Nagoya and other things

Hi everyone, how's everything? At the weekend I went to Nagoya to attend a seminar and use the Nagoya University library. The seminar was very good, and the library was very nice, and I also had the chance to see The Hobbit, so it was a very good trip.

Football (yet again)

This last weekend's Premier League matches were very exciting. Manchester United beat Manchester City 3–2, and Liverpool beat West Ham by the same scoreline. Chelsea beat Sunderland 3–1, and Arsenal beat West Bromwich Albion. Apart from Spurs losing to Everton, the traditional top teams all won, and the table is looking closer to what it usually looks like, with the traditional top teams in the top half. Perhaps the only big disappointment is Newcastle, who were in the top 6 last year but are now in 14th.

In Japan the FIFA Club World Cup is going on, but unfortunately I haven't had time to see any of the matches. On Saturday, Chelsea flew to Japan after their Premier League match to join in the competition.

Working on writing errors

Hi everyone,

Today, let's work on writing errors, using my student Maika's worksheet. Let's use our typing homeworks. Please print out 3 or 4 of them and use them with the worksheet.

Nagoya

I went to Nagoya at the weekend. It was just a short trip: I flew up there on Friday night after classes, and had to come back on Saturday night because I had work to do on Sunday. But a teacher in Nagoya took me to a beer restaurant there on Friday night, and the workshop I attended on Saturday was excellent. I had to leave a little early to catch my flight back.

The FIFA Club World Cup 2012 is starting very soon. The first match, between Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Auckland City FC, is on December 6th. The competition will continue until December 16th. You can check out the schedule here.

Soccer, soccer, soccer

The Premier League is getting more and more exciting. Usually by this point in the season it is beginning to become clear who the top 4 teams will be at the end of the season. The general consensus at the beginning of the season was that those teams would be Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal. However, Chelsea seem to have lost confidence, and the same appears to be true of Arsenal. Chelsea are still hanging on to third place, so the predictions may still turn out to be largely true, but Arsenal are now in 10th place, and it's difficult to see where improvement is going to come from. You can find the league table here.

The Football Club World Cup is coming soon. Maybe Chelsea will be able to discover a new mentality in Japan!

Blog Stats

As I have explained several times, it is very important in this course to write monthly Blog Stats posts. These posts allow you and your teacher to keep track of how much you have been writing, and to solve any problems that you discover.

Here is one example of a good Blog Stats post. You will notice that it has figures for November and also total figures for this semester. If you look around the blog, you'll also notice that it has Tags in the sidebar, and that the Tags include "blog stats". This is also necessary, because it enables us to find this important information easily at any time.

Mr Tomei will be checking all the blogs from Tuesday. There is a strong possibility that those without a blog stats post for November—visible in the sidebar—will fail the course.

California (Oxford Bookworms Factfiles)

Everyone has heard of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone has seen films from Hollywood. But what else do we know about California? This book looks at the cities and the mountains, at the sea and the deserts…

California is a book in the Factfiles subseries of Oxford Bookworms. As you may know, Factfiles is a nonfiction subseries. Many of the books are about places, and some about social problems such as the environment. Many of the books about places are about countries, but this one is about America's most populous state. Like many of the books, California has nine chapters: The Golden State; The Gold Rush; San Francisco; Parks; Highway 1; Los Angeles; The Desert; San Diego; and California. Some consist of two pages, as with the Stage 1 books, others of four pages. The first and last chapters (The Golden State and California) consist of only one page each. The last chapter has a nice large map of California, and photos are included on every page. The book ends with two pages of exercises and a glossary.

The language in general is fairly simple, but the impression is that it's noticeably more challenging than Stage 1 books. Most of the vocabulary is fairly simple, but there are many proper nouns. This is unavoidable in a book introducing a place, but may give an impression of difficulty to some students. Picking page 8 at random, the numbers of words in each sentence are as follows: 15, 14, 17, 10, 19, 11, 14, 8, 21, 11, 12, 10, 11, 12, 22. These figures give a mean of 13.8. One noticeable difference from Stage 1 books is the absence of very short sentences of fewer than 10 words, which may slow down reading speed a little.

The chapter that appealed to me the most was Chapter 4: Parks. The first park mentioned is Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which, according to the book, "is a twenty million year-old forest. Visitors drive through its fifty-two kilometre Avenue of the Giants to see some of the world's tallest redwood trees." The other parks introduced are Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, and Kings Canyon National Park. In Sequoia National Park, we can find the General Sherman Tree, which is 31 metres round and 84 metres tall. This chapter also introduces Lake Tahoe, which "is a favourite place for water sports, horse-riding and walking—and in the winter for skiing."

More on the Premier League

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Rafa Benitez was not made at all welcome during Chelsea's match against Manchester City. Chelsea fans remember him well from his time at Liverpool, when he often engaged in arguments with Jose Mourinho, the then Chelsea manager. According to the Dominic Fifield at the Guardian, fans held up banners saying: "Welcome to the circus starring Fat Rafa as the new clown."  Fifield suggests that Benitez "may always just represent Liverpool, ghost goals, plastic flags, a diving Didier Drogba and a bitter rivalry that flared brightly for six years".

The match ended as a 0–0 draw. Against Manchester City, the reigning champions, and taking into account Chelsea's recent poor results, that surely represents progress. 

Next week, Chelsea will be in Japan for what used to be called the Toyota Cup. Maybe that will represent a nice break from the Premier League! 

London (Oxford Bookworms Factfiles)

London—two thousand years of history. From the Romans and King Henry the Eighth to the city of today and tomorrow—and from St Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace to Petticoat Lane and Ronnie Scott's Jazz club.

London is a book in the Factfiles series. Factfiles, as you may know, is a sub-series of Oxford Bookworms. London is a Stage 1 book.

The book is divided into nine chapters. Each chapter consists of two facing pages, with the exception of Chapter 1, which is an introductory chapter of only one page. The nine chapters are: This is London!; In the Beginning; Visiting the City; Some Places to Go; Westminster; Shops and Eating; Going Out; Museums and Galleries; and Places and Parades. These nine chapters are followed by a map and, as with other Factfiles books, some exercises and a glossary.

