English Recordings

England
As I described before, I finished my language course with an elementary level and with that level I arrived in England in September 2009. It was very difficult for me, because I did not understand most of what I heard and I had difficulty expressing myself in most situations, even easy ones. After a month of living in England, I improved my English only a little bit through speaking with people. At that time, I realised what it was that I wanted and that I would do my best in order to do it. I realised shortly after arriving in England that my goal had always been learning languages, especially English, and in acheiving that goal I had always been a failure.
Usually, when I had wanted to achieve a goal, I generally accomplished it. So why was I not able to master English? I started to research articles in English on the Internet. I have read many articles about people around the world who struggle with learning languages just myself . I found a method called the “Effortless English”
system which is based on deep listening. The founder of the method is American and I could understand him very clearly even with my low level of English. I became motivated. I bought his courses – the original “Effortless English” system and “Real English,” and I listened to the recordings all the time, as he recommended--10 to 15 hours a day! My listening comprehension began getting better and better. I understood natives more and more and I got better at expressing myself. It was amazing. I kept
going on listening to those courses over and over again. One of the recordings was about a guy who can speak 11 languages who has his own system for learning languages--the “LingQ” system. I looked for the web page on the internet and registered there. This system was something completely new for me. I must mention that I have come across many language systems on the internet and that I haven’t found one which comes close to being this good. At lingQ, I could do everything :
• I can pick a lesson which I want to listen to or read,
• I can have a conversation with a tutor I pick (American, British or
Canadian),
• I can submit my writing for correction.

After a month of using the LingQ system I realised that a lot of things I had previously been taught about learning foreign languages was not at all suited to my style of learning. I have found, for example, that:
a. I must learn languages independently, otherwise my mind tends to
wander; and
b. I can't be driven by anyone, and I can't work on a lesson which I don’t like. I must always pick something that I enjoy.
At LingQ I could do that. I started reading and listening to podcasts about learning methods and about different approaches. I read a book, “The Linguist - A Personal Guide to Language Learning” written by the founder of the LingQ system, Steve Kaufmann. I did not think about learning for its own sake; I read and I really enjoyed it. It was interesting to read a language learning adventure by someone who was so successful at it in his own life. I have improved a lot by both reading and listening to that book.
I must mention that I had never liked reading--maybe because of school. I have read a lot of uninteresting books at school in order to pass my exams, and as a consequence I did not like reading. I always became tired after reading a couple of pages, or even paragraphs. At lingQ, there is a unique system which is very useful. I was always afraid of reading texts and books in English because there were so many words that I did not know. By using LingQ, in a few months I was able to read advanced articles , and now I can read almost everything in English. It is really an amazing and very powerful tool. I have become addicted to this system!
I have heard many times that language learning is about community, so I started reading forums at LingQ in order to get to know what was new and what type of members were on LingQ. I was amazed at finding out about people there who can speak many languages and who learn more than one language at once. The articles on forums are so interesting and have helped me a lot as I embarked on my own program of learning languages. I wanted to participate in these forums more and more when I realised the
power of LingQ's language community. This has also helped me a lot to improve my English, since I really wanted to understand what people were talking about there. Personally, I think that it is beneficial when learning languages to participate in forums and read articles in and about your target language.
I was so influenced by members of LingQ that I started brushing up my German, which was not good at all when I took it up again. I had forgotten almost everything I had previously learned, but now, armed with LingQ, I know that I can master German. I don’t care about making an effort in order to do it. I have always made an effort anyway so it is nothing new for me. But now, with the right method, the method that works for me, I know I can learn as many languages as I want.
I did not mention my previous experience with Spanish. It happened a long time ago during my childhood, but it's a really nice story. I wanted to learn Spanish because of a singer/actress from Uruguay. I learnt her songs and sang them out loud. I was in love with her. I studied Spanish for three months back then but I remember it even more than German- which I later studied for 11 years! A few weeks ago I listened to her songs again and I still really like them. I wanted to understand them properly, so I found the texts of her songs on the Internet, put them into LingQ and started learning it by using the unique lingQ method for linking each word. Then I picked a couple of Spanish lessons at LingQ , and it was not too bad. I was still able to understand a lot even though I learnt Spanish for only 3 months 15 years ago! I now
have another goal of mastering Spanish. I have really a strong passion for
it.
