Gulliver's travels

STRANGE EXPERIMENTS IN LAPUTA

·      

·     There is a project to extract sunbeams from cucumbers

·        A scientist tries to turn excrement back into food

·        Another is attempting to turn ice into gunpowder and is writing a treatise about the malleability of fire, 

·        An architect is designing a way to build houses from the roof down

·        A blind master is teaching his blind apprentices to mix colors for painters according to smell and touch.

·        A doctor in another room tries to cure patients by blowing air through them. 

·        One professor has a class full of boys working from a machine that produces random sets of words. Using this machine, the teacher claims, anyone can write a book on philosophy or politics. 

·        A linguist in another room is attempting to remove all the elements of language except nouns. 

·        Another professor tries to teach mathematics by having his students eat wafers that have mathematical proofs written on them.

·        Another claims that conspiracies against the government could be discovered by studying the excrement of subjects.

The academy of LAGADO serves to create entirely useless projects while the people starve outside its walls. 

The result is a society in which science is promoted for no real reason and time is wasted as a matter of course.

SYMBOLS

The Lilliputians symbolize humankind’s wildly excessive pride in its own puny (weak) existence.

The Brobdingnagians symbolize the private, personal, and physical side of humans when examined up close and in great detail.

The Laputans represent the folly of theoretical knowledge that has no relation to human life and no use in the actual world. 

The Houyhnhnms represent an ideal of rational existence, a life governed by sense and moderation of which philosophers since Plato have long dreamed. They have no names in the narrative nor any need for names, since they are virtually interchangeable, with little individual identity

ENGLAND all the races Gulliver encounters could be versions of the English and that his travels merely allow him to see various aspects of human nature more clearly

English Grammar: Master The Future Tense In English with Friends

Will vs Be Going To vs Present Continuous: Talk About the Future in Engl...

Lezione di Inglese - Lezione 69: LIKE E WOULD LIKE (con esercizi)

Webinar per la didattica a distanza (Cambridge) - Discovering Countable ...

Themes 1984 Orwell

1984 - Themes

Jonathan Swift, Satire, and Gulliver's Travels Lesson

Travel English - Shopping for Clothes

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift | Characters

Gulliver’s Travels Video Summary

THEMES DORIAN GRAY

The ending  of the story is CONVENTIONAL- THE VILLAIN is PUNISHED by his own soul 

Dorian tries to separate his external appearance from his internal reality. In society his appearance enchants everybody and even if he commits criminal acts nobody can believe that he can be corrupted. In fact he hasn’t got a real identity, people don’t know the real person but the character of Dorian. He is forced to live according to a code that doesn’t correspond to what he really wants.

The picture expresses the dark side of Dorian. Stabbing the portrait, Dorian kills himself.  The bad side of Dorian is a part of his personality. It’s his double. So, the contrast betweewn how he is inside and how he appears to the others brings him to death. 

The horrible picture is also a symbol of the immorality of the Victorian middle-class, while Dorian and his innocent appearance are symbols of the hypocrisy of his time.

The next outbreak? We’re not ready | Bill Gates

Answer the questions while watching the video

    1)What will kill over 10 million people in the next few decades in Bil Gates’ opinion?

   2) Are we ready for the next epidemic ?

  3) Did we have a system to face Ebola ?

4) What did we especially lack of?

5)If we have a large epidemic what do we need ?

 6) What could be done with the blood of survivors ?

7) What’s the difference between movies and reality when dealing with epidemics ?

8) Why didn’t Ebola spread so much?

9)When did the Spanish flu spread?

 19 How many people die from that epidemic?

11)Give some examples of the tools that

in his opinion we can use nowadays to fight an epidemic.

12)In the last part of the video Bill Gates talks about the things

that we need if we have to face a massive epidemic  in detail.

13)What are those things?

14)In what way global health will go down ?

15)Why should investing money on health be a priority for each country?

