LAST CHANCE

to tell me if you have a justified reason for not being able to do the exam next week. Please get in touch with me IMMEDIATELY if this is the case.

Summer courses

We run summer courses in July

Info here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x14oawh8kubexr9/CIJ%2015%20DIGITAL%20EN.pdf?dl=0

Jornada Gastronómica

Jornada Gastronómica

Especialidades culinarias típicas de distintos países, concurso y sorteo de bonos de comida
Los distintos idiomas que se imparten en el CSIM presentan una selección de comidas típicas para su degustación.
También hay un concurso de preguntas sobre cultura y costumbres de los países representados en la Jornada Gastronómica para su posterior sorteo de bonos de comida en restaurantes típicos.
Actividad reservada para los alumnos del CSIM, que recibirán una invitación para ellos y sus amigos y que deberán presentar en los distintos puestos.

Miércoles 22/04 - 18:00 - 20:00. Cafetería de la Facultad de Derecho (jardín).

Exam Dates

Hello all

The exam will be on MAY 22 in its entirety. We will do the oral in groups of three or four in the corridor outside the classroom during the writing part of the exam.

This means MAY 8 will be a normal class.

If there you have any problem attending that day please let me know as soon as possible.

IMPORTANT: FOR ANYONE WHO MISSED THE MOCK EXAM

It may be possible to do the exam this Friday (20/2) afternoon or Saturday morning (21/2) but you need to let me know if you want to do this AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

PROGRESS TEST THIS FRIDAY

Don't forget it is essential that you all attend for the full session this Friday (13/2) as we have your progress test, which counts towards your final mark for the course.

Alternative Date for Progress Test

If you really can't make it on 13/2, the only other possibility is for you to come on Saturday 14 Feb at 1000. If you need to do this please let me know as soon as possible.

IMPORTANT DATES

30/1 - NO CLASS

6/1 - NO CLASS

13/2 - PROGRESS TEST

If you cannot come to class on 13/2 you need to tell me as soon as possible.

Writing Homework

In class last Friday I asked you to complete an ARTICLE with the title or on the theme of (if you can think of a better headline, feel free to use it):

The Importance of Music to/for/in ........ (you should complete this according to your own ideas).

Don't forget to a) begin with COLOUR. That is, something to attract the reader's attention and arouse their interest. Good techniques here are to begin with general observations or first person descriptions of an event.

b) PERSONALISE. The kind of articles you are asked to write at this level are opinion articles rather than news articles. Your beliefs, tastes, experiences and so on can and should be expressed.

Try to write approximately 300 words.

If you can post it here, that would be great. Otherwise send it to me at driscoll.eli@gmail.com or print it and bring it to class.

MAGIC WORKS SOMEHOW: NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL EXPLANATIONS by Carlos Fernandez

There is not only an explanation about what magic is or how magic works. In this article, I am giving my point of view about this art according to my experience as an amateur magician for 18 years.

First of all; magic, illusionism or prestidigitation is an art which can be classified in several types according to the place where it is performed: stage magic, parlour magic, close up, table magic, street magic, etc. Or the kind of effect to be achieved: mentalism, manipulation, vanishing, teleportation, restoration, escapism, transformation, levitation, penetration, etc.      

Depending on the circumstances: number of people, distance from the audience and so on, the performer will use different techniques to obtain the magical effect.

Secondly, magic occurs in people’s minds. This is possible not due to the use of a special deck of cards, a tricked box or the fact of acting far from them but because the artist knows how to control their brains. Apparently, this ‘device’ is always in control of their owners but really, it is not. Hence, magic is possible when the artist is able to guide those brains in a way that the magical illusion is produced.

To create this, the magician manipulates those brains with several techniques aimed to direct the attention, the perception.  In my case, I am specialised in card magic and use different methods to:

-build a memory print during the audience’s gaze.                                                                                                                -to create false memories or clues to condition brains for the following effect.                                           -to deceive the perception system                                                                                                             -to misdirect the attention without people’s awareness.                                                            

 Other artists control the lighting and furnishing of the performance space, talk at a slower or faster rate, whisper to produce mystery…

All this is possible due to our brain’s configuration and their mechanisms to adapt to the day life situations. The brain correctly works according to previous and logical experiences but in magic, artists ‘corrupt’ those mechanisms to achieve the magical illusion. (The blind spots, the figure and the background, the whole and the parts are manipulated to create the magical sensations).  If I or any person is able to cheat the attendees’ brains and to weave a magical temporary tissue, the result will be a good effect.

But why people are interested in magic?

Some of the most common fears in humans are the fears of knowing we are limited, the fears of death. Those could be some of the plausible reasons why people invented magic and religion. Those fears are always with us and for that reason a person who is victorious in this fight will be seen as a hero, a master who controls life and death, sorrow and joy.   

                        

In a magic show those symbolic issues are always present so, when the performer deals with them, the result is always a victory against limits, against death.

