Fake News

Hi everyone!

I'm not as active on the blog as I'd like, but in any case I'm glad I can take a little while from time to time to share an activity with you here.

The topic I've chosen is fake news and the impressive advancement of technology that can enable us to create false impressions. Someone once said that, if it's technology that the general public knows about, then it's probably already obsolete! Don't doubt that what we can see in a video like this one is much less advanced than what the actual cutting-edge software can do.

It's still quite shocking that we can manipulate images and sounds in real time, and even if fakes are easy to spot at the moment, the effect that it can have on public opinion is quite unpredictable-- regardless of whether it is finally disproved or not.

So let's go for a bit of sentence completion to accompany this short BBC report:

1. Green screen or __________________ can give us virtual backdrops to interact with.

2. We’re only years away from creating realistic environments: in real time, we can manipulate voices, facial expressions and __________________ .

3. Some software operates by taking take one person’s facial expressions and __________________ on to another person’s features.

4. The development of these technologies requires ethical frameworks that could __________________ the implications they may have on society.

5. A new tool to manipulate voice __________________  by Adobe, the company who invented PhotoShop.

6. To spot a fake, the resulting altered audio would be __________________ , but that wouldn’t stop it from spreading.

7. Fakes can be debunked in __________________ , but this doesn’t stop people from believing them or from becoming viral.

8. One possible consequence of the dissemination of fakes is that solid evidence could be dismissed as __________________  by those who try to deceive us.

9. If there is a high level of distrust in institutions, a term like fake news is deployed in many ways, even to describe what is __________________ and __________________ .

10. This fast-paced technological advancement means we will have to refine how we __________________  from our senses.

Share your answers and your ideas on the topic in the comments section. Key here. Enjoy!

Topic video: tourism and conservation

Hello everyone!

One of the widest topics that we can deal with, it also includes some vocabulary on cities and transport.

An old piece of news about an eternal debate: is Venice selling itself to tourist exploitation? Work on the vocabulary first (you can use the widget on the right to help you), then answer the questions as accurately as possible. You can find a lot of useful collocations in the answers provided in the key.

Enjoy!

VOCABULARY

dwarfing
to (bitterly) resent sth
liner
vessel
guidelines
tide

QUESTIONS

What do those people against large cruise ships argue?
What is the justification given by the cruise company?
How many people does the tourist traffic in Venice amount to?
Who argues that there are far too many tourists?
How is the debate summarized at the end?

Surveys!

Hello everyone,

Following the reading about "Truth and Statistics", here's the British comedy Yes, Minister showing us how to obtain opposite results in a survey. Wonder how? Through the use of so-called "leading questions", that is, the questions that lead or introduce one more important question in the poll.

The one piece of vocabulary you whould know in advance is National Service, which was the obligatory military service in the UK (although this could be easily guessed by the nature of the questions.

I propose two activities with different degrees of difficulty: either transcribing the poll questions (ready for some British accent!), or completing this gap-filling.

You can check your answers here.

Enjoy!

)

The Northern Lights

Hello for our videos of the month of February!

As some of you probably know, the 24th of January brought us a wonderful present in the form of a coronal mass ejection, which makes northern lights more common. A good moment to take all your savings and head to the Arctic Circle to enjoy one of the wonders of nature!

This video is a preview of the BBC series Wonders of the Solar System, with Professor Brian Cox (of whom I am an alleged fan). So here you have Brian Cox looking up into the skies again...

Questions (answers in the comments, transcription coming in a few days):

1. Why did they go to the Arctic Circle on snowmobiles?

2. How likely is it for them to watch an aurora that night?

3. Where are the film images taken from?

4. What does the energy from the solar wind do?

5. How does Prof. Brian Cox describe the aurora?

Enjoy it! The beauty of the night sky again... Magical.

Update: the full transcript of this video.

Looking at the night sky

Hello everyone!

A sort of popular demand has triggered this post. The video on Orion and its legends!

Let's remember the questions to be answered here:

1. Check the pronunciation of "Orion" before you watch the video. My question here for the comments is going to be: where did you check that pronunciation? I hope you give different answers so we pool together a number of pronunciation resources.

2. Name an adverb+adjective collocation used in the video to describe Orion.

3. What are the legends of Orion according to a) the Egyptians, b) a native American tribe, and c) aborigines in Australia?

So, I'd be delighted to see your answers in the comments. Don't worry about being wrong or right, you're closer than you think to the right answer most of the time!

Enjoy the video!

The IT Crowd: team players!

