Oscar Wilde's quotations

    Oscar Wilde, the famous Irish writer and playwright , was famous for his aphorisms,

shocking for the time because based on the technique of contrasts:the second part of the sentence contrasts with the first one, but contains a deeper truth (paradox)

Which ones do you agree with?

Which one is your favourite?

https://www.google.it/search?q=oscar+wilde+quotations&biw=1920&bih=955&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=unLwVO_gJ4OuPfTFgJAK&sqi=2&pjf=1&ved=0CE4QsAQ&dpr=1

Penny Black

Where was the first stamp introduced in the postal system?

     In Britain, during the Victorian Age.

The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was issued in Britain on 1 May 1840, for official use from 6 May of that year and features a profile of the Queen Victoria.The idea of an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage was part of Sir Rowland Hill's 1837 proposals to reform the British postal system; it was normal then for the recipient to pay postage on delivery

Typical "British" recipe

    

Are you hungry? Will you try typical British food? Chicken tikka masala is the most popular dish in the UK, even if its origin is ......Indian. Taste it and tell me your impressions

http://blog.giallozafferano.it/cucinaplus/pollo-tikka-masala-ricetta-cucina-indiana/

Fashion!!!!!!

This post is only for girls.......

Watch the best and the worst outfits actors and actresses worn at the Oscars night.

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/gallery/2015/feb/23/oscars-fashion-the-hits-and-misses-of-the-red-carpet

Which one is your favourite ? Do you like fashion?

songs

Today I suggest you two songs, the former is the last track we have listened to during 

the concert at school, "I lived" by One republic; what does it mean?What is its message?

Maybe to enjoy and appreciate life, whatever may happen, every moment life will give us, 

"of every broken bone, I swear I lived" 
(con le ossa rotte, giuro che ho vissuto) 

Use Google Translator to translate unknown words

https://translate.google.it/

The latter is a modern ballad, which won the latest Grammy Awards on 9th February: "Stay with me" by Sam Smith.

 It has the same characteristics of  ancient, medieval ballads, a narrative structure, use of repetitions and of a plain (easy) language; its main theme is usually love, often unhappy love.

"Stay with me, cause you're all I need"
(resta con me, sei la sola cosa di cui ho bisogno) Enjoy it!

Sound of silence

Listen to this famous song of the 60s,maybe you don't know it;

It talks about incomunicability between people in modern cities;

do you think it might be modern still today?

Love letters

St Valentine has just passed but we keep on talking about love;

read these famous love letters and enjoy them....

Have you ever written a love letter?

www.biography.com/news/famous-love-letters

Keep calm and carry on

Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for the Second World War. The poster was intended to raise the morale of the British public, threatened with widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities.^[1][2] Although 2.45 million copies were printed, and although the Blitz happened, the poster was hardly ever publicly displayed and was little known until a copy was rediscovered in 2000. It has since been re-issued by a number of private companies, and has been used as the decorative theme for a range of products.^[3]

Complete the sentence as you like :        

                                                              Keep calm and ....................................

Oscars in LA

     Tomorrow ,on  22nd February, be the ceremony of the delivery of Oscars to the best American
actors and actresses is taking place in LA.Open these two sites, you can learn who the nominees and            the presenters are going to be.

                   Which movie and which actors should win, in your opinion and why?

http://oscar.go.com/red-carpet/photos/presenters-87th-oscars-2015/media/presenter-ben-affleck

                                                          oscar.go.com/nominees

Time's "person of the year"

The American magazine Time" chooses every year the most representative  and remarkable
                                  "person of the year". This was its 2014 cover.

     

What would you have chosen as "Person of the year" for 2014? Why?

Savage beauty by Alexander Mc Queen

The exhibition "Savage beauty" is going to open at Victoria & Albert Museum in London

about the stylist Alexander Mc Queen's creative genius (he created the wedding dress of
Kate Middleton).His features: love for gothic romanticism and visionary creativity.
He committed suicide in 2010 and British fashion lost its best designer.
Here is a tribute to his career

                                 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oXQw1aNJC4k

Washington has got three birthdays

Do this listening exercise about Washington's birthday, this year on 16th February 

and learn more fun facts about other famous American presidents

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/george-washington-birthday-presidents-day-history-us-president-facts/2640967.html

MARDI GRAS IN NEW ORLEANS

New Orleans Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is an annual Carnival celebration in the Southeast United States in New Orleans, LA.

The Carnival season, a variation of the traditional manner of preparing for the start of the Catholic season of Lent, starts after Twelfth Night, on Epiphany (January 6). It is a season of parades, balls (some of them masquerade balls), and king cake parties. 

Celebrations are concentrated for about two weeks before and through Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras in French), the day before Ash Wednesday. Usually there is one major parade each day; many days have several large parades. The largest and most elaborate parades take place the last five days of the season.

 Today ,17th February ,Carnival is celebrated in New Orleans during the famous Mardi Gras clelebrations, with balls, parades and dinners.

Enjoy the party !! Watch the video (you can also see subtitles)

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTYcgnqAzqE

Finding a job in the UK or in the USA

Would you like to find a job in the UK or in the USA?