The language, as one would expect with a Stage 1 book, is quite simple, the only difficult feature being the large number of proper nouns, unavoidable in a book introducing a city. Sentences tend to be quite short and simple. For example, the 14 sentences on page 2 have the following lengths (numbers of words): 7, 17, 8, 15, 5, 16, 6, 21, 12, 25, 6, 10, 7, and 14. This yields a mean of 12.07 words per sentence. The general pattern appears to be a short sentence followed by a longer one. Looking more closely at the longer sentences, we can see that many are composed of two independent clauses joined by the conjunctions "but" or "and". If we count these as separate sentences, we get a new mean sentence length of 9.75 words. To cut a long story short, it is unlikely that any students would be overwhelmed with the difficulty of this book.

The most interesting chapters for me were those with some connection with history, particularly Chapter 2 (In the Beginning), Chapter 4 (Some Places to Go), and Chapter 5 (Westminster). Chapter 2 looks back over 2000 years of history:

The Romans came to England in AD43. They built houses and other buildings and made a town next to the River Thames.

This was followed five hundred years later by a Danish invasion, but

King Alfred was king of England then. He got the Danes to leave London and his men built the town again.

 

Chelsea

I had a network problem this morning so I can't do the full 10 minutes. You may have heard that last week Chelsea fired their manager, Roberto di Matteo, because of poor results over the last month. Chelsea fans were a bit angry because he had led Chelsea to victory in the Champions League only 6 months ago. But they were VERY angry when they heard who was to replace him: Rafael Benitez!

Ireland

Oxford Bookworms Factfiles is a sub-series in the Oxford Bookworms series. It is devoted to nonfiction, and most of the books are about countries or famous cities or environmental problems. 

The book I read today is Ireland. Generally, the book is quite easy to read. There are few embedded clauses, and the sentences are simple in structure. The average sentence length is about 10 words. There are some much longer sentences, but most of those are lists or have easy-to-understand clauses such as "because" clauses. The vocabulary is quite simple, with few unknown words that learners will need to look up in the dictionary. But the books do have quite a lot of information and the number of words is fairly large. Thus, these books are recommended for learners who are aiming to progress beyond very short and simple books such as Usborne First Reading or Oxford Reading Tree.

The book consists of ten chapters: A strange and interesting country; Around the island; The Irish church and people; The English come to Ireland; Death from hunger; Fighting to be free; Northern Ireland; Dublin; Stories, music and dancing; and A country for young people.

Chapter 2, Around the island, describes the geography of Ireland. Most of the mountains in Ireland are near the sea [rewrite], and the chapter explains that the middle of the island has many beautiful lakes and rivers. The north and west of Ireland are mountainous, so most of the farming happens in the middle and east. Ireland is famous for its meat and milk. "There are hundreds of small islands in the sea around Ireland." (p. 2)

[chapter 2 summary]

For me, one of the most interesting chapters was Chapter 3, The Irish church and people. Living in Japan, it is sometimes difficult to understand the importance of religion in people's daily lives in the Catholic country of Ireland.

Overall, the book was very interesting and useful for me. My knowledge of Ireland was very limited, and the book gave me lots of useful information and made me want to visit Ireland myself. As mentioned above, this book and other books in the Factfiles sub-series may be a useful next step for learners who have read mainly very simple books.

[368 words]

Football

The weekend in the Premier League was very interesting. Chelsea and Manchester United both lost, as did Spurs, meaning that several of the teams that traditionally are at the top of the table are having some problems. Manchester United's loss allowed Manchester City to go back to the top; winning the Premier League is very important for Manchester City this year, since it looks almost certain that they will be knocked out of the Champions League very soon.

One of the teams in the top 4 is West Bromwich Albion. They are usually in the middle or the bottom of the table, and sometimes out of the Premier League completely, so this is a great achievement for them.

Rutgers visit to PUK

I had a busy weekend. On Thursday, David Finegold, Senior Vice President at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey (near New York), came to visit PUK. Last year, we signed an agreement with Rutgers to engage in various exchanges, and this time he came to talk in detail about some ideas, but also to speak at our 65th-anniversary symposium. The symposium was very interesting. In addition to Professor Finegold, we had speakers from Cambodia and Taiwan. Professor Finegold talked about changes in India and China and how they will affect Japan.

Movies

Although many of the winter hit movies will be coming in December, there are also some interesting ones coming soon of playing now. The Cirque du Soleil movie, Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, is now playing at three cinemas. I've never seen the circus live, but the movie appears to be a combination of several of their well-known shows. It is playing in 3D.

A Nicolas Cage movie, called Get Back in Japanese, Stolen overseas, features Nicholas Cage fighting to get back his daughter, who has been kidnapped by a former friend.

Premier League

As usual, I didn't get a chance to see any of the Premier League matches this weekend, but they were pretty exciting. Manchester City and Manchester United both won, City beating Spurs while United beat Aston Villa in another comeback. Chelsea drew against Liverpool. Near the bottom of the table, QPR, Reading, and Southampton all drew, while Wigan lost to West Brom. After the weekend's matches, the top 3 are Manchester United, Manchester City, and Chelsea, while the bottom 3 are QPR, Southampton, and Reading. My prediction is that the relative orders of each group of 3 teams will change, but that the composition of each group will be the same at the end of the season.

Movies playing now and coming soon

Autumn and winter are traditionally a pretty good time for movies, though sometimes in late autumn there's a bit of a gap, as some movies are delayed until the holiday season.

Probably everyone has heard that Skyfall, the latest James Bond film, is coming on December 1st. It is already playing in the UK and USA, and has been getting great reviews. The previous Bond movie was affected by the writers' strike, so it will be good to see a 007 film of good quality. Skyfall has beaten all previous Bond films for weekend box office receipts. It is directed by Sam Mendes, who has until now directed quite serious movies such as Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road, and American Beauty.

You can see a trailer for Skyfall on the iTunes Movie Trailers site.

Another major release is of course the first film in the Hobbit series, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Just like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit is also directed by Peter Jackson, and will be in three parts.

The weekend in football

This weekend was rather a disappointing one in the Premier League. Arsenal lost as expected to Manchester United, though the margin in the end was very slim. Chelsea drew with Swansea, perhaps rather tired after their Champions League and League Cup matches. Spurs lost to Wigan, and Manchester City could only manage a scoreless draw against West Ham. Everton are playing very well, but could only manage a draw against Fulham.

