Christmas Is Coming!

It's almost Christmas! My favourite time of the year. My personal waiting for the December, 24^th starts when I hear for the first time on the radio “Last Christmas” by Wham. Don't ask! It's something that for years wakes up my impatience and all the Christmas Spirit.

I've decided to prepare for you two listening exercises with that song. Let's see if I can spread my 80s Christmassy love ;)

Exercise 1 (Lower Levels)

Listen and complete the gaps with the words from the box, some appear more than once!

Heart tears distance surprise sent fool eyes someone fire again

Last Christmas, I gave you my _________
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from __________
I'll give it to someone special

Last Christmas, I gave you my __________
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from ________
I'll give it to someone special (special)

Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my _________ but you still catch my eye
Tell me baby do you recognize me?
Well it's been a year, it doesn't _________ me

I wrapped it up and ________ it
With a note saying "I Love You", I meant it
Now I know what a __________ I've been
But if you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again

Last Christmas, I gave you my _________
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from ___________
I'll give it to someone special (special)

Last Christmas, I gave you my _______
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from _________
I'll give it to someone special (special)

Last Christmas, I gave you my ___________
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from __________
I'll give it to someone special (special)

A crowded room, friends with tired ________

I'm hiding from you and your soul of ice.

My God, I thought you were _________ to rely on.

Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on.

A face on a lover with a ______ in his heart
A man undercover but you tore him apart

Now I´ve found the real love, you´ll never fool me _______.

Last Christmas, I gave you my ________
But the very next day, you gave it away (you gave it away)

This year, to save me from ________
I'll give it to someone special (special)

Last Christmas, I gave you my ________
But the very next day, you gave it away (you gave it away)

This year, to save me from ________
I'll give it to someone special (special)

A face on a lover with a _______ in his heart

A man undercover but you tore him apart
Maybe next year

I'll give it to someone, I'll give it to someone special (special)

Exercise 2 Higher Levels:

Lines in red are mixed and you have to put them in the right order, black lines are missing words. Listen and complete the exercise!

But the very next day, you gave it away
But the very next day, you gave it away

I'll give it to someone special

This year, to save me from tears

This year, to save me from tears
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
I'll give it to someone special (special)

Once _______ and twice shy
I keep my distance but you still _______ my eye
Tell me baby do you __________ me?
Well it's been a ______, it doesn't surprise me

I wrapped it up and _______ it
With a note saying "I Love You", I ________ it
Now I know what a ________ I've been
But if you kissed me now I know you'd fool me __________

But the very next day, you gave it away

I'll give it to someone special

This year, to save me from tears
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

But the very next day, you gave it away

I'll give it to someone special

This year, to save me from tears
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

But the very next day, you gave it away

I'll give it to someone special

This year, to save me from tears
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

A _________ room, friends with tired eyes

I'm hiding from you and your soul of ________.

My God, I thought you were someone to ________ on.

Me? I guess I was a shoulder to ________ on.

Now I´ve found the real love
A man undercover but you tore him apart

You´ll never fool me again

A face on a lover with a fire in his heart

But the very next day, you gave it away

I'll give it to someone special

This year, to save me from tears
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

But the very next day, you gave it away

I'll give it to someone special

This year, to save me from tears
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

A face on a _____ with a fire in his heart

A man ___________ but you tore him apart
Maybe next year

I'll give it to someone, I'll give it to someone special (special)

I hope you have enjoyed it! The key is in the first comment.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

5 Apps Useful When Learning Languages

So you've signed up for the course and now regularly go to classes. Maybe you use our language laboratory. And you not only follow the computer program, but also go to some of the offered workshops. And yet, you still feel your progress is not fast enough. Why? You ask yourself desperately looking for other ways to improve. Well, learning languages is not easy. You need time and patience. And you need to practice regularly. There is no way around it. Twice a week classes are the most typical model offered by the academies, but if you can dedicate a moment each day, it would be much much better. Sometimes just five minutes can make a difference.

Of course, no one expects you to go to your classes every single day. That's why I will try to summarize here 5 useful and easy apps you can use daily to stay in touch with any language that you are learning.

1. Duolingo - free

It's an app that you can use on all your devices: smartphone, tablet, computer – it doesn't matter, it works on all of them. Easy to follow, it offers you 21 languages to choose from on the menu panel. For each menu language, there is a different number of language courses offered and it's constantly growing. At the moment English speakers (English menu panel) can learn 27 languages.