I have even tried to learn a bit Polish, since it is quite similar to Czech. I have read a couple of articles written by a Polish member and I understood them . It would not take a long time to learn it. Maybe when it will be added in LingQ in the future, I will learn it properly since I have now become a big language lover.

University
Studying at university was quite difficult. All of a sudden, I lived alone, in a
different city, without my parents,and I had to look after myself. It was an interesting experience. There were some problems because of my attitude towards to my studies. But in two years, I realised what I wanted. I really wanted to get a master‘s degree, so I overcame my distaste for studying and focused on it properly. So I started studying as much as I used to at primary school and high school. I did not care about how difficult the exams were, or what everyone said about each exam. I started studying hard, and even though I did not enjoy it at all, I saw my future, and I saw myself with a good job because of having earned a good degree. I hate
failure, and when I did not pass an exam, I always became depressed. Getting my master’s degree was very stressful for me. In the university, I had to have one language, so I picked German, because It was most familiar to me—more so than English, of which I had really only a basic knowledge. I studied German for 1 year at the university, I passed my exam with the best result I could have gotten and that was the last time I was took any interest in it, because although I did well I still was not able really understand anything or to express myself properly. My good results were meaningless.
I was more and more interested in English. I mean, when I wanted to find something…anything about mechanical engineering, I had to find an English article. Everything was in English. Next thing was that I always watched American television series and I really wanted to watch them in English and to understand them. Some of my friends were able to speak either German or English (or at least to understand) and I was always amazed that somebody could have been fluent in a different language. In my third year at university, I started thinking about my future. I knew that I would have to know a foreign language in order to get a good job, but I did not speak any other languages at that time. I was not interested in German-- I was into English, so I found native-speaking private English tutors.
It was really difficult to understand them and after spending many hours with the tutors, I improved only a little bit . I did not know what I had been doing incorrectly,or how I should have learnt a language. Nobody had taught me that before. I was always used to memorising grammar rules and vocabulary, which has not helped me at all. But I did not give up and went on paying teachers, because I still had a hope. I must say that I am very very strong-minded person and for me it was a
personal failure that I did not know any other language by the age of 26, and it was then that I decided to go to do a Ph. D. I knew that if you do a Ph. D you can go abroad and study there. It was a really great opportunity for me. I thought that it was my last chance to become fluent in English, and I really did not know what else to do.
I could have gone abroad in my second year in my Ph. D ., so during the first year I chose an English program at my university in order to prepare myself for my second year in England. In the courses there were professors, docents and Ph. D. students from my faculty. The courses were divided according to levels and I was placed in the pre-intermediate level. I did not really enjoy the classes. I was stressed because I did not want to appear stupid in front of all clever people there. The methods were
based on working with textbooks—the same principle as always before. At the end of the year, I did not pass the final test. If you pass the test, your English level is considered pre-intermediate and you can go on to the next level – the intermediate level. Since I did not pass the test, I was still considered an elementary student. Since most of the other people in the course passed the test, needless to say it was not good for my selfconfidence. Thinking about it, the language courses were not so good for me, because at primary school and high school, I only wanted to pass tests in order to continue advancing to the next level, but because of my test results (and
the added stress of wanting to get into a good university) and my mediocre grades, I was now really stressed and did not enjoy it at all.

High school

After my primary school I wanted to study Management in machining industry in high school. I studied two languages there, German and English. German was my first foreign language and I used to have it three times a week. English was was only once a week (one lesson took 45 minutes). Fortunately, for both langauges we had the same teachers for the whole time, so there was not any problem with starting again and again as before. I started learning English there, and it was my first experience
with that language. As a total beginner who did not know anything about English, we were issued a book printed at Cambridge University that was completely in English. It was quite a difficult subject, but for me no subject had ever been difficult enough that I would have given it up without trying my best. I mean, a lot of students did not make any affort while learning subjects in primary school and high school. Some of them were satisfied with their grades, even though they had bad grades (maybe their parents did not care so much). So that's why even languages were not such
difficult subjects for me—I worked so hard on them. In the beginning of the final year, I had to decide what subjects I wanted to do for my final exam at high school. I could have picked a language or maths. A lot of students picked a language – either German or English. For me, I picked maths. I really enjoyed maths at high school. To me it was playing with numbers and variables--it was a subject that I enjoyed most of all. I decided to go to a technical university and to have fun with the similar subjects based on that.