Funny video

I like this video a lot. It is a funny joke about fruits and computers. Please check it out!

Scripts: The Fox and the Crow

Do you know Aesop's fables? One very famous fable is The Fox and the Crow. In this fable, a fox tricks a crow who has some cheese in her mouth into dropping the cheese, which the fox eats. The moral of the fable is: Don't be fooled by flattery.

Aesop's Fables: The Fox and the Crow

A crow had stolen some cheese. A fox saw her and decided he wanted the cheese. He told her how beautiful she looked. The crow believed him. Then the fox praised her voice. The crow wanted to show off her voice so she opened her mouth to sing. The cheese fell into the fox's mouth and ran away happy.

The moral is: Don't be fooled by flattery.

A few interesting-looking movies started this weekend. Probably the most interesting one is Argo. This is directed by Ben Affleck, of Good Will Hunting fame, and is based on a true story. It's playing five times a day at Cineplex.

Reading aloud

1. Don't emphasize articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions.
2. Usually, go up at commas and down at periods.
3. Stop at periods.

My podcast: The Lion and the Mouse

The Lion and the Mouse is one of Aesop's Fables. I'm sure you've heard of it! The moral of the fable is: "Little friends can be good friends". Please listen!

The Lion and the Mouse script

One day, a mouse was caught by a lion. The lion was intending to eat the mouse, but the mouse persuaded the lion to let the mouse go. The following day, the mouse heard the lion crying out. She hurried to help him. He was trapped in a net. She bit the net and set him free.
The moral is: Little friends can be great friends.

Aesop's Fables: The Lion and the Mouse

A mouse was hurrying home and not paying attention. She ran over a sleeping lion's paw by mistake, and the lion grabbed her.

The lion said he would eat the mouse, but the mouse said that, if the lion would help her, one day she would help the lion. The lion was impressed, so he let her go.

The next day, the lion was trapped in a net and cried out. The mouse heard him and decided to go and help the lion. She bit the net until it broke and set the lion free. The lion was very grateful and they said goodbye to each other.

The moral is: Little friends can be great friends.

Premier League weekend

Premier League matches went ahead without any problems or interruptions at the weekend. The biggest and most eagerly anticipated match was Chelsea against Manchester United. The match was quite dramatic, with Manchester United going two goals in the lead but Chelsea fighting back to 2–2. Then two of Chelsea's players were sent off, and Manchester scored a goal. Commentators say that a Manchester United player was offside, but the goal stood, and Manchester United are now in 2nd place, just one point behind Chelsea.
Arsenal won their match against QPR, without looking very convincing. Manchester City won, and Everton got a draw against Liverpool, leaving Arsenal in 6th place.

October 29th (Session 5)

Today, let's find some ways to improve our podcast episodes. Some guidelines:

1. Make a short script.
2. Make sure the script is different from your previously posted review.
3. Write a sentence or two introducing your episode. This should be different from the script.

Blog Stats

We're now approaching the end of October and the semester is one-third over. It's important to know how you are doing with your blog so that, if you're falling behind, there's still time to increase your posts.

We probably won't have time to do this in class today, so please do a Blog Stats post for homework and post it BEFORE THE END OF OCTOBER!

Blog Stats should include:

1. Word Count for September and October
2. Total Posts this semester, i.e. after September 1st
3. Number of book reviews this semester
4. Number of podcast episodes (number of posts with the tag my podcast)

Safe

There haven't been so many great movies playing the last week or two. But I did get to see Safe, the latest Jason Statham movie. It is a fairly typical Jason Statham movie, with lots of violent action, but I found it very enjoyable because the Chinese girl that he was protecting was very interesting. The rivalry between the Chinese and Russian mafia and the corruption of the police formed the backdrop to the story and that was quite involved and interesting.

This weekend's football

After a couple of weeks' international break, the Premier League was back in action over the weekend. Probably the most exciting and important match was Spurs against Chelsea. Chelsea won 4–2, showing that they are probably the team to beat this year. Spurs looked exciting, and were winning 2–1 in the second half, but were overwhelmed by Chelsea in the end. Spurs have become a very attacking team and look like they will do well, but it looks like the two Manchester teams and Chelsea are the Big Three that it will be very difficult for other teams to approach.

October 22nd

Hi, everyone. Today, let's go through the whole cycle of reading a book, writing a simple review, recording yourself reading aloud.

Greek myths

In today's class, everyone read one of the following books:

1. The Amazing Adventures of Hercules
2. Jason and the Golden Fleece
3. The Amazing Adventures of Ulysses

All of the books are in Usborne Young Reading, Series 2.

Your task is in two stages:

1. Write a simple post, with a quote and a simple outline of the story and a few remarks on what you thought.
2. Write a longer post (an essay) about the book. You can also include information you picked up from Wikipedia.

Please include a link to the book on Booklog. In the essay, also include some pictures related to the story (not only from the book).

International break

The Premier League closed down last week for the international break. During the break, many teams are playing qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup, while some are playing friendlies. England played San Marino last week in a World Cup qualifier, winning 5–0, while Japan played a friendly against France. I didn't know about the match beforehand, so I wasn't able to watch it, but from what I heard France had the majority of possession. Japan, however, won the match 1–0, Japan's first time to beat France, a major power on the world stage, in history.
Tomorrow, England will play Poland in another World Cup qualifier. I'm not sure about Japan.

The Sun & the Wind

"See that man? Can you take his coat off?"

listen to ‘The Sun & the Wind’ on Audioboo

The Sun & the Wind

"See that man? Can you take his coat off?"

This is how the sun and the wind try to prove to the other that they are the strongest. Which do you think wins?

Mackinnon, Mairi. (2007). The sun and the wind. London, UK: Usborne.

The Sun and the Wind (Usborne First Reading)

Usborne Publishing Ltd

発売日：2007-07-27

ブクログでレビューを見る»

The Bourne movies

In my last post, I mentioned The Bourne Legacy. As you know, this is the fourth Bourne Movie, the preceding three being The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum.

A New Classroom

Mrs May looked at the trench. "It's for a new classroom," she said.

listen to ‘A New Classroom’ on Audioboo

A New Classroom

Mrs May looked at the trench. "It's for a new classroom," she said.