To see that you are progressing, it is done to remind you of a game: you earn points and level up for completing the activities. All of them are short, so it's very practical. You're waiting in a line? Just take out your phone and play a game or two, learn vocabulary and grammar structures, revise. Personally, I would recommend it for lower levels or as a revision tool. It includes level testing, so you don't have to start from the very beginning.

2. Busuu – basic free, premium $

The basic version has different levels that start with vocabulary and follow, depending on the topic with dialogs, memorize (repeating vocabulary), writing tasks, videos and regular exercises. Audios for vocabulary and dialogs are included.

The premium version includes also tests and possibility to download the materials in pdf.

The good side of basuu is that it's not only a web with ready materials, kind of an online course, but the whole platform where you can interact with other users, chat and exchange writings. I believe it to be useful up to upper intermediate level. It also includes travelling and a business course.

3. Babbel – free

Very similar to Duolingo, available both on the Android and on the web. Why on the 3^rd place then? I have an impression the levels are slightly lower than what they should be, but it's just my personal impression. Who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it more than Duolingo? You should try it on your own!

3. Memrise – free

Probably the most complex when it comes to the quantity of offered languages: 188, includes other topics like arts, literature, maths and many others! It may be a bit overwhelming, when choosing the course, and the menu and web are not as clear as the other programs, but the offer is impressive! Creates the possibility to join online groups and use all the learned material in practice.

5. Reverso - free

An online spelling and grammar checker (only English!). Something that not only students might be interested in. We always write in a hurry, often miss something, sometimes change the idea mid-phrase. That tool will hep you to detect your mistakes. Some of them might make you blush...

The text shouldn't have more than 600 characters, but if it does just divide and introduce it in parts. That easy!

Have you used any of the apps described above? Or maybe you have a better one in mind? Please comment!

Computer Disaster

Computers. It seems that we can't live without them anymore. We use them for work and for entertainment. To send business and private emails. To watch films and listen to the music. To research, to call friends and family, to store information, files, documents, photos. To do shopping. One device and sometimes all our live is in there. Translated into dots and bars, send somewhere into virtual world. Some of us are aware of the risks. Some not so much.

Over a week ago, my own computer was attacked by a malicious malware. I always considered myself careful. I have a really goodanti viruss (not very expensive but not cheap either). I regularly update it. I had a copy of all the data. As some years ago one of my external disks crashed, I've decided to store all in the cloud. I rarely download anything from the internet, never from the unknown sources. And yet... I've lost it all. CryptoLocker is the name of my Nemesis. It suddenly attacked one Friday morning when I was preparing one of my classes. The anti virus was on, I was working with the Word file. I haven't downloaded anything, was connected to the internet, but wasn't using it. The computer weirdly slowed down. I supposed it was an updated and didn't pay much attention. I went for a tea and when I was back with my steaming cup, that's what I saw in the middle of the screen, replacing my usual wallpaper:

There was no way to remove it and effectively all my files were encrypted. I turned off the internet connection: I have some minimal instincts of survival in the computer jungle. I tried file by file and all was blocked. Desperation started sneaking into my up to that moment easy and happy morning. The class was not prepared and it was starting in 40 minutes. I had to leave. No time to prepare, no way to use the computer or one of the files I had there for the emergency situation. Almost all my books were stored on the drive C. I was ready to cry. Or to kill someone. But who? In the last moment I grabbed one of not many physical teaching books (don't get me wrong I love books, have a huge library at home, but that's all fiction, not very useful in an English class with children), made some copies, grabbed a word game that could help a bit and run out. How I survived classes and focused on what I was doing instead of obsessing on my disastrous experience, I don't know. At night, back at home, I googled CryptoLocker. From my phone, duh! And what I found was more than discouraging. Of course I run the scan of the whole system. It found lots of things. Among them one, that Google confirmed as CryptoLocker. My computer didn't allow me to restore the previous version of the system (don't ask me why, that's beyond my understanding of the whole situation). Some of the files, allowed restoring the previous version but that was less than 10%. But I had the copy, right. In the cloud. What could go wrong with that? I naively went to OneDrive, recommended by Windows (please, don't ask me why I don't use Linux, unless you have time to visit me, install it, explain the differences and stand all kind of stupid questions I would ask for sure!). I went there with all the security, sure to quickly restore what was lost just to find out that it was all encrypted too. Yes, my safe cloud security version was lost too. I've never imagined (stupid me!) that the virus could recognise the cloud as just another disk. But it did. And it was all gone. Eaten by the cruel gods of the internet. Destroyed by some teenage hacker who just wanted some money for the new Yeezys (I'm so uncool, that I'm not even sure if that's how they're called or if that's the newest cool thing now). And that's the end of the story. You get this because my nice post about learning techniques, about different on-line resources and different free webs was lost. Hopefully, that might be educational too. Hopefully, if you don't have a copy on a disk/cloud whatever that is not connected to the internet you will work on it straight away. But in case you have a problem with CryptoLocker, here is the most helpful video and text I have found:
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/cryptolocker-virus-removal-how-decrypt-or-restore-encrypted-files-and-remove-334250 Also, my geeky friends informed me that the scan of the computer was not enough, as the anti virus failed at first. The virus, they said, is most probably still there. So I'm going now to format the disk. That will finish it off for sure.

