Quidditch: the game that enchanted the world

Quidditch is the sport invented by author J.K.Rowling for the Harry Potter books. But now it's a real international sports competition...


Quidditch at Hogwarts
In the Harry Potter books, pupils at Hogwarts School don't play traditional English sports like hockey or cricket. They play Quidditch! It is a rough contact sport played between two teams of seven players who fly around on broomsticks. Harry Potter plays an important position for his team: he is their Seeker and his job is to catch the Golden Snitch.

Quidditch World Cup
By 2007, Quidditch was so popular that a World Cup tournament was organised by the IQA, the International Quidditch Association. Every year, 80 of the world's 300 Quidditch teams compete in a two-day championship. You must be 13 to participate but most of the athletes are older. Just like in the books, girls and boys play together on the same team: Quidditch teams are always mixed.



Quidditch for Muggles
Harry Potter fans loved the game so much that in 2005 Quidditch became a real sport! It was created at Middlebury College in Vermont, USA. Players don't fly around the pitch - The game was adapted for play on the ground. But they do ride broomsticks which they hold between their legs as they run!

The snitch problem
In Muggle Quidditch, the Golden Snitch is not an enchanted ball that flies around the pitch! This role is played by a person who places a tennis ball inside a long sock! The "Snitch runner " attaches the sock onto the back of his or her shorts and has to run fast so that the Seeker cannot take the Snitch. It looks hilarious!

Quidditch fans
In 2014, the Quidditch World Cup was in Florida, USA. It's a fun event for all the family. Fans don't just come to watch the games, they come for the Harry Potter atmosphere. They can try the famous butterbeer and listen to music by the group Harry and the Potters. Some dress up as wizards and witches with cloaks, scarves and hats!

Did you know?
In 2001, J.K.Rowling worte a book about the rules and history of Quidditch. In the book, she says that Quidditch is a fictional sport for wizards only and that nobody really plays it. She never imagined that one day it would become a World Cup competition!

A delicious dress

You might love chocolate, but would you like to wear chocolate clothes? This model is wearing a dress painted with 50 kg of chocolate. It took two weeks to make for a chocolate show in London last year. But wearing it is not easy: you have to keep cool or the dress melts!

Jeans... 140 years old and still so cool!

Every day, you get up in the morning and put on your jeans. On 20 May, it's the official birthday of the world's favourite trousers. But how much do you know about them?

Mini pocket
This used to be called a watch pocket - people put their watches here to keep them safe. It has got smaller with time, and is now called the coin pocket.

The rivets
In 1872, a tailor called Jacob Davis used copper rivets to reinforce the pockets of Levi's jeans. He and Levi Strauss became business partners. They patented their method for making jeans on 20 May 1873. The next year, "501 jeans" went on sale.

The belt loops
Levi's first belt loops on their 501 jeans in 1922. Before then, people wore braces: jeans had suspender buttons to attach the braces. Until 1960, jeans were called "waist overalls".

The denim
Levi Strauss imported cloth from France called serge de Nîmes to make his jeans. In the USA, it was easier to call it "denim" (de Nîmes). Today "denims" is another word for "jeans". Denim fades with time but it looks really cool!

Zip or buttons
The first pair of jeans had a button-fly. In 1954, Levi's made its first pair of jeans with a zip.

Skinny jeans
Punks wore skinny jeans in the 1970s. And British top model Kate Moss made them popular again in 2002. Today, people all around the world wear skinny jeans!

The stitching
On jeans is often in orange thread. This tipe of thread is very strong. The colour matches the copper rivets.

An internet forum

Hello.

My name's Elisenda and I live in south London. I like the area where I live, so I want to improve it.

In my opinion there isn't anywhere for young people to go and there aren't any facilities for them. They spend all their time hanging around on the street. As a result, there is some vandalism and graffiti.

I think the council should do something about this. I'm sure they have a place that young people can use as a youth café.

Thank you.

Elisenda Veciana.

My trip to Madrid

On Tuesday the 8^th of April we went by bus to the Girona's train station. There, we took the AVE to Madrid, the capital city of Spain. While waiting, we did a luggage race.

The first place we visited was the “Congreso de los Diputados”. We had lunch at “El museo del jamón” in the city center. After that, we visited the Prado Museum and relaxed walking around the Retiro park. Finally we saw the “Puerta de Alcalá”. At the end of the day, we returned to the hostel and unpacked the luggage.

On the second day we had breakfast and then we visited a lot of places: la plaza del Sol, la plaza Mayor, el Palacio Real, la Almudena cathedral, the Xi'an army... and also la plaza Neptuno, Cibeles and the Madrid Council. We wanted to eat something local, so we went to have dinner at la Plaza Mayor and had a “bocata calamares”.

On the last day we saw the Gran Vía's shops and flats. We visited la plaza España and el Templo de Debod too. We ended the trip seeing the Madrid's senado. We returned to Girona by AVE. There we took a bus, again, to Banyoles.

