Another day in Paradise

She calls out to the man on the street
"Sir, can you help me?
It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep,
Is there somewhere you can tell me?"

He walks on, doesn't look back
He pretends he can't hear her
Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there

Oh think twice, it's another day for
You and me in paradise
Oh think twice, it's just another day for you,
You and me in paradise

She calls out to the man on the street
He can see she's been crying
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet
Can't walk but she's trying

Oh think twice...

Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do
Oh lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell from the lines on her face
You can see that she's been there
Probably been moved on from every place
'Cos she didn't fit in there

Oh think twice...

 Working with songs                       

1. What comes to your mind when you read the title of the song?

2. Which themes are the lyric built upon?

3. What do you think about the video made for the song?

4. What is the message of the song?

5. Which song would you compare it with?

6. What do you know about the artist/singer/band?

7. Translate new words using your dictionary:

Hvad får I brug for i engelsklektionerne?

I skal til hver gang medbringe:

- pc (eller låne en på skolen)

- høretelefoner / headset

100 most common verbs

The 100 most common verbs

accept      acceptere  R allow        tillade R ask            spørge R believe     tro/synes R borrow     låne R break        ødelægge/brække U bring         bringe/komme med U buy            købe U can/be able  kan / være i stand til U cancel      aflyse / afbestille R change     ændre / skifte R clean        gore rent R comb       rede (hår) R complain klage R cough       hoste R count       tælle R cut           skære U dance      dance R draw        tegne R drink       drikke U drive        køre U eat            spise U explain    forklare R fall           falde U fill            fylde R find          finde U finish       afslutte R fit             passe R fix            ordne R fly            flyve R forget      glemme U give         give U go            tage afsted U have        have U hear         høre U hurt         skade U know       vidste U learn        lære R leave        tage afsted U listen        lytte R live           bo R look          se R lose           miste U make/do   lave U need         behove R open        åbne R

close/shut     lukke  R/U organise        organisere R pay                 betale U play                lege R put                  sætte U rain                 regne R read                læse U reply               svare U run                  lobe U say                  sige U see                  se U sell                  sælge U send                sende U sign                 underskrive R sing                 synge U sit                    sidde U sleep               sove U smoke            ryge R speak              tale U spell                stave R spend              bruge U stand               stå U start/begin      starte / begynde R/U study               studere U succeed           gore success R swim                svømme R take                  tage U talk                   tale R teach                undervise U tell                    fortælle U think                tænke / synes U translate          oversætte R travel               rejse R try                    prove U turn off           slukke R turn on            tænde R type                 skrive på skrivemaskine R understand     forstå U use                   bruge R wait                 vente R wake up          vågne U want                ønske R watch              se R work               arbejde R worry              bekymre U write                skrive U

Grammar rules in pictures

Apps and websites

En app med mange små dialoger i både lyd og tekst.







The free dictionary - en online ordbog hvor du kan høre ordene udtalt (kun på engelsk): klik

Når du er logget på skolens net, har du fri adgang til Gyldendals Røde Ordbøger

BBC Learning English: klik

Grammatik og ordkendskab: klik

Easy read news: klik

Breaking news: klik

"American" English: klik

Easy understandable English: klik

Papers worldwide: klik

Flere gode links når du skal lære engelsk:

www.ego4u.com

www.e-grammar.org

www.esolcourses.com

www.free-english-study.com

www.englishteststore.net

www.talkenglish.com

www.british-study.com

www.5minuteenglish.com

Learning English - skipping Danglish

Vocabulary

Working with songs

Working with songs 

                      

1. What comes to your mind when you read the title of the song?

2. Which themes are the lyric built upon?

3. What do you think about the video made for the song? (if there is one)

4. What is the message of the song?

5. How can you use the message in connection to your job?

6. What do you know about the artist/singer/band?

7. Which words did you not understand? Look them up!

Working with the news

Working with the news!

