HISTORY: THE FIFA WORLD CUP

The FIFA World Cup, also called the Football World Cup or the Soccer World Cup, but usually referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II.

The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).

During the 18 tournaments that have been held, seven nations have won the title. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy, the current champions, have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each, and England and France, with one title each.

The World Cup is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, where an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The next World Cup will be held in South Africa, between 11 June and 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.

FOOTBALL MATCHES 2010

CORPUS CHRISTI FESTIVAL IN MALAGA- 6th June 2010

Corpus Christi is the Catholic holiday in honour of the presence of the body of Christ in the Holy Wafer.

It is celebrated throughout Spain and is held in either May or June depending on when Easter occurs. To calculate the next Corpus Christi date, look for the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday (the eighth Sunday after Easter) and you’ll know when the fiesta is set to begin in towns and villages throughout Andalusia.

Malaga recovered the Corpus Christi procession yesterday afternoon, after doing it in the morning for seven years. A change whose main objective is to attract more visitors, was fulfilled. The amount of spectators and participants in the procession through the streets of the city center was higher than in previous years.

At 20:35 hours under the tolling of bells and applause of the audience that filled Bishop Square, the Most Blessed Sacrament in one of the novelties of this edition first came out the front door of the cathedral being carried by the Bishop of the diocese, Jesus Catala, who was accompanied by his predecessor, Antonio Dorado Soto and Fernando Sebastian. Moments later, under the strains of the national anthem, performed by the Municipal band music, the consecrated Host was placed in the silver temple situated on a motorized hearse decorated with white gladioli coves and dotted with ears of corn.

Nine Altars
The procession walked past the nine altars installed on the tour. One of the most striking was that of the Last Supper, chaired by its owner cristífero and located in the Plaza del Siglo, while that of Humility and Patience, in Calle Larios, was rewarded for the cathedral chapter.

The Congregation of the Patrons and the Brotherhood of Victoria prior to the representation of the six Archpriest (set territorial parishes) of the city: Santa Maria de la Victoria, Cristo Rey, Virgen del Mar, Los Angeles, San Patricio and San Cayetano . As a novelty, each parish had a cross and a sign with the name of it and behind the faithful. Behind them, the evening worship groups, six children, about 70 children for first communion, the clergy, the coach, the bishop and the canopy of respect.

BOOK FAIR IN MALAGA

Another year is being celebrated the Book Fair in many Spanish cities, the annual meeting with news of the publishing world and bookselling in general.

In Malaga the Book fair is celebrating from the 28th of May to 6th of June its 40th edition in the Paseo Park, which is close to the town hall. The Book Fair is also a good opportunity to enjoy the beautiful gardens of the best park in Malaga during an excellent season.

The new edition will feature a series of activities such as workshops, concerts, film series, signatures, book presentations, contests and storytellers, as well as’ The Night of the book.”

Around fifty posts turn the Paseo del Parque in a great celebration of the written with the presence many local and national authors.

Storytellers and puppet shows and music become the greatest incentive to move closer to reading as a family; legends, songs, riddles, games, a little bit of everything to enjoy as a family and, incidentally, kill another bird with the same stone: promote reading.

In the Playroom children can give free rein to their sense of artistic creation or the bindery workshop. Open to the general public on weekends, it was been filled, especially in the evenings, with curious of all ages. They have learned to sew the leaves, glue the back and mount the covers of a book. Of course, then they could take it home. Anyone who wants to try his luck has a new appointment the next 5th and 6th of June. Meanwhile there are a thousand and one titles in any of the 47 booths throughout the week to “ennoble the Park,” as expressed by the poet Alfonso Canales.

MULTIMEDIA ENGLISH CLASSROOM

MULTIMEDIA ENGLISH CLASSROOM is a free online classroom to learn English, designed for students from all around the world. It uses authentic material and is targeted at students of English who already have a basic knowledge of the language, but there's also a complete section for beginners. If you can read this and understand it (at least the general idea), then this virtual classroom is for you!

In the following link you can find several entries to phonetic and pronunciation.

Try!   PHONETICS

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2010- GERMANY WINS

After an exciting voting in front of 18,000 people in a fully packed Oslo Telenor Arena and millions of TV viewers all over Europe, it was finally Lena from Germany who received the highest number of points from televoters and juries from the 39 countries participating in this year's edition of Europe's Favourite TV-show! Germany managed to gather 246 points altogether, followed by maNga from Turkey with 170 points and Ovi & Paula Selling from Romania who collected 162 points.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: The movie, the novel, webpage.