Students First year Guided written text
DESCRIBE YOUR FAVOURITE SHOP

Where is it?

How often do you go there?

What does it sell?

Why do you think it is a good shop?

Why do you like it?

What about the shop assistants? Are they kind? Are they rude?Can they help you easily?

How about prices. are they cheap or expensive?

Give an example of things you have bought  (tu hai comprato )there 

     

Travel English - Shopping for Clothes

1984 Story and Analysis in 9 min (with Subtitle)

The rise of the novel

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL  

WHEN  1st half of 18th century in England (Robinson Crusoe 1719)

An early example Aphra Behn’s Oronooko, or The Royal Slave (1688)

CAUSES

·  ·emerging middle class with new tastes and interests, having  leisure time to read and money to buy books

·    literacy rates increased

·    public interest in the human character led to the popularity of autobiographies,biographies, journals,diaries 

·   the rise of newspapers (The Spectator, The Tatler, The Examiner….talking about morals, fashion, urban change and foreign affairs)

·   the spread of lending or circulating libraries . They were  libraries with books lent for a small fee to subscribers; the first circulating library was set up in Edinburgh in the early 18th century, and in the 18th and 19th centuries the system proved extremely popular. Usually they were out of stores that sold other items such as newspapers and books. Sometimes they were in stores that sold items completely unrelated to book.

·   the novelists wanted to satisfy the needs of the middle class (shopkeepers, tradesmen, successful farmers)

THE READERS Members of the middle and lower class. (Women were good readers… they had spare time….they were interested in a  short escape from the prison of  their house.)

STORIES they were not taken from history, legends or ancient myths. The novelists created their own stories. Credibility and probability are essential qualities

CHARACTERS realistic, having contemporary names, struggling for survival or success

THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE the narrator is omniscient and he is often intrusive. The narration is in the third or first person narrator. The story is told in chronological order. A logical cause-and-effect sequencing is followed

THE SETTING lots of references to time (particular times of the year or of the day) and place (detailed descriptions of things, interiors and places)

MESSAGE if you have faith in God, if you work hard, if you respect a strict code of values you’ll deserve to be saved and also to have your social and economic situation improved. You mustn’t ask god for salvation: You must rely upon your own work and have the gift of self-help. The sense of reward and punishment, which was the “message” of the novel itself, was related to the Puritan ethics of the middle classes.

VALUES temperance, economy, sobriety, modesty, hard work, self-reliance

LANGUAGE simple, realistic, concrete

Daniel Defoe is  generally   regarded  as the first true novelist and the creator  of realistic  fiction

Learn English With Billie Eilish & Ellen

MAY - MIGHT - English modal verbs - Grammar Lesson

Students Speak: Stress

WE REFUGEES by Benjamin Zephaniah 

1)Why does he use WE in the title?

I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.

2)Why does the first stanza begin with I?

3)What’s the meaning of the expression brother’ torturing ‘brother’?

4)In the second stanza he uses ‘dont like, ban, hate’. Why?

I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.

5)What does he tell us about his country in stanza 3?

I come from a beautiful place
Where girls cannot go to school
There you are told what to believe
And even young boys must grow beards.

6)What problem does he deal with in stanza four?

I come from a great old forest
I think it is now a field
And the people I once knew
Are not there now.

7)What’s  strange with stanza five?

We can all be refugees
Nobody is safe,
All it takes is a mad leader
Or no rain to bring forth food,
We can all be refugees
We can all be told to go,
We can be hated by someone
For being someone.

8)What’s the meaning of stanza 5?

9)What does stanza 6 focus on?

I come from a beautiful place
Where the valley floods each year
And each year the hurricane tells us
That we must keep moving on.

10)What does he explore in stanza 7?

I come from an ancient place
All my family were born there
And I would like to go there
But I really want to live.

11)What does it seem disgusting in stanza 8?

I come from a sunny, sandy place
Where tourists go to darken skin
And dealers like to sell guns there
I just can't tell you what's the price.