Visit the following sites and good luck!



ec.europa.eu/eures      (turismo e commercio)

europa.eu/youth/it       (informazioni su stages ed attivita' di volontariato)

www.monster.com      (sito di annunci)

www.lavorare all'estero.it

Selma

Selma

Selma is a 2014 American historical drama films based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by Martin Luther King,

 The film stars British actors David Oyelowo as King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon Johnson, Carmen Ejogo asCoretta Scott King,

In Selma, Alabama,Annie Lee Cooper attempts to register to vote but is prevented from doing so by the white registrar. King meets with President Johnson and asks for federal legislation to allow black citizens to register to vote . Johnson says he has more important projects.

King and black Selma residents march to the registration office to register. After a confrontation in front of the courthouse a shoving match occurs as the police go into the crowd. 

Malala's interview

Watch this interview:who is Malala and what has she recently received?

"Let her go ". Passenger

I love this song,so easy and so moving
Do you like it?
What is your "love song"?

LOVE POEM

 

Read this poem by Walt Whitman about love,

Do you like it? Why?

Biography

Walt Whitman is America’s world poet

 In Leaves of Grass (1855), he celebrated democracy, nature, love, and friendship.

 This monumental work chanted praises to the body as well as to the soul, and found beauty and reassurance even in death.

Along with Emily Dickinson Whitman is regarded as one of America’s most significant 

nineteenth century poets.

https://translate.google.it/ (open this site to translate difficult words)

A Glimpse (uno sguardo)

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

LOVE IS...............

Love Is... is the name of a comic strip created by New Zealand cartoonist Kim Casali  in the late 1960s.^[1][2][3] The cartoons originated from a series of love notes that Grove drew for her future husband, Roberto Casali.

 The strip was first published in 1970, under the pen name "Kim",. 

One of her most famous drawings, "Love Is...being able to say you are sorry", published on February 9, 1972, was marketed internationally for many years in print, on cards and on souvenirs.

The beginning of the strip coincided closely with the 1970 film Love Story. 

The film's signature line is "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

Love is........................................... What? (complete if you like)

Visit to Canterbury Cathedral

                                                     
                                                  Canterbury Cathedral  in Kent

Are you feeling like visiting a famous cathedral from your home?

Visit this site and you'll be able to see the interior of Canterbury Cathedral in Kent,

as if you were there .

                            http://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/visit/tour/#crossing

                       
                       If you like it, comment it, I look forward to receiving your replies!!

                                                 12^th February:  DARWIN DAY

Darwin Day is a celebration to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin on 12 February 1809. The day is used to highlight Darwin's contribution to science and to promote science in general.

International Darwin Day inspires people throughout the globe to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin.

Watch this video, it shows the principles Charles followed in his life: despite his deep religiosity, he kept on studying, trusting the scientific method to discover the truth about the origin of men.

file:///C:/Users/COMPUTER/Desktop/Darwin%20Day.html. 

     Darwin’s discovery of natural selection as the mechanism for evolution unclasped scientific progress from theological limitations and paved the way for a fuller understanding of our place in the universe. Without the discovery of natural selection, the greatest achievements in health, philosophy, and human well-being over the past two hundred years would have been impossible.

 It is again his undeniable desire for truth through scientific discovery, his  curiosity to discover that which was hidden (naturally or purposefully), and his determination to brave intellectual depths that should inspire us



Where does  the man come from? Was he created by God? Are we "godlike" or are we just evolved animals?

The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game is a 2014 historical thriller film based on the biography Alan Turing:

The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the British 

cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who helped solve the Enigma code during the Second World War 

and was later prosecuted for his homosexuality.

Iit is nominated for Oscar prizes in eight categories including Best Picture, Best Director

 (for Tyldum), Best Actor (for Cumberbatch) and Best Supporting Actress (for Keira Knightley). 

Alan Turin was the inventor of the first computer, a machine which was able to process data and solve problems.At school he had been bullied by his schoolmates because of his being different but he never gave up his ideas and finally he succeded in something extraordinary and incredible.

This is the sentence his mother used to tell him::

 "Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of, who do the things that no one can imagine."

Do you like it? Have you seen the movie? Comment it ,if you like.

Aggiungi didascalia

What do think about school?Are you happy with your school experiences so far?What would you change?What is your "DREAM SCHOOL " like?Write a comment and I'll be happy to read them.

UN NUOVO BLOG PER L'USO DELL'INGLESE

Ciao a tutti,

ho pensato di aprire un blog per l'uso della lingua inglese, da utilizzare da voi ragazzi per 

pubblicare notizie, immagini, commenti sugli argomenti che trattiamo a scuola o che 

vi piacciono.

Vorrei  che fosse un punto di incontro , dove voi siate liberi di esprimervi ,parlando degli argomenti che piu' vi interessano in inglese;puo' essere utile ed interessante, che ne' dite?

Quante cose sono in inglese,......... canzoni, interviste, video, film.......Il mondo parla in inglese

e noi possiamo parlare con il mondo