"I do definitely consider myself a nerd!"

Work on your Oral comprehension here:

http://www.franglish.fr/COBAC/
Mr Yvan Baptiste allows you to improve! Take advantage of it.
I've also put it under the label "Oral Comprehension". Of course!
Do use all those links daily!
Thanks again and always Sir.

The Mirror

Leonardo DiCaprio's 2014 UN Climate Summit Speech

Babel and Languages

Laniakea

Where are we?
On planet Earth, orbiting around the Sun, our star.
Remember our galaxy, the Milky Way.
It  is a spiral galaxy some 100,000–120,000 light-years in diameter. Ô my! 
The Milky Way contains 100–400 billion stars and our sun is on the outskirts of this galaxy.

But our galaxy, in spite of its hugeness is only a tiny part of the Universe.

In the Universe. it seems there are super clusters of galaxies.
Scientists called the super cluster in which our galaxy stands  Laniakea. 
This word means immeasurable heavens in Hawaiian. 

Laniakea stretches more than 500 million light-years across...
It contains 100,000 large galaxies.

extends more than 500 million light-years and contains 100,000 large galaxies. - See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/laniakea-home-supercluster-09032014/#sthash.RhMBXjge.dpuf

extends more than 500 million light-years and contains 100,000 large galaxies. - See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/laniakea-home-supercluster-09032014/#sthash.RhMBXjge.dpuf

extends more than 500 million light-years and contains 100,000 large galaxies. - See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/laniakea-home-supercluster-09032014/#sthash.RhMBXjge.dpuf

extends more than 500 million light-years and contains 100,000 large galaxies. - See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/laniakea-home-supercluster-09032014/#sthash.RhMBXjge.dpuf

Among them, the Milky Way, our galaxy stands at the outskirts of Laniakea.
Ô my, ô my...




http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/03/milky-way-laniakea-galaxy-supercluster-immeasurable-heaven

extends more than 500 million light-years and contains 100,000 large galaxies. - See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/laniakea-home-supercluster-09032014/#sthash.RhMBXjge.dpuf

The long game

Great videos here: http://delve.tv/essays/ 
The first one is about Claude Shannon. Heads or tails, 0 or 1, bits and pixels.
The two others are interesting too.
“Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time,”
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/05/23/the-long-game/ 

A biology course and some.

The things you can find on the web... Even lectures from inspired Stanford professors.
It is both entertaining and invigorating.  I hope you enjoy it.
It's about ... hormones, boundaries, human biology and thinking.
Quite a journey for animals... and some tool!

English for life!

BACK TO SCHOOL!

Aux élèves, à leurs parents ou tuteurs, un peu de français avant la rentrée. 
Des conseils pour apprendre l'anglais ainsi qu'une fiche à remplir et à coller dans le cahier de mes élèves. 
Vous trouverez cela ici:
https://www.myhaikuclass.com/elibilien/english/cms_page/view/7339593

Merci à ceux qui liront ces documents et sauront en tirer profit. 
Soit pour progresser, soit pour aider les autres à le faire.
Utilisez ce blog et son extension. Ils sont pour vous.

Resilience

Thinking of you, terminales, taking the Baccalaureat! All the best.

How determined are you to win your race?

GO FOR IT!

Don't you get caught in the Web...

and a criticism of that video, but in French. Sorry about that.
http://mobile.lemonde.fr/vous/article/2014/05/13/leve-les-yeux-de-ton-ecran_4416039_3238.html

That's the English I'm looking forward to!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0025-preposition.html

and a piece on Emily Brewster's video. Emily is on twitter of course:  ‏@eabrewster 

Mobile Addiction is growing at an alarming rate.

I repeat:  Mobile Addiction is growing at an alarming rate.
Enjoy the read!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101608691

Years of living dangerously

Indeed, the most needed- to be seen series ever. Gripping and mind-opening.
I hope you all watch it.
Learn more here http://www.sho.com/sho/years-of-living-dangerously/home with Harrison Ford, Don Cheadle and Thomas Friedman.

Experience the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing

Some people challenge it, question it. "How could we achieve that on July 20, 1969" they ask.

Others want you to experience it! http://www.firstmenonthemoon.com/

Business is business

Dear pupils, as I am busy grading your papers, in particular the mock exam, ‘le bac blanc’, I find the most annoying spelling mistake. (Je veux que vous écriviez correctement le mot suivant BUSINESS que l’on utilise aussi en français non ?)

So you get it. I began this post with the verb 'to be busy doing something'. You see? Just take busy and add -ness Since the end of the radical is a Y, you change it into an I when it is followed by a suffix, for example here -ness. You know, like the plural of words ending with a Y. But that's not the mistake you made anyway. Well of course, sometimes, you stumble upon exceptions like this one: 'Busybody': a person who is too interested in the private lives of other people. An officious or inquisitive person. EX1: The neighborhood busybody is telling everyone that the couple up the street is getting divorced. EX2: That busybody across the street is always telling me how to tend to my own garden> Don’t you love words? Well I sure hope you are forever curious about words... Leave me a comment dear pupils, for a change!

Even spiders can be fun!

TV news vs Priorities

MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell interrupts former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) who is urging the NSA to stop spying on citizens to report breaking news regarding the arrest of popstar Justin Bieber. Aired on Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, 22 January 2014.

It's interesting to see that the above video lasts 1mn. It has only 14 views but in the link below, the 26 seconds extract was seen 6 324 017 times! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH68bSJXGE8
Youtube watching can be like TV. Too bad the 6 million + didn't get to hear Harman say what was indeed crucial...
This reminds me of Fukushima NPP ongoing disaster ... if you get my drift.
Well, as we are studying an article about that Bieber story with the 2nde A, food for thought;-) First pupil of this class to make some comment will have a mega bonus..!

Bilingual Brains are Better!

Well... trilingual, multilingual! I once heard a man on France Culture who could read more than 40 languages and spoke more than 20!
I've just discovered Trace Dominguez. You can have more of him here: scroll down to the vids: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/13/my-dc-discovery-news-trace-dominguez_n_2863188.html#slide=2209405

A young girl and her scientific experiment

A child's experiment turns into a lesson on the toxins in our food supply.  
 

What makes a hero?

What makes a hero? by Matthew Winkler

War vocabulary

A great way to learn War vocabulary... still a current issue in many countries of the world.
Some of our soldiers are at war too. Let us not forget it.
Part 1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/specials/cojo/conflict1/Course/asset/main.html
Part 2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/specials/cojo/conflict2/Course/asset/main.html

2014!

I wish you all, my students and the visitors, a year of discoveries and enlightenments. Hope 2014 will keep you safe and that you'll make the most of it. Work well, rejoice with your beloved, seize the day.
 (Grammar note: the only time when most can be preceded by the article!) 

As a gift for the New Year, I thought you might enjoy doing this short test to discover which brain you use most. 
So... are you left-brained?  Of or relating to a person whose behavior is dominated by logic, analytical thinking, and verbal communication, rather than emotion and creativity 
Or are you right-brained? Of or relating to a person whose behavior is dominated by emotion, creativity, intuition, nonverbal communication, and global reasoning rather than logic and analysis.

http://en.sommer-sommer.com/braintest/