Reading comprehension: Armia Krajowa.

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

Nos vamos ahora a 1939, año que se va pareciendo cada más a 2022. El ejército aleman, con ayuda del ejército ruso -que nunca se menciona- ocupa Polonia con una ferocidad que hace que las trincheras de la Gran Guerra parecieran juegos de niños.

Surge el Home Army o Army Krajowa, como ahora está forjándose de nuevo el Ejército de Liberación Ucraniano, que fue, ¡cómo no! traicionado por la Rusia soviética de Stalin. 

Tal vez, aprender un poco de la Historia reciente, nos venga bien ahora que hay tanto payaso que no condena el genocidio de Rusia en Ucrania.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?l=spanish&id=2485140724&searchtext=

Armia Krajowa

The Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; Polish pronunciation: [ˈar.mʲja kraˈjɔ.va]) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasions in September 1939. 

Over the next two years, the Home Army absorbed most of the other Polish partisans and underground forces. Its allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what came to be known as the Polish Underground State. Estimates of the Home Army's 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made the Home Army not only Poland's largest underground resistance movement but, along with Soviet partisans, one of Europe's two largest World War II underground movements.^[a]

The Home Army sabotaged German transports bound for the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union, destroying German supplies and tying down substantial German forces. It also fought pitched battles against the Germans, particularly in 1943 and in Operation Tempest from January 1944. The Home Army's most widely known operation was the Warsaw Uprising of August–October 1944. The Home Army also defended Polish civilians against atrocities by Germany's Ukrainian and Lithuanian collaborators. Its attitude toward Jews remains a controversial topic.

As Polish–Soviet relations deteriorated, conflict grew between the Home Army and Soviet forces. The Home Army's allegiance to the Polish government-in-exile caused the Soviet government to consider the Home Army to be an impediment to the introduction of a Communist-friendly government in Poland, which hindered cooperation and in some cases led to outright conflict. On 19 January 1945, after the Red Army had cleared most Polish territory of German forces, the Home Army was disbanded. 

After the war, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, Communist government propaganda portrayed the Home Army as an oppressive and reactionary force. Thousands of ex-Home Army personnel were deported to gulags and Soviet prisons, while other ex-members, including a number of senior commanders, were executed. 

After the Fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the portrayal of the Home Army was no longer subject to government censorship and propaganda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Army

Saludos.

Reading comprehension: work and family.

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

Cambiamos un poco de tercio y dejemos al asesino de Putin y sus seguidores por un rato.

Vamos a hacer hoy un ejercicio de comprensión lectora, traducción y práctica de algunas preguntas de ‘multiple choice’ de vuestro examen.

Nos ocupamos de un tema peliagudo: la conciliación familiar el trabajo y la familia. 

Os dejo un enlace directo a la página del British Council que he usado para seleccionar este ejercicio. 

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/sites/podcasts/files/LearnEnglish-Reading-B2-Work-life-balance.pdf

Reading comprehension: The civilian lives lost to Russia's war.

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

Hoy vamos a  leer  un texto que nos va a dar otra oportunidad para reflexionar sobre la tiranía y sus terribles consecuencias: la pérdida de vidas humanas

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60547807

Ukraine war: The civilian lives lost to Russia's war

The number of civilians killed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine is rising by the day. By Sunday, Ukraine's human rights commissioner put the number of civilian victims alone at 210, including several children.

A seven-year-old girl died in an attack on a kindergarten, there have been fatalities in the capital Kyiv, and 10 members of Ukraine's ethnic Greek community were killed when their villages came under fire in the south.

Alisa Hlans was one of six people who died when her kindergarten was hit on the second day of the Russian invasion on Friday in the small town of Okhtyrka, an hour's drive from Ukraine's north-east border. 

Alisa was three months away from her eighth birthday. She was fatally wounded and Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova said she died in hospital on Saturday.

Doctors were fighting to save the life of a second wounded child, she added in a message on social media, above a picture with the message "we need peace!"

Several other children have been killed in the Russian advance, including a girl called Polina, who was in the final year of primary school in Kyiv.

According to Kyiv's local authority she and her parents were shot dead by a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group on a street in the north-west of the capital.

Polina's brother and sister were taken to hospital. Her sister was in intensive care and her brother was taken to a separate children's hospital.

The majority of civilians have not yet been named but their stories are equally distressing.

A boy was killed when a block of flats was shelled in north-eastern Ukraine on the second day of Russia's invasion. The blast started fires in several flats in Chuhuiv, a small town outside Ukraine's second city Kharkiv.

Rest In Peace.

This video from the BBC World Service shows how a missile destroys a government building, flattened, annihilated.

Manuel Molina.

Reading comprehension: WAR. 23 de febrero de 2022

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

Hoy vamos a trabajar varios textos muy breves y bastante más sencillos. Ahora toca leer un poco sobre qué está pasando con la canalla, miserable y genocida invasión rusa de Ucrania. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589

Why is Russia ordering troops into Ukraine and what does Putin want?