So that's why I focused on maths even more in my final year and I even picked maths as my final exam, and from that point on I did not care about languages at all, because learning languages was not really enjoyable for me. Why not? I was used to memorizing vocabulary for tests and preparing for conversations for a specific topic, but I must say that I did not listen to anything at home, I did not speak German with anyone, anywhere —it was only used in at high school. So, let's calculate: 5 minutes per each lesson, 3 lessons a week, four weeks a month, 10 months a year, for four
years – so the result is 2400 minutes, which is 40 hours. Forty hours speaking for four years with my Czech speaking schoolmates did make me fluent at all. How could it? When I randomly heard native German speakers on radio and television, I did not understand them. And that was after 6 years of studying at my primary school and 4 years at my high school! So after 10 years of studying German “properly,“ according to SCHOOL METHODS, I had made very little progress fro such a hardworking student. Thinking about it now, it's obvious that I did not really care about my results in German at the time.

I would like to contribute this piece to the Polyglot Project.

Primary school
I experienced my first failure when I was in my second class and I should have decided if I wanted to go to the language school or not. I did not know, but my parents wanted me to study there. There was something like an interview and each pupil should have said what he or she knew in any foreign languages. I don’t remember so much from the interview, but I do remember that I failed and that certainly influenced my life. Before that, I used to go to the class with a lot of friends and with my cousin; however they were successful in the interview so they went to study to the language school from a new school year. I have been told by my family members
many times that my cousin studied at language school and I studied only in normal school - I was an average pupil. He was better than me in everything, not only with school. I was always the worse one. My parents wanted me to have good results at school, so I really tried hard but it was difficult for me. I was always different from other pupils who seemed to enjoy their lives doing what they wanted much more than I did. In my 4th class, I had to pick a language which I wanted to study. I picked German, or maybe my parents did, but never mind. So I was studying German in my primary school from my 4th year there up to 9th year, so it was for 6 years. When I look back to evaluate my German knowledge in final year at primary school, it was not too bad. I was quite confident, because I had been studying hard. Unfortunately, I had too many teachers in such a short time – maybe four teachers for the six years, which was not so good, because we always started over again because each new teacher was not sure what we knew.

1. law
2. horrible
3. develop
4. bought
5. comfortable
6. Birmingham
7. idea
8. perhaps
9. lawyer
10. miscellanous
11. cloth - clothes
12. february
13. colleague
14. through
15. hierarchical
16. entrepreneurial
17. three
18. calm
19. exaggeration
20. refrigerator

~~~~~~~★☆~~~~~~★☆~~~~~~~~~~~★★☆☆~
OK !I'm beginning my cute mouse story about that hot summer night!----------。
That year, we had a very hot summer.
One day, I arrived at HangZhou trail station by myself. After getting off (leaving) the train, the first thing I needed/wanted to do was look for a place to stay.[The first thing I needed to do was to look for my lodging.]
So, I went directly to HangZhou University, and asked if they have a empty room for a foreign student.
That staff showed me was a room with twin beds and air conditioning; it was not bad. During this hot summer vocation, foreign students went on a trip or went back to their homeland, [They try to take advantage of this hot summer vocation .]
therefore, I guessed (or Naturally,) there were some empty rooms.
As for me, the foreign student`s dormitory room is not only cheaper than a hotel,
but also more safer than a cheap Chinese style inn( '旅馆 'or '招待所'。), so I was satisfied.
During the daytime, I was excited about wandering around the entire downtown area.When I came back to my room at night, I washed away all the dirt and sweat I accumulated(모이다, 쌓이다, 축적되다) from wandering town. Then, I turned the air conditioner on.(even though, it was old and loud, but it was a faithful air conditioner that was working very hard.~~♪)

When I was laying on the bed, reading and writing something, I suddenly felt strange.I felt like someone was there with me.Who?Who was here?I looked at here and there,
right and left, all around, but no one was there. (There was no one or thing there.) Just only there`s one empty bed at my bed`s right side.
So I tried to write again, but I could not get rid of that feeling.

Who?
What on earth is he/she?
At that moment someone passed by my side very fast.So I kept looking around whole room with glaring eyes.
Aaa ~~~K！！！！！
UhooKKK～～～！！！！！！！
I found it－－－－－！！！
was him?her?I didn`t know he or she?