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST- UNITED KINGDOM

This year The Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Oslo, Norway. There are two previous semi-finals on Tuesday, 25th May and on Thursday, 27th May and the final, which will be held on Saturday, 29th May at 21.00 CET.

If you want to know the 39 participants to this edition of the festival, you can click on this link

The singer who will represent United Kingdom in Oslo is Josh Dubovie with the song "That Sounds Good To Me".

Josh Dubovie is 19 years old, comes from Essex in England and will be the UK's hope in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest.

How do I begin to imagine?
All the happy
Faces I'd like to see
The final destination

With sounds of celebration
If I could find the opportunity

So I wonder who can I turn to?
Who can make these
Wishes and dreams come true?
And with you there beside me

And loving hands to guide me
Anything is possible to do

So if you bring the sunshine
I'll bring the good times
Just add your laughter
It’s happy ever after
I don't know about you
But that sounds good to me

I can feel it coming together
All the loving working so very well
Nothing left to do now

Gonna see it through now
And we can let the future write itself

So if you bring the sunshine
I'll bring the good times
Just add your laughter
It’s happy ever after
I don't know about you
But that sounds good to me

Oooooo woah woah oooooh

So if you bring the sunshine
I'll bring the good times
Just add your laughter
It’s happy ever after
I don't know about you
But that sounds good to me

I don't know about you

But

That

Sounds

Good

To

Me

That sound good to me

ENGLISH SONG: ROBIN WILLIAMS - Angel

I sit and wait
Does an angel contemplate my fate
And do they know
The places where we go
When we’re gray and old
’cos i have been told
That salvation lets their wings unfold
So when i’m lying in my bed
Thoughts running through my head
And i feel the love is dead
I’m loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether i’m right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won’t break me
When i come to call she won’t forsake me
I’m loving angels instead

When i’m feeling weak
And my pain walks down a one way street
I look above
And i know i’ll always be blessed with love
And as the feeling grows
She breathes flesh to my bones
And when love is dead
I’m loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether i’m right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won’t break me
When i come to call she won’t forsake me
I’m loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether i’m right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won’t break me
When i come to call she won’t forsake me
I’m loving angels instead

ENGLISH SONG: JUSTIN BIEBER & SEAN KISNGSTON- Eenie Meenie

ENGLISH SONG: BLACK EYED PEAS - I gotta feeling

You can read the lyrics, listen the song and try the exercises in the link above.

EXERCISES

ENGLISH SONG: FOOL'S GARDEN - Lemon Tree

Fools Garden is a German musical group formed in 1991 under the name Fool's Garden (with apostrophe), comprising singer Peter Freudenthaler, guitarist Volker Hinkel, bassist Thomas Mangold, keyboardist Roland Röhl and drummer Ralf Wochele. They debuted in 1991 with the eponymous album Fool's Garden, the next (1993) was album Once in a Blue Moon. Two years later Fool's Garden issued their third album Dish of the Day, scoring a massive European and Asian chart hit with "Lemon Tree".

Listen to the song and then try the cloze test at the bottom of the video.



Lemon Tree - Cloze test.

MAY CROSSES IN MALAGA

The Cruces de Mayo festival is held during the first half of May, and flower-decked crosses adorn the streets, schools and patios in Malaga. The photo was taken yesterday by my sister-in-law  in the leafy patio of  El Pimpi , a typical bar in Malaga which used to be a convent.

MAY DAY

The first day of the month of May is known as May Day. It is the time of year when warmer weather begins and flowers and trees start to blossom. It is said to be a time of love and romance. It is when people celebrate the coming of summer with lots of different customs that are expressions of joy and hope after a long winter.
Traditional English May Day celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen and dancing around a Maypole.
The beginning of Summer
Although summer does not officially begin until June, May Day marks its beginning. May Day celebrations have their origins in the Roman festival of Flora, goddess of fruit and flowers, which marked the beginning of summer. It was held annually from April 28th to May 3rd.
May Day Bank Holiday
The month of May has many traditions and celebrations. For the convenience of the general public, many May Day activities have now been moved to the new May Day holiday (from 1978) on the first Monday of the month. This Monday is a bank holiday, a day off school and work.
Many of the May Day celebrations take place at the weekend as well as on the 'May Day' Monday. The weekend is know as bank holiday weekend because it comes with the extra day holiday on the Monday.

ENGLISH SONG: ALESHA DIXON - Breath Slow

Alesha Dixon (born 7.10.1978)
Alesha Dixon is an English singer and TV personality. She first found fame in the female pop group Mis-Teeq when her distinctive vocal style made her stand out from the rest of the band. Since the band spilt, she has made numerous television appearances, including being crowned the winner of the popular British TV show, Strictly Come Dancing.