By Paul Kirby
BBC News

For months Russia's Vladimir Putin denied planning to attack Ukraine, but he has now torn up a peace deal and ordered troops into two rebel-held eastern regions, in his words to "maintain peace".

Russia has deployed at least 150,000 troops near Ukraine's borders in recent months, and there are fears that its latest move marks the first step in a new invasion. What happens next could jeopardise Europe's entire security structure.

Where are Russian troops being sent and why?

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, rebels backed by President Putin seized big swathes of the east and they have fought Ukraine's army ever since. There was an international Minsk peace accord but the conflict continues and so Russia's leader says he is sending in so-called peacekeepers into two rebel-held areas.

The West sees that as nonsense and believes Moscow is planning an imminent, new invasion of Ukraine, a country of 44 million people bordering both Russia and the European Union. For a start, there are reports of tanks arriving in separatist-controlled Donetsk and the latest satellite photos show Russian troops deployed within 9 to 19 miles (15-30km) of Ukraine's borders.

What's Putin's problem with Ukraine?

Russia has long resisted Ukraine's move towards European institutions, both Nato and the EU. Now, Mr Putin has claimed Ukraine is a puppet of the West and was never a proper state anyway.

How far will Russia go?

President Putin may stop at tearing up the peace accords in the east. He has in the past only spoken of "military-technical" measures if he does not get what he wants and Moscow previously insisted "there is no Russian invasion".

But the chances of a diplomatic solution do not look good and the West fears he will go further. US President Joe Biden has warned: "We believe they will target Ukraine's capital Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people." 

In theory, Russian forces could aim to sweep across Ukraine from the east, north and south and try to remove its democratically elected government. They could mobilise troops in Crimea, Belarus and around Ukraine's eastern borders.

¡Que Dios nos pille confesados, como decían las abuelas!

Saludos.

Reading comprehension: SCIENCE AND DREAMS.

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

Hoy vamos a trabajar varios textos muy breves y bastante más sencillos. De nuevo, son materiales que están incluidos en el programa de vuestro curso de la página CREA de la Junta de Andalucía. El segundo de hoy versa sobre el sueño y la ciencia, ¡no os durmáis!

mmolpor@

SCIENCE AND DREAMS

Japanese scientists say they have found a way to "read" people's dreams. Researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for what they say is, "the world's first decoding" of night-time visions. Their research is published in the journal "Science". The researchers wrote: "Visual imagery during sleep has been a topic of persistent speculation, but its private nature has been a disadvantage for objective analysis. Here, we present a neural decoding approach in which machine models predict the contents of visual imagery during sleep." They could predict what images their volunteers had seen with a 60 per cent accuracy rate.

The research is a part of a wider programme aimed at studying the brain. It hopes to unlock the secrets of the unconscious mind to help the disabled move artificial limbs using brain activity. It could also help those with dementia and other neurological conditions. A spokesperson said: "Our expectations from the dream study are quite high, but we are also looking carefully at the ethical aspects of the technology, which may allow a third person to look at somebody else's thoughts." Head researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani said, "dreams have fascinated people since ancient times, but their function and meaning has remained closed". He believes his research is "a key step towards reading dreams more precisely".

 Texto tomado y adaptado de www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1304/130408-dreams.html#ixzz2WjytN3oc

Saludos. 

Reading comprehension: Hamburgers.

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

Hoy vamos a trabajar varios textos muy breves y bastante más sencillos. De nuevo, son materiales que están incluidos en el programa de vuestro curso de la página CREA de la Junta de Andalucía. El primero de hoy vuelve al tema de la comida basura que tantos estragos está causando en nuestras sociedades 'modernas'.'

mmolpor@

NO STOPPING AFTER EATING 25.000 BIG MACS

-nine years after his first Big Mac, Don Gorske has entered the record books by finishing his 25,000th Big Mac. He passed the milestone at a McDonald'srestaurant in his hometown in Wisconsin. "I plan on eating Big Macs until I die," said the 57-year-old. "I have no intention of changing. It's still my favourite food. Nothing has changed in 39 years. I look forward to it every day."

 

Gorske's obsession with the burger started on 17^th May 1972 when he bought three Big Macs to celebrate the purchase of a new car. He says he enjoyed them so much that he went back to McDonald's twice the same day, and ate nine burgers. He has only gone eight days without a Big Mac since his first bite. Despite his diet Gorske`s doctor has described him as a healthy man and he takes regular exercise. However, he admitted an obsessive compulsive personality, saying that he liked to collect the packaging and enjoyed counting his Big Macs because of a love of numbers.  