We had a lot of fun during this trip and interviewing the local people. We also had some free time to enjoy ourselves and buy souvenirs. We learnt a lot of new things in three days.

Lorde

Aged just 17, Lorde won two Grammy Awards -Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Perfomance- for her song "Royals". Lorde is from New Zeland. She loves to read and says reading encouraged her to write songs. She started composing songs with her guitar when she was only 13. Look out for Lorde!

Emma Watson

The magic continues

The actress spent years filming the eight Harry Potter films. Now she has turned the page...

Goodbye Hermione
After the Harry Potter films made her the world's most famous witch, Emma Watson wanted to show she had other talents. Her next big role, as a cool kid in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), was very different from the studious Hermione. The seven weeks Emma spent filming were the opportunity for her to be a normal teenager for the first time. "We'd just stay up all night playing guitar and running around the hotel", she says.

Designers love her elegance
Fashion is also a big part of Emma's life. Fans love her individual, elegant style and so do designers. She has been a model for brands like Burberry and Lancôme, and helped design her own range of clothes. But it is not easy to know what to wear when you're famous. "It's stressful knowing that every time you walk out the door, someone is going to be judging everything you wear", says Emma.

Intelligent star
Emma is not just beautiful... she has brains too! She has studied at Brown University, USA, and Oxford University, England, and loves to read and write poetry. She took a break from her studies to concentrate on her films, which is good news for her fans.

A private person
Emma loves making films but she does not like celebrity life. She is attached to her privacy, which is ironic because in the film The Bling Ring (2013), she plays a teenager who is obsessed with celebrities and breaks into their houses. It was a challenge for Emma to play a materialistic, narcissistic character so different to her!

Diverse new roles to play
This month Emma Watson is back in the biblical film Noah, where she plays Ila, Noah's adoptive daughter. It's a fantasy film with super CGI, but there's none of the innocence of Harry Potter or the glamous of The Bling Ring. It's another opportunity for Emma to show that she's one of Hollywood's most talented young actresses!

"My biggest challenge will be convincing people I can be someone else"

About Jennifer Lawrence

Writing:

Hi, my name is Elisenda and today I'm going to talk about Jennifer Lawrence. First I'm talking about her early life, then about her career. After that I'm explaining about the awards she has won. And finally about funny facts.

Jennifer Lawrence is an American actress. She was born in Louiseville, Kentucky in 1990. Her career started when she was only 14. She moved to LA and participated in many small movies like The Pocker House.

Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone, wich landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Her most famous role is as Katniss Everdeen, in The Hunger Games.

Jennifer has won a lot of awards. In 2013 she won the Best Actress Oscar. And she’s also won two Golden Globes.

As a funny fact I’ll say that when Jennifer was collecting her Oscar award, she fell on the steps and said: “You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell”.

Thank you for your attention.

Presentation

Video




My classmates


Maria Pl (Will Smith): He has been nominated for four Golden Globes. He has three children.
Xènia S (Miguel Ángel Silvestre): He won an Onda in 2008. He plays a character named Alberto in Galerias Velvet.
Elisabet (Taylor Swift): She is an American singer and songwriter. She's won a lot of awards.
Mariona (Natalie Portman): She's from Jerusalem. She studied at Harvard.
Laura (Anna Kendrick): Her most known film is Pitch Perfect. She won an MTV award and a Teen Choice Award.
Adrià (Luís Suárez): He's 27 years old. He's a Liverpool football player. Some European teams are interested in buying him.
Joan S (José Rodrígez); He was born in Las Palmas (Spain). Now he's a Real Madrid football player.
Núria F (Emma Watson): She's an English actress. Her most known character is Hermione (Harry Potter's films). She's won 15 awards.
Clàudia G (Liam Payne): He's a member of One Direction, a boy band.
Maria S (Niall Horan): He's a member of One Direction, a boy band. He's Irish. He's a singer, a composer and a guitarist.
Nicolai (Andrew Garfield): When he was 10 his family moved to USA. He participated in many TV shows.

About my last weekend

-For a better resolution, click "1080p". Thank you.-

Writing:

On Friday morning I went running with my friends and we took a lot of beautiful pictures with the mobile phone. After that, I went to the hairdressing and had lunch. In the afternoon I went to the town's library and borrowed some films and CDs. At half past six I had a dance lesson. I spent the rest of the evening singing and playing the guitar with friends.

My 14th birthday was on Saturday. I spent the morning reading and preparing the afternoon picnic. My friends came home at four thirty. We went near the lake and spent the afternoon talking, eating, and taking photos. After that, we returned home and I unwrapped the beautiful presents they made for me. I had a very happy birthday with good friends.

Dialogue

Isa          Mary! Mary! Can you hear me? I need some help!
Mary      Isa? Where are you? What's happened?
Isa          I'm around here. I was sailing near the rocks and some of them sank.
Mary      Are you OK? Can you come back here?
Isa          No, I think I've injured my arm. I can't move it and it really hurts. What am I going to do?
Mary      Don't panic! Let's phone the coastguard.
Isa          OK, but hurry up! My arm is bleeding!
Mary      OK, OK, hang on! I'm sure that someone will come soon.
Isa          Mary!
Mary      Now what's happening?
Isa          I really need some help, I'm starting to feel dizzy...

