Discussion topics

Decoding cryptograms is a great way to sharpen your English. A cryptogram with a simple substitution code is fairly easy to decipher, but it forces you to think carefully about spelling and vocabulary. As your English improves, you can move on to harder codes, like ones that don't put spaces in between the words so you have to figure out yourself where one word ends and the next begins.

This simple code uses the English alphabet. Letters are swapped for letters:

Decode this sentence:  "B l f   x z m   g l g z o o b   w l   g s r h !"

Did you get it right? The answer is in the last discussion question.

Were you aware that you practiced English spelling, vocabulary, and colloquial expressions by decoding that saying?

When I was kid, a code that my sisters and I used a lot comes from the Sherlock Holmes mystery story, "The Adventure of the Dancing Men", published in 1903. The mystery begins when a character starts receiving messages written in a code made of stick figures. The code was so popular with readers that it's been used ever since. It looks like this:

Can you decipher the sentence above the code? (The answer is also in the last discussion question.)

There are lots of other kinds of word puzzles you can use to practice English: jumbled words or sentences, word search (finding words from a list in a grid of letters), Words with Friends, and on and on. No matter what your level of English is, you can find games to play. When practicing is fun, you'll want to do it all the time!

Since smartphones first connected us to the Internet, the time we spend on our phones has been increasing. 

2020 showed us that our whole life can be on the Internet. It is no longer a tool to work. It is something that gives us a voice, an opportunity to build relationships and connect with people. Some people find this useful. Others are worried about developing Internet addiction—when people use the Internet so much that other areas of their lives are damaged (relationships, work, studies, etc...) The American Academy of Pediatrics even proposed the idea of Facebook Depression. It is when people compare themselves with what they see on mass media platforms, and they feel incomplete, depressed and unhappy. 

Most of us have the Internet in our pocket at all times. That means our media consumption and screen time has changed significantly over the last decade.

Please have a look at the graph below about American media consumption.

According to the National Geographic Society, Earth now has a new ocean: the Southern Ocean.

Geographers have debated whether the waters around Antarctica had enough unique characteristics to deserve their own name, or whether they were simply cold, southern extensions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. 

With a range stretching the circumference of Antarctica to the 60-degrees South latitudinal line, the Southern Ocean “encompasses unique and fragile marine ecosystems that are home to wonderful marine life such as whales, penguins, and seals,” explains National Geographic’s Enric Sala. The region includes such creatures as migrating humpback whales and many different seabirds.

Many oceanographers and other scientists have referred to the area as the Southern Ocean for years, with the US Board on Geographic Names having designated the separate region as such over two decades ago. The National Geographic Society’s new designation will hopefully raise awareness to conservation efforts in the region.

Scientists are currently studying how human-driven climate change is altering the Southern Ocean. Ocean water moving through its current is warming, but it is unclear how much this is impacting Antarctica.

According to The Guardian, the renowned Swiss architect Le Corbusier developed a system that has shaped much of the world. It dictates everything from the height of a door handle to the scale of a staircase. But the system, Le Modulor, developed in the 1940s, was created with a handsome six-foot-tall British policeman in mind. So all sizes are governed by the need to make everything as convenient as possible for Le Corbusier’s ideal man.

The system's influence even extended to the size of city blocks, since these responded to the size and needs of the car the ideal man drove to work.

By the 1980s, some women had had enough. After decades of struggling with prams and shopping trolleys, navigating dark underpasses, blind alleyways and subways in the cities mostly made by men, it was time for a different approach.

“Through lived experience,” wrote the Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, when they launched their manifesto in 1981, “women have a different perspective of their environment from the men who created it. Because there is no ‘women’s tradition’ in building design, we want to explore the new possibilities that the recent change in women’s lives and expectations have opened up.” 

