Late July Materials
Hello Students,
I hope the month of July has been kind to you — hopefully you are enjoying the sunshine of these summer months. Besides the one hot Easter weekend we experienced in April, summer has been very grey, cloudy and windy — after one year of living in Scotland I think it’s safe to say most days here are dark or rainy or both. My wife and I feel very lucky and grateful we got to visit Italy and Greece — although we are returning to America next Friday, we will definitely revisit the Mediterranean, I’m not sure about returning to the UK!
For any new students who are just getting to know me — I used to email my students materials to study in addition to the COACH platform exercises but the Intesa firewall security blocked many of my emails, so now I post links to different resources on this website. In my last post I shared many articles I have written as a journalist about my experiences teaching and some other information about me if you’re interested or curious.
One of the craziest stories that is capturing the full attention of the media focuses on Area 51 — the supposed UFO and alien related government secret facility in the USA. What seemed like a joke has now grown into a movement
Many people think the supposed movement to raid Area 51 is simply a distraction from this major news story that may be changing world stage politics very soon. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was friends with everyone from the Clintons, the Trumps, the Bushes — many presidents, celebrities and more — but he was commiting horrible crimes of human trafficking and many other sex scandals the entire time. These charges may implicate many other powerful people and reveal a dark, disturbing underworld that connects many of the worlds political leaders through greed, money, murder and worse.
Here’s his Wikipedia if you want more information on this monster
A common topic for our classes— the environment — recently the famous actor Robert Redford (the actor who once played Jay Gatsby in the older film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fantastic world-famous 1920s novel The Great Gatsby) wrote an article about the state of our world.
This is an inspiring article from the BBC about a hiker who was able to hike to the highest point of each of the 50 states in the US — all while conquering diabetes
VICE is an alternative news source that some people enjoy, while others do not appreciate VICE for its often lewd and sometimes ridiculous stories. Nonetheless, they have grown into a very serious journalistic organization over the years, complete with a show on HBO — here is an interesting piece about the climate change warriors “The Extinction Rebellion”
Here is another very interesting article from TIME for anyone interested in science, technology, space and / or teleportation.
This is an article from BBC I found very surprising — it reveals that Scotland has the highest amount of drug-related deaths in the EU. I’ve heard things about drugs in Edinburgh (after all, the famous novel “Trainspotting” and its film adaptation focusing on heroin addiction took place in Edinburgh) but the worst of the drugs and violence is in Glasgow — the biggest and most modern city in Scotland.
Here is an interesting story from NPR about the building of a new telescope in Hawaii that is being protested because of the historic land is being built on
This is another article from NPR — an interesting and slightly sickening piece that allows you to track the money for political candidates
This week I am sharing a very interesting TED Talk — it focuses on an Amazonian adventure with lots of history
I found this short article very relevant in today’s world — the fact “politcal correctness” and “sensitivity” might be having a negative effect on our psychology as people are losing their sense of humor. On the one hand, I think we need to treat everyone as equals to be respected, but on the other hand, we need to be able to laugh at ourselves. What do you think?
For grammar this week I’m sharing some more basics that are very good to practice in order to master —
About Pronouns —
https://www.ef.co.uk/english-resources/english-grammar/pronouns/
& distribtuives like both or either or neither
I always like to share music with my students — one of my favorite and most underrated bands is a group called Cotton Jones — they put out an album ten years ago that became one of my favorites — called “Paranous Coccoon”
I even wrote a short piece about it because I love it so much and want to share its brilliance with more people — if you want to learn more about the band, the music, the album and the lyrics, feel free to read here
For anyone interested in “indie” (independent or underground music) I make mixes and upload them online sometimes via my band’s page or my label’s page — here is one mix for summertime — this is an hour and a half of ad free music — no commercials :) good for any occasion I hope
I will leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors we mentioned earlier — F. Scott Fitzgerald. This quote reminds me of something I think about often in regards to politics in our modern world — we need to be able to agree to disagree more and have a functional discussion even if we disagree so we can compromise for a better world. I wrote an article on this topic once:
This quote reminds me of that -
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up
If you’re interested in more famous quotes in English —
Another very famous quote that inspires me —
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Ghandi
Have a great week, a wonderful weekend and please feel free to email me at my work email adam.fitzgerald@glt-talent.com or my personal email adamfitzsmith@gmail.com
Also — if you need to reschedule a lesson or if you need to cancel a lesson please contact Global English to let them know
They have told me only coach@globalenglish.com can help a learner to reschedule a session. So contact that email for scheduling.
As many of you know — I am leaving The UK and returning to The US with my wife and our two cats next week — we fly back on July 26th — so because of this, I will not be available for any classes on Thursday, July 25th or on Friday July 26th. We can resume classes that following Monday July 29th once I’m back in Michigan — it will be the morning for me while it’s the afternoon or evening for you then. Let me know if you have any questions, any lessons from July 25 & 26 will be rescheduled as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time!
Talk to you soon.
All my best,
Adam Fitzgerald