This book, at Stage 5 in the Oxford Reading Tree series, is very easy. It has 24 pages with about 13 words on each page. Most of the sentences are about 6 words long. The setting is the children's school, where they see some workers putting a fence up and doing some building. They discover that the workers are going to make a new classroom. This becomes an opportunity to learn about diggers. The classroom is a prefabricated one, so they get the chance to watch it being installed. There's an interesting problem with the classroom!

New Classroom

Roderick Hunt

Oxford University Press

発売日：2011-01-01

ブクログでレビューを見る»

Bourne Legacy & Hunger Games

I volunteer as tribute.

As you may know, two movies that started this past weekend are The Bourne Legacy and The Hunger Games. I really wanted to go and see both of them, but I haven't had time yet. Has anyone seen them? Although I would like to see Matt Damon as Bourne again, I hear that Jeremy Renner is pretty good in the role. The Hunger Games is based on a book. The book is actually part of a trilogy, so I imagine there will also be three movies.

test recording

Hi, listen to this.

listen to ‘Test recording’ on Audioboo

Summer vacation

As I mentioned earlier, I saw a few movies in the summer holiday. One of them was Prometheus. To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting very much from this movie, as several movies from Ridley Scott have been disappointing, but I quite enjoyed it. I don't think the ending was very coherent, and I'm not sure exactly how it links in with Alien, but there was some good acting and it was quite exciting.

Summer Vacation

Most of August and most of September comprise the summer vacation at Japanese universities. Two months sounds like a long time, but unfortunately it's really only around six weeks. We also have many meetings and marking tests and things like that, so the holiday actually whizzes by. I had a short trip with my family to Hiroshima and a few other places, and a couple of days at my wife's ancestral home, and I also found the time to watch several movies. The rest of the time, I was working pretty hard, although I unfortunately wasn't able to complete any big projects. Oh, no!

Writing 4

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Writing 4! This semester's themes are writing book reviews and podcasting! I'll give you more details in class.

Blog stats

Post Counts

• February/March/April: 10
• May: 14
• June: 9
• July: 9

Word Count

• Total so far: 

Book reviews

• Total so far: 18

Essay

• 1st version
• Revised version

Juppun ha Juubun stats

• April 16th: _______ words
• July 24th: 
• Longest: 230 words (July 23rd)
• Shortest: 94 words (April 23rd)

Never Let Me Go

Blog stats (last class)

Post Counts

• February/March/April: 10
• May: 14
• June: 9
• July: 6

Word Count

• Total so far: 

Book Reviews

• Total so far: 18

Essay

• 1st version
• Revised version

Soccer

As you probably know, now is the time between Premier League seasons. Some of the players are busy  preparing to play in the Olympics, while some are doing pre-season training with their clubs, and others are on tours with their clubs. Manchester United is one of the clubs on tour, and the newspaper report I read said that Shinji Kagawa was their best player.

England had a warm-up match against Brazil—their last match before the Olympics start—and Brazil won 2–0. Commentators said that England looked very poor, and they are pessimistic about England's chances of getting out of the group.

Olympics

As you know, the Olympics are starting very soon in London. You may have heard that there are several problems associated with the Olympics. The biggest one is that the company that was going to provide security for the Olympics suddenly said that they weren't able to get enough personnel, and that they weren't even sure how many people they could provide. In addition, England's transport system is rather old, so there are worries that people won't be able to get to the venues in time.

Movie, Movie, Movie

There are many good movies coming over the summer. In the previous post, I talked about Brave and The Dark Knight Rises. In this post, let's look at some other movies that are coming soon. The first one is Man on a Ledge, coming this month. In August, 7 Days in Havana is coming. I don't know much about this one, but it is directed by Benicio Del Toro.

Films

In recent months, I've been missing many movies because of being too busy, so I decided to make time to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This movie is very cerebral, and it's most enjoyable for its performance by Gary Oldman. (You may remember him from Léon, where he played the police captain, starring alongside Jean Reno and Natalie Portman.) It isn't exactly a true story, but it's inspired by a true story of British spies becoming double agents, so it's useful for informing us about recent British history.

As you probably know, there are lots of other good movies coming over the next couple of months. Brave is due to start on July 21st, and The Dark Knight Rises is coming on July 28th.

July 9th 2012

Today, if you have extra time, please try QWERTY Warriors and the Dolphin Game. You can find the links on winkhome.

Movies playing now or coming soon

This season is traditionally a very good one for movies. It's a good chance to catch some good but not blockbuster movies before the summer holidays, when a few mega-hits are shown endlessly. Let's think about some of the movies that are playing in movie theaters now or are coming soon.

Movies

Last week, I went to the US. On the plane, I saw three movies. The first was called 50/50. It was about a man who was diagnosed with cancer and has to decide how to live the remainder of his life. It was quite moving. Then I saw Safe House. It wasn't a great movie, but it stars Denzel Washington, one of my favorite actors, so I enjoyed it a lot. Finally, I saw The Artist. The Artist was made last year, but it was a silent movie, which is very unusual these days. This was the best of the three movies I saw on the plane. I thought the acting was great, and the story was very moving.
There are several movies playing now that I'd like to see, including Route Irish and Midnight in Paris. But maybe I won't have time. But I do plan to see the new Spiderman movie when it comes out next week.

Euro 2012 again

The Euro 2012 competition is over for England. Early this morning, the last quarter-final, between England and Italy, was played. No goals were scored in the regular 90 minutes, so extra time was played. There were no goals in extra time, either, so the match went to penalty kicks. Two of England's players missed, so Italy went through to the semi-finals. They will play Germany, probably the best team in the tournament so far. The other semi-final is between Spain and Portugal. Those are very interesting semi-finals, because Spain and Portugal are neighbours on the Iberian peninsula, and Germany and Italy are traditional rivals and they are the most successful teams in history excepting Brazil.

Most English fans accept that Italy played much better and that England were quite lucky to go so far. England's biggest problem was its very low possession, which I think was less than 40% today.

Euro 2012

A while ago, I wrote about the beginning of the Euro 2012 tournament. The England team, due to play tonight, has lost many players to injury, and there are lots of worries in defence, midfield, and attack. Perhaps the most problematic area is midfield, because Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry both got injured shortly before the tournament, and Jack Wilshire has been injured for a few months.
In attack, England has had problems for a long time: there is usually no real partner for Rooney, and Rooney himself is suspended for the first two matches.

