Show 670 Thursday 13 March

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

The video I recommend to study today is called Simon's Cat 'Let Me In!'
I think it’s very cute. But what has it got to do with learning English? Because there’s no dialogue, right? Well, I think these kinds of videos can be used for some very useful exercises.

What you can do is get students to watch the video and then have them tell you what happened in the video. This is great practice for retelling a story, which is a very useful and important skill. For example, if you’re travelling and something happens, like your bag gets stolen, then you might want to go to the police and tell them what happened. That would be very useful to be able to do that.

And also just for making friends, if you meet someone in a bar or you’re staying at a backpackers and you talk to someone or you’re studying English somewhere and you’re talking to your classmate ... then part of making conversation is being able to tell stories about stuff that you’ve done or stuff that you’ve seen or heard.

So that’s how I would use a video like this in a lesson. Of course you can use a video which has dialogue, but I think the advantage of using a video without dialogue is that sometimes students can get kind of bogged down in the details – like, they might not understand a couple of words and they get distracted by that, whereas if you use a video without dialogue, they can just focus on the retelling of the story.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today, the governor of New York has resigned.

Eliot Spitzer is an American lawyer and politician.
In 1998, he became the New York State Attorney General.
In 2006, he was elected governor of New York.
According to Wikipedia, Spitzer made his rise to victory in New York City politics promising "ethics and integrity to be the hallmarks of his administration."
He has prosecuted several prostitution rings in his career. And he has had sex with prostitutes. Apparently, he has paid up to $80,000 for prostitutes over a period of several years - first while he was attorney general, and later as governor.
On the 10th of March The New York Times reported that Spitzer had used a prostitution service called Emperors Club VIP.
Yesterday he resigned from his job as governor.
According to an expert the Wall Street reaction to the scandal has been largely positive, due to a general dislike of Spitzer amongst investment professionals.

And that was Stick News for Thursday the 13th of March.
Kia Ora

THE SNOW REPORT
in Hirafu

This is some footage from last month I just found. These people are waiting for a lift called Swinging Monkey it was supposed to be open but it was delayed for some reason.

conversations with sarah
#407 What happens in the video?

Step 1: Repeat Tony’s lines.
Step 2: Read Tony’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Tony What happens in the video?

Sarah This cat is trying to get in.

Tony Get in where?

Sarah In a house.

Tony What house?

Sarah I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Just a house, OK?

Tony OK. He’s trying to get into a house.

Sarah Yeah. And the door’s locked so he tries to get in by breaking the door.

Tony He tries to break the door?!

Sarah Yeah, or maybe he’s just trying to make a sound so that the person comes. Anyway, he bangs lots of stuff against the door.

Tony What happens in the end?

Sarah In the end a guy comes and opens the door and then he gets inside. And then the door breaks.

notes

bog sb down = to prevent sb from making progress in activity

links

today's news
today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: BrunoXe
album: aprendiendo desde 2004
track: Mandrake
from: Jerez, Spain
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

the snow report start
artist: Olga Scotland
album: Scotland Yard
track: Absolute
from: Moscow, Russia
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
tracks: groovetracks ending
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: Antony Raijekov
album: Jazz U
track: Deep blue 2005
from: Sofia, Bulgaria
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

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