But it's certain that there's pudgy buttocks in front of me.His pudgy and big buttocks were exposed under the bed.Oh~~yeah !pudgy! pudgy !! ! It was not a petite buttocks, never! NOT AT ALL!!~
I guess ~~He came to visit me (Sleeping Beauty?)? or not?
If not he also needed that empty clean/comfortable bed with air conditioner?
OK, then after?I don`t need tell you~
~One worker/staff came and checked around the room and finally concluded that "There is not a mouse here, maybe you saw wrong. There is not a mouse hole anywhere."

hahaha~~ So?There was nothing I could do.＾＾
That summer night I had slept with a pudgy mouse.How was it?When I think back (about?) anything, it is coming up to me with beautiful/ sweet .
(When I think about the mouse, I remember it was a beautiful and sweet mouse.)
I miss that one month journey that I went on my first backpacking trip in China just by myself。

bye~~, everybody! Have a good dream!
Oh, If you meet a mouse that summer night sleep with me, please tell him I said hello ~~---~♬~♪~
------------------------------
(Thanks for recording.)

(방방의 여행 이야기-1 )♬~♪~
---<< 생쥐와 하룻밤을 함께~~! ♬~♪~o (^.^)o>>--2010 。5。17--
벌써 시간이 밤 1시가 넘었네요. 그러면 너무 이른 시간인가요? 아니면 너무 늦은 건가요?
방금 전 lang-8친구의 일기를 읽었는데, 그 이야기는 바로 친구가 이사한 집에 생쥐를 발견한 이야기였어요. 분명히, 아니 아마도 이전의 주인이 먹는 것을 좋아하는 사람이었거나, 남은 음식을 버리기 싫어한 사람이었을 거예요.
그러니까 그 사람이 생쥐를 초청 했던 거겠죠.
와`~ 여러분 생각에는, 재미있는 이야기 같지 않아요? 아니라고요? 끔찍한 이야기라고요?
그것도 아니라면...... 무척 신기한 이야기?
어찌 되었던 간에 이런 이야기는 여러분이 한 번 들어 볼 만 한 것 같아요.

그래서~~~
오늘은 제 얘기를 해 보겠어요. 음, 생쥐와 서로 인사를 나누었던 이야기랍니다.
항조우대학교 유학생 기숙사에서 (중국) 쥐와 하룻밤을 함께 보냈던 일이랍니다.
돌이켜 생각해보면 정말 재미있는 추억입니다.^^

여러분도 그렇죠? 지나간 일을 돌이켜 보면 모든 것이 아름답습니다. 그리고 그리워집니다.
모르겠습니다! 이런 느낌, 나만 그렇게 느끼는 걸까요? 아니면 대부분의 사람들이 모두 그렇게 느끼는 걸까요?
아무튼, 제게는 지나간 일은 모두 아름답고, 행복하고, 또 그립고 그렇답니다.
이 ‘한밤에 쥐와 만났던 일’ 이 일 역시 제게는 너무나 즐거운 추억이며, 또한 그리운 사건 입니다.’

----------。자, 그럼 이야기를 시작 하겠습니다.--------------------

그 해, 몹시 더운 여름날이었습니다. 나 혼자서 항조우 기차역에 도착했습니다.. 기차에서 내린 후 먼저 하룻밤을 머무를 숙소를 찾아야 했습니다.
그래서, 트렁크를 끌며 ‘항조우대학’ 으로 가서, 유학생 숙소의 빈 방이 있는지 없는지 알아 보았습니다.
그 종업원이 내게 보여준 방은 2개의 침대와 에어컨이 있는 방이었습니다. 그럭저럭 괜찮았습니다.
더운 여름방학을 이용해 대부분의 유학생들은 여행을 갔기 때문에 당연히 빈방이 있었던 거지요.
그래서 내 입장에서 보자면, 이런 방은 호텔보다 훨씬 싸게 이용할 수 있으니 좋을뿐더러,
또한 여관 보다는 훨씬 안전하다고 볼 수 있답니다.

그래서 나는 흐뭇해서, 낮에는 밖에서 신나게 돌아 다니고, 밤에 숙소로 돌아와 더운 여름날의 길거리를 다니느라 덮어쓴 먼지와 흘린 땀을 깨끗하게 씻은 뒤, 에어컨을 틀었습니다.