Movie Essay details

DEADLINE for 1st draft: June 29th
DEADLINE for final draft: July 20th
Length: about 1000 words

• Don't use the Century font.
• Leave a wide margin on the right side.
• Write in paragraphs. Give the essay a title, but don't use sub-headings.
• You can of course use the short posts you have been writing, but you should use them mindfully. The essay needs to be one coherent whole.
• Send it as a Microsoft Word attachment to me by the deadline.
• After I have commented on the 1st draft, please work on making the essay better to hand in a final draft.
• After sending the attachment, you can copy the content into a blog post (both the first draft and final draft). Before copying, save the text as a .txt or .rtf file. Add links and pictures to the blog post.

EURO 2012

As you may know, the Euro 2012 tournament has finally begun. Groups A, B, and C have had their first games, and tonight Group D, with England playing France, starts off.
The major upset so far has been Holland's loss to Denmark. Germany won, as most people expected, and, last night, Italy and Spain drew. Russia played very well in their first match.
I have been very busy, and I don't want to be sleepy at work, so so far I haven't watched any matches. And from Tuesday I'm going to America on business, so I probably won't be able to see any matches then. But I do hope to watch tonight's match!
England has had very bad preparation for the tournament. The coach, Fabio Capello, resigned a few months ago, and then it took a long time to find a new coach. The new coach is Roy Hodgson, and he has had only about a month to get ready for the tournament. Many of England's best players got injured shortly before the tournament, and Wayne Rooney is suspended for the first two matches. England's goal tonight will be not to lose, rather than winning.

No class on June 18th

Remember that I'll be away on June 18th: no class on that day!

Kobe

I went to Kobe this weekend and attended a conference. Although I didn't have any time for sightseeing, I did like what I saw of Kobe. It looked like a very pleasant city, and I noticed lots of advertisements for Ueshima Coffee and lots of Nishimura coffee shops. Konan Cube, in Konan University, where the conference was held, was a very modern and nice building.

There was a soccer match on TV last night, but unfortunately I forgot all about it! It was between Oman and Japan, and Japan won 3–0. I heard that Honda scored a goal, for the first time in a long time for Japan. Maeda also scored, so I am happy!

Much Ado About Nothing

We just watched the first 20 minutes or so of Much Ado About Nothing, the 1993 movie directed by Kenneth Branagh. As you probably know, this movie was based on the Shakespeare play probably from 1598-99. It stars Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Robert Sean Leonard, Kate Beckinsale, Keanu Reeves, and Michael Keaton.

The movie is set in Messina (in Sicily) and features Don Pedro of Aragon returning victorious from a war. The movie is a comedy about the various loves experienced by the characters in the story.

Euro 2012

As I have mentioned a few times recently, the Euro 2012 football tournament is starting soon. England has a new manager, Roy Hodgson, who has not had time to work with the players. England has had two friendly matches and has won each one. Unfortunately, both in training and in the two matches, players have been injured and Hodgson has had to get permission to call up extra players. In Saturday's match, England lost Cahill, a defender, when he fractured his jaw. England's first match is against France, and everyone is worried that, with all the new players, teamwork will be very difficult.

In club football, Chelsea has signed two expensive new players, Eden Hazard from Belgium and Hulk from Brazil, even though Chelsea has no manager appointed for next season. Maybe next season will be a close fight between Chelsea, Manchester City, and Manchester United.

Movie Vocabulary

director (n.) The director of The Dark Knight Rises is Christopher Nolan.
direct (v.) Dark Shadows was directed by Tim Burton.
star (n.) Johnny Depp is the star of Edward Scissorhands.
star (vi.) Johnny Depp starred in Ed Wood, Dead Man, and Donnie Brasco.
star (vt.) Dark Shadows stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman, and Eva Green as Angelique Bouchard.
cost (v.) Inception cost $160 million to make.
earn/make (v.) Inception earned/made more than $825 million at the box office.
tell the story of (v.) Pirates of the Caribbean tells the story of a pirate called Jack Sparrow who has many adventures at sea.

Movie Expressions

trailer (n.) 予告編
star (n.) Johnny Depp is the star of Dark Shadows.
star (v.) Brad Pitt stars in Moneyball; The Dark Knight Rises is an action movie starring Christian Bale.
direct (v.) Like Inception, The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolan.
cost (v.) Inception cost $160 million to make.
make (v.) Inception made more than $825 million at the box office.

Sports Day and the Euros 2012

Yesterday was my daughter's last sports day at elementary school. As usual, I went to the school at 4:30am to get a place to sit in the shade. My daughter appeared in 4 events, and I managed to get more photos than usual, by using the "rensha" function on my camera. But I wish my camera had a stronger optical zoom!

The football scene is heating up, with many international friendly matches going on as preparation for the Euros 2012, and also the final World Cup qualifying rounds starting, too. On Saturday, England played Norway in Oslo, in the first match of the Roy Hodgson era, winning 1–0. The best point of the match was that Andy Carroll and Ashley Young looked good in attack, and probably the worst point was that the midfield looked weak.

Brave

Brave is a new movie from Pixar. I think it will come to Japan quite soon (probably a movie for the summer vacation). It's set in Scotland. It looks like a lot of fun. You can see the trailer on the Apple movie trailers site.

"The villains have taken over," [says Pinocchio]. He points to a poster for a play. The poster shows Charming defeating Shrek.

Shrek the Third is the 3rd movie in the Shrek series. To accompany and promote the movie, several books summarizing the movie or telling us about some aspects of it were introduced. A Good King is Hard to Find is one of them.

Shrek, Donkey, and Puss in Boots set off together to find Artie, who is supposed to become the next king of Faraway. They find him to take him to Faraway and fight the evil Prince Charming.

Hapka, C. (2007). Shrek the Third: A good king is hard to find. New York: HarperCollins.
 (108 words)

Shrek the Third: A Good King Is Hard to Find (I Can Read Book 2)

Catherine Hapka

HarperCollins

発売日：2007-04-03

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Black & White

Black & White is a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy, and Chris Pine. It's a romantic comedy with some action thriller elements. The chief plot line is that Tom Hardy and Chris Pine both fall in love with Reese Witherspoon, and things are complicated by the fact that they are best friends and also by the fact that they are CIA agents. They use their tricks as CIA agents to sabotage each other's attempts to woo Reese Witherspoon.

