Learning thru English

It is said that its origin is the changing of calendars that took place in 1582. Previously to that date, the New Year celebration took place from 25th March to 1st April. With the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the celebration was moved to 1st January.

But as the media at that time were not what they are today, in many places people were not aware of the change until years later, so 1st April continued as a reference. This resulted in the habit of playing tricks on those people on that day, custom which eventually spread to England and Scotland in the eighteenth century and later to the American colonies and the rest of the world. You can read about that if you click here.

Shrove Tuesday is the name used in English speaking countries to refer to the day before Ash Wednesday, first day of Lent. It is equivalent to our Carnival Tuesday.
The word “shrove” is the past of the verb “shrive” (confess). According to Christian tradition, the week before Lent is the time to prepare for this period of penance and fasting. Shrove Tuesday is the last day of that period. In the UK, Ireland and Australia, it is also known as Pancake Day. Eating pancakes is the last chance to eat food with ingredients such as sugar, butter and eggs, traditionally limited during the fasting of Lent. Formerly pancakes were served with a stew of meat (a luxury by then …) Now they are served sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice, but they can also be covered with syrup, jam, chocolate…

You can learn how to cook pancakes if you click here.

 On Pancake Day, “pancake races” are held in towns and cities in the UK. It is said that the custom arose in 1445, when a neighbour of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England, was so busy cooking pancakes that she did not realize about the time until she heard the church bells ringing for service. Then she left home and ran to the church still with her apron, the pan and the pancake that was in it … Olney race is famous worldwide and participants must be women resident in the village for three months at least. They must wear an apron and a hat or a scarf. The race begins at 11:55 am at the market square and the winner is the first to arrive at the church (375 meters away), serve the pancake to the bell ringer and be kissed by him. Of course the pancake has to be intact after being thrown into the air 3 times during the race … The record is 63 seconds and it was held in 1967.

You can watch the race in this video.

British people celebrate Bonfire Night every year in memory of a famous event, the Gunpowder Plot. On 5th November 1605, a group of Roman Catholics planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament, in London. On the previous evening, one of them, Guy Fawkes, was caught and the plot was discovered. That is why it is also called Guy Fawkes Night. He and all the other conspirators were executed. Originally, it was celebrated as a victory for Protestants over Catholics, but the festival is now enjoyed by everyone. It involves fireworks displays and the building of bonfires on which traditionally “guys” are burnt.

There are festivals involving fireworks and bonfires all around the world. Do you know any of them?

A new school  year is starting and I hope you all are eager to learn new things! Maybe one of those things is a language: English, for example could be really helpful in your life! Watch this video and I hope you decide it is not so difficult as you may think!

Have a look at this, isn´t it amazing? 

More than 200 dancers perfomed their version of “Do Re Mi”, in the Central Station of Antwerp, Belgium. Those 4 fantastic minutes started on 23rd March 2009, 08:00 AM. It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television programme, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical of “The Sound of Music”.

Most people consider this chant as Manchester United anthem. Have you ever listened to it?

The Busby Babes are mentioned in the lyrics, but perhaps you do not know who they were.

Matt Busby became manager at Old Trafford in 1945. Busby adopted a policy of bringing in players from the youth team whenever possible. The team won the league in 1956 and 1957 with an average age of only 21 and 22 respectively. The youth policy set in motion by Busby has now become a hallmark of the most successful periods in the history of the club (the mid-1950s, mid-to-late-1960s and 1990s). Busby’s original “crop” of youth players was referred to as the Busby Babes.

The Busby Babes were notable not only for being young and talented players, but for being developed by the club itself, rather than bought from other clubs, which was customary then, as now.

Eight of the Busby Babes died in 1958, when the plane carrying the team home from a European Cup match crashed on take-off at a refueling stop in Munich, Germany. The last remaining player of that group, Sir Robert (”Bobby”) Charlton, is considered to be one of the greatest English players of all time. He retired from playing in 1975, though he had left Manchester United two years earlier. He became a member of Manchester United’s board of directors in 1984.

You have sometimes asked this question in class. I think most of you can see the difference now, but maybe you can understand it better if you click here.

Union Jack is the popular name of the Union flag, which is the British flag. It incorporates the national symbols of three of the four countries which form the United Kingdom: St. George’s Cross, the flag of England; St. Andrew’s Cross, the flag of Scotland; and St. Patrick’s Cross, the flag of Ireland (Ireland became an independent country in 1922, but Northern Ireland has remained being a part of the United Kingdom). As Wales was not a Kingdom but a Principality, it could not be included on the flag.

The cross represented on each flag is named after the patron saint of each country.

You can read about the story of the flag if you click here.

Easter is a time of springtime festivals. In Christian countries Easter is celebrated as a religious holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God. But the celebrations of Easter have many customs and legends that are pagan in origin and have nothing to do with Christianity.

Do you know Easter symbols and customs?

