OCTOBER, 5th 2009. TEACHER'S DAY

World Teachers’ Day, held annually on October 5th since 1994 - when it was created by UNESCO - celebrates teachers worldwide. Its aim is to mobilise support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers.

5 October is a day to celebrate teachers and the central role they play in guiding children, youths & adults through the life-long learning process. This year, World Teachers’ Day will focus on the role of teachers within the context of the global financial and economic crisis and the need to invest in teachers now as a means to secure post-crisis regeneration.
It is critical, during these difficult times, to seek mechanisms that protect the teaching profession. It is also crucial, despite the crisis, to ensure that investment in teachers is sufficient and proportionate to the demands made upon them. It is the teaching force with its knowledge, experience and foresight which can bring new insights to global solutions. Join us in celebrating this!

Link: http://www.ei-ie.org/worldteachersday2009/index.php#

THE 2016 OLYMPIC GAMES WON'T BE HELD IN MADRID EITHER

The Madrid 2016 Olympic bid was the unsuccessful attempt by Madrid, the capital city of Spain, to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Madrid is one of the few major European capitals that has not yet hosted the games, and it is following in the footsteps of Barcelona, which brought the Games to Spain for the 1992 Summer Olympics. Madrid had previously bid for the 1972 and the 2012 Summer Olympics. The city's strong bid for 2012 ultimately lost to the bid from London. On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro's bid beat that of Madrid for the rights to host the 2016 summer games.

On October 4, 2007 the IOC accepted the Madrid Olympic bid. The Spanish Field Hockey Federation vice-chairwoman Mercedes Coghen was chosen as chairwoman of the project. Former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch offered his help in this new attempt. With 77% of the Olympic sports' venues in place, Madrid has hosted many previous Olympic qualifying events, such as the 2002 IAAF World Cup for Athletics.

Madrid has a strong sports culture, hosting three football (soccer) teams and two basketball teams; the most successful being Real Madrid C.F. which plays in Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. Madrid hosted the 1982 FIFA World Cup final. The cycling classic Vuelta a España final stages are held in Madrid as Paris serves for the Tour de France.

Venues
The competition venues for the Games would have been sited in two main clusters:

The Eastern zone would have been the location of the Olympic Stadium, Aquatic Centre, the Olympic Village, the Telefónica Arena (called before Madrid Arena and earlier Rockódromo de Casa de Campo, which would have held basketball events), and the IFEMA Fairgrounds (eight sports plus the Press Center).

The River Zone aside the Manzanares River would have hosted the venues for rowing, beach volleyball, archery, cycling, tennis, modern pentathlon, triathlon, equestrian and rhythmic gymnastics. After the games, the river bank would have become a public park celebrating sport, culture and music.

The city is currently completing new swimming and tennis venues (Caja Mágica - The Magic Box) and looking to expand and modernize existing sporting facilities. Bernabeu, and Estadio La Peineta are likely venues should Madrid win the games. A new center for sport with the aim of improving facilities for disabled athletes will also be created as part of the push for the Paralympic Games.

Public support
Madrid's bid enjoyed extremely high levels of support from its citizens. A recent poll put Madrid's support levels at 92.6%, and 25,000 volunteers had signed up to demonstrate their support for the city's candidacy. Madrid 2016 also had over 60 corporate sponsors.

Logo
A contest was run to submit a logo for the games. A number were chosen from which the public could vote, finalizing the final three. The official logo was revealed in late September 2007, which was elected by a group of experts. The logo is named "Corle" and represents a hand in the colors of the Olympics, welcoming (but reminds of stopping) foreigners to the games. The silhouette of an 'M', representing Madrid, is also hidden in the hand. It was designed by an Argentine, Joaquin Malle. The initial design was merely an outline of the hand; the final version bursts with color rings within the hand.

2012 bid
Madrid previously bid for the 2012 Olympics. Changes were made to the 2012 bid, while the city expected to build on its high reputation from its previous bids. In the 2012 bid, experts considered Madrid's bid very strong, and it actually placed first in the third round (before being eliminated in the fourth round). The 2012 bid was overall second in technical evaluation, with a rating of 8.3. Madrid was ranked first in seven categories: Government support, legal issues and public opinion; General infrastructure; Environment; Sports venues; Olympic Village; Transport concept; and Overall project and legacy.

When Madrid was promoted to the 2016 "Candidate City" phase in June 2008, it ranked second in the evaluation of the technical bid, with a score of 8.1 (on a 10 point scale). The city was ranked a close fourth on two predicting indice scales, primarily because of geographical factors. Coghen has emphasized in interviews that "cities, not continents" are chosen to host. Madrid repeatedly described itself as the "safe bid".

After the selection of Rio de Janeiro on 2 October 2009, commentators agreed that Madrid had once again put forward a powerful bid with many positive aspects. One problem with the 2016 bid was Madrid's geographic location, as it occupied a position that followed the 2012 Summer Olympics to be held in London and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. This would have staged three Olympic games in Europe in a row, a historically uncommon occurrence.

ANOTHER SONG BY DIDO: "WHITE FLAG"

Another song by Dido. I choose it because it's very easy to follow and has good pronunciation. Watch the original video of the song with either English or Spanish subtitles or sing along with the karaoke audio version.