A formal letter

Dear Sir or Madam

I am a professional cyclist from London, UK. The name of my cycling club is London Wheelers. I am writing to you because I am going to participate in a big cycling competition and I am looking for sponsors.

The competition will take place in May. Teams from 23 different countries and 20,000 spectators are going to be in London for this event, and I think that it will be good publicity for your company.

Please contact me if you are interested in sponsoring me or if you need any more information. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully

Elie Woods

Elie Woods
Cyclist

The magic of Disney

From films and TV series to theme parks, Disney has been enchanting us for the past 90 years. Discover an empire.

Once upon a time... Walt Disney was an artist and a visionary businessman. Born in 1901 in Chicago, he grew up on a farm. But Walt loved cartoons. When he was 20 years old, he opened a studio in Hollywood. When Walt died, in 1966, his company was a global empire. Today, it has annual revenues of over 35 billion dollars and employs 150,000 people.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The film of the month

Jennifer Lawrence is back as Katniss Everdeen in the second Hunger Games film. After winning the 74th competition with Peeta Mellark, Katniss returns home. But now the 75th Games are in preparation and both are forced to participate. It's a special edition of the Games: all the participants are past winners. They must fight to the dead in a televised battle. It's a cruel challenge.

Jennifer Lawrence

Oscar-winning superstar and nice girl

Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence is everywhere this month. I love English has some ideas on how to succeed like Jennifer...

Make the right decisions... Most actresses, if offered a role in The Hunger Games, would say "Yes!" without hesitation. Not Jennifer Lawrence. She was worried that being famous would change her. She thought about the offer for three days, before accepting. Like Katniss in the films, Jennifer became a superstar overnight. But happily, she hasn't changed at all!

Give 100 per cent... To prepare for her role in The Hunger Games, Jennifer worked very hard. She trained in archery four times a week, learnt tree and rock climbing, and had fitness and combat coaching. "It I look exhausted in the movie, that's definitely real," she says smiling. 

Be unpredictable... Jennifer likes to surprise her fans. She plays very different roles from one film to the next. She experiments with new styles. Her hair colour changes from blonde to brown, and she can wear everything from elegant dresses to jeans and simple T-shirts.

Laugh at yourself... Jennifer admits that she's not perfect. She's naturally clumsy, and fell on the steps when she collected her first Oscar in front of Hollywood's most important stars. But she reacted to this embarrassing situation with humour. "You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell", she said when the audience stood up in her honour.

Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars

Be fearless... Most actresses don't dream of carrying a shotgun. But Jennifer is fearless: that's exactly what she did in the film "Winter's Bone". Millions of fans identified with her challenging, teenage role. It was also preparation for playing Katniss.

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)

Be modest... With a salary of 10 million dollars for the new Hunger Games film, Jennifer is the most successful female action star of all time. But she is modest about her success. "I'm not saving lives", she says. "There are doctors who save lives and fireman who run into burning buildings. I'm making movies."

Get angry...when there's a good reason to. Jennifer hates photographers following her everywhere. She has a difficult relationship with fame. I'm beginning to feel like a monkey in a zoo," she says. "I am not OK with it. I am just a normal girl and a human being." And that, Jennifer, is exactly why we love you.

A survey about the future

The topic of the survey was "The next millennium". A group of ten people did the survey and in general they were positive about the future. Theses are the results.

Everybody thinks that humans will exist in a millennium time, and more than half of the group think that the world will be a better place in the future. Some people think that the world will be better because we will learn to be cleaner and protect the planet. They think that we will be more intelligent in the future.

Most people think space travel will be normal in the next hundred years, and about half of the poeple think that humans won't live on other planets in the future. Nobody says that they will travel into space if they have the chance. Too scary!

A brave rescue

The rescue happened when we were on holiday in the Alps last January. It was really amazing and I was lucky to get a photo of it.

It was with my friends and we were climbing up a mountain. We were talking about the trip when we saw three people near us that stopped climbing. There were two men and a young girl and they were shouting. Two big rocks were falling off the mountain and they were going to hurt the climbers. One of my friends went to the people running immediately.

He knew a cave near there so the four climbers had enough time to escape from the rocks. They waited and we called a helicopter to help them. I think my friend was very brave because the rocks could have crushed him.

About Joaquín Cortés

Joaquín Cortés is a Spanish dancer. He was born in Córdoba in 1989. He moved to Madrid in 1981 and then to New York in 1999.

Joaquín Cortés studied dance when he was twelve years old. After that, at the age of fifteen, he studied at the Spanish National Ballet.

Three of his most famous shows are Pasión Gitana, Soul and Live. He is also famous because of his explosive, original and athletic dance.