Check it out: http://www.esl-lab.com/

Check it out: http://www.esl-lab.com/

How do you use English in your work?

Have you been to Bonito, MS?

Gustavo H. Oliveira, Flextime student, was taken by surprise when he arrived at Bonito, in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. He even had the guts to visit some boas constrictor and non constrictor, what we call “jibóias” and feed some macaws (araras).

“It´s very, very beautiful”, he repeated in class when recalling the travel. In the next few words, Gustavo gives more details about his experience living in the beauty: 

My last vacation

I went with my girlfriend to Bonito on my last vacation. It´s a wonderful city. I stayed there for a week and I visited many places where the nature is incredible.

   In Bonito I went to “Boa Project” or “Projeto Jibóia” where people see the snakes, attend lectures and, in the end, take a photo with a jibóia. I did this and the snake was very quiet.

     Another ride that I liked was to do rappel  inside a cavern. It was 75 meters high and the view was very beautiful. Inside the cave I floated in the water. The water was very cold.

   But the two rides that I liked the most were first floating  in Formoso River for 3 hours where I saw many kinds of fishes and other animals and second it was in a farm all day when people fed the monkeys first thing  in the morning and the macaws by the end of the afternoon. In between I went inside the farm, (paths) because there were many waterfalls.

   This was my last vacation, I recommend you to visit Bonito. It´s worthwhile.

Rich Brazilian state, Santa Catarina, under water in tragic floods

You can  follow the coverage of people in Santa Catarina with this twitter. Blogs united to articulate emergency solutions and supplies to the victims. This newspaper from Itajaí, put out a special blog to give breaking news and pictures.

Streets in Blumenau are under water

Blog Action Day 2008 against poverty

Every year, bloggers from all the world discuss through their pages a relevat issue to figure out some solutions. This year´s topic is poverty. Flextime is taking part fighting against it with class activities and awareness rising of our students and community. Students and teachers have their say on this:

Vehicle bumpers molding cemitery is home to the owner and his dog.

In a desert street in the district of Ipiranga, in São Paulo, capital of the state, a man lives in this house with his dog trading used vehicle bumpers. The area is well known for all kinds of vehicles parts trading, the majority of them from stealing.

Blog Action Day 2008

“One of the worst problems nowadays is poverty and inequality.  According to World Bank Development indicators of 2008, at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. The differences between countries and between the different social statuses are widening. While there is a minority travelling and spending thousand of dollars on clothes, there are a lot of people starving, surviving and just not living. Those people survive without a home, without a decent health service, without education and without chances to dream about a better future.          
               The world seems to globalize, the presidents pretend that all the countries are getting better, but everything is a big lie. Even the wealthiest nation has the largest gap between rich and poor compared to other developed nations. Everything is wrong. The politicians worry about free internet to all the citizens, but they forget that a lot of people are illiterate, don’t have information to know how to prevent from some illnesses, don’t have food to give to their children, don’t have money to live etc. According to an article by Anup Sha, 26.500 children die every day. All of these problems need to be solved as soon as possible, but what do we have to do? All of us are responsible for the changes, if you don’t try to make things better, you don’t have the right to say that the governments are not doing their work.  “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” – Dom Helda Camara.    

By Andrea Clemente Baptista Silva

 

 

 

 

 

Paraolympics teach us about the indomitable human strength

Not much has been said or commented on the Paraolympics that is taking place in China. Well, it is not quite necessary, given the amazing flagrants were shot.  Make us speechless.  All from Boston.com

Rudy Garcia Tolson of the U.S. swims during the men's 200m individual medley SM7 heat at the 2008 Paralympics in the National Aquatics Centre, also known as the Water Cube, in Beijing September 7, 2008. (REUTERS/David Gray) #

Yunidis Castillo of Cuba (C) wins gold in the final of the womens's 100m T46 race from Elena Chistilina (R) and Nikol Rodomakina (L) of Russia during the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games on September 10, 2008. (PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images) #

Bennett Eric of the United States competes in the Men's Ind. Compound-Open Archery event at the Olympic Green Archery Field during day four of the 2008 Paralympic Games on September 10, 2008 in Beijing. (China Photos/Getty Images) #

Margaryta Pryvalykhina (#1) of Ukraine hits a shot to Latvia during their sitting volleyball classification match at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games September 11, 2008. (REUTERS/Grace Liang) #

Brazil's Severino Silva (#8) defends against Spain's Jose Lopez (#7) who tries to connect on a shot in front of Brazilian goalkeeper Fabio Vasconcelos Ribeiro (L) in their men's 5-a-side football match during the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games on September 9, 2008 at the Olympic Green hockey field in Beijing. Brazil defeated Spain 1-0 in a sport where each team fields four blind players and one sighted or visually impaired goalkeeper. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images) #