When I was a child, my mother wanted me to be elegant. She sent me to dance class. I didn’t like it. I cried before the class because I didn’t want to do it. But my mother didn’t allow me to quit. After five years of dancing, I finally stopped going to the classes. I never participated in any concerts, even though everyone else from this dance club did several times. I wasn’t good enough. I felt like a failure.

After dancing, I didn’t come back to sports until I was in university.

When I was doing my third year in university, I tried Thai boxing (Muay Thai). I loved it. Now I am training 5 times a week and preparing for my first competition. It has become a very big hobby of mine. Thai boxing brings me lots of benefits, such as a good mood, self-confidence, great physical shape and a lot of friends. It doesn’t bring me any money and it does not promote me in my career. But it is something I love. Finally, I feel I have succeeded.

The idea of "peak experiences" was created by psychologist Abraham Maslow in the mid-20th century. Such experiences inspire feelings of intense happiness. They are said to give you a sense that you're one with all of creation.

I've had a few peak experiences. The one I think about the most happened about 20 years ago. At the time I lived in the southwest desert of the United States. About an hour from our home was a small lake called Whitewater Draw where tens of thousands of Sandhill cranes spend the winter. Sandhill cranes are the oldest living bird species, going back at least 2.5 million years. I used to go visit them every year.

On this particular visit, the cranes had come in for their afternoon siesta. Thousands of them were gathered around the little lake. All of a sudden, they all took off at the same time, lifting up to fill the sky overhead. The other few visitors and I gasped. We stood stock-still, watching 10,000 cranes circle above our heads, calling to each other with their million-year-old croak.  In that moment, I felt like there was no separation between me and them.

When the birds started to settle back down, the other visitors and I all looked at each other in amazement and then smiled the same smile. For that brief time, there was no separation between us, either.

Vaccination against the COVID-19 virus started in December 2020. It has progressed at an unequal rate around the world. As of late April 2021, only a few million people had received a vaccination in the whole of the African continent, while over 200 million Americans had been vaccinated.

However, for some smaller countries, the situation can change very quickly.

Please take a look at the graph below and discuss what you see with your teacher. 

First, make a choice about how to watch the film. It is about 7 minutes. You have a few options.

1. Watch the film before the lesson as pre-study homework.
2. Watch part of the film in the lesson.
3. Watch the whole film in the lesson. 
   • If you choose to watch the film, please do your best to describe and discuss it as you watch. There's almost no dialog, so you can easily talk while watching.

This discussion topic is based on a short film by Pixar, called "Float". It uses metaphor to express a complex truth in simple terms.

What is a metaphor? It's saying one thing is another thing, but it's not literally true. Here are some examples:

• Time is money.
• My colleague is a lion.
• That meeting was a killer.
• The train station was so busy. There was a sea of people.

Metaphors explain something by comparing it to something else that has similar qualities. The words or images represent something else.

This short film, "Float", uses the metaphor of a child who floats in the air. It represents any child who is different from others, either in the way they look or act, or both. Think of a child with disabilities. How do people feel when they meet a child like that? What is it like for the parents? How does the child feel about themselves?

Floating represents difference here, not literal superpowers. Watch the film with that in mind.

Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas has designed a high-tech face mask that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Called Xupermask, it has three dual-speed fans to keep you cool, and a design to keep you looking cool. The real money-grabbers are noise-canceling headphones, LED lights for nighttime, and Bluetooth capability. You can listen to music, take and make calls, and put on your own light show while wearing this thing. It doesn't come cheap, but at $299, it costs less than a set of Bose headphones, and a lot less than a mobile phone! And you can use the Xupermask for both, with a bonus face mask thrown in.

The look of the Xupermask was designed by Jose Fernandez. He created Elon Musk's spacesuits, and Marvel characters' costumes in the Avengers, Black Panther, and X-Men 2. So you know it's going to look out of this world.

Fashion and tech companies are betting on face masks being a part of our lives for a while, and that high-tech sci-fi masks will attract consumers with money to spend on The Next Big Thing. Are you one of them?