Back again with some brief pieces of the hilarious BBC series The IT Crowd. In this episode, which is the first one, Jen goes to an interview where what she has included in her CV turns against her.

Some vocabulary you may need for this piece:

a stare

to know your stuff

As you can imagine, her relationship with the IT team is not precisely great, so they decide to tell their boss that it's not working out for them. Do you remember the collocation, "to work as a team"? Well, you'll hear it a couple of times here.

This second video is subtitled. Some vocabulary you may want to look up before watching:

to escort

the premises (do you remember what it means?)

recruitment

to get on like a house on fire:

http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/dictionary/get+on+like+a+house+on+fire#house_1

Enjoy!

(dedicated to all the IT technicians and engineers in our classes)

BBC Wildlife

Hello everyone!

I'm getting quite addicted to the BBC Worldwide channel in Youtube. The video I bring you today is part of a BBC Worldwide documentary. Let's work on some of the complex structure "ingredients" that we have been seeing in class, as well as some vocabulary:

Phrasal verbs and verb+preposition

Give the full context for these verbs. What do they mean?

to stretch up:

to head for:

to bring up:

to pull up:

Finding complex structures

Find an instance of:

A relative clause

A participle clause

Finding collocations

How many instances of adverb+adjective can you find? How many adjectives?

Find a new meaning for the verb "to claim", providing its context.

Enjoy!

BBC News - student fees rise

Hello everyone!

The video for today was already seen as one of the "daily videos" for Avanzado 2. I have been trying to subtitle it but try as I might, there is always something wrong. Encarna had so kindly provided us with a transcript, and I don't want to waste it, so we'll do it the old way: I'll give you the link to the video, and post the transcript as a comment.

The video is in BBC News, and it's usually a pain to load. Please insist, refresh and refresh until it loads.

Some comprehension questions:

What is the cost of Theresa's university studies?

What do students have to do in Dani's class?

Why is the student community important in Maastricht?

What's the difference between local students and overseas students according to Nijls?

When they graduate, what are the advantages that the students at Maastricht will have over other British students?

Enjoy (again)!

A Bit of Fry and Laurie

A little video in which the meaning of the verb "to claim" is very clear. Let's remember what the dictionary says:

1 [transitive] to say that something is true although it has not been proved and other people may not believe it

claim (that)… He claims (that) he was not given a fair hearing.claim (somebody/something) to be/do something I don't claim to be an expert.claim something Scientists are claiming a major breakthrough in the fight against cancer.it is claimed that… It was claimed that some doctors were working 80 hours a week.

In this video,

1. What did the psychic claim?

2. What did he not claim?

So, I continue with my vindication of British humour. And a good opportunity to see Hugh Laurie outside his role of Dr.House (and a lot younger, too!)

Enjoy!

Miranda's Best Friend: Tim the Toastman

Second installment of this hilarious programme: did Miranda Hart have a friend made of toast? Try to guess if it's true or just a lie, both with and without subtitles.

There are some words you may want to look up in the dictionary on your right before watching the video:

mould

rotting (to rot)

a toaster

grounds for

committal

Enjoy!

Subtitled:

Frankenstein exhibition and play

The video for today explores the creation of the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, which is back in the news thanks to a theatre play on show at the National Theatre.

Try to find the following information, and feel free to post your answers as a comment, including any evidence from the video. Something that you might want to be careful about is the name Shelley, which can refer both to the author of the novel (Mary) and to her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mind the context to know which of the two they're talking about at each point.

Enjoy!

1. Why is the presenter at the Bodleian Library in Oxford?

2. Date of the Shelleys’ trip to Geneva:

3. Expression to tell us that they are getting on well with their host:

4. Why did they have to spend most of the time indoors?

5. Who suggested that they all write a ghost story?

6. Where did Mary get the idea for Frankenstein from?

7. Number of novels she had written up to that moment:

8. What’s happened to Mary Shelley’s notebook?

9. Who wrote on the margins of the pages? Why?

10. What happens in the passage that they have in from of them?

11. Shelley tried to persuade her to _____________ to her great history inheritance.

12. Mary Wollstonecraft (author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women) was her __________

13. Full date of first publication:

14. Where did Walter Scott publish his guess that the novel might be by Shelley?

Harry Potter review

So, a very simple activity for this one: preferably after listening to the review once (you can skip the sound clips from the film to make it shorter and avoid spoilers, although I think there aren't any), you are invited to write down any adjectives and/or (better still) adverb-adjective collocations.

If you've liked this review, feel free to browse Kermode's blog here.

Enjoy!