(비록 너무 낡아서 엄청나게 큰 소리를 내지만, 맡은 일을 정말 성실하게 하는 에어컨이었습니다.~~^^) )
침대에 엎드린 채, 책을 보며 그 날 일기를 적고 있을 때였습니다.
갑자기 누군가가 내 옆에 함께 있는 느낌이 들었습니다.
누구지? 이쪽을 보고, 저쪽을 보고, 왼쪽도 보고, 오른쪽도 보았습니다. 당연히 아무도 없지요! 단지 텅 빈 침대 하나만이 내 오른쪽에 있을 뿐 이였습니다.
다시 일기를 쓰기 시작했을 때, 아무래도 누군가가 있는 것 같았습니다.
누구? 대체 누구야? 그 순간 갑자기 누군가가 내 곁을 휙 지나가는 것이었습니다!
나는 눈을 부릅뜨고 여기저기를 살펴 보았습니다.

저 여자? 저 남자? 모르겠습니다. 그가 여자인지 아니면 남자인지 ?
그러나 분명한 것은 그/그녀의 오동통하게 살찐 엉덩이가 내 눈 안에 들어 왔습니다!
바로 내 건너편의 침대 아래로 비죽이 드러난 것은 바로 그의 엉덩이였습니다.
네! 오동통하게 살찐, 결코 작지 않은 커다란 엉덩이였습니다!
★REcorded in Korean★Travel story-1②http://audioboo.fm/boos/172973-1.mp3
아마도 내 생각에는~~~ 그는 이 밤에 나(미녀)를 찾아 온 것 일지도요…?
아니라면 에어컨이 딸린 비어있는 편안한 침대를 찾아 온 걸까요?

그 다음은 더 이상 얘기 할 필요가 없겠네요.~~
종업원이 와서 샆펴본 뒤, 그가 내린 결론은 “여기는 쥐가 없습니다. 아마도 손님께서 잘못 본 걸 겁니다! 여기는 절대로 쥐가 들어 올 구멍이 없습니다!”
하하하…. 그래서요?
나야 다른 방법이 없었지요. 그날은 그(쥐)와 함께 밤을 함께 사이좋게 지내는 수 밖에….
어떠세요? …. 돌이켜 보자니 정말 즐거운 추억입니다. 그 해의 여름날의 여정이 그리워집니다.

--모두 안녕히 주무세요!---------내일 뵙겠습니다!~~~ ---~♬~♪~좋은 꿈 꾸세요！
~혹시 꿈에서 나와 하룻밤을 함께 했던 그 쥐를 만날지도요!
~그러면 제 안부를 꼭 전해 주세요! 부탁 드립니다!
-----------------------------------

The purpose of this book is to dig beneath the sorts of surface explanations summarized above to expose more fundamental root causes for why schools struggle to improve. Upon that basic foundation we then construct a set of recommendations to resolve those problems. Our methods for reaching these conclusions are unique. Most books on the topic of improving schools have reached their conclusions by studying schools. In contrast, our field of scholarship is innovation. Our approach in researching and writing this book has been to stand outside the public education industry and put our innovation research on almost like a set of lenses to examine the industry’s problems from this different perspective. The ability of these lenses to shed new light on complicated problems has been proven in contexts ranging from national defense to semiconductors; from health care to retailing; and from automobiles to financial services to telecommunications. We hope that this novel approach to the problems of public education will prove to have yielded comparably innovative insights. So let’s diagnose the fundamental problem. If other countries have these same factors at work in their schools, why is it that so many of their students outperform U.S. students?
Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation. The same is true for learning. We all know that becoming a great athlete or a great pianist requires an extraordinary amount of consistent work. The hours of time required to train the brain to fire the synapses in the correct ways and thus hone the necessary muscle memory and thinking required is no different from that needed to learn to read and process information or think through math and science problems. Unless students (and teachers, for that matter) are motivated, they will reject the rigor of any learning task and abandon it before achieving success.
Motivation can be extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is that which comes from outside the task. For example, a person might learn to do something not because she found the task itself stimulating or interesting, but because learning it would give her access to something else she wanted. Intrinsic motivation is when the work itself stimulates and compels an individual to stay with the task because the task by itself is inherently fun and enjoyable. In this situation, were there no outside pressures, an intrinsically motivated person might still very well decide to tackle this work.
