Tuesday 31 December 2013
Monday 30 December 2013
Friday 27 December 2013
Thursday 26 December 2013
Monday 23 December 2013
A very Merry Christmas!!!
Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland |
Their old,
familiar carols play,
And wild
and sweet
The words
repeat
Of peace on
earth, good-will to men!
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, suggested by our friend Rita Paiva Campos. <3
To all our friends, readers and visitors, the warmest wishes of a very MERRY CHRISTMAS, this year, every year!...
Sunday 22 December 2013
Saturday 21 December 2013
Which words originated in your birth year?
Do you know which words entered the English language
around the same time you entered the world? Use the Oxford English Dictionary birthday word generator to find out! The
Oxford English Dictionary did an amazing work finding words with a first known
usage for each year from 1900 to 2004. Simply select the relevant decade and
click on your birth year to discover a word which entered the English language
that year.
Monday 16 December 2013
Friday 13 December 2013
Friday 6 December 2013
Saturday 30 November 2013
Critical & Creative Thinking
You are what you think. That's right.
Whatever you are doing right now, whatever you feel, whatever you want - all are
determined by the quality of your thinking. If your thinking is unrealistic,
your thinking will lead to many disappointments. If your thinking is overly
pessimistic, it will deny you due recognition of the many things in which you
should properly rejoice. For most people, most of their thinking is
subconscious, that is, never explicitly put into words. The problem is that
when you are not aware of your thinking you have no chance of “correcting” it.
When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in
it. And, if you don't see any problems in it, you won't be motivated to change
it.
When we are thinking of a classroom context, critical thinking is thinking that assesses itself. To the extent that our students need us to tell
them how well they are doing, they are not thinking critically. Didactic
instruction makes students overly dependent on the teacher. In such
instruction, students rarely develop any perceptible intellectual independence
and typically have no intellectual standards to assess their thinking with.
Instruction that fosters a disciplined, thinking mind, on the other hand, is
180 degrees in the opposite direction.
Each step in the process of thinking
critically is tied to a self-reflexive step of self-assessment. As a critical
thinker, I do not simply state the problem; I state it and assess it for its
clarity. I do not simply gather information; I gather it and check it for its
relevance and significance. I do not simply form an interpretation; I check my
interpretation to see what it is based on and whether that basis is adequate.
Because of the importance of
self-assessment to critical thinking, it is important to bring it into the
structural design of the class and not just leave it to episodic tactics.
Virtually every day, for example, students should be giving (to their pairs)
and receiving feedback on the quality of their work. They
should be regularly using intellectual standards in an explicit way.
The following wheel shows a procedure sequence that will allow you to engage your students in thinking critically:
Credits: somasimple |
The following verb wheel shows a whole set of activities we can get our students to do in class, based on Bloom's Taxonomy:
Credits: critical & creative thinking |
Friday 29 November 2013
Black Friday 2013
The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960s to mark the
kickoff to the Christmas shopping season. “Black” refers to stores moving from
the “red” to the “black,” back when accounting records were kept by hand, and
red ink indicated a loss, and black a profit. Ever since the start of the
modern Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, the Friday after Thanksgiving
has been known as the unofficial start to a bustling holiday shopping season.
In the 1960's, police in Philadelphia griped about the
congested streets, clogged with motorists and pedestrians, calling it “Black
Friday.” In a non-retail sense, it was originally used to describe
something else entirely — the September 24th, 1864, stock-market panic set off
by plunging gold prices. Newspapers in Philadelphia reappropriated the phrase
in the late 1960s, using it to describe the rush of crowds at stores. The
justification came later, tied to accounting balance sheets where black ink
would represent a profit. Many see Black Friday as the day retailers go into
the black or show a profit for the first time in a given year.
The term stuck and spread, and by the 1990s Black Friday became an unofficial retail holiday nationwide. Since 2002, Black Friday has been the season's biggest shopping day each year except 2004, according to market-research firm ShopperTrak. Nevertheless, retailers continue to tie one-day in-store sales to Black Friday. In the Internet era, bloggers race to obtain leaked circulars and post them online weeks in advance of Thanksgiving. Many forums and websites chart the deals, helping shoppers make a plan of attack for the big day. And attack they will — the National Retail Federation anticipates 134 million people will hit the stores on Thanksgiving weekend.
As retailers began to realize they could draw big crowds by
discounting prices, Black Friday became the day to shop, even better than those
last minute Christmas sales. Some retailers put their items up for sale on the
morning of Thanksgiving, or email online specials to consumers days or weeks
before the actual event. The most shopped for items are electronics and popular
toys, as these may be the most drastically discounted. However, prices are
slashed on everything from home furnishings to apparel.
