EC Malta English Language School

Exhibitions – Spanish Treasures from the Khalili Collections 08/11/2011 to 29/04/2012
Venue: National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta.
Admission price to the Museum: Adults €5; Students (12 years upwards) & Seniors €3.50;
For more information on the Khalili Collection visit the official website – http://www.khalili.org

by student Diana Rocio Aparicio Castillo from Colombia

My Christmas holiday was the best holiday ever. It was a sunny but cold Thursday morning. I woke up at 8am to take a shower and make my favorite breakfast, orange juice and scrambled eggs with mushrooms. The mixture of different smells can give you a lift to heaven right away. At 11 am, I was ready to go to the bus station. After 30 minutes the bus to the airport arrived. On my way to the airport, I couldn’t help being anxious, but at the time very happy. That was it, I could finally see him again, Camilo, my boyfriend. The last time I had seen him was a month ago, I was thrilled. After 90 minutes, I arrived to the airport; I was desperate to see him and hug him. In the minute I saw him I hugged him tightly, I didn’t want him to go again. That day we went to have a delightful and romantic dinner and I thought it was the best night of my life. Camilo stayed with me for one week, we went to know different places around Malta, our time together was awesome and unforgettable, but what made this holiday so special was one particular day. On December 29, we went to St. Georges Bay and as we were walking along the beach in the middle of the night, he stopped, went down on his knees and asked me to marry him. I said yes with tears in my eyes, because I understood that was the beginning of our family.

Music, Dance and Theatre – A musical 20/01/2012 to 22/01/2012
Maleth presents “Alice in Wonderland”, a musical based on the evergreen classic by Lewis Caroll.  
Venue : The Manoel Theatre – Valletta
Email : bookings@teatrumanoel.com.mt

By Nelson Gomez from Colombia

I shared my passion for Capoeira. When I arrived in Malta I was always thinking to share my experience of Capoeira with other people. My level is Pre Intermediate and it was my first time speaking English in public. At the beginning of the lesson I had to speak about the capoeira’s history and then, I had to start the exercises. I like that experience because I started to use different tenses and times when I was speaking. This is very good if I want to improve my English taking into account that capoeira is my hobby, so I can learn English with a kind of fun. About 20 students came to Capoeira session and there was very good energy. Everybody had a great time! I like to share the culture because my speaking and my listening is better with this experience. The people told me they would like another lesson, so I continue training and I don’t miss my hobby here. So when I teach capoeira I feel good and I can share my culture with all the world. If you want to share something about your culture with others and practise your English, contact Sue Wadge (Academic Year Coordinator – Suewadge@ecenglish.com) in East 110 and she will help you organise your presentation in a fun way.

Family Entertainment- Circus with animals until 08/01/2012
Venue : The Granaries (Fosos) – Floriana

Exhibitions- Modern art works from the National collection until 14/01/2012
An exhibition from the National Collection of modern works of art, by various artists, curated by Dr Joseph Paul Cassar (Maryland University College and resident Art Educator for the New York Times). At the Heritage Malta Area Exhibition Hall, Citadel Gozo. Opening hours: Monday – Friday 09.00 – 17.00hrs; Saturday 09.00 – 12.00hrs. Admission Free.

The main difference between English and my language (Japanese) is the word order. The word order of English is that a subject comes first, a verb then an object. But the word order of Japanese is different; a verb comes last. And I think there is a big difference in pronunciation. Japanese doesn’t have the sound like ‘th’, ‘v’, ‘r’ and ‘l’. Adding to this, all Japanese words end with vowels, so it is difficult for us to pronounce English words which finish with consonants. These are the differences between English and Japanese.
The ways of learning vocabulary are reorganising, getting visual, using new words and challenging myself. Reorganising means putting the words into some groups for example, dog, cat, zebra… and so on are ‘animal’; beach, summer, travel and so on are ‘holiday’. Getting visual means drawing a picture using the vocabulary. And then it is important to make sentences with the new vocabulary. I think this is the best way to keep the words in mind. I wasn’t good at memorising, but I could memorise many words by using these ways in the lecture. So these ways are worth trying.

There are many differences between English and German. Our teacher Kevin showed us one. The word afraid. If you translate in German it means just scared, but in English we also can you is it as sorry. For example: ‘I’m afraid that Mr. Smith isn’t here at the moment’. The sentence setting is also different. When we translate from German to English it would be wrong. The people would understand you but it isn’t correct. It looks worse if you write it. I’m afraid of spiders is the correct sentence but if I would translate every word from German to English the sentence would be like this: ‘I have afraid from spiders!’. So we learned that we can’t translate every word from our language to English. There are some differences in the meaning of the word. Kevin also showed us how we can learn new vocabulary. It was very good for me and it will help me a lot. We can separate the word into groups, and we can make sentences with the difficult ones. We also drew them but I don’t think this would help me. I prefer to separate them into groups. But all ways are helpful.

Old Long Syne, by James Watson (1711)

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
on Old long syne.

CHORUS:

On Old long syne my Jo, in Old long syne, That thou canst never once reflect, on Old long syne.

My Heart is ravish with delight,
when thee I think upon;
All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,
and speedily is gone;
The bright resemblance of thy Face,
so fills this, Heart of mine;
That Force nor Fate can me displease,
for Old long syne.

CHORUS

Since thoughts of thee doth banish grief,
when from thee I am gone;
will not thy presence yield relief,
to this sad Heart of mine:
Why doth thy presence me defeat,
with excellence divine?
Especially when I reflect
on Old long syne

CHORUS