When there is high extrinsic motivation for someone to learn something, schools’ jobs are easier. They do not have to teach material in an intrinsically motivating way because simply offering the material is enough. Students will choose to master it because of the extrinsic pressure. When there is no extrinsic motivation, however, things become trickier. Schools need to create intrinsically engaging methods for learning.
Consider this example. When Japanese companies were developing their world-class manufacturing clout and passing American companies in the 1970s and 1980s, a common explanation was that four times as many Japanese college students were studying math, science, and engineering than were U.S. students— despite the fact that Japan had only 40 percent of the population of the United States. These scientists and engineers, many concluded, were responsible for Japan’s economic ascendancy, which was widely seen as a threat to the U.S. economy.
As Japan reached prosperity, an interesting thing happened, however. The percentage of students who graduated with science and engineering degrees declined. Why did this happen? The answer has little to do with the schools themselves, which did not change significantly. Prosperity was the culprit. When Japan was emerging from the ashes of World War II, there was a clear extrinsic motivation that encouraged students to study subjects like science and engineering that would help lift them out of poverty and reward them with a generous wage. As the country and its families prospered, however, the external pressure diminished. Some people who are wired to enjoy science and engineering in the way schools traditionally teach it—and therefore are intrinsically motivated—or those who have other extrinsic motivations in play still study them. But many no longer need to endure studying subjects that are not fun for them. The same downward trend is now beginning in Singapore and Korea. As their economies have prospered, a smaller portion of their students are studying math and engineering because the extrinsic motivation has disappeared—and there is precious little intrinsic motivation, given the way these subjects are taught.

The Organic Law of Education (May 3rd) determines in article 6.4 that the Education Administrations will establish the curriculum of the different subjects regulated by this law. The basic aspects of the curriculum that constitute the Minimum teaching Standards will be part of this curriculum. Once the Minimum Teaching Standards were established by the Government in Royal Decree 1513/2006, December 7th, the Ministry of Education established the curriculum of Primary education for the schools that belong to its managing field.
Order ECI/2211/2007, July 12th, establishes the curriculum that regulates Primary Education.
The Organic Law of Education in its article 2 (Aims) section “j” states that the Spanish education system will focus on achieving the following aims, among others: “The capacity to communicate in the official and the co-official language, where it exists, and in one or more foreign languages”.
From the analysis of the objectives, from Infant Education the Ministry of Education goes on emphasizing the idea of communication when dealing with languages: To develop communication skills in different languages and ways of expression. In brief, the Organic Law of Education emphasizes the necessity of communicating in a foreign language for all students in our Education system.

An underlying principle of the Law consists of the firm commitment to the educational targets set by the European Union for the coming years. The formation of the European Union has led to convergence of education and training systems which has resulted in common educational aims for the 21st century. That is why the teaching learning of languages should provide the “acquisition of foreign language competence”.
An outstanding aspect in this curriculum is the integration of the basic competences that will allow identifying those learnings that are considered essential from an integrating approach and oriented to the use of the learning acquired. Pupils will have to develop it in primary Education and reach in the Compulsory Secondary Education.

The Benfica hierarchy wanted to appoint Jesualdo Ferreira as the new assistant coach but Mourinho refused and picked Carlos Mozer, a retired Benfica defender, as his right-hand man instead.

Mourinho was highly critical of Ferreira, whom he had first encountered as his teacher at ISEF, and later lambasted the veteran coach by stating: "This could be the story of a donkey who worked for 30 years but never became a horse." Only weeks after being given the job at Benfica, Mourinho's mentor, Bobby Robson, offered him the assistant manager's role at Newcastle United. Such was Robson's desperation for Mourinho to join him he offered to step down after two years in charge and hand over the reins to Mourinho. Mourinho turned the offer down and said he knew Robson would never step down at the club he loved.

However, their reign appeared to be at risk after Benfica's election turned against club president João Vale e Azevedo, and the newly-elected Manuel Vilarinho said that he would instate ex-Benfica player Toni as his new coach

Upon later reflection, Vilarinho rued his poor judgement and expressed his frustration at losing Mourinho: "Back then I would do exactly the opposite: I would extend his contract. Only later I realised that one's personality and pride cannot be put before the interest of the institution we serve."

<level 0 / Carnival / Annette Keen>

Jake arrives at Euston station in London. It is a holiday weekend and it is his first time away from Manchester. Jake is eighteen years old and he lives with his family. Now he is in London. He is very happy. He stops and looks at his map.