All Hallow's Eve is Coming

It's only one week to All Hallow's Eve! My favorite Anglo Saxon celebration. In the rest of Europe and most of the world on October 31st and November 1st we take time to think about those who passed away. It's rather sad and very melancholic time. But Halloween is different. It's optimistic and it appeals to me as something that doesn't demonize this time of year. It originates back to Celtic Samhain and was believed to be a border date between days of light (summer) and days of darkness (winter). It was believed that on the night of October, 31^st the spirits of dead were returning to Earth. The veil between the worlds was believed to be thin and ghosts had easier access to us than normally. At the same time it was considered good and bad. Good: because it made divination and prophecy easier. Bad: because the evil spirits were looking for people to take revenge on, to destroy crops and play all kind of nasty tricks. Costumes were most probably supposed to confuse spirits looking for specific people. Same as in all pagan religions. Same as in Basque Carnival: we are dressing up not to be recognized by magical creatures, ghosts and witches who come looking for us.

With time, as our beliefs in wicked ghosts dissolved, fancy dresses became just this: an opportunity to have fun. Here you have two videos from History Channel explaining better the origins of Halloween:

1. A shorter one:

2. A longer documentary (about 41 minutes):
   
   

Because of these celebrations there is a long tradition of watching more horror films at this time. And I love a good scary story. Nothing better than an evening on the sofa, under the blanket with a hot tea and a good film. Here are some of my favorite. I hope you will enjoy them! Add your own propositions in the comments!

Psycho (1960)

A classic! I don't know a single person who hasn't heard about this title. Hitchcock at his best!

The Birds (1963)

Well, Hitchcock... Again... What can I say ;)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

A wonderful psychological horror written and directed by Roman Polanski. Not many know that it is based on a really good novel with the same title, written in 1967 by Ira Levin.

The Exorcist (1972)

The girl walking on the ceiling and vomiting green hmmm... stuff became an unforgettable image of our pop culture. Also based on a William Peter Blatty novel of the same name from 1971.

The Shining (1980)

Looks like the best horrors are based on excellent books. That might be actually a clue! Wonderful Stephen King, wonderful film and, oh, so scary, Jack Nicholson!

The Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Who in his/her time didn't fear Freddy Krueger? Still one of the best fancy dresses for Halloween.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

I know, I know. It's not a horror. It's a psychological thriller. Again, based on a book by Thomas Harris. A true masterpiece. 

Well, Clarice - have the lambs stopped screaming?

The Ring (1998)

The Japanese one, not the American remake. The tension is incredible. Black and white. Impressive. I couldn't sleep in a room with TV the whole month after seeing it...

28 Days Later (2002)

Zombies. Dystopia. End of the world the way we know it.

30 Days of Night (2007)

Well, vampires. Not the shiny ones. And not nice or attractive either...

I can't wait to see your recommendiations!!!

Autumn & New Beginnings

And just like this the new academic year has started and the summer already seems to be far, far away. Luckily enough this October, at least up to know, is sunny and that rather helps us to stay optimistic and full of energy. I don't know about you, but for me October is about new beginnings. In past it was time when I was going back to school, new books, new teachers, new peers. Then it was time when I was back to the university and I was leaving my family house behind and starting new “adult” life in a new city. Now, funnily enough, it's almost the same. Being a teacher has made my life keep on the same cycle as I was used to in my childhood and then early adolescence. So, October is the month of beginnings (and my birthday month!).