ENGLISH SONG: KATE ROWLAND - When love takes over

It's complicated
It always is
That’s just the way it goes
Feels like I waited so long for this
I wonder if it shows

Head under water
Now I can't breath
And never felt so good
‘Cause I can feel it coming over me
I wouldn’t stop it if I could


When love takes over (yeah-ee-eah)
You know you can’t deny
When love takes over (yeah-ee-eah)
‘Cause something’s here tonight


Give me a reason
I gotta know
Do you feel it too?
Cant you see me here on overload
And this time I blame you

Looking out for you to hold my hand
It feels like I could fall
Now love me right, like I know you can
We could lose it all


When love takes over (yeah-ee-eah)
You know you can’t deny
When love takes over (yeah-ee-eah)
‘Cause something’s here tonight

When love takes over (yeah-ee-eah)
You know you can’t deny
When love takes over (yeah-ee-eah)
‘Cause something’s here tonight
Tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1342/43-1400)

Writer, official and bureaucrat, the outstanding English poet before William Shakespeare. Geoffrey Chaucer is remembered as the author of Canterbury Tales, which ranks as one of the greatest epic works of world literature. Chaucer made a crucial contribution to English literature in writing in English at a time when much court poetry was still composed in Anglo-Norman or Latin.

He was born in London. His name was of French origin and meant shoemaker. Chaucer was the son of a prosperous wine merchant and deputy to the kings's butler, and his wife Agnes. Little is known of his early education, but his works show that he could read French, Latin, and Italian.
Because of the political unrest of the time and Chaucer's witty, sharp, sarcasm, he wrote The Canterbury Tales, a group of fabliau and fragments, consisting of a piece of each of England's stereotypical citizen archetypes put together in a mixing pot on their pilgrimage to Canterbury. The destination is not as significant as is the action that occurs along the way. The Tales are not even finished and the destination is never even reached during the course of the writing.

"That The Canterbury Tales was left unfinished may well have been a matter of choice, not fate. It is likely that Chaucer abandoned his great literary work in the last years of his life and turned his thoughts to the salvation of his soul, as the Retraction suggests. He not only abandoned the tales but also expressed regret for having ever written them, except those explicitly religious and moral" (Halverson, xx-xxi).
Chaucer died on October 25, 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey and was the first of the writers to be entombed there in the area known as the Poets’ Corner.

FIVE CANTERBURY TALES

FIVE CANTERBURY TALES-EDITORIAL OXFORD

The year is 1386 and the first flowers of spring are here. A number of pilgrims are going to Canterbury to visit the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket, and they all tell stories on the way. Who should be the stronger in a marriage - the husband or the wife? And what happens when two men fall in love with the same woman? In these five stories from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales we find different answers to these questions from the Knight, the Wife of Bath, the Clerk of Oxford, the Merchant, and the Franklin. This retelling is good for all ages.

SHAKESPEARE-PUZZLE

Jigsaw Puzzle by Crazyprofile.com

PHONE NUMBER LISTENING

Click on the phone number that you hear.

Listening to Phone Numbers--1

Listening to Phone Numbers--2

You can practice Writing, Grammar, Reading and more Listenings on this page:

http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~lfried/

ENGLISH SONG: JUSTIN BIEBER - Love me

WORLD BOOK DAY 23rd April

THE IMPOSIBLE DREAM-MAN OF THE MANCHA

.
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear the unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go...
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!
This is my quest,to follow that star,
No matter how hopelesse,no matter how far.
To fight for the rights without question or pause,
To be willing to march to Hell from a Heavenly cause!
And I know,if I'll only be truth for this glorious quest,
That my heart will lie peacefull and calm when I'm laid to my rest...
And the world will be better for done,
That one man scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable stars!

.

MANOLO IN MEMORIAM

Maybe I didn't treat you

Quite as good as I should have

Maybe I didn't love you

Quite as often as I could have

Little things I should have said and done

I just never took the time



You were always on my mind

You were always on my mind







Maybe I didn't hold you


All those lonely, lonely times


And I guess I never told you


I'm so happy that you're mine


If I make you feel second best


Boy, I'm sorry I was blind


You were always on my mind

You were always on my mind







Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasn't died


Give me, give me one more chance


To keep you satisfied, satisfied








Little things I should have said and done

I just never took the time


You were always on my mind

You were always on my mind

You were always on my mind







You were always on my mind
















Maybe I didn't treat you

Quite as good as I should have


Maybe I didn't love you

Quite as often as I could have


Maybe I didn't hold you

All those lonely, lonely times


And I guess I never told you

I'm so happy that you're mine