The British Media - TV and Newspapers

The British Media - TV and Newspapers

What are the top 3 news stories on the following news channels today?

• BBC News

1.Bahrain activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja wins retrial

2.London 2012: Five missile sites identified

3.England floods: Driver dies crossing swollen ford

• ITN news

1.Roy Hodgson in talks to become next England manager
2.Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks cut 1,400 UK jobs
3.Flood warnings issued as rain persists

• Channel 4 News

1.Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks axe 1,400 jobs
2.Hodgson in England manager talks
3.1948 Olympics 'no big deal' says veteran

What is the top story in the following newspapers online today?

• The Guardian

David Cameron called to Commons to answer questions over Jeremy Hunt

• The Sun

Wad a garden £1m RBS boss Stephen Hester opens his mansion to the public

• The Daily Mirror

Horror at the hairdressers: Football agent arrested after his estranged wife is stabbed to death at beauty salon

 Choose one story, either from a news channel or a newspaper, make notes and write a short summary on your blog.

 England floods: Driver dies crossing swollen ford
summary:
We know that the weather was terrible during these days in UK. Many areas has suffered from flooding. This news shows that A 52-year-old man who from the Middlesex area  has died beacause of the severe flooding. His car submerged at a ford in Hampshire. He could not be resucitated by Paramedics and he was pronounced dead at the scene.His dog also died in the incident.But luckily, His wife managed to swim free of the car and was taken to hospital and was rescued finally.

 

References:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17891251
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17892419
http://www.itn.co.uk/
http://www.channel4.com/news/
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/

London riots

London riots

Last summer, London had a series of riots on August 6th, 2011, lasting for 4 days. It also influenced other cities, such as  Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. People thought that there were many reasons behind last summer's riots, some people believed the essential reason were spending cuts,which cause poverty-stricken family can not live suitable as other people. Some individuals also thought the major reason is racism, this riot began because a police officer shot and killed a black guy within the black comminity. However, British government claimed this riot was based on youngesters, who lack of morals and education.

Google Maps Charts UK Riot Danger Zons policeman shot and killed a black man which seriously influenced the riots.Most importantly, young people lack of parental control of individuals may well be contributing factor in last summer's riots.Therefore, i think parents should pay more attention to supervise their children.

 

As i know, the majority number of young people joined in London riots. In my opinion, poverty was the main reason why most of them took part in this activity is that the government decreased allowance for poor family and increased tuition fee, which aggravated families' burden. In addition, i think another reason is beacause of racial discrimination, the riots were sparked off by police shooting a mixed-race man.the

We know that some of them who joined in the riots were quite young and others hadn't been in trouble before. But it is exactly destory British environment and reputation all over the world, althought they are young they also should get suitable punishments for the rioters.  I think community service is an useful and suitable way of punishing them. They also can help other people by community service, for example, they can go to the geracomium to help elderly people . They also can acquire more knowleadge and open their mind.Additionally, some of them also need to get a fine beacuase they damage public property and some shops.

 

 

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/08/london_riots.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/05/anger-police-fuelled-riots-study

about the team work activities

    

the team work activities

Write your comments about the team work activities from last week and this week. What have you learnt and what do you think you have achieved?

From last week to this week, we have already done a variety of team work activities in class. We are interested in these activities. Not only can we study together, but also we can share our ideas each other.

In my opinion, there are a considerable number of advantages of team work activity.During the period of the activity, i found that working together can create better decisions.If you do a task by yourself , you may not finish it as professionally as working with a team.

In addition, i think team working can improve the efficiency of the work. I have not to finish all the task by myself, and we can share ideas each other when we were doing the tasks.

Most importantly, individuals sharing their skills and knowledge to complete mutually beneficial tasks. It is enable to us to improver our English as well. For Chinese students , it is important for us to brush up our English by the team work activities. We have to  communicate with each other and describe something  in English more than before.

                

(funnel)

1.The Senedd, which was opened in 2006.

2.'devolution' is similar to 'transference', give power to the other one.

3.You can see some buildings when i was standing in front of the Senedd ,such as St'David Hotel and pier head and penth.
4.The reception area of the Senedd is situated on the first floor.

5.The funnel in the Oriel which is use for reflecting natural light downwards into the Siambr. what is more, the funnel is similar to a tree, visitors can share their ideas under this big tree.

6.There are many headphones in public gallery,  which be use for people who do not understand the language.Visitors could have it translated through their headphones.

7.Plenary meetings takes place in the Siambr on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

8.Firstly,the glass walls is convenient for visitors so that they can view plenary the meeting inside.In additon,Welsh people can come and listen to their representatives make decisions on policies.

9.You can buy many different kinds of  souvenirs in the Assembly Shop, such as Clogau gold, Melin Tregwynt, Penderyn and books .

I was very interested in visiting the Senedd on Wednesday.Beacuse it was the first time that i had seen the government orgnazing the meeting closely. That was amazing! In China , citizens have less opportunities to see the government's meeting like this tour.

Reference
http://www.assemblywales.org/.

Parliament and Government

Parliament and Government

Parliament is the toppest legislature in Britain . Members of Parliament(MP) usually hold a meeting at Palace of Westminister , which is a ancient building in London. In addition , Big Ben is also associated with this building. The British government comes from the Parliament and is responsible for it. Parliament consists of two Houses, House of Commons and House of Lords , and they play an essential role in Parliament. The meeting is hold twice a year, the first session is from the end of March to the end of August, the second session is from the end of October to Christmas Day.