Snow White

As you probably know, there is a very famous movie of Snow White from Disney. It was made in the 1930's. The new Snow White movie, however, stars Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the evil queen.

Spider-man: Everyday Hero

Every day, I am on the lookout for danger.
I keep people safe from harm.
I keep good people out of trouble.

Spider-man: Everday Hero is a book in the 2nd level of the I Can Read series. It was one of the books published to mark the release of the Spider-man 2 movie. It is very short, and it gives a brief introduction to Spider-man himself, his Aunt May, and the main villain, called Doc-Ock. Other books in the series give more details of other characters.

Spider-Man 2: Everyday Hero (Festival Readers)

Acton Figueroa

Harperfestival

発売日：2004-06

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Champions League

On Saturday night, the Champions league final was held. It was a surprising match-up, between Chelsea (England) and Bayern Munchen (Germany), surprising because the teams had met Real Madrid and Barcelona in the semifinals, and most people had expected the Spanish teams to win their semifinals and meet in the final. Chelsea, especially, was a big surprise, because they had defended through nearly all the semifinal and won by not allowing Barcelona to take shots in the final quarter of the pitch. The final was the same, with Chelsea getting only about two shots in 90 minutes. Unfortunately for Bayern, one of those shots, in the 88th minute, became a goal for Chelsea.

Neither team was able to get a winner in the 90 minutes or in the extra 30 minutes, so finally there was a penalty shootout. Chelsea's goalkeeper, Cech, saved a couple of kicks very well, and Chelsea were champions, for the first time ever!

(156 words)

Movies in May/June

The last few weeks have been a quiet time for movies. But over the next few weeks several interesting ones are due to start. The Ideas of March is starting at the beginning of June. This movie is about the American presidential elections, and it stars Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, and Mr Tomei's sister.

Later in the month, Midnight in Paris, a film by Woody Allen, is due to start. You may know Woody Allen from his classics such as Annie Hall or Manhattan, or more recent movies such as Vicki Christina Barcelona.

At the end of June, the movie that I have been looking forward to the most is due to come: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. This is a tense spy movie based on the John le Carre novel.

All these movies are due to be shown at Denkikan.

Stone Soup

Have you ever tried Stone Soup? Today I read Stone Soup in the Folk & Fairy Tale Easy Readers series from Scholastic. A man visited a village and said he would make stone soup for everyone, but that it would taste even better if someone could bring a cabbage…an onion…some carrots…some beans. So everyone got to share a delicious meal!

Einhorn, Kama. (2006). Stone soup. New York: Scholastic.

Last day of the season

The last day of the Premier League season was yesterday. Like much of the season, it was very tense and up and down. Manchester United and Manchester City were level on points at the start of the day, but Manchester City were ahead on goal difference, so Manchester City would win the league if they won the match. If they didn't win the match, then they would have to hope that Manchester United didn't win theirs.

Most of the matches started at the same time, and I followed them on the Guardian web site. It looked as if City were going to lose the match until extra time, when City scored two goals in the 92nd and 94th minutes, to win City's first league title in 44 years!

Golden Week

Golden Week was lots of fun this year. In the first half we went to Amakusa, and during that trip we went walking in Tenjiku, which was very beautiful. In the middle of Golden Week, I worked for three days, and then we went camping in Misato-machi. The weather was very good, and we had a relaxing time.

Premier League & F.A. Cup in early May

The Premier League season is almost over. Most teams finished their 37th (out of 38) match yesterday. Both Manchester United and Manchester City won their matches, so now both are equal on points going into the last week of the season, with Manchester City ahead on goal difference. That means that Manchester City will win the league if they win their last match. Their opponent will be Queens Park Rangers, who nearly always lose away from home. But this match is likely to be rather special, because QPR are at risk of being relegated if they don't get some points from the game. In addition, their manager, Mark Hughes, used to be the manager of Manchester City, but was sacked a couple of years ago; and Joey Barton, QPR captain, also used to be a Manchester City player. (138 words)

BR1-4: Egyptian Adventure

The people put their hands together and raised them in the air. Then they sank down on their knees. "They are bowing to us," said Chip. "They must think we're important." "How strange!" said Nadim. The people were not bowing down to the children. They were bowing to Floppy.

Egyptian Adventure is a book in the Oxford Reading Tree series. It is a Stage 8 book. In the story, the children have just made a model sphinx and pyramid when the magic key takes them to ancient Egypt. They become slaves for a while, and Floppy is worshipped by the Egyptians. It seems that they have some kind of legend of a yellow dog.

Oxford Reading Tree is the most popular series of books in UK primary schools. They teach us about lots of countries and periods of history.

Hunt, R. & Brychta, A. (2003). Egyptian adventure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(137 words)

Liverpool

In the Premier League this year, Liverpool are not doing so well. They lost their match against West Bromwich Albion yesterday, and now they are in 8th place. Many fans are very disappointed, but a good point in their season is that they have already won the Carling Cup, and they are also in the FA Cup Final. So if things go well, they may end up with two trophies at the end of the season. But next season the owners will probably demand that Liverpool ends in the Champions league positions, i.e. the top four.

Yesterday's defeat was particularly bad news because West Bromwich Albion's manager is Roy Hodgson, who was Liverpool's manager last year but was booed by Liverpool's supporters and was fired from his job.

(127 words)

The Hunt for Gold

"Gold!" he yelled. "We've found gold." He picked up a big nugget of gold and jumped up and down. Everyone ran to see…"Hooray!" shouted Luke's mother. "We have found gold at last," she said. "I thought we'd never find any."

The Hunt for Gold is in the Oxford Reading Tree series. It's a Stage 7 book. It's part of the Magic Key series. The children go back to the time of the Gold Rush (1848-1855) and look for gold. It's a fun story and it teaches us about this interesting period in American history. I recommend reading all of the Magic Key series!

Hunt, R. & Brychta, A. (2003). The hunt for gold. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(115 words)

The Motorway

Gran told people in the village about the motorway. Everyone was upset. "We don't want a motorway here. We must stop it," they said.

