THE CURIOUS INCIDENT
OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the Night-time takes place in the year 1998 in and around the
town of Swindon, England. The fifteen-year-old narrator of the story,
Christopher John Francis Boone, discovers the slain body of his neighbor’s
poodle, Wellington, on the neighbor’s front lawn one evening and sets out to
uncover the murderer. His investigation is at times aided, and at other times
hampered, by the mild form of autism he lives with. After Christopher hits a
policeman in a misunderstanding at the scene of the crime, the police take
Christopher into custody. They release Christopher with only a stern warning,
under the condition that he promises to them and to his father not to look into
the murder any further.
Christopher
chronicles his investigation in a book—the book we are reading—as part of a
school assignment. Ignoring repeated warnings from his father, Christopher
investigates the crime scene and conducts interviews with the residents of his
block. He uncovers a more tangled plot than was first apparent when he
discovers that his father and the owner of the slain dog, Mrs. Shears, had a
romantic affair. He subsequently learns that their affair began in reaction to
another relationship, one carried on between Mr. Shears and Christopher’s
mother, before she disappeared from Christopher’s life.
SONGS
Improve your English
Listening with Songs
Listening to English
songs with LYRICS (song text) is a fun way to expand your English vocabulary
and improve your listening skills.
* First get the lyrics
of the song that you would like to listen.
* Play the song a few
times to get the main idea (what the song is about) and catch the keywords
(important words). If
they sing too fast, most media players can play the song at a lower speed.
* Then check with the
lyrics if you got the main idea and keywords right. Try to guess the meaning
from the story (context clue) first; looking up the song meaning can help you
understand the song better. Use a learner's or slang dictionary to find the
meaning of new vocabulary.
* Now play the song
again and sing along, so that you also practice the pronunciation of your song.
A karaoke version of the video may be available online.
-Songs with the simple
present.
MOVIES
MOVIES
Learn English through
Movies and Film
What’s the most fun
way to learn English?
If you’re tired of
going to class or reading a book, there’s nothing better than learning English
through movies and film.
Learning a foreign
language is already hard. And the culture is different from your own. So
sometimes, you might have trouble understanding what actors are saying, or what
they’re doing on the screen.
So today, I want to
share a few tips with you on learning English with movies. They’ll help you
learn helpful new words and phrases, but also enjoy watching movies at the same
time.
THREE Reasons: Why
Learning English With Movies and Film Works
Perhaps you’re still
wondering if you can still really learn any English by watching movies.
After all, watching
movies is supposed to be fun, right? So, how can you learn while having so much
fun with the film? And more importantly, why should you learn English with
movies instead of with textbooks?
Here are three
reasons I believe it works, and why I recommend learning the language this way.
1. You’ll get to
learn real English…not textbook English.
The English you learn
through textbooks or in ESL class is not what you’ll hear people say. For
example, in beginner English classes, you might have learnt how to say “it’s a
quarter to seven” or “it’s raining cats and dogs”. While these are correct, we
almost never say these in real life.
In contrast, the
English spoken in movies is very natural. It’s also very close to what you’ll
hear if you speak with native English speakers too. This will help improve your
spoken English.
2. You learn English
words in context.
This is one of my
favourite aspects of watching movies. Let’s say that you like watching crime
films (these are great!). After watching ten or twenty movies, you’ll start to
learn vocabulary related to the context, or subject, of crime.
Usually, when we
learn words traditionally (e.g. in school), we study things like vocabulary
lists. The problem with learning new words with vocabulary lists is that you
can learn what words mean, but not where and how they are used.
For example, let’s
say you learn the new word “detective”. From the dictionary, you’ll know what
that it means “a person who investigates crimes”. But unless you use it, it can
be easy to forget. It also doesn’t give you an idea where the word is used most
frequently, and how it is used.
On the other hand, if
you learn the word “detective” through watching crime films, you’ll know
“detective” can mean many things. For
example, it can be a title in front of a person (e.g. “Detective Beckett”). Or
maybe it’s the noun referring to the job
(e.g. he’s a detective). And maybe you’ll even hear things that will let you
form opinions about the word (e.g. “you lousy detectives”).
This way, you won’t
only learn what each word means, you will also know how it’s used.
Killing two birds
with one stone.
You will never be able to do that through
textbooks.
3. You hear how things
are said.
In English, people
often say that 30% of what we say is expressed through our words.
So what about the
other 70%?
Well, the other 70%
is all about how you say it. You know, things like your expressions (like a
smile, a frown) and your tone of voice (like when you sound angry, or when you
sound sad).
As you can guess, the
how is usually more important than the what to English people.
Let me give you an
example.
I’m sure that one of
the first phrases you wanted to learn in English was “I love you”. But did you
imagine that depending how you say it out loud, it can be very different?
“I love you” – you
might hear this after two people (especially lovers) fight! One person may be
trying to say to the other person “I really love you…why don’t you believe
me!?”
“I love you” - a
person might really want to say “I love you (and not anyone else…don’t worry!)
“I…LOVE…YOU” – this
might be a person saying “I love you” in a very loud voice…while trying to
really confess their love!
“I LOVE YOU!!” – the
person might be saying “I love you”…while they’re really angry!
As you can see – if
you try to learn this by reading – you might have been confused. Even though
the four phrases are written differently, they use the exact same words.
But if you hear these
phrases out loud, they will make perfect sense to you!
Knowing what someone
is saying is important. But knowing how they are saying it is even more
important. We call understanding the “how” the nuances of the English language.
Through observing
actors in films, not only will you be able to learn new words, you will be able
to understand how they are said. The characters might be sad, happy, surprised,
angry. And you’ll understand this immediately.
And these are the
three important reasons!
If these reasons all
make sense to you, then you’ll love FluentU. We’re dedicated to providing real
world resources to language learners. Check out FluentU’s English language
video collection – it’s always growing with new findings from around the
English-speaking world. You’re guaranteed to find something you love and which
matches your learning style – there are cartoons, news programs, music videos, movies,
funny YouTube videos and much, much more.
By listening to
native English speakers use their language in lots of different ways, you’ll
get a better understanding of how English is spoken in the real world outside
your classroom and textbooks. Think it might be hard to understand native
English speakers? We’ve made this easier by providing subtitles. As you listen,
you can view the definition for every word that is spoken. Even better, FluentU
lets you keep track of your progress and all the new vocabulary you learned on
the website!
As you can see, we’re
super excited about learning English with movies and other video resources.
With this, I hope I have convinced you that learning English through movies can
work. What’s more, I hope I’ve convinced you that it is helpful to help you
learn English, even though it might be non-traditional.
And hopefully, that
got you a bit more excited about watching English movies.
So in the next
section, I want to mention a few tips about how to learn English with movies.
Because while it’s important to have fun, if you want to learn and remember new
phrases, you have to do a bit of work too. Not too much…don’t worry! But enough
so watching the movie will be well worth your time.
0 comentarios:
Publicar un comentario