could hear the most beautiful music in the whole world: some kind of mixture between American jazz and European folk music that researchers nowadays would call Cabaret. My father played the trumpet in a very special way.

My grandparents could not agree with this relationship, so my mother left home when she knew she was pregnant.

My first memories are really kind: mum was a very affectionate woman who always had a smile in her mouth, and dad was incredibly talkative and sociable and he sang to me whenever he could do it. My childhood is full of music and happiness. But things changed gradually because of my father´s job. He spent the nights out (playing his trumpet and who knows…) until one day when he didn't come back home. I was eight. Hard years had just began. Since April 1936, everything went from bad to worse: mum went extremely quiet, extremely sad, extremely moody. After seven years of sadness and poverty I ran away from home, looking for a happier life. It wasn´t easy to find a job, but after two weeks I got it: in a nightclub!!! Singing the songs my father had taught me. Such is life…

Nightlife "ain´t no good life" because it has a lot of dangers: there are drugs, alcohol and bad people. My life was getting horrible and I needed to find someone reliable and sensible but I couldn´t trust in anyone until Alice arrived and picked me up from the gutter.

I´ve been living with her for 25 years. She´s been my partner, my lover, my mother and, lately, my nurse which is something that´s really worrying me. My health is very delicate and I think she´s getting tired about it.
She has been in Amsterdam for two months, working as a shop assistant in an underwear boutique and I think she has met a new love there. Perhaps she´s going to leave me, maybe I´ll have to spend my last few days on my own…

Unit 2: Numbers, money, decimals and fractions.

Here you have a tool to learn how to say big numbers:



CAN YOU SAY REALLY BIG NUMBERS? CLICK HERE


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If you get confused with prices, coins and notes, these are interesting links. They are originally intended for British children:

HOW MUCH IS THIS?

MONEY MAZE



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Here is a a Spanish webpage where you can read an explanation on how to say decimals and fractions in English. You can also hear them:

DECIMALS AND FRACTIONS


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Finally, take a look at some bizarre numbers, averages and percentages from

Numbers, Averages And Percentages

What do you think about these last numbers? Are they reliable?

Unit 2: Money

Time is money. If you have some spare change of about 15 minutes, you might find the following video about money vocabulary of interest:

Misterduncan's lesson on money:

If you love lists, this might be your link for vocabulary on money: CLICK HERE

Now a question: Is money evil?
Another question: What is the last sentence in the video? Clue: it is a conditional sentence.

María sent the answer: "If a dollar was a chicken would the chicken be evil?" Well done!

Shania Twain, a Canadian singer, sings her vision on money and shopping (read the lyrics on page 20 of the Student's book or here):

Ka-ching:



MORE SPECIALISED LANGUAGE FOR BUSINESS ENGLISH TEACHERS AND LEARNERS:

1) Try to complete the following crossword (if you can't, use help buttons):

Crossword Puzzle: Marketing Vocabulary

2) Page with exercises about Business English, including grammar, vocabulary and language skills:

LINGUARAMA

3) Click on the following link to read a text on different cultural views and how they may affect business and answer the questions at the end. It comes from the same link above (linguarama).

Click here to read the text.

Different views on Autumn traditions: Halloween, Guy Fawkes Night and Thanksgiving

Halloween and Bonfire Night over, there's another Autumn/Fall classic still to come:



And now a film I really like about Thanksgiving:
"Home for the holidays"(1995)


Guy Fawkes Night (november 5th)

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

A modern Guy Fawkes introduces himself in "V for Vendetta" (can't you still pronounce the sound /v/?:

KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY (THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE)

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Halloween (October 31st, in the USA)

A SONG: This is Halloween, from Nightmare Before Christmas

A WITCH, or so they say (by Monty Python)

AND A GHOST STORY, plastic surgery included (from The Addams Family).

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Getting serious again, we have someone's opinion about Halloween versus Bonfire Night.

Click on the following link to read it:

Liberal England: Trick or treat or penny for the guy?

Do you agree with the author? How about the answers he receives? Is anything similar happening in Spain?