Welcome!

Dear ADVANCED LEVEL 2 students of EOI Lorca,

We are pleased to welcome you to this new class blog, your blog, as a meeting point for the class this year.

In this space you will mainly find extra material and activities related to what we do and see in class, as well as, hopefully, some fun stuff that might as well amuse you while practising your English.

However, the most important thing: feel free to participate with your comments and ideas and start using your English effectively. It's your blog after all! Remember that together we can make the course more interesting and fun.

Have a great year!

Conchita

Conversation questions: Money & Shopping

A few questions for inspiration...

http://iteslj.org/questions/money.html

You can find more questions on every topic under the sun here.

Online shopping

Article: Top 10 benefits of online shopping.

Activity: Train your accent. Read, listen and practise pronunciation by copying the intonation. Why not also tape yourself?

I wish I could go travelling again

Song facts:
Thos song is sung byStacey Kent, an American jazz singer. The lyrics were written by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Japanese/British writer, most famous for the novel The Remains of the Day.

+ Listen to the song once and tick the travel-related problems that the singer mentions.

Feeling tired after a long-haul flight     Losing a suitcase   Being robbed    Rude waiters    Flight overbooking Almost missing a flight     Being irritated by a travelling companion     Disappointing food    Bad weather    Unsatisfactory accommodation     Crowded beaches



Here you have the lyrics to check your answers.

+ Find words in the song which mean:

1. sunglasses (informal)
2. drink, taking very small amountseach time
3. a sheet of strong cloth that stretches out from above a door or window to keep off the sun or rain.
4. to become lost / stolen (idiom)
5. not impressed, excited or worried about sth, because you have seen or experiencec it many times before.
6. go somewhere suddenly and quickly.
7. not perfect; not working correctly
8. too expensive; costing more than it is worth.
9. --- of sth, completely lacking in sth.

Answers can be found in the comments section.

Acupuncture good for a bad back

Complete the gaps

Many people think (1) ____ about doctors sticking needles in them. However, research into acupuncture might change people’s opinions. A new study (2) ____ this ancient Chinese therapy shows it is better than usual hospital treatments at relieving back pain. The research team found acupuncture is “better” for a bad back than the (3) ____ given in the West. This may be good news for millions of people who suffer from back pain. (4) ____ to 85 per cent of us will experience a painful back at some time in our life. The research team surveyed 638 patients with (5) ____ back pain. Researcher Dr Daniel Cherkin said all the varieties of acupuncture in the study “had beneficial…effects” when compared to usual treatment. He said acupuncture was (6) ____ safe and effective.

Acupuncture is growing (7) ____ popularity around the world. It is a technique in which very thin needles are pushed into specific points on the body. Experts say each point has (8) ____ to a special energy flow. The needles can stop the flow of energy that causes pain. They also say acupuncture is (9) ____. Western doctors do not understand how or why these lines of energy (10) ____. The WHO recommends acupuncture for over 20 different medical problems. Dr Cherkin’s study showed acupuncture worked. After eight weeks, up to 69 per cent of the test patients (11) ____ acupuncture said their back pain improved. This compares (12) ____ just 39 per cent for the patients who received conventional care.

Put the correct words from the table below in the above article.

1.	(a)	paired	(b)	double	(c)	two	(d)	twice
2.	(a)	into	(b)	onto	(c)	out of	(d)	on
3.	(a)	cares	(b)	care	(c)	cared	(d)	caring
4.	(a)	At	(b)	Down	(c)	Up	(d)	On
5.	(a)	lowly	(b)	low	(c)	lower	(d)	lows
6.	(a)	bother	(b)	both	(c)	booth	(d)	bothersome
7.	(a)	on	(b)	an	(c)	of	(d)	in
8.	(a)	access	(b)	excess	(c)	assess	(d)	axis
9.	(a)	pained	(b)	painless	(c)	pains	(d)	painfully
10.	(a)	workaholic	(b)	workable	(c)	works	(d)	work
11.	(a)	had	(b)	has had	(c)	having	(d)	has
12.	(a)	to	(b)	by	(c)	at	(d)	of

The key can be found in the comments section.

End of the course Announcements

Two little announcements now that we are so close to the end of the course...

Firstly, there is an END OF YEAR SURVEY for you to kindly fill in with your opinions and feedback relating various topics as the classes, the school facilities... You will find this survey on the right margin of our website. This survey will be open till the 25th June.

Secondly, a little reminder: those of you who have borrowed material from the SCHOOL LIBRARY, please can you return it as soon as possible.

Mount Fuji to be World Heritage site

Read the news on the Japan Times.

Now complete the text with the following words:

each - financially - idea - sacred - peak - climbing - status - preserve -  volcano - decide - everyday - decision - wash - limit - major - means

Japan's Mount Fuji will (1) ____________ a World Heritage Site in June. The United Nations (U.N.) decided on April the 30th to give the famous mountain UNESCO World Heritage (2) ____________. The U.N. team that made the (3) ____________ said Fuji was very important to Japanese religion and art. They also said that the 3,776-meter-high (4) ____________ was important outside of Japan too. Fuji-san (as Japanese people call it) has been a (5) ____________ mountain for more than 1,000 years. Priests say that when you climb it, you move from the "(6) ____________ world" at the bottom, to the "world of gods, Buddha and death" at the top. They believe people can (7) ____________ away their sins by (8) ____________ to the top and coming back down again.
Mount Fuji is a (9) ____________ tourist destination. It is very popular with hikers, who want to see the rising sun from its (10) ____________. More than 318,000 hikers visited the mountain last summer, with up to 15,000 people climbing (11) ____________ day. Local residents are now worried the World Heritage status will mean more visitors. That (12) ____________ there will be more litter and environmental problems. The local government may ask people to pay to climb the mountain to help (13) ____________ its beauty. Governor Shomei Yokouchi said: "It's likely we'll ask mountain climbers to help (14) ____________ with keeping the mountain clean." Another (15) ____________ being talked about is to (16) ____________ the daily number of hikers allowed to the top.

The key can be found in the comments section.