12)Why does he use a passive form in stanza 9?

I am told I have no country now
I am told I am a lie
I am told that modern history books
May forget my name.

13)What’s the meaning of stanza 10?

We can all be refugees
Sometimes it only takes a day,
Sometimes it only takes a handshake
Or a paper that is signed.
We all came from refugees
Nobody simply just appeared,
Nobody's here without a struggle,
And why should we live in fear
Of the weather or the troubles?
We all came here from somewhere. 

Future with will for predictions

The world in 2070-

Per eseguire il compito di pg.115 n. 12 (Performer B1) prendi ispirazione dalle seguenti immagini e cerca di rispondere a tutte queste domande nell’ordine che preferisci. Inoltre puoi prendere ispirazione dal testo della pag 114 del libro Future transportation ed anche dalle previsioni che sono state fatte dagli scienziati nei diversi settori che trovi in questo doc word. Puoi aggiungere qualche altra informazione per ogni previsione che leggerai sulla base delle tue conoscenze.

Cerca di collegare tutte le frasi con parole (connectors) come in addition (inoltre), what’s more(inoltre), also(pure), moreover (inoltre), first of all (prima di tutto),secondly(in secondo luogo),in conclusion (in conclusione)

1. Will it be better or worse than our present world?
2. What will cities be like in the future?
3. How will people move around?
4.  What means of transport will they use?
5.  Will people fly instead of walking?
6.  Will they have robots to do the housework?
7. Will there be "RoboCops"?
8. Will people use virtual reality in their daily lives?
9. Will people use holograms to play games?

These are some of the predictions for the future related to different fields.

Take inspiration from these predictions and give some more explanations in your written texts . Do you think they’ll come true?

Neuroscience: 'We'll be able to plug information streams directly into the cortex'

 Physics: 'Within a decade, we'll know what dark matter is'

 

Nanotechnology: 'Privacy will be a quaint obsession'

 

Gaming: 'We'll play games to solve problems'

 

Web/internet: 'Quantum computing is the future'

 

Fashion: 'Technology will create smarter clothes'

 

Sport: 'Broadcasts will use holograms'

Wording the Future

Future Simple Tense - Will Won’t: Creative ESL Whiteboard Animation Vide...

• QUESTIONS ABOUT REFUGEE BLUES

• 1.   Why did he choose the two words Refugee and blues in the title?
• 2.   Which popular musical form did Auden adopt for this poem?
• 3.   Why did he choose the blues form for this poem?
• 4.   Focus on the first line of each stanza. Do you notice a device which is common to almost all of them?
• 5.   Point out images that can be defined as poetic and images belonging to everyday life. Which prevail?
• 6.   The poem is built up on a series of contrasting images. What are they? Explain their meaning.
• 7.   Though the speaker is a German Jew complaining about the situation of his people, his words hint at issues having a more general relevance What are those issues?
• 8.   What is meant by the impossibile blossoming of passports?
• 9.   What examples of bureaucratic indifference to their plight are given?
• 10.   Auden is a writer of great wit, a quality that never deserts him when writing about dark subjects, as in the present poem. Note his use of irony to increase pathos. 

A Refugee Blues Screencast

Robinson Crusoe | Author Biography | Daniel Defoe

My bedroom: What you can see there

MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

TALK ABOUT YOUR FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

AN ACTIVITY to improve fluency talking about past events.

Talking About Your Home - How to Describe Your Home in English - Spoken ...

25 IDIOMS IN ENGLISH TO SOUND LIKE A NATIVE

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
 END → QUITE CONVENTIONAL↓
                                              THE VILLAIN is PUNISHED by his CONSCIENCE


DORIAN tries to overcome the division between senses and spirit, BODY and SOUL↓

Theory of the SPIRITUALIZATION of the senses


However Dorian is the victim of a new division between his hedonistic self and his moral self

HIS MORAL SELF incarnates itself in the picture and lives its own life

HIS CONSCIENCE suppressed for a time (almost 20 years), becomes his DOUBLE

The artist of life, the worshipper of beauty, cannot but hate the ugliness he has created

The portrait becomes the MIRROR of his REAL INNER SOUL

The Picture of Dorian Gray 1976 - Oscar Wilde - Part 2 - 10

An example of essay, created putting together the different essays written by the students in the fifth class

SHOULD THERE BE ANY LIMITS TO SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH?