1.     What is the news in this article?

2.     Where did it take place – where did it happen?

3.     Describe the persons we meet in the article?

4.     Who is the news relevant for?

5.     Your opinion about the news

6.     Find another headline for the article

    7. Write two important sentences from the text

Engelskundervisning er mange ting

Engelsk som: Globalt mediesprog Musik, film osv.

Engelsk som kommunikations-redskab i forhold til: -privatliv -arbejdsliv

Engelsk som: Kulturoplysning i forhold til engelsksprogede lande

Engelsk som: ”sprogsystem” grammatik, sætnings-opbygning, stavning mm.

Vi arbejder med sange / musikvideoer, dokumentar- og spillefilm, spil og tekstlæsning. 

Short story: Before / after

Mary McCluskey

Before/After

In an instant, a life can divide into Before and After. A phone call, a news flash can do it. Invariably, something remains as a reminder. For Joseph, a colleague at Chloe's office, it is Bach playing on the stereo before the screech of brakes, the crunch of metal, an ambulance, the hospital.

"I hear Bach now and think: oh, yes, I used to love that. Before. In my other life."

For Chloe's sister, Anna, it is a body shampoo. She told Chloe how the shower was hot and steam clouded the glass. She stood in the warm fog, then sniffed the fresh, pine scent of the new Badedas body shampoo. That clean scent of mountains and good health. Just seconds later, her fingers, tentative, pressed back and forth, smoothing the skin as her brain bristled indignantly. It can't be! But it is, yes, it is. I think it is. A lump.

And after – doctors visits, surgery, chemo, hair loss, pain.

Chloe will be reminded of these conversations in four minutes. Right now she chooses a pretty china cup, Staffordshire, patterned with red roses. She pokes the tea bag with a spoon while she pours in the boiling water and then decides to start the laundry while the tea steeps. Dan's shirts are already loaded in the washer but she pulls them out anyway, to shake them. She is nervous that a stray ballpoint might lie forgotten in a pocket, leave a Caspian Sea of navy ink never to be bleached away. As she shakes the shirt, something flies out, floats up like confetti to land on the lid of the dryer. She studies, frowning, a pair of ticket stubs for a New York City theatre.

She is puzzled at first. Then remembers, of course, the business conference in New York City. Seven days had stretched to ten; Dan had been exhausted when he came home, complaining about the demands of clients, the tedious conversation of his colleagues. Chloe studies these tickets with a sense of unreality, as if she is watching herself on a movie set, frowning for the camera. But her mind is seething with questions. Dan had not told her of this theatre visit. Off-Broadway does not seem appropriate, somehow. Hedda Gabler is an odd choice for an evening with a client. Or a colleague.

< 2 >

With cold clarity, Chloe sees that these stubs will lead to questions that she does not want to ask, but must ask. That will lead to answers she does not want to hear. Later, a Decree Absolute, loneliness.

Chloe knows as she stirs her tea, stirs what is now gungy, tarry soup, that she is already in the after. She throws the tea away, gets a fresh teabag, starts over. The tea, though freshly brewed, still tastes thick and stale.

She understands now, that she has moved in space, slid towards some other life. She has crossed that invisible but solid line. Lipton's Orange Pekoe has joined Bach's St. Matthew's Passion and Badedas with Original Scent, to be forever in the before. And there is no going back

Short story: Fishing for Jasmine

John Ravenscroft

Fishing For Jasmine

The silent young woman in bed number six is called Jasmine. So am I, but names are only superficial things, floats bobbing on the surface of the water, and we share deeper connections than that. Which is why she fascinates me - why I spend my off-duty time sitting beside her.

Today is difficult. The ward heaves with patients and I am kept busy emptying bed-pans, filling out forms, changing dressings. Finally, late in the afternoon, I get a few moments to make coffee, to take it over to the orange plastic chair beside her bed. I am thankful to be off my feet, glad to be in her company once again.

"Hello, Jasmine," I say, as if greeting myself.

She does not reply. Jasmine never replies. She is down too deep.

Like me, she has been sea-damaged. I too am the daughter of a fisherman, so I bait my words like fish-hooks, cast them into her ears, imagine them sinking down through cold, dark water. Down to wherever she may be.