The Motorway is a book in the Oxford Reading Tree series. It's a Stage 7 book. The children and Gran are playing in the fields when they find out that a motorway is planned for their village. But they are not happy about it, and they set out to stop it. Will they be successful? Read it and find out!

Hunt, R. & Brychta, A. (2003). The motorway. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(94 words)

Premier League and Champions League…and more!

The end of the Premier League season is getting ever closer. Everyone had assumed that Manchester United were safe at the top of the table, but, after leading 4-2 against Everton, they drew 4-4 yesterday. Manchester City won, so now Manchester City is exactly 3 points behind Manchester United. Manchester United will win the championship if they win their remaining games, but one of those games is against Manchester City. If Manchester City win that game, the two teams will be level on points, but Manchester  City's goal difference is better than Manchester United's. So if Manchester City win their remaining games including the match against Manchester City, they will be champions…for the first time in many, many years.

As you probably heard, Barcelona lost their Champions league semi-final first leg against Chelsea, and then they lost their La Liga match against Real Madrid. It is unusual for Barcelona to lose two matches in succession, so many people are wondering whether they are too tired to do well in the Champions League. Anyway, we'll find out soon!

(177 words)

BR 1-1: The Sky's the Limit

"Oh, please stay," said Angela. "I don't see you a lot these days. And the children don't see you at all." "I'm sorry, Angela," said Max. But it's an important dinner. I must go."

The Sky's the Limit

I read The Sky's the Limit. It's a Heinemann Guided Reader. It's about a man called Max, who is poor but then finds a job at a company called Friendship Services International. He is ambitious and he becomes more and more distant from his friends and family.

Whitney, Norman. (1992). The sky's the limit. Oxford: Heinemann.
(91 words)

More on the Premier League and F.A. Cup

As I mentioned earlier, the FA Cup is also reaching its climax in England now. The semi-finals were held yesterday and the day before. In those semi-finals, Chelsea beat Tottenham, and Liverpool beat Everton. The matches were especially interesting because they were both local derbies (Chelsea and Tottenham are in London, and Liverpool and Everton are both in Liverpool). The final between Chelsea and Liverpool will be held at Wembley on May 5th.

As I mentioned earlier, the Champions league semi-finals are also fast approaching!

(84 words)

BR 1-1: Goldilocks and the Three Bears

"Someone has been sleeping in our beds!" said Papa Bear and Mama Bear. "And someone is still in mine!" cried Baby Bear.

I read the Scholastic version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Maybe everyone knows this story, which is originally from Tolstoy. It's about a girl who goes into the bears' house when they are out, and eats and drinks their food and drink, and sleeps in their beds. She is very rude!

Findley, Violet. (2006). Goldilocks and the three bears. New York: Scholastic.

Premier League and Champions League

These days, the Premier League is rather exciting. Although it seems fairly clear that Manchester United will win the championship, the difference between them and Manchester City is not so big now. The fight for 3rd and 4th place is also quite intense. Although now Arsenal is in 3rd place, Tottenham and Chelsea are close behind. And Chelsea appear to be in good form now, so probably it won't be decided until the last week of matches. 3rd and 4th places are very important because 3rd place means automatic qualification for the Champions League, while 4th place means qualification via playoffs.

The Champions League is also exciting this year. The semi-finals feature Chelsea against Barcelona, and Real Madrid against Bayern Munich (Munchen). Both should be exciting matches, because the opposing teams have a history of rivalry. The Chelsea semi-final is made even more interesting by the fact that Chelsea yesterday won another semi-final, the FA Cup match against Tottenham.

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the Writing 3 course! Last week, we did the Typing homework, and I hope you mastered the method of opening the Word document sent to you by Mr Tomei, pasting your typing into it, and then saving the document and attaching it to your reply to Mr Tomei.

This week, let's talk more about the syllabus. But before that, let's try Juppun ha Juubun and book reviews!

(68 words)

Football, football, and more football!

As I mentioned yesterday, there is lots of football going on all through the winter holidays in the UK, and this includes not only the Premier League but also the F.A. Cup and the Carling Cup (formerly the League Cup). I watched some soccer news on TV this morning, and I heard that the Japan Under-23 team will be playing a match on February 5th, and then two more matches soon after that

Things to do on January 17th and until the final exam

1. Work on improving movie essays
2. Recording
3. Blog stats (word count) posts
4. Check your tags (labels)
5. Adding books to Booklog
6. Typing homework
7. Book reviews
8. General blogging (increase words)

Mr Tomei is doing a special course from this week until the end of January for students who need to write more words to pass the course. If you are in this situation (fewer than 10,000 words as of today), please go to his computer classroom at 11:40 today to sign up and get details. Don't miss this opportunity to pass this year rather than taking the course again next year!

If you have a class in today's second period, please email him to tell him you want to take part.

Football during the holidays

Christmas and the New Year are big times for football in the UK. Most teams play a match on Boxing Day (December 26th), and then another 3 days later, and then another immediately after the New Year. The fatigue affects teams quite heavily, and there are many surprising results. This winter, the two leading teams in the Premier League, Manchester City and Manchester United, lost some matches. With Tottenham drawing, and Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool all getting poor results, the race is wide open. Many people think now that Manchester United's superior experience may seem them through to the championship.

Premiership race

The Premiership race is heating up. Traditionally, it is said that the team at the top of the league on New Year's Day is likely to end the season as champion. Because Manchester City lost last week, the gap is now very small, and many people say that Alex Ferguson's superior experience will allow Manchester United to overtake Manchester City. Spurs have a few key injuries, and Chelsea find it difficult to be ruthless in putting away weaker teams, and Arsenal and Liverpool are a little behind and losing games here and there.

12 dancing princesses

[117 * 2 = 134 words]

Remember that, if the number of words in your podcast script is 125 or lower, you should multiply by 2 to get the nominal word count.

Book review script

The twelve princesses in this story like to have fun. When their father finds out they've been sneaking off at night to go dancing, he's furious. But can he stop them?

     Every night, the King locked the tower door, so that the princesses couldn't sneak out. One day, the maid went to the princesses' room, and she noticed their shoes were lying in a wet pile on the floor. The shoes were worn out. When the king heard about the shoes, he was very angry. Then he had an idea. He decided that the first man to discover where his daughters went each night could marry them. Who can find the princesses' secret?