For millions of people Black Friday is the time to do some
serious Christmas shopping, even before the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers
are gone. Black Black is the Friday after Thanksgiving, and it's one of the
major shopping days of the year in the United States, falling this year on
November 29th. While it's not recognized as an official US holiday, many
employees have the day off -except those working in retail.
image credits: Infographic Journal |
The term stuck and spread, and by the 1990s Black Friday became an unofficial retail holiday nationwide. Since 2002, Black Friday has been the season's biggest shopping day each year except 2004, according to market-research firm ShopperTrak. Nevertheless, retailers continue to tie one-day in-store sales to Black Friday. In the Internet era, bloggers race to obtain leaked circulars and post them online weeks in advance of Thanksgiving. Many forums and websites chart the deals, helping shoppers make a plan of attack for the big day. And attack they will — the National Retail Federation anticipates 134 million people will hit the stores on Thanksgiving weekend.
Why did it become so popular?
photo credits: Time |
Black Friday is a long day, with many retailers opening up
at 5 am or even earlier to hordes of people waiting anxiously outside the
windows. There are numerous doorbuster deals and loss leaders – prices so low
the store may not make a profit - to entice shoppers.
Most large retailers post
their Black Friday ad scans, coupons and offers online beforehand to give
consumers time to find out about sales and plan their purchases. Other
companies take a different approach, waiting until the last possible moment to
release their Black Friday ads, hoping to create a buzz and keep customers
eagerly checking back for an announcement.
More and more, consumers are choosing to shop online, not
wanting to wait outside in the early morning chill with a crush of other
shoppers or battle over the last most-wanted item. Often, many people show up
for a small number of limited-time "door-buster" deals, such as large
flat-screen televisions or laptops for a few hundred dollars. Since these
coveted items sell out quickly, quite a few shoppers leave the store empty
handed.
image credits: CNNMoney |
Sources: Black Friday, Time
Thursday 28 November 2013
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is celebrated today, November 28th, as always in the fourth Thursday of the month, all across the USA and Canada and precedes Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days , mostly in the USA.
found pic @ Crosswalk |
In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians
shared an Autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first
Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of
thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until
1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed
a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
THANKSGIVIG AT PLYMOUTH
found pic @ mbeinstitute |
found pic @ ucls-chicago |
THANKSGIVING BECOMES AN OFFICIAL HOLIDAY
found pic @ Google images |
In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. In 1827, the noted magazine editor and writer Sarah Josepha Hale—author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians. Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.
THANKSGIVING TRADITIONS
found pic @ fashionpill |
In
many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of
its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking
and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends. Turkey, a
Thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but synonymous with
the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the Pilgrims hosted
the inaugural feast in 1621. Today, however, nearly 90 percent of
Americans eat the bird—whether roasted, baked or deep-fried—on
Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation. Other
traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and
pumpkin pie. Volunteering is a common Thanksgiving Day activity, and
communities often hold food drives and host free dinners for the less
fortunate.
Parades have also become an integral part of the holiday in cities and towns across the United States. Presented by Macy’s department store since 1924, New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2 to 3 million spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.
Beginning in the mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United States has “pardoned” one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning ritual.
THANKSGIVING IN THE UK
Thanksgiving Day in the United Kingdom is celebrated as a harvest festival. This day is a religious honouring to convey a feeling of gratitude to God for the year's plentiful and fruitful harvest and thanking family and friends for their love and support. The day is celebrated by preparing a special meal of large roasted turkey, which is a native American species, along with cranberry sauce, stuffing, with veggies. A variety of different pies with apple, mincemeat, pumpkin and pecan form the dessert menu. Gifts are also exchanged on this day which include flowers, jewellery, baked cookies, candy and wine.
Many towns and cities stage spectacular parades on this day. Many people are on the roads to enjoy the decorated floats, the costumes, the music and the heavy balloons.
Parades have also become an integral part of the holiday in cities and towns across the United States. Presented by Macy’s department store since 1924, New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2 to 3 million spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.
Beginning in the mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United States has “pardoned” one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning ritual.
THANKSGIVING IN THE UK
photo credits: US Embassy in London |
Many towns and cities stage spectacular parades on this day. Many people are on the roads to enjoy the decorated floats, the costumes, the music and the heavy balloons.
Source: The History Channel (abridged and adapted)
You may also check relevant multimedia resources on this topic @:
You can get ELT resources (further info, lesson plans, printables, posters, slideshows, recipes, graphs, crafts, colouring pictures and greeting cards) on the topic @:
Saturday 16 November 2013
VOA Learning English
Learn American English and much more with captioned news and
features in Voice Of America (VOA) Special
English. Stories are read one-third slower than regular VOA English. Read,
listen and learn with daily MP3s and texts at voaspecialenglish.com. It ‘s a
unique Web resource for realia.
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