If you want to read more, click here.

Did you know that “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is a song from the 1945 musical, Carousel.

Because the song is included during the graduation finale of the musical, it has become a standard, sung by graduation classes in the United States.

The song is also sung at football clubs around the world, where it is performed by a chorus of supporters on matchday. This tradition began at Liverpool F.C. in the early nineteen-sixties when the deejay at Anfield played the top-ten commercial records in ascending order, with the number one single transmitted last, shortly before kickoff. You’ll Never Walk Alone, by Gerry and the Peacemakers (a Liverpudian group) was no.1 for a long time and supporters sang it along. Once the song dropped out of the top-ten, they continued to sing it.

Now it´s Liverpool anthem and the title appears on the club’s official badge.

People who have been at Anfield say that listening to You´ll Never Walk Alone is a really thrilling experience and everybody sings (even supporters of other teams!).

If you have never listened to it, here it is…

And here is the original version with lyrics (so you can try and sing it, too!)

Sometimes references to things that students do not know come out in class and then they ask questions. That is what happened when we read a text on the history of basketball that the PE teacher had prepared and YMCA appeared.  Some had heard the song but had no idea what the letters YMCA stand for. So I prepared some notes on the subject and took them back to class, with the lyrics and video of the song. Well, I must say that was a big success! Everybody sang and danced! (and I also hope they learnt something!).

YMCA

The Young Men´s Christian Association (YMCA or “the Y”) was founded on June 6, 1844, in London, England, by George Williams, a 23-year-old man, typical of the many who arrived in big cities with the Industrial Revolution. He was worried about the lack of healthy activities in cities such as London and so he founded the first YMCA to help those young men.

Since then the YMCA has grown up to become worldwide with more than 45 million members from 124 national federations which belong to the World Alliance of YMCAs. Generally, YMCAs are open to everybody, regardless of faith, social class, age or gender (there is also a YWCA, Young Women´s Christian Association).

The YMCA pioneered the concept of night school, providing educational opportunities for people with full-time employment. Many YMCAs offer ESL (English as a Second Language), alternative high school, day care and summer camp programs. Some colleges and universities owe their creation to the YMCA (Springfield College, for instance, was founded in 1885 as an international training school for YMCA professionals).

In 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian, invented basketball while studying at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts (later to be named Springfield College, mentioned above). Naismith wanted to invent a new game to interest pupils in physical exercise. The game had to be interesting, easy to learn and easy to play indoors in winter. It was a success from the very first game. In the 1936 Summer Olympics, basketball became one of the Olympic events.

In 1895, William G. Morgan, from the YMCA of Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented the sport of volleyball as a slower paced alternative sport which the older Y members could particpate in.

Until the late 1950s, YMCAs in the United States were built with hotel-like rooms called residences or dormitories, known as a cheap and safe place for a visitor to stay in an unfamiliar city. In 1940 there were about 100,000 rooms at YMCAs, more than any hotel chain. By 2006, YMCAs with residences became relatively rare in the States, but many still existed.

Many YMCAs throughout the world still maintain those residences as part of their programming. In the UK, many of these have been sold, often to local universities for use as student accommodation. YMCAs in England are still known as organizations that provide a safe place for homeless young people (over 7,000 bedspaces).

In 1901, Henry Dunant, who co-founded the Geneva YMCA in 1852 and was also one of the founders of the World Alliance of YMCAs, won the first ever Nobel Peace Prize for founding the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863 and inspiring the Geneva Convention. He shared the prize with Frédéric Passy, founder and president of the first French peace society.

In 1946, John R. Mott, USA, President of the World Alliance, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his “long and fruitful labours in drawing together peoples of many nations, many races and many communions in a common bond of spirituality”.

“Y.M.C.A.” is also the title of a 1978 song by The Village People which became a hit in January 1979. The song reached No. 2 on the USA charts in early 1979 and No. 1 in the UK around the same time, becoming the group´s biggest hit ever. Its lyrics tell us about the virtues of the association. The song has continued being popular due to its status as a disco classic (it is No. 7 on the VH1´s list of The 100 Greatest Dance Songs of the 20th Century).

A popular dance in which the arms are used to spell out the four letters of the title has become very popular, too, and it is frequently played during breaks in the action at sporting events with crowds doing the dance as an opportunity to stretch, similar to the later “Macarena”:

Y -  arms outstretched and raised

M – made by bending the elbows from the “Y” pose so the fingertips meet over the head

C – arms extended to the left

A – hands held together above head

On New Year´s Eve 2008, The Village People performed at El Paso´s 75 Sun Bowl´s Brut Bowl half-time show to break the world record of the most people doing the Y.M.C.A. at once (more than 45,000 people did the dance, beating the former record of 13,000 people).

If you want to learn more, here are the links to the YMCAs in the USA and Spain:

YMCA in the USA

YMCA in Spain