'I can go to the Notting Hill Carnival and I can see some interesting places from the bus too,' he thinks.

Jake is sitting on a red London bus behind a big family. The children are standing at the windows. They are looking for famous places.

'Look! There's Madame Tussaud's! Can we go there?'

'Not today,' their mother answers. 'We're going to the carnival.'

'They're going to Notting Hill too,' Jake thinks.

It is a hot afternoon and Jake is sitting on a bench in Notting Hill. Suddenly, he sees some people in costumes. They have balloons and drams in their hands.

'Does the carnival start here?' Jake asks Mel, a girl in a green dress.

'Yes, near here. Look at the floats!' she says. 'Listen to the music! The procession is starting.'

Suddenly, a tall girl runs to the first float. Her costume is yellow and red and she has feathers in her hair. The young men on the float shout to her.

'Quickly, Maria! You're late!'

'Sorry - a little problem with my job,' she says. 'But it's OK now.'

The band moves slowly down the street.

Jake looks at the beautiful tall girl in her carnival costume. Their eyes meet and she smiles at him. Suddenly, he knows. It's love!

Jake's new friends are standing and waiting for him. But he walks away from them. He can only see Maria. Mel talks to Jake but he doesn't hear her. She looks at Maria and she understands.

The carnival procession moves down the street. On the floats people are dancing to the music. Some people in the street are dancing too. There is a lot of music, noise and colour.

Jake is running but there are crowds of people near him.

He can't stay with Maria's float. How can he meet this beautiful girl? Who is she?

Maria looks down and sees Jake again. He has a friendly face and she likes him too.

'I'm Jake. What's your name?' he shouts.

'Hi, Jake! I'm Maria,' she answers.

'Can I telephone you? What's your number?’

She gives a big smile. But Jake can't hear her! The band is playing and people are shouting.

The procession goes near a street café. People are drinking coffee at tables on the street. A tourist is
standing on a chair. He is making a film of the carnival. His wife is watching him. Jake sees a camera on the table. He wants a photograph of Maria. He takes the camera and runs quickly after the float.

'Maria! Maria! I want a photo! Smile, please!'

The procession is moving slowly. There are crowds of people in the street and Jake can't see Maria now.

'I can run down a quiet street and find her float,' he thinks.

He tries the first street. Suddenly, he hears the music from the band. He is near the procession now.

He sees Maria's float and shouts, 'Maria! I'm here!'

She sees him and she waves.

The tourist finds a policeman.

'A young man in a red T-shirt - he has my camera!' he says.

'Yes, I understand. Can you see him now?'

'It's very difficult in this crowd. But wait... yes, I can see him! There he is!'

Jake is standing on a bench.

'Look! That's him and that's my camera!'

Jake puts his photograph of Maria in his pocket. He is happy now. The policeman and the tourist run to him.

'Come down, young man,' the policeman says. 'Is that your camera?'

'No, it's my camera,' the man says.

Jake's face is red. Now he has a problem.

'Sorry, I only want one photo. Here's your camera.'

'I'm very sorry,' Jake says. 'I never do this.'

Jake thinks of his mother and he is very unhappy. The tourists think of their son and suddenly they are unhappy too.

'We have our camera now,' they say. 'He isn't a bad boy.

Please, can he go?'

'No, I can't do that,' the policeman says.

Jake is standing in front of a police sergeant.

'Now, in your pockets you have . . . a map, a pen, £5.73, a train ticket. Is that all?'

'Let's see this important photo,' the first policeman says.

Jake takes the photo from his back pocket and gives it to the sergeant. The sergeant looks at the photograph for a long time. He is surprised.

'Where's Policewoman Day?' the sergeant asks.

'She's at the doctor's,' a policewoman says.

'No, she's here again now,' a policeman says. 'Do you want her?'

'Yes. Send her in. We have a problem.'

The policeman walks to the door and says, 'Please come in, Policewoman Day.'

The policemen look at the photo and they smile. Why?

Jake doesn't understand.

The door opens and Policewoman Day comes in. She looks at Jake. He looks at her. They are very surprised.

'It's you!' they say at the same time.

'Look at this photo, Maria,' the sergeant says. 'Here you are at the doctor's - or perhaps the carnival?'