(117 words)

A sample book review

[Thanks to Kana]

Princesses are supposed to be quiet and well behaved, but the twelve princesses in this story like to have fun. When their father finds out they've been sneaking off at night to go dancing, he's furious. "Dancing is banned!" he declares. But will that stop them?

     This story is about the twelve princesses' dancing. Their father, the king, was a grumpy old man who didn't believe in having fun. He believed that princesses should be seen and not heard. The princesses strongly disagreed. Their father hated dancing, but the princesses loved it, so whenever he wasn't looking, they danced anyway. The girls slept in a tall tower with their beds side by side. Every night, the king locked the tower door, so that they couldn't sneak out. One day, the maid went to the princesses' room, and she noticed their shoes were lying in a soggy pile on the floor. The shoes were worn out. When the king heard about the shoes, he was furious. Then he had a brilliant idea. He decided that the first man to discover where his daughters went each night could marry of them. Posters went up across the land. Who can find the princesses' secret?


(205 words)

The process of writing and recording a book review

1. Read a book!
2. Write a book review and post it to your blog (Use the Books or Book reviews tag.)
3. Edit your book review to make a shorter version (preferably fewer than 100 words). Post it on your blog with the Scripts tag.)
4. Practice reading the shorter version aloud. Key points are volume, going down and then pausing at periods, and differentiating content from function words.
5. Record your short book review, using the Audioboo app.
6. Upload to Audioboo, find the recording on Audioboo, and embed it into your blog. Use the tag My podcast. If the number of words in your podcast episode is 125 or fewer, multiply by 2 to get the official word count for the post.
7. Listen to the recording! Make sure that your volume and intonation are OK.

Notice how the word count works in this process. My book review was 205 words, my script was 117 words, and my recording itself was calculated as 117 words, multiplied by 2:

205
132
234
TOTAL: 571 words for 1 book review with recording

If you work efficiently, it may be possible for you to do 2 book reviews in 1 class, which would mean about 2400 words in these Monday and Tuesday classes, in addition to Juppun ha Juubun.

Remaining Writing 4 classes

After the classes on December 19th and 20th, there will be a long break. During that time, your main job is to finish writing your two movie review essays. (The deadline to submit the first draft is January 11th. See my earlier post for details.)

The next two classes are on January 16th and 17th, and those will be the final classes of the semester. Much of that time will be spent on movie review essay corrections, so I recommend that you try to finish off your 12 book reviews before the winter holiday.

Note that the minimum number of recordings this semester is 3, but I recommend that you do more than that, because reading aloud and recording book reviews improves your intonation and pronunciation. Also, remember that the official word count for a recorded book review is double the number of words actually in the script.

At the bottom of the post with your recording, use this format for the word count. (Imagine that your script has 90 words.)

[90 * 2 = 180 words]

Club World Cup

As you may know, yesterday was the final day of the FIFA Club World Cup. I didn't have time to watch the 3rd place playoff, at 4 pm, but I did watch the final, at 7 pm. It was between Santos, the South American champions, and Barcelona, the European champions. The commentators were very excited about a matchup between Barcelona's top star, Lionel Messi, and Neymar, Santos's Brazilian forward.

In the event, both players looked really good, but Barcelona had around 73% of the possession, so Neymar had few chances on the ball. Barcelona were much stronger as a team, passing the ball around quickly and not giving the Santos players many opportunities to attack. Messi was on top form, making several long dribbles past 3 or 4 Santos players and scoring 2 goals. Xavi and Cesc Fabregas also scored a goal each, for a final score of 4–0.

December 19th & 20th

We'll spend most of our time in these two classes working on our book reviews, both writing them and recording them in Audioboo.  These classes are a good chance to increase your book reviews and your word count!

About your movie essays

Remember that you need to watch two movies (please check which movies apply to your class), if you haven't already his semester, and write an essay on each of them. Each essay must have at least five paragraphs and at least 500 words, and preferably you should write between 750 and 1000 words for each one.

If you still haven't watched the movies, please make arrangements to do so as soon as possible. Also, make sure that you have been writing lots of Essay prep posts, based on the sites that we have looked at related to these movies. Be sure to use those Essay prep posts effectively to help you write your essay.

Many students will have already noticed that Essay prep posts give you the chance to use some of the same words twice on your blog. In addition, everyone should post each essay twice (1st and final drafts).

How to submit your essays: Send each essay as a Word, Pages, or RTF attachment to your teacher's email address.

Schedule

• January 11th: Deadline for submission of both essays (1st drafts). After submitting, paste the text into a new blog post. Use the tags Essays and Movies.
• January 16th or 17th: A chance to ask questions about corrections and make revisions.
• January 20th: Deadline for 2nd (final)* drafts
• January 23rd: Deadline for final drafts (for students whose 2nd draft was not acceptable).
• January 30th: Final exam

*January 20th is the deadline for the 2nd draft. If you have made good improvements to your 1st draft, this will be the final draft. However, if your 2nd draft is not acceptable, you will need to edit the essay one more time. Once your final version is accepted, please paste it into your blog. Use the tags Essays and Movies. Note that you may post only two versions of each essay to your blog, even if you wrote three versions.

This week in football

The most notable results this past week have been Barcelona's win against Real Madrid, and Sunderland's win against Blackburn Rovers.

The first result means that Barcelona still have a realistic chance of catching Real Madrid in the championship race.

Soccer again

As I mentioned in my previous post, the two top teams under some pressure, Manchester City and Chelsea, both won at the weekend. Sunderland, playing between managers, weren't able to win, and their victors were Blackburn Rovers, whose manager is under lots of pressure because they are near the relegation zone, and because the fans don't seem to like him.

Go

Hey, everyone, I'm not sure what to talk about today, so I guess I'll talk about soccer… as usual! All eyes were on Manchester City and Chelsea this weekend, because of their poor performances in the Champions League, but both won fairly straightforward victories. There was also excitement surrounding Sunderland, because the manager, Steve Bruce, was fired last week, and Martin O'Neill was appointed in his place. Sunderland lost yesterday, as usual, and O'Neill will take over today.