[JOKE] Prayers - The Sunday School teacher

Prayers

The Sunday School teacher asked:

-- Now, Bobby, tell me, do you say prayers before eating?"

-- No, sir, he replied, we don't have to. My mom's a good cook!

Vocabulary Help

• ask - perguntar
• before - antes
• eat (eat, ate, eaten) - comer
• good cook - boa cozinheira
• prayer - oração
• reply - responder
• sunday school - escola dominical
• tell (tell, told, told) - dizer

World Environment Day - 5th June 2011!

This blog wants to remind you that tomorrow (June 5^th 2011), the World Environment Day – WED is celebrated. But what is WED?

What follows now is the explanation of what WED is.

World Environment Day (WED) is a day that stimulates awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and public action. It is on 5 June. It was the day that United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was from 5–16 June 1972. It was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972.^[1] The first World Environment Day was on 1973. World Environment Day is hosted every year by a different city with a different theme and is commemorated with an international exposition in the week of 5 June. World Environment Day is in summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

"Stockholm was without doubt the landmark event in the growth of international environmentalism", writes John McCormick in the book Reclaiming Paradise. "It was the first occasion on which the political, social and economic problems of the global environment were discussed at an intergovernmental forum with a view to actually taking corrective action."

World Environment Day is similar to Earth Day.

 This is from Wikipedia.

Natural approach for learning a second language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5Iz4OY4lVA

The Natural Approach is a method for beginners based on observation and interpretation on how a person acquires his first language. It emphasizes on communication rather than on grammar.

One of the things which is very important and conclusive when learning is that the input has to be comprehensible. That is at least what Krashen has always said. Teach with a lot of comprehensible input that will allow the student to activate the acquisition process.

But I also think that even if the input is not comprehensible you end up learning because some kind of unconscious learning. I mean if you spend a lot of time listening to a language (in the country) in the beginning all the input is not comprehensible but you sort of learn something, the accent, the intonation, some isolated words, sometimes some information which is linked with non-verbal communication and so forth.

Goodbye, Petkovic.

I would like to say that not many people make me feel so happy as a Flamengo fan, supporter, or whatever like Petkovic. This guy was responsible for one of the most unforgettable moments in my mind.

Obviously, I am talking about that goal he scored against Vasco da Gama.

Using few words, I would like to say GOODBYE, Pet. Flamengo and its supporters will miss you. Thanks for everything. And may God guide you against Corinthians tomorrow.

  

Cell Phones Sometimes Cause Real Pain

Cell Phones Sometimes Cause Real Pain

People increasingly complain of being "electrosensitive," claiming that the electromagnetic fields emitted from mobile phones cause them real pain. Christie Nicholson reports

Various studies have reassured us that mobile phones will not give us cancer. But cell phones can cause real pain. That’s according to an article in press at the journal NeuroImage.

People are increasingly complaining of being “electrosensitive.” For them, the cell’s electromagnetic fields cause severe pain—and in Sweden sufferers build houses that block the supposed damaging electric fields.

But there’s a glitch. Studies have shown that such victims feel the same discomfort when in the presence of fake phones as they do when they’re near real phones.  So what’s going on?

Research at the University of Regensburg finds one possible source of this pain.  They told 30 participants they’d be exposed to two stimuli:  a heat-emitting thermode and an active cell phone. The thermode was real, but the phone was a phony.

When exposed to heat, the electrosensitive group, as well as the control group, complained of discomfort. But when exposed to the pretend phone, only the allegedly electrosensitive ones reported pain.

And their reports matched their actual physiological response. When exposed to the sham brain scans the control group revealed no effect. But the electrosensitive group showed increased activity in brain areas specific to pain perception.

So the pain is real—even if the phone isn’t. And the real cause lies somewhere in their hurting heads. 

—Christie Nicholson

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=cell-phones-sometimes-cause-real-pa-08-10-13 

Woman Making History: Dorothea Dix

Woman Making History: Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix was an early activist on behalf of the mentally ill. She was born in 1802 in Massachusetts. After attempting several career paths appropriate to her gender, she was unsatisfied with all of them and suffered a nervous breakdown in her mid-30s.

In 1936, Dix went to England, where she met a Quaker family with whom she lived for a year. These Quakers believed women should have a public role in government and society, and Dix soon took to their beliefs. She was also exposed to the British "Lunacy Reform Movement," which investigated insane asylums and reported on conditions to the House of Commons.

After returning to the U.S. Dix headed up a statewide investigation on the Massachusetts insane and how they were treated in asylums. In 1843, she reported the results to the state legislature and as an outcome, a bill was introduced to expand the state mental hospital. Dix then traveled to several other states, documenting the conditions of the indigent mentally ill populations and reporting to state legislatures. In Pennsylvania, she was instrumental in the founding of the Harrisburg State Hospital, the first public mental hospital in the state. She also lobbied for a large national mental health facility, but President Pierce vetoed the bill, saying the federal government should not get involved in state social programs.

In the mid-1850s, Dix returned to Europe and conducted investigations of asylums in Scotland. After returning to the U.S., during the Civil War, she was appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses. This did not work out well, however, and she was relieved of responsibility.

After the war, Dix returned to her advocacy work, traveling widely in Europe, reporting on conditions, and helping build hospitals there. Over the course of her career as an activist and spokesperson for the mentally ill, Dix helped to establish mental hospitals in 11 U.S. states, Turkey, Russia, France, and Scotland.

Dorothea Dix died in 1887 at the New Jersey State Hospital.

Intermediate Levels.

I hope this text helps you guys to improve your reading skill.

See you!

Bruno Coriolano, English Language Teacher!

From Twitter.