Abandoned puppy

Update: The puppy, who was named Mozart, has now found a happy home with some wonderful owners. He's house-trained, leash-trained, and likes travelling in the front seat of a Smart with the seat belt on!

A fairy-tale (or a doggy tail) come true! Let's hope he lives happily ever after!

This puppy was abandoned near our house in Francelos. He was very scared of everyone and everything, and ran away and hid, but we finally managed to persuade him to come in. (He likes biscuits a lot).

He's not scared of us now and he has turned into a friendly, affectionate and very active puppy. He needs an owner who has time to train him and give him enough exercise. He's medium sized, healthy, and the vet says he shouldn't grow much bigger. He isn't leash-trained, and probably not house-trained. If you know anyone who could give him a good home, and who has the time and patience to train him, do pass this information on. I'm sure he'd be a rewarding companion.

Study in the UK

Students sometimes ask me about studying at university in the UK and where to find information. A really good place to start is the British Council's 'Study UK' website, which you can find here: https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/ 

The official organisation for applying for university places in the UK is UCAS. Here's the website: https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/international-and-eu-students/studying-uk

myClass Elementary 25 July 2019

First of all, I want to say that I was really impressed yesterday evening! You all tried hard to use the English you know to communicate. And it was great to see you all using the new language from the lesson during the task! Well done everyone! 

Here are some links to help you with making questions. It isn't easy to form questions in English, so don't worry if you don't understand it all at first! 
These two links are from our LearnEnglish website:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/questions-and-negatives
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/basic-grammar/question-forms
This next link is from our LearnEnglish Teens website. There are some very good activities and grammar videos on this website!
https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/grammar/beginner-grammar/question-words

The company in the task last night was based in Cardiff. You can read about Cardiff in easy English here: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff 

I mentioned two people I know in Portugal who are painters. One is Carlos Seabra, a doctor from Aveiro. Find some of his painting here:
https://www.facebook.com/carlosseabrapintura/
and here:
http://carlosseabrapainting.blogspot.com 

Carlos also published a book recently about access to health care:
https://www.bertrand.pt/livro/curar-o-mundo-carlos-seabra/22237489 

The other painter I know is Glen Hague, an ex-colleague from Lisbon. Find out about his work here:
https://www.glenhagueart.com/

Hope the links are interesting. Note that Tuesday's class starts at 18.30 next week! Hope to see you then! 

myClass Advanced, 24 July 2019

There were some very interesting discussions in the classroom last night. Here are a couple of links to follow up:

A short extract from Ex-Machina. This is interesting because they talk about learning language - something we discussed last night! https://youtu.be/mAtmopQxu0o

One of the most lifelike AI robots currently around is Erica from Japan. Here's a 4-minute documentary about her: https://youtu.be/oRlwvLubFxg

If you'd like to know more, the Guardian has a longer documentary about her, where they get into things like... what does it mean to be human? https://youtu.be/57Maw9Sn89w

If you have anything you'd like to share on this theme, email it to me and I'll post it here! 

More soon! :) 

myClass Advanced 17 July 2019 - School Days

Here are the links I promised you from the class last night: 

The On Being project is something I thought several of you might be interested in after hearing your conversations last night. My favourite part of the website is the weekly 'On Being' podcast - they are often very interesting. Links to the website and the podcast here:
https://onbeing.org/  
https://onbeing.org/series/podcast/ 

The three schools which you read about are linked here: 
http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/  
https://www.brockwood.org.uk/ 
https://gordonstoun.org.uk/  

I mentioned that Jiddu Krishnamurti was a fascinating character. The Krishnamurti official website is here: https://jkrishnamurti.org/ 

There is an interesting, and less hagiographic, article about Krishnamurti here: https://tricycle.org/magazine/the-shadow-side-krishnamurti/ 

We watched the first five minutes of Ken Robinson's TED talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity? You can watch the whole talk on TED or YouTube. If you need subtitles, go to TED!
https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity
https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY

That's a lot of links! Hope you find some of them interesting! :) 

myClass Advanced, 3 July 2019

In our last two classes, we’ve talked a lot about education – MOOCs last week and yesterday, life skills. Here are a couple of interesting talks about education. I’ve suggested a clip from each, but be warned – you might want to watch the whole thing once you start!

Here, Sugata Mitra talks about children in a slum in India teaching themselves to use a computer:
https://youtu.be/y3jYVe1RGaU?t=245 Listen from around 4:00 to 7:00.

In this extract, Sir Ken Robinson talks about a drawing of God and Shakespeare as a child. Listen from 4:30 to 7:45. https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY?t=329

Here’s the Facebook page of the ex student  I told you about who ended up in a wheelchair after a trip to Brazil, and who changed university course from medicine to nutrition: https://www.facebook.com/catarina.oliveira.14268769
You can link to her IG and YouTube channels from there.