 

McDonald's says there are 540 calories in a Big Mac, which is more than a quarter of the calories a person on an average diet would consume. The burger also contains 29 g. of fat and 1,040 mg of sodium, which are both more than 40% of the daily recommended amount. Medical experts do not recommend the Gorske diet. Tara Gidus, a dietitian, said Gorske probably has good genetics, as well as the fact that he didn't order fries and soft drinks with his burger. She said she is "less concerned about the bad stuff in the Big Mac and more concerned about the good stuff he's missing", such as fruit and vegetables. Before tucking into his 25,000^th burger Gorske said: "I really do enjoy every Big Mac."

 Saludos.

Reading comprehension: Leading a healthy life

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

Hoy vamos a trabajar varios textos muy breves y bastante más sencillos. De nuevo, son materiales que están incluidos en el programa de vuestro curso de la página CREA de la Junta de Andalucía. El cuarto y último de hoy versa sobre la comida basura que tantos estragos está causando en nuestras sociedades 'modernas'.'

@mmolpor

Leading a healthy life: Fast Food

When people all over the world are looking for a quick, easy meal to grab on the go, fast food is the common solution. In fact, over 25 percent of Americans consume fast food every day. 

Fast food does not have to be unhealthy, but most of the time it is; consumers often order foods with more fat, calories, sugar and sodium, and less nutrition and vitamins than is necessary. Keep reading to find out some more about what makes fast food so common in America and how to pick healthier options.     

There are close to 50,000 fast food chains across the United States, with McDonalds being the largest restaurant chain. In the world, there are more than 500,000 fast food places. Kids between the ages of 6 and 14 eat fast food 157,000,000 times every month. Ninety-six percent of kids in school could recognize an image of Ronald McDonald, the face of McDonalds. The only recognizable figure that ranked higher was Santa Claus. 

Most people don't consider fast food as their healthiest option. While there are some ways to eat a well-balanced, nutritious meal at a fast food restaurant, the unhealthy options are more common and more appealing. Often, someone can consume all of the calories they need for the entire day in one sitting at a fast food restaurant. 

The most common vegetable served at fast food places is the potato in the form of French fries. There is no problem with eating fast food occasionally, but if you are eating it more than once a week, consider ordering some healthier options that are more nutritional. 

Many foods are considered unhealthy if you eat too much of them—even healthy foods. Keep this in mind when ordering fast food.

Saludos.

Reading comprehension: Shopaholism.

Buenas tardes, estimados alumnos.

 Hoy vamos a trabajar varios textos muy breves y bastante más sencillos. De nuevo, son materiales que están incluidos en el programa de vuestro curso de la página CREA de la Junta de Andalucía. El tercero trata sobre el problema del consumismo desenfrenado y la adicción a las compras.

CÓDIGOS DE COLORES:

AZUL: Traducciones.

ROJO: Aspectos gramaticales.

VERDE: Aspectos culturales.

NARANJA: Estructuras concatenadas

MORADO: Traducción y sinónimos, antónimos, etc.

Amarillo: Palabras con trampa.

Os dejo una plantilla para que, sobre la marcha, podáis ir completando con sinónimos, antónimos, etc y los significados. Espero que os sea de utilidad. Pinchad aquí para descargarla. 

Shopaholism

Shopaholism, also commonly referred to as compulsive shopping or shopping addiction is basically characterized by an uncontrollable desire to make purchases when there is really no need for the same. Oniomania is the technical term used to describe shopaholism. While some health experts believe that compulsive shopping is an impulse control disorder, others claim that it is an indication of obsessive compulsive disorder or bipolar disorder. Of late, it has also been accepted as a type of addiction, because like in the case of any other addiction, the individual lacks control over his impulses.

Plastic money or the credit card is the main cause for worsening this mental condition. Shopaholics run their credits up to the maximum limit without thinking whether they will be able to pay off for such huge expenses. Initially, they feel happy; but later, just like any other addictive behavior such as alcoholism, tobacco smoking, drug abuse, gambling, or binge eating, they begin to experience a sense of guilt as they feel that they have just done something wrong. Many people, especially women and teenagers, shop for pleasure when they are in low spirits.

This addiction ultimately leads to financial losses, which not only affect the person concerned but also his or her near and dear ones. The strained relationships caused by this mental disorder can even break homes. The exact cause of such addictive behavior is not known; but according to some psychiatrists, such actions can be triggered by a need to feel special. Shopaholics try to fill in a void in their lives with objects. The act of shopping gives the compulsive shopper a high due to the release of certain ‘feel good’ hormones.

There is no customary or foolproof treatment option that can help to get rid of this problem immediately. The individual should first of all accept that he has a problem and should therefore take the help of his family and friends, without feeling ashamed. If the condition gets worse, Medical help must be sought. Undergoing professional counseling or joining a self-help group is often useful in trying to deal with this problem. The condition usually does not require any medication unless it is too severe or there are other associated distressing symptoms.

Texto adaptado de www.healthizen.com

Saludos.