"I have little time today," I tell her, touching her hair.

With Jasmine, it is always difficult not to touch. She is that rare thing, a truly beautiful woman. Because of this, people invent reasons to walk by. I catch them looking, drinking her in, feeding on her. They are barracuda, all of them. Wheelchair-pushing porters who slow to a crawl when they near her bed. Roaming visitors with greedy eyes. Doctors who stop, draw the thin screen of curtain, and continually re-examine that which does not need examination.

Great beauty is something Jasmine and I do not share. I am glad of it.

"Your father may be here soon," I say. "Last week he said he would come."

Jasmine says nothing. Her left eyelid flickers, perhaps.

It is two months since the incident on her father's fishing boat, since she fell overboard, sank, became entangled in the nets. It was some time before anyone noticed, then there was panic. Her father hauled her back on board and sailed for home. When he finally arrived, he carried ashore what he thought was his daughter's body.

< 2 >

"Jasmine," I whisper. I want her to take our baited name. I want her to swallow it.

Fortunately, there was a doctor in the village that morning, a young man visiting relatives. It was he who brought this drowned woman back from the brink, he who told me her story. She opened her eyes, he said, looked up at her father and spoke a single word - then sank again, this time into coma.

Barracuda. That is what Jasmine said.

When her father visits, he touches her hair, kisses her cheek, sits in the orange plastic chair at the side of her bed and holds her hand. Like my own father, he has the big, brown, life-roughened hands of a fisherman. He too smells of the sea, and pretends he is a good, simple man.

Jasmine. We share so much, we are almost one.

I remember early mornings, my hair touched to wake me, my father lifting me half-asleep from my bed, carrying me, dropping me into his boat. His voice rough in my ear, his hands rough on my skin. I never wanted to go, but I was just a child. He did as he wished.

I remember salt water, hot sun, my mother shrinking on the shore. I remember the rocking of the boat, the screams of the gulls.

"Jasmine, you have a life inside you. Can't you hear it calling?"

Nothing.

The ward door bangs, and I see Jasmine's father walking towards us, carrying flowers. He smiles at me. Even in death, my own child had my father's smile, and Jasmine's will have this man's. I know it.

He stops by her bed and touches her hair. Something stirs deep inside me. I watch Jasmine's eyelids, waiting for her to bite. 

Short story - Hope and comfort

A. J. McKenna

Hope and Comfort

Charley Foley calls into the Mater Misericordia Hospital to visit his wife.

'How are you feeling?' he asks, sitting at the bedside, close to Dolly who is smiling up at him, her black hair resting against the white pillows.

'I'm fine,' Dolly says, quietly. She looks old and tired to Charley; she is deathly pale and has black pouches under her eyes. When she slips her fingers into Charley's he notices two ugly brown liver spots on the back her small hand.

'You look tired,' Charley says. 'Aren't you sleeping?'

'I was a bit restless last night.'

Dolly does not mention the pain: she doesn't want to upset her husband.

'Any word from Linda?' she asks.

'She phoned again last night. I told her you were grand. I said there was nothing to worry about.'

Linda, their eldest, teaches in a university in Galway. Linda will come home for the holiday in August. Their son, Colm, and his children live in Australia. Colm hasn't been told that his mother is unwell. Colm's a worrier: it's best he's not upset.

Charley gazes dreamily across the chattering hospital ward, bright with pale afternoon sunlight. Other visitors are doing their duties, gathering around the sick, bringing flowers and fruit, offering words of hope and comfort.

'Have you seen the doctor again?' Charley asks his wife.

'Tomorrow maybe.'

'Any idea how long they'll keep you in?'

Dolly turns away and coughs into a tissue, then settles back. She takes Charley's hand again.

'They'll let me know on Monday. They have to do lots more tests. They won't let me home until they know. I'm sorry to be such a bother.'

