Maurice, the main character, is a young man with many desires to produce films with a camera and a projector left by his father at his home. However, he faces the Jewish community inclination to emotional art, instead of creating his own art, based on representation in a more abstract way. On the other hand, Jacob is an old and traditional Jewish, probably illiterate, who wants Maurice to use the motion pictures as a way to unite the Jewish villagers. But Maurice wants to departure to America, where he imagines he will be better understood in his art. In fact, it’s from Jacob that come the best ideas of the film Maurice produce in the shtetl.

The play is worthy to be seen for the humorous of the confrontation between Maurice’s intellectual art and the villager’s emotional one. The scenery is amazing! It represents a Jewish shtetl in a beautifully memorable way, as the story unfolds with the old Maurice narrating it.

I chose a very glowing review and we discussed the complex vocabulary and phrases.  I then picked out a less favourable review of the same play and asked Henry to say which was which.  I asked him to pick out the phrases and statements which were positive and negative.

This is good preparation for tonight when I take him to see a play at the National Theatre.  It is called Travelling Light.   He has already seen The Artist at the cinema and this should be a good link.

We will look at reviews of this tomorrow after I have asked him to write his own short review and present it recording on Audacity.

Once, I went for a ramble and I got lost in an area in East London where a lot of Muslims live. In fact, they’re Bengalis. It was amazing how it looked like another country. I saw some women wearing burkas. When I asked one of them where I was, she couldn’t answer me. Probably, she is not allowed or doesn’t want to talk with men in the street.

Another day, during a break from visiting the British Museum, I had lunch in a Keralean restaurant. The waiter liked me. He was very willing to tidy the napkin on my lap. I got a little embarrassed when he asked me what I was doing after the British Museum. That’s something that might happen when we go out alone in a very culturally diverse place. Despite the embarrassment, I thought the situation was funny.

So these two examples tell a little how London is. A place where we can find the strictest lifestyles, as well as the most liberal ones.

Day 2- Down to the real work today.  Pronunciation using the British Council website, with a focus on w/v.  Anja is Swiss German, so these are difficult sounds for her.  Onto identifying the components of the CAE exam with practice from the Cambridge Objective book from the speaking and listening tasks.  Anja had brought with her a Swiss cookery book as a gift for me and we made a delicious potato/pasta dish for dinner.  My husband enjoys these student visits when they like cooking!

Day 3- Checking the homework- a CAE reading gapped text exercise. An interesting article about the rise of the SMS culture and the use of texting speak (FYI)- For your Information!  As a retired primary teacher, quite worrying to know that this ‘language’ is creeping into essay writing in school.  Anja found some of the paragraphs difficult to place, so we have been working on strategies-to look for key words/phrases, phrasal verbs, subject etc. This also applies, of course, to all of the test papers- read the title, what does it tell you, can you predict any words and so on.
A rainy afternoon, so another Swiss cookery session. This time a delicious toblerone chocolate mousse!

Day 4- Further practice exercises with the CAE. Although lacking a little in confidence in her own ability, Anja is ,I hope, beginning to realise that she can communicate in English very well. She enjoyed playing upwords with my husband last night and he is becoming concerned that she might beat him! I think he is going to change the rules, or maybe stick to the Boggle!
Rain again, so homework, preparation and maybe a film later