Even if you have never thought about this time of year as something to make new resolutions, it's never too late. Just think about it, you have just started using the language laboratory at the university, you have just signed for a new course... Aren't this kind of resolutions? You want to become better at something. Why not to expand it a bit more? Here are some of my ideas to stay on track, to learn more, to expand your horizons. I hope it can inspire you to do something new, something special!

1. Languages 
   Well, you're here, on our official blog. That's the first big step. What else can you do? Many things and all of them quite easy:

• Join us at the MEET UP! It's fun, I promise! What is it? As Wilma, has perfectly explained on the meet up page: “We are a group of UPVEHU students, teachers and university workers who are interested in getting together at the weekend to walk, talk and explore Vitoria-Gasteiz and the surrounding area. Days out where the medium of English as a Lingua Franca will be used to share the thoughts and ideas of those who choose to come along. Mountain walks, city tours, packed lunches shared - old friends relaxing with new friends made. A warm welcome will be extended to one and all. Everybody is welcome, UPVEHU connected or not, family members, children...even dogs ;)”
  This very first Walk & Talk Meeting will be along the Green Ring of Gasteiz and it's on 30.10.2016. More info here:
  http://www.meetup.com/es-ES/Vitoria-Gasteiz-UPVEHU-Meetup-Weekend-Walk-Talk/events/234498229/?from=ref

• Write something for our blog! Or at least post a comment, share your experiences. If you are interested in writing something longer, please send it to languagelabgasteiz@gmail.com
  The only requirements is to be somehow connected to the university and/or to our language laboratory. Send us your text, name and surname and the above mentioned connection and we'll post your work here. To avoid any unpleasant situations let's agree on not writing about politics, religion, money and anything vulgar, OK? ;)

• Apart from our courses/laboratory try using some app for your mobile or tablet. Just ten minutes per day could improve your vocabulary and grammar. I recommend a free DuoLingo, especially for lower levels:
  https://www.duolingo.com

• Read, Watch and Listen!!! Whatever your hobby is, you can do it in English. You like films? Watch them in English with subtitles. You prefer music? Listen to your favourite English songs with lyrics in your hand. You are an avid reader? Read in English. Magazines, books, levelled books (specially adapted for A2-C1 levels). The choices are infinite. Even look for Yoga classes in English!

2. Culture

The last point in languages is actually something recommendable to do in any language. You feel that culturally you haven't been as active recently as you wish you were? Let's check what you can do about it. Just a few things that called my attention:
• Fusionarte (2-22.10.2016) is a fusion of scenic arts and music. One position that stands out in the program is the musical theatre with puppets 'Mrs. Brownie' (Saturday, 15^th in Auditorio Txema Blasco) http://www.revistaktual.com/actualidad/1526-fusionarte
• Join a book club! Check your local library or the cultural centre. There is for example a comic and graphic novel book club in Centro Civico Salburua or contemporary novel book club in Centro Civico Aldabe. You can find more on the city hall website:
• http://www.vitoria-gasteiz.org/we001/was/we001Action.do?aplicacion=wb021&tabla=contenido&idioma=es&uid=u_4d10e719_147616e82fa__7e60
• Queen tribute band (Iradier Arena, 15.10.2016): the group God Save the Queen with Pablo Padín as a frontman prepares a 2-hours magical show.
• International Theatre Festival in Vitoria-Gasteiz (6.10-29.11.2016)
  Impossible to describe all the spectacles worth seeing here. Just follow the link: http://www.vitoria-gasteiz.org/we001/was/we001Action.do?idioma=es&aplicacion=wb021&tabla=contenido&uid=b864f49_1468923428a__7f94

3. Books
   I know, I know! It's culture. But I'm a bookworm and for me it's a whole separate category. AS I've said, you can join a book club. Or set a challenge for yourself. How many books can you read in a year? What new areas do you want to discover? But there is also something different. What books immediately jump to your mind when you think of October? I think of:

• Harry Potter (hmmm... Halloween in Hogwarts!),

• Dracula (duh! cloudy and misty Transylvania),

• Anne of Green Gables (“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” !!!).

Which books come to your mind?

Well, I could probably go on and on and on... But I don't want to bore you just with the first post. Please share your resolutions, beginnings, ideas. We would love to hear from you!!!

(written by: Slawka)