Gomaespuminglish XI

HALLOWEEN 2009

• Halloween games: Word Game, Spelloween, Transylmania II, Hangman
• Halloween recipes
• Halloween vocabulary
• Halloween quiz
• Halloween reading comprehension: Halloween, Jack O'Lantern
• Grammar: The London Dungeon

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2009!!!

The Nobel Prize

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace.

The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize.

Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award. These prizes are commonly regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in any of these fields.

This year, Nobel Laureates in each of the fields are:

Physics:

- Charles K. Kao "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication".

- Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor".

Chemistry:

- Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

Physiology or Medicine:

- Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase".

Literature:

- Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

Peace:

- Barack Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

Prize in Economics:

- Elinor Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons" and Oliver E. Williamson "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm".


The website "Nobelprize.org" offers a wide variety of educational games based on Nobel Prize-awarded achievements. These games will teach and inspire you while you are having fun! If you want to play, click on this link.
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PAU (Selectividad) Tests and Activities

The following link contains many activities and tests related to PAU (Selectividad). I find them really helpful for you to practise and I hope you find them useful too.

http://www.isabelperez.com/select.htm

Welcome back to school!

Well, this comic strip shows some teenagers' feelings about the beginning of the new school year. I hope you have a very good start next Tuesday. Welcome back to school!
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Shepherd's Pie Recipe

Hello everybody! I'm back and ready to go on posting on English is all around!
I hope you've had a wonderful summer and you've recharged your batteries to start working again.

Today I want to tell you how to make Shepherd's Pie, one of the most traditional British dishes. Also known as Cottage Pie, it consists of a meat pie with a crust made from smashed potato and beef.


British:
How To Make Shepherd's Pie

The most famous of all meteor showers: the Perseids

The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so called because the point they appear to come from, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus.

Meteor showers occur when Earth moves through a meteor stream. The stream in this case is called the Perseid cloud and it stretches along the orbit of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it passed by the Sun.

The Perseid meteor shower has been observed for about 2000 years, with the first known information on this meteor shower coming from the Far East. In early medieval Europe, the Perseids came to be known as the "tears of St. Lawrence."

The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the greatest activity between August 8 and 14, peaking about August 12. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour. They can be seen all across the sky, but because of the path of Swift-Tuttle's orbit, Perseids are primarily visible in the northern hemisphere.

(Source: Wikipedia)

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So, if you are fond of astronomy or if you enjoy watching a natural phenomenon or if you just want to wish upon a star, don't hesitate to go out to the countryside or a place out of the city and lie down to observe this amazing show. It's worth it!

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Summer English exercises

I've found a site with many interesting exercises for you to review during the summer holidays. I hope you find it useful and practise for improving your English skills. Have a nice summer! (Sorry I'm a bit late as regards my wishes, but anyway, all the best to everybody!).

Englishexercises.org
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Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Everybody knows that "the king of pop", Michael Jackson, died on Thursday, June 25, 2009, after suffering a heart attack. There is much controversy on the real cause of his death, but I am not going to deal with it in this entry. I'm just going to talk about his legacy in terms of music as the following figures show:

Records and achievements of Michael Jackson.
List of awards received by Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson's album discography:

Got to Be There (1972)
Ben (1972)
Music & Me (1973)
Forever, Michael (1975)
Off the Wall (1979)
Thriller (1982)
Bad (1987)
Dangerous (1991)
HIStory (1995)
Invincible (2001)

The following video is probably regarded as the best video in music history.

"Michael Jackson's Thriller" is a 14-minute music video for the song of the same name released on December 2, 1983 and directed by John Landis, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jackson. The mini-film music video was broadcast on MTV three weeks before Christmas 1983. It was the most expensive video of its time, costing US$500,000, and Guinness World Records listed it in 2006 as the "most successful music video", selling over 9 million units. (Source: Wikipedia). For more information on "Thriller", click here.

"Thriller", parts 1 and 2:

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