- "WHITE FLAG" karaoke video:


"WHITE FLAG" original video with Spanish subtitles:

TOMORROW, MADRID WILL WAKE UP TO ITS OLYMPIC DREAM OR NOT

Madrid is closer to achieving its Olympic dream. The International Olympic Committee has selected Madrid as a candidate city for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The other three candidates that have made it on the shortlist are Tokyo, Chicago, and Rio de Janeiro.
On the spot were revealed the names of the four cities that made the first evaluation. Regarding the marks of the project, Madrid scored a maximum of 8.4 points, just two tenths less than the leading city on the ranking, Tokyo, with an 8.6. Chicago and Rio de Janeiro scored 7.4 and 6.8 points respectively. Furthermore, Madrid received the highest result in seven out of the eleven categories evaluated, such as popular support, heritage and transport, among others.

The next key dates for the Madrid 2016 Olympic project were this last spring which is when the IOC Evaluation Committee visited the Spanish capital to better acquaint itself with each of the features of the dossier presented by Madrid.

Tomorrow, October 2nd, 2009, is when the Olympic host city for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be announced in Copenhagen, Denmark.

SPAIN IS THE THIRD EUROPEAN COUNTRY WITH MORE ADULTS UNABLE TO SPEAK A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Spain is the third country in the European Union, after Hungary & Portugal, with the highest percentage of adults (a 46,6%) who don't speak any foreign language, according to data published today by the European statistic office, Eurostat.
Due to next Saturday's celebration of the European Language Day, Eurostat has released a report with data collected in 2007 about the perception that adults have on their linguistic competence and on language learning throughout their secondary education within the twenty-seven countries.
In the 21 countries with available information -all of them member countries except Rumania, Malta, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland & Denmark- the percentage of citizens that admit that they don't know any foreign language appears to be the 36,2%.
But in Spain, this number goes up to a 46,6%, only exceeded by Portugal, with 51,3% & Hungary, with 74,8%.

On the opposite side are countries such as Lithuania, where only a 2,5% of adults don't speak any foreign language; Sweden, with 5%; & Latvia with 5,1%.

On the other hand, France (41,2%), Italy (38,6%), United Kingdom (35,1%) or Germany (28,6%) register average rates.
In relation to the people who think they have a good command of a foreign language, the European community average is set on 35,7%, a percentage quite similar to Spain's rate at 35,5%.
When it's the case of two or more foreign languages, the European average goes down to 28,1%, a fall which is much more pronounced for Spain, where this percentage is 17,9%.
Citizens from Scandinavian, Baltic countries or Slovenia are the ones who seem to master more foreign languages when compared to the rest of Europeans.

The percentage of adults who know two foreign languages or more goes up to 71,8% in Slovenia, 67,9% in Finland, 66,1% in Lithuania, 54,9% in Latvia, 55,9% in Estonia or 50,4% in Sweden.
On foreign language acquisition during secondary education, Spain is distinguished by the high number of students that only study one language in this period (the double of the EU average) and the lower number of teenagers that study at least two languages, compared to other countries.
That means, that while in countries such as France, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland, Estonia, Rumania, Sweden, Slovakia or Slovenia more than 90% of their students learn two foreign languages in secondary education, this number drastically goes down to 28,3% in Spain.
However, this percentage drops even more in the United Kingdom with 6,1% or in Greece, 6,9%
English is the most studied language by overwhelming majority, while in Ireland & the United Kingdom youngsters usually learn French.
These two English-speaking countries are actually the ones with the highest number of students that in secondary education don't study another language (51,4% in the United Kingdom & 18,8% in Ireland). These percentages are outstandingly higher than the rest of European countries.
In fact, Spain is the country with the highest percentage after the former two, with 3,9% of secondary education students that don't work with any foreign language.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN EUROPE

The English language in Europe, as a native language, is mainly spoken in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Outside of these countries, it has a special status in Jersey and Guernsey (two of the three Crown Dependencies), in Gibraltar (one of the British overseas territories), Malta and Cyprus (two former British colonies). In other parts of Europe, English is spoken mainly by those who have learned it as a second language, but also, to a lesser extent, natively by expatriates from the English speaking world.
The English language is the official language of Gibraltar and one of the official languages of Wales, Republic of Ireland, Malta, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and the European Union.
13% of EU citizens speak English as their native language. Another 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation.

English is a lingua franca in parts of Western and Northern Europe. In the EU25, working knowledge of English as a foreign language is clearly leading at 38%, followed by German and French (at 14% each), Russian and Spanish (at 6% each), and Italian (3%). Working knowledge of English is particularly high in Scandinavia (Denmark 86%, Sweden 89%) and the Netherlands (87%). In Eastern and Southern Europe, working knowledge of English is lower, around 20-29%. On average, 38% of citizens of the European Union (excluding the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) stated that they have sufficient knowledge of English to have a conversation.

STARTING OFF A NEW COURSE: 2009-2010

We're about to start a new course. This course 2009-2010, we want to make this blog be a relevant teaching tool. A place where you will be able to find help, practice, and an opportunity to use, see, read, listen to English in context in a meaningful way. It starts as an experiment... let's see where we get to. Good luck to all!