Moreover, although nowadays, a magic show is normally seen such as an entertainment, for some people this is a ‘real’ demonstration of a superpower.  Thus, the mentalists, the wizards, the magicians have a gift so, they can make miracles.                                                              

During my experience as a performer, several people have come to me believing I could do something to relieve their pains, problems and so on.  They didn’t want to accept I didn’t have any special power and they were disappointed. This is the reason why lots of healers and conmen succeed giving hope in exchange for money, sex and / or submission. (Although I have to recognise some people help others because they know how to persuade them, they have accurate knowledge or they have several skills to deal with those people and their problems).

To sum up, getting to grips with the art of magic takes years because it is not just a simple sleight of hands trick. It is an art to create the sensation of wonder and for that, the magician takes advantage of our beliefs, our fears and the ‘malfunction’ of our perceptive systems to transport us through the looking glass, beyond the ordinary experience. 

Bibliography and references:

Miguel Puga.  “Magia. Historias de la historia de la magia.” Editorial Comares, 2005.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(illusion)

                                                                                                         Carlos Fernández Fernández

Class work 5/12/2015

Basically by now you should have covered everything up to the end of unit 4 in your class book and workbook. In class on Friday we looked at pages 36 and 37, and set writing homework form pages 38-39, as well as revising the use of past tenses and the vocabulary from page 35.

Writing Homework: A review

As we discussed in class, you can do either of the review tasks on pages 38-39 of your class book, or this task.

• A local newspaper has asked for people to seend in reviews of 'special occasion' restaurants. Write a review of a restaurant that you went to for a celebration or special event recently. Say whether the restaurant was a good choice for this particular event, and describe how the service, atmosphere and décor contributed to the experience.

Progress Test: Dates

We will do a progress test based on real CPE exam material on Friday 13 February 2015. It is necessary for everyone to attend that day.

Invitations to the blog

I've just sent invitations out to you all to be 'authors' of the blog. This means that you can post directly onto the blog with any ideas, questions or comments.

If you didn't get the email, please tell me in a comment to this post, with your email address. Or send me an email to driscoll.eli@gmail.com, and I'll make sure I resend you an invitation.

Using commas

The Oxford Dictionaries website has a good, simple guide to comma use in English.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/comma

Class 28/11

In class on Friday we looked at the use of past tenses, an area which can be surprisingly tricky.

For homework you need to complete exercise 5 on page 35 of your students' book. This was part of last week´s homework but not completed by most of those in attendance.

We did the reading on page 32.33 of the students' book, and the listening on page 16 of the workbook as assessed exercises. Most of you did pretty well on both exercises.

And don't forget today's joke:      
                
                          waɪ dɪd ðə flaɪ flaɪ ?                                                                                                    bɪˈkʌz ðə spaɪdə spaɪd ə !

Class 21/11

read In Friday's class we focused on Key Word Transformations. We looked at those on page 27 (ex 6, all conditional sentences) and then p40, and we did the task on page 31 as an assessed activity.

We heard the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling- a nice reading of this poem is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drBIhnATwuc

by Michael Caine, one of my favourite actors!

For homework you should do pages 34 and 35 of your class book.

Class: 7/11/2014

Yesterday we had a writing intensive. We looked at how to approach Writing Part 1, the compulsory essay.

If you missed class you should write either the essay based on the two texts about museums on page 22

or the essay about music based on the two texts on page 56.

Remember:

• structure your essay carefully into 3-5 coherent and discrete paragraphs
• to achieve a good mark for 'content', you should identify, summarise and evaluate two or three key points in each text, make some comment about similarities and differences between the texts, and add some relevant content of your own
• this is homework, not an exam- I expect some people to use spell-checkers and dictionaries, so YOU might as well too. Check your work and rewrite as often as you like. I will be more strict about correctable errors (spelling, low-level grammar mistakes, incorrectly used vocabulary) than if it were a timed writing

Halloween 2014

In yesterday's halloween special we.....

• Spoke about holiday preferences, and tried to discover whether our classmates would be good people to go on holiday with;
• Looked at Paper 1 Part 7 (Reading, multiple matching) on page 17;
• Revised our knowledge of future forms on page 18;
• Spoke about photography and
• Did Paper 1 Part 2 (Use of English, Open Cloze) on page 30

If you missed the class you can do any of these exercises. Everyone should try to do as much of the workbook as possible, plus the Vocabulary on page 17, and the exercises on page 18

Flo-Joe: quality exam practice

For those who don't know about it already, http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cpe/students/ provides an excellent bank of preparation materials for Cambridge exams.

23 October 2015

Today in class we looked at word transformation, and did the exercises on  pages 12, 14 and 15.

We also did the Listening on page 20, so if you missed the class you should do those exercises at home and check your answers.

For homework you should complete Unit 1 in your workbook.

Follow me on Twitter driscool@e_d_driscoll

The books you need to buy are

Cambridge English Objective Proficiency Student's Book 
ISBN: 9781447937593

Sudent's Resource Book
ISBN: 9781408299005

For in depth information on the CPE exam, have a look at the Cambridge website

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/proficiency/