October 23, 2009

Cynthia Oliveira and the art of scrapbooking

It was a pleasure to hear Cynthia's speech on scrapbooks. She explained what a scrapbook is, what you need to make one (pictures, different paper, stickers, scissors, different ribbons, bottons, photo corners, etc.) and why she enjoys it so much. Scrapbooking is the art of organizing moments of the past so that they have meaning to future generations. Each page in a scrapbook tells a story. A scrapbook is the recognition that events make up lives, and it is a celebration of life. Cynthia pointed out that scrapbooking is the most relaxing thing she does in her life. She does it as a hobby and also to show her kids and future grandchidren that their moments together are very special. By looking at Cynthia's wonderful scrapbooks, we could easily understand her passion for scrapbooks. Cynthia's love for her kids is reflected in each page she designs. In short, Cynthia's scrapbooks are a combination of talent, love and motherly dedication.

Last class we wrapped up the lesson on the "Assistant Cruise Director" ad. After analyzing the profile of three candidates, the group decided that Marcos Ferrante was definitely the best candidate for the position. We also did an extra exercise to reinforce vocabulary related to job qualifications.
Fun for the brain: Extra exercise 1A (present perfect review)
I'll collect the exercise to save class time.

October 20, 2009

Pavement Preservation by Liliane Colares

We dedicated part of our class to workbook correction this morning. Then we had a brief introduction to page 10, "Discuss job qualifications and work experience". The listening exercise will be fully covered next class.
The last fifteen minutes of the class were dedicated to Liliane's speech. It was interesting to learn about pavement preservation from an expert! Liliane pointed out that driving on rough roads accelerates vehicle depreciation, reduces fuel efficiency, and damages tires and suspension. Age, weather, moisture, traffic, heavy trucks, and delayed maintenance cause roads to deteriorate. A road is constructed for the users, for the society, with the money that comes from the taxes we pay. Liliane also mentioned that although we only pay attention to new constructions, the top priority should be the preservation of the conditions and performance of the transportation system we have already built. As tax payers, we should be better informed of the quality and maintenance of our roads. If maintenance is done properly, major problems can be avoided and lots of money can be saved by everyone and the government itself.

October 16, 2009

An artist in our class: Maria de Fátima Genú

After talking about dreams, job qualifications and work experience, we had the pleasure to listen to Fátima's speech on her hobby: handicrafts. She enjoys her free time doing embroidery and making bijoux jewelry and Christmas decoration. Fátima enriched her lovely presentation by exhibiting and selling her original products.

Don't forget to feed your brain with nutritious English this weekend: Workbook pages 7, 8 and 9

October 9, 2009

Jane Goodall - A biography

Yesterday the class was dedicated to a text on Jane Goodall, a primatologist who has dedicated the past 40 years of her life to the study of chimps. The students read different segments of the reading, shared information, organized the sequence of the paragraphs, listened to the text and discussed it.
We also did the listening on page 4. The new CD worked!!!

Dear Students,
There will be no class on Tuesday, but you can practice your English by doing workbook pages 4, 5 and 6.
Enjoy the holiday!

October 6, 2009

Life choices and plans

Today we worked on vocabulary related to life choices and plans. Here are the key expressions:
Take up something you're interested in. Cynthia took up scrapbooking 4 years ago.
Decide on a course of study or a career. Fernanda decided on a career on journalism when she was working for her high school newspaper.
Apply for a position or an opportunity to study. Have you ever applied for a position at an embassy?
Be accepted to/into a school or program. He wasn't accepted into the program because he had been a poor student in high school.
Be rejected by a program or a school. Some kids were rejected by the school because there weren't enough vacancies.
Sign up for a course or an activity. You have to sign up for the workshop we are offering tonight.
Enroll in a school, organization, or program. In order to be a student at CTJ, you must enroll in one of our programs. The secretaries help students with enrollment procedures.
Switch to a new course of study or career. Jerry is very pleased with his job, so he is not interested in switching to a different field.
Well, we also worked on a brief review of the present perfect tense and prepared some questions with the target vocabulary of the lesson. Unfortunately, the listening exercise needed to be interrupted due to technical problems. We'll get back to it next class!

October 5, 2009

Dreams ComeTrue

On September 1st we used the presentation below to wrap up page 2, which is about The Global Voyager Magazine. We also talked about people we admire.
Prime 5 – Summit 2 - Unit 1
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Fun for the weekend: Workbook pages 1,2 and 3