< 2 >

Dolly's small chest heaves under her heavy nightdress. Charley thinks of a frightened bird. Sweet Dolores Delarosa he used to call her long ago when they were courting, mocking her sorrowful eyes and the way she took everything too seriously. He can't help wondering if she made herself sick with worry.

Poor Dolly Delarosa!

'Don't let them budge you until you're absolutely better,' he says.

'Are you managing all right, darling?'

'Grand.'

Charley is eating out and staying away from the house as much as possible. He's managing all right.

The minutes pass in heated tedium. Charley is watching the visitors and glancing at the small alarm clock beside his wife's bed. He can hear its distant ticking and still recall the irritating ring when it dragged his wife from bed at the crack of dawn and moments later her breakfast sounds clattering in the kitchen keeping him awake, reminding him that there's a day's work ahead and children to be schooled and fed.

Tic-tic-tic-tic- tic-tic-tic.

The kids are all grown up now. Second grandchild imminent. Time is running out. A grey face in the shaving mirror reminding Charley of middle age and the rot ahead. Where's the point in having money if you can't enjoy it? Why can't clocks take their time? What's the hurry?

Ah - God have mercy! Dolly Dolorosa. How different might it have been without her?

Dolly's eyelids droop. Her mouth opens a fraction. She looks almost dead. Moments pass slowly.

'This must be very boring for you,' she says, without opening her eyes.

'Not at all. It does me good to see you.'

'It's not nice having to visit anybody in hospital. It's so depressing.'

'Nonsense.'

Dolly settles her dark head further back against the white pillows. Grimaces for an instant then braves a smile.

'You should leave now, Charley. I think I might sleep for a while.'

'Are you sure?'

'Positive.'

Charley bounces to his feet.

'I'll come in later,' he says.

'Please don't. With it being Saturday the wards will be crammed with people. Leave it till the morning. Come after Mass.'

'Is that's what you want?'

'It is, darling.'

Dolly opens her eyes, smiles like a child. It's been a long time since Dolly was a child.

'You look tired, darling,' she says. 'Aren't you sleeping?'

'I was a bit restless last night.'

'Try to take things easy.'

Dolly squeezes her husband's hand, presses her ringed finger against his gold wedding ring. Her fingers are light as feathers.

'Off you go, darling,' she says. 'Try to not worry.'

Charley bends and kisses Dolly's hot forehead.

'I'll see you tomorrow,' he says.

Dolly's eyes close. Her fingers slip from his.

Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic.

Charley walks along a polished corridor and finds the exit. Outside in the bright car park he locates his car and sits inside. He glances around at the visitors coming and going. Nurses walk past, reminding him of butterflies. Charley reaches for his mobile phone and taps in a number. The call is answered almost immediately.

< 4 >

'Katherine?' he says.

'Where are you? I've been waiting ages for you to call.'

'I'm outside the hospital. I've just been in to see her.'

'How is she?'

'All right. As well as can be expected, I suppose. Who really knows?'

Charley pulls down the sunshade to protect his eyes from the blinding brightness, then returns his attention to his new friend, Katherine.

'She'll be in for a while longer.'

'Will I see you later?' Katherine asks.

'I expect so.'

'Stay tonight,' she offers. 'If you like.'

Charley thinks of his own empty house, the quietness without Dolly and the dreadful silences she left behind.

'I'd like that, darling,' he says.

'Come now,' Katherine whispers with a smile in her lovely voice. 'I'll cheer you up.'

Charley says goodbye and puts the phone away. He smiles properly for the first time that day. He starts the engine and as he drives away Charley glances through the rear view mirror and sees the grey hospital building receding like a prison.

God help me, he thinks. God help us all. 

Ordliste:

pouch                                     pose

pudge                                     skubbe

tedium                                   kedsomhed

imminent                              ”på vej”

rot                                           nedbrydning

brave                                      modigt

Tasks for the text

1. Describe Charley and Dolly

2. How is their relationship?

3. Which role do illness and getting older play in the story?

4. What do Charley and Dolly hope for?

5. Who has your sympathy and why?

6. What can you learn from the story?