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.

Lucky Number

I read Lucky Number. This is about a poor boy who works all day shining shoes. One day, a rich man buys a lottery ticket but drops it by accident and the boy picks it up. He tries to give it to the man but the man is in a hurry and doesn't hear him. Will the boy and his mother become rich?

Lucky Number: Starter (Macmillan Readers)

Macmillan Education

発売日：2008-01-31

ブクログでレビューを見る»

Milne, J. (2005). Lucky number. Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann ELT.

Recent and upcoming movies

Autumn is a good season for films, and there have been a lot this year as usual. But unfortunately, many of them are not well promoted, and they play for only two weeks or so, often with only one or two showings a day, and it is difficult to find the time to see them.

The best one I have seen was Fair Game. This movie is a true story, about a CIA agent called Valerie Plame whose identity is revealed by the government and who thus loses her livelihood. The actors are Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, and they're really good. This film is very moving.

Another movie was The Three Musketeers. This was quite entertaining, but rather superficial and not very memorable.

Macmillan Readers

I read two Macmillan Readers today. They were both Starter level, so I finished them in about 5 minutes each.

The first one was Anna and the Fighter. This is about a girl who travels on a train by herself for the first time to visit her aunt. Unfortunately, she falls asleep and goes past her stop, and she doesn't have any money to ride in the train again to her destination. And a big man with a scar is in the carriage with her and she's afraid.

Anna and the Fighter: Beginner (Macmillan Readers)

Macmillan Education

発売日：2008-01-31

ブクログでレビューを見る»

The other one is The Lost Ship. This is about a captain of a ship who finds another ship with no crew. He goes aboard to see what is happening, and finds himself trapped.

The Lost Ship: Starter (Macmillan Readers)

Macmillan Education

発売日：2008-01-31

ブクログでレビューを見る»

Laird, E. (2005). Anna and the fighter. Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann ELT.
Colbourn, S. (2005). The lost ship. Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann ELT.

New York Review of Books… and football!

I often listen to the Slate Culture Gabfest podcast, which each week features discussion on about three cultural topics, such as a new film or book, or an essay in the Slate or another magazine. Last week, one of the topics was a review in the New York Review of Books. As a result, I looked through the contents of the NYRB and found them very interesting. So I bought a short-term subscription and now I'm finding and saving lots of articles to read later.

The writing in the NYRB is very good, and often they feature long essays on 5 or 6 books on the same topic, so it is possible to find out about a lot of books from one essay.

In the Premier League, Manchester United and Manchester City both drew at the weekend. It's been a long time since neither of them won. Arsenal, Liverpool, and Newcastle also drew, while Tottenham and Chelsea won. Tottenham are now in 3rd or 4th place.

The two main characters in Amadeus

The two main characters in Amadeus are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. They were both composers in the Classical period. He was born in 1756 and died in 1791. He composed more than 600 works, including ______________, _____________, and _________________. He was active as a composer in Vienna for much of his life. It is said that he may have died of infection by a parasite in pork or rheumatic fever.

Salieri was important in the development of Italian opera. He was the director of the Italian opera in Vienna. Some of his famous students were Beethoven, Liszt, and Franz Schubert.

Salieri is played by F. Murray Abraham and Mozart is played by Tom Hulce.