Learning thru English

Last week we talked about mysteries … Do you remember the Loch Ness monster?

Well, they say they were filming an interview when they saw something which could be Nessie. What do you think? Is it fact or fiction?

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!)

World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) is an organization founded in 1980 by Peter Gabriel, former lead vocalist and flautist of the rock group Genesis, Thomas Brooman and Bob Hooton. They had such an enthusiasm for music from other cultures that they thought they could share that with other people. This developed into an event incorporating music from all over the world.

The first WOMAD festival took place in Shepton Mallet, England, in 1982. Now, festivals are held in over 20 countries with an audience of over 80,000 people per event.

The next WOMAD festival in Spain is taking place in Cáceres from 7th  to 10th March.

Here is the link to WOMAD in case you want more information.

http://womad.org/

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