We went through a photocopy titled Are You Happy with your Body? , about the craze for a perfect figure, the urgent need for men, women and even teenagers to have cosmety surgery done and the contrast with other cultures, eg Nigeria where clinics have "fattening rooms" for women to look better and be socially accepted. There was a fairly long speaking activity based on this reading.
You must be aware that the term that has just started is when all your skills will be assessed, specially your oral competence. If you don´t have an active attitude, show interest and speak clearly in a coherent way ,stating your point of view ,you´re going to sink like the Thistlegorm, the ship in today´s photograph.
Soon after , we had a listening about how the concept of beauty has changed throughout the years ,The Changing Face of Beauty: a gap filling activity based on a lecture given to a group of students.
Going back to your books, we saw a reading called Speed Dating , on page 83 , saw the vocabulary related to people´s character and did exercise 2.This time we coped with some more complex adjectives, such as laid-back, stand-offish ,straight ... which will help you define somebody´s character in a more accurate way.
And to finish with, some rephrasing exercises about the passive voice were seen in your grammars ,page 89.
Homework , grammar ,page 90.
The SS Thistlegorm was a British ship built in 1940 . She was sunk by the Germans on 5 October 1941 near Ras Muhammad in the Red Sea and is now a well known dive site.
The Thistlegorm set off her last voyage from Glasgow on 2 June 1941 destined for Alexandria it was during WW2 and she was carrying supplies to relieve the British Army . As Germany controlled the Mediterranean sea during this period, the ship had to sail around the Cape to the Red Sea. In September she anchored near Ras Muhammad National Park. The Thistlegorm was a target for two German planes returning from Crete . They dropped 450 kg bombs directly onto the ship. The explosion killed nine crew members and was so powerful that it launched two railway locomotives stored on deck into the air. Thistlegorm sank immediately, leaving no time for the crew to operate the lifeboats . Instead, they jumped into the water and were later rescued by another British vessel.
In the early fifties Jackes-Yves Cousteau discovered her by using information from local fishermen. He raised several items from the wreck, including a motorcycle and the ship´s bell, but he kept this information to himself.Nobody else but him knew about it.
In the early 1990s the ship was rediscovered by an Israeli skipper and has become a well-known wreck among divers.It´s a must.The massive explosion makes the wreck very accessible and the depth of around 30 m is ideal for diving: It´s impressive, I´ll show you some more pictures next time.