INTRODUCTION

In the last few years, science has reached tremendous results, incredibly helping mankind in many fields of everyday life. Today, everyone knows that science is the base for modern technology- new materials, tools, techniques and power sources make our life more comfortable and easier.

However, at the same time, science has also been able to create new objects and inventions that have had a very strong negative impact on human history.

Therefore, our question is as follows: is it right not to affect and bias science or is it necessary to set any limits to scientific development? 

FIRST PARAGRAPH

In the first place, it is obvious that our life has benefited greatly from scientific progress.

The main positive aspects can be found in medical research, in fact, thanks to science today we have discovered how to cure certain diseases and we have created machines and electronic devices  helping human beings at work.

Without science, we would not have any kind of penicillin, we would not have any blood transfusions or we could not treat any types of cancer.

Likewise, without science we could not travel so often and fast- buses, trains, planes have changed our way to move at long distances in a dramatic way.

What's more, can we imagine our life without a computer, a smartphone  or the Internet? They are  key elements for all of our activities. From this point of view, it seems to be all peaches and cream. How could we suppose  that scientific research may have any limits?

SECOND PARAGRAPH

However, not all scientific research may be considered positive. Without scientific progress, the nuclear bomb would not exist, If we consider that aspect, we realize that because of the discoveries applied to military conflicts, science has caused the death of millions of people. The creation of drones has also recently raised  moral questions- they may be used in a wide range of civilian roles for helping people in need, for example  for search and rescue, but they may be used for military reasons, as well.
Besides, more and more people are constantly being replaced by robots working faster and not requiring any wage. Conspiracy theories have been figured out by some people who think that one day in the future, robots will be so intelligent that they will be able to dominate human beings.
In addition, science is criticized for being immoral, above all regarding all those studies and research related to human integrity, such as human cloning. Many people are in fact afraid of genetic modification.

THIRD PARAGRAPH

Due to cloning it is nowadays possible to make beings having some characteristics to the giver of the stem cells. With regard to this aspect, science has now so advanced that living robots have been lately invented. These machines, called xenobots, are  made from frog stem cell and will be  able to do lots of things by their own, for example releasing medicines in the body. In my view, some limits are necessary to avoid  the abuse that may be done through science. Cloning and artificial intelligence are not bad in themselves, but they could if they are used carelessly, for disreputable, immoral aims. The limits should be given by ethics, a set of moral obligations that establish what is right and what is wrong. Some ethical standards should guide scientific research and ensure that it is carried out by respecting the rights of all human beings and animal subjects, by complying with the environment, not providing any harm and bad effects to human life or causing  disasters everywhere in the world.

CONCLUSION

To sum up, every day we are totally immersed in the effects of science, we can travel, we can socialize, we can study, we can cook, we can work, we can do whatever we want, thanks to science. However, science has also given us the potential for nuclear holocaust and the destruction of the environment through overpopulation and consumerism, as well.

Science is a tool meant to serve us but it may become a thing serving itself instead. It is highly recommended that it is in the right and good hands. Science is progress and improvement but only if it is used providing benefits to all human beings and not only to some of them, always being aware of the possible negative results associated with new scientific inventions. 

THEMES 
Dr JEKYLL and MR HYDE

Keeping Up Appearances (The importance of reputation)

Scientific Development

The Duality of Human Nature

Violence

The Female

Lack of Communication

The Rational vs. The Irrational (Nature vs The Supernatural)

The City of London

USEFUL LINKS

THEMES