The parliament plays an important role in the UK. In the field of scrutiny and legislation.The most essential role of the parliament is examining and challenging the work of the government . The second one is debating and passing all laws.Additonally , parliament also enable the government to raise the taxes.


What is an MP 
A Member of Parliament is called by MP in UK. British citizens who want to be a MP, they should be over 18 years old and never did some illegal affair before. Meanwhile, they also are selected by native citizens. Each constituency chooses an MP to represent them. The MPs have to talk about the views of each area citizens in parliament.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Currently, the Prime Minister of UK is Dacid Cameron, who is the leader of the House of Commons.

 The current Deputy Prime Minister is Nick Clegg, who is responsible for constitutional and political reform. He is a leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Reference

http://www.wisegeek.com/in-britain-what-is-an-mp.htm

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/
http://www.channels.com/episodes/show/4362981/UKYP-at-the-House-of-Lords-introduction-#/episodes/show/4362981/UKYP-at-the-House-of-Lords-introduction-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_the_United_Kingdom
http://www.parliament.uk/lords

European Union

 

   

 The European Union is an economic and political confederation of 27 member states which have headquarters in the capital of Belgium,Brussels. It is a significant trading power in the world.The European Union 's development is closely related to European Community, developing through three main stages: Belgium,Luxembourg and the Netherlands these three economic Union, the Community and the European Union(1993).

   

                                                            The reason why the idea of a United Europe come about is that many countries were eager to creat a peaceful and prosperous Europe. In addition , they want to develop their economic stronger and create a single market with freedom of movement. Nowadays, it is the fact that European Union does stand for something important on the world stage.

     It was shown by the picture, we can find that the Structure of the EU.European Council as a central decision-making body of the EU.Council of Ministers can make a decision though the law.European Commission is a central administrative office . European Parliament directly elected for by member countries population on 5-year term.European Court of Justice ensures European laws are upheld. Judges appointed from each member state.

    The European Union is finally composed of 27 sovereign Member States in 2009: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Ppland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. 

There are 27 countries in the European Union, however, the major languages are English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. They can communicate with each other easily in common language. They also use the same currency in some countries, which is Euro. In the end of the 2011, there are 17 member states have used the Euro.

     Britain plays an important role in EU, which influced a siginificant development of the EU. Britain joined in 1973, it did not like other countries succeed in joining in EU at the beginning because many countries diagreed.Today, UK also benefits EU development because of the  economic and  history of the Britain.

 Reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO75ZsvMkc8

http://www.euromove.org.uk/index.php?id=6509

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

 http://www.dadalos-europe.org/int/grundkurs4/eu-struktur_1.htm

The differences between your country and UK system

 When it comes to the Education system , it is quite different from UK and China!  In respect to education UK is quite different from China. Not only the educational system, but also the teaching  methods .  In UK, there are some different education systems in England, Scotland , 

Wales and Northern Island.

 http://www.britishcouncil.org/usa-education-uk-system-k-12-education.htm

In England, full-time education is compulsory for all children aged from 5 to 16.The education system is mainly divided into 7 aspects,such as Nursery, Primary education,Secondary education,Tertiary education or A-level and so on.

http://uk.internationalstudent.com/study_uk/education_system/

Eduaction in Northern Island,  it is more similar to England, but  Northern Ireland's results at GCSE and A-Level are consistently top in the UK. Northern Ireland's school holidays are considerably different from other nation's. Northern Irish schools often do not take a full week for half-term holidays, and the summer term does not usually have a half-term holiday at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_holiday#United_Kingdom


Pupils remain at primary school for seven years. Then aged eleven or twelve, they start secondary school for a compulsory four years with the following two years being optional. In Scotland, pupils sit Standard Grade or Intermediate exams at the age of fifteen/sixteen, for normally eight subjects including compulsory exams in English, Mathematics, a Science subject (Physics, Biology or Chemistry) and a Social Subject (Geography, History or Modern Studies).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Scotland

In Wales,  i found that students have to study Welsh during their school life, which is special. But the educaiton system is similar to  England's.

In China ,  education is one of the most important parts for the government. Consequently, the government pay more attention to the education system. It is not the same as the UK education system , which have different education systems in different areas. There is only one education system in China . All citizens must attend school for at least nine years. The government provides primary education  for six years, starting at age six or seven, followed by six years of secondary education  for ages 12 to 18. Students have to finish primary and junior middle school education and then they must pass the entrance examinations for their higher education . If they cannot pass the exam, they do not have an opportunity to go to the university. Consequently,  Chinese students have to study hard and try their best to pass the entrance  examinations .

British focus on teaching students' practical skolls, therefore, teacher often organize different kinds of activities to improve students' creativity and practical skills. In addtion, there are a few students in one class, teachers can pay more attention to every student easily.


Chinese teaching methods are examination- oriented. Teachers teach student how to pass the exam instead of teaching some useful skills. However, many schools are developing teaching methods today, they are studying many other efficient teaching methods from other countries. Some school also organize some tranditional activities for the students and enrich their school life.