We are not dead – yet

We have an estimate of four months ahead living in this very planet, at least according to some punters willing to see the Earth being gobbled up by a multitude of mini black holes spawned in the its core. It all may faild to happen in the Jura Mountains on the Franco-Swiss border where the biggest collider ever built in all history was switched on last September 10th and not a lot happened yet, or rather not to us, non-scientists because the two stream of proons racing in oppose to each other haven´t collided yet. It is expected to happen in four months and help scientists shed light on the starting point of evrything, the big-bang.  They celebrated the historical event after

5 billion pounds and a quarter of a century and against the bets that the chances of the planet being eaten up would prevail. Carried out like that, the Larger Hadron Collider was just a flah in the pan whereas the top scientists just celebrate cheerfully.

The Telegraph tells everything about the hottest thing under our feet with the Large Hadron Collider full coverage and videos.

How do you say “camada pré-sal”?

The threads about recent discoveries of pretol fields in Brazil have spread all over the world. The deep pre-salt layers are the “camadas profundas de pré-sal” that have put an ocean of oil in the limelight. Under these pre-salt reservoirs lay amazing extensions of oil to be extracted. Not surprisingly, Brazil got dazzled about what to do with so much richness and media cast speculation on huge interest of all kinds of investors. We selected two points of view on the issue:

The Clarín, from Argentina, wonders: Why Brazil can and Argentina can´t? Watch it here.

The Economist, from England, inquires: Is there really an ocen of oil off Brazil? Read it here.

Folha de São Paulo online, from Brazil,  published a very comprehensive article here.

Shakespeare swears, man

 

 

That Shakespeare is the greater writer all you know; that his plays, poems and sonnets have been told and retold throughout the ages.

But there is something that the majority of people doesn’t know. Unlike the scholars and the expertise say you don’t need to be a Shakespearian to read his work, you don’t need to pretend to be a show off person to understand the plot of his plays. The issue the most intellectuals forget to mention is that: when Shakespeare wrote his plays most of his audience was formed by illiterate people. There were schools of course, but the access was restricted and education wasn’t a real worry in those times.

To keep the audience’s attention Shakespeare used coarse language and ambiguous sentences to amuse them. Don’t you believe in me?

And I’m 100% sure, dear reader, that the Bard is funny and I challenge you to figure it out.

Below there is an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet that demonstrate how much Shakespeare was popular.

Greg. The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.

Samp. ‘Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant: when I have

fought with the men I will be civil with the maids, I

will cut off their heads.

Greg. The heads of the maids?

Samp. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;

Take it in what sense thou wilt.

(Romeo and Juliet – Act I, Scene I)

I dare you to look up what “maidenhead” mean.

Alexandre Andreoni, editor.

 

 

Image credits:  “Chandos image, ca. 1996 (. . .) New York Times ran this illustration by Mirko Ilic in its Sunday book review section, accompanying a column about the timelessness of Shakespeare’s work … “Link: http://images.google.com.br/imgres?imgurl=http://www.his.com/~z/images/ShakespeareTimes.jpg&imgrefurl=http://zhurnaly.com/zhurnal19.html&h=802&w=794&sz=63&hl=pt-BR&start=33&tbnid=p82OmaKPjZcHTM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=142&prev=/images%3Fq%3DShakespeare%26start%3D20%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Dpt-BR%26sa%3DN

Turn off your TV this week . . . and pick up your book

Complaining about TV is one of our favourite sports, isn´t it? But we can take actions as well. We should, indeed. Let´s face it: we must. Some American people have kicked it off 14 years ago when they funded the Center for Screen-Time Awareness, formely TV-Turnoff Network, which origined from TV-Free America. All of them are said to be, or once were, noprofit organization worried about reducing the influence of eletronic media in everybody´s lives. As ideal as as it may be, given the high expectations this center puts on people, placing forms and foruns and a blog to discuss the matter, it´s worth taking it into account.

The issues proposed to be tackled are quite relevant, such as illiteracy, violence, self-image, nutrition, consumism.

It sounds nuts to ask you to turn off your tv set for a week, but you can try it for a couple of hours, right? Give it a though, stablish the real reasons to watch it first. We hope you pick up your current favourite book, instead.

Semana Desligue a TV from April 21st to April 25th 2008, powered by Instituto Alana.

TV Turnoff Network from 2008 April 21th – 27th, powered by the Center for Screen-Time Awareness