The 'Queen's Gambit' Effect: Everyone Wants a Chess Set Now

    _______(1) for the past few years the most popular _______(2) on Netflix was undoubtedly Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, as portrayed by Claire Foy and Olivia Colman in The Crown, this fall another type of queen _______(3) her mark: Beth Harmon, the captivating protagonist of The Queen's Gambit, a Netflix original that became an overnight sensation and inspired a slew of discerning viewers to pick up _______(4).

    Call it the Queen's Gambit effect: Chessboards are flying off the (literal and virtual) rack in the wake of the show's hit season. Just ask Anthony Barzilay Freund, editorial director and director of fine art at vintage site 1stDibs: “The Queen's Gambit is driving an interest in the game of chess among new audiences and demographics,” Freund confirms: “At 1stDibs, in just the month following the show's release, we've seen a 100% increase in sales of chessboards, pieces, and tables as compared to this time period last year.”

    Of course, while it might be enjoying a renewed popularity at the moment, the game of chess dates back centuries and has long captivated players all over the world. It's believed to have derived from a 7th-century Indian game, then evolved as it spread across Asia and Europe in the following centuries. As a result, says Freund, “you can find a variety of vintage and contemporary chess paraphernalia from dealers all over the world.” Those who don't necessarily have the budget for pawns of precious stone have a myriad of options on the market at all price ranges. So light a fire, make a drink, and set up the chessboard – Beth Harmon would be proud.

Adapted from https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/a34874207/queens-gambit-beth-harmon-chess-sets/ 

Chinese Woman Opens Plane’s Emergency Exit for Some Fresh Air

     A flight was delayed for an hour and a woman detained by police after she opened the emergency exit for “a breath of fresh air” before the flight took off in central China’s Hubei province, mainland media reported. The incident happened on Xiamen Air Flight MF8215 from Wuhan to Lanzhou, which was scheduled to take off at 3.45 p.m. on September 23.

    Cabin crew had briefed the woman, who was in her 50s, about the rules when sitting next to the emergency exit and reminded her not to touch the button that opened the emergency exit. However, the woman said she needed some fresh air and touched the button to open the exit when the stewardess turned around to help others, the report said. The woman was taken away and the flight was delayed for an hour. Opening the emergency exit can be considered to be disturbing public order in an aircraft, which is punishable by police detention and a fine.

    In July last year, a woman who was flying for the first time mistook the emergency door for a lavatory door before her plane took off in Nanjing. The emergency slide was released and the flight was delayed for two hours. The woman was detained for 10 days. Some passengers have paid a heavy price for releasing the emergency slide, which may take days and considerable expense to repair and reinstall. In January 2015, a man who opened an emergency door after a plane landed in Chongqing had to pay 35,000 yuan (150,000 baht) in compensation to the airline.

    In June, a man from Hubei who was returning to China from Bangkok on a Thai Lion Air Flight opened an emergency exit before take-off. After apologising repeatedly, according to witnesses, he was held by Thai authorities for one day and given a fine of 500 baht before being deported.

Adapted from https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1762629/chinese-woman-opens-planes-emergency-exit-for-somefresh-air

Lockdown Named 2020’s Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary

    Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”. The 4.5-billion-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in ______(1) usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had risen to more than a quarter of a million.

    “Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as _______(2) word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict _______(3) daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. It is not a word of the year to celebrate, but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.”

    Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing and key worker were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words. However, the coronavirus crisis didn’t completely dominate this year’s vocabulary: words like “Megxit,” a term to describe Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping back as senior members of the royal family, also made the shortlist along with “TikToker” (a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok), and “BLM.” The abbreviation BLM, for Black Lives Matter is defined by Collins as “a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression”, it registered a 581% increase in usage.

Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/lockdown-named-word-of-the-year-by-collins-dictionary

Texas High School Opens Grocery Store That Accepts Good Deeds as Payment

    How many high schools can say they have a grocery store inside their walls? The student-run grocery store at Linda Tutt High School in rural Sanger, Texas, provides food and other necessities to students and their families while teaching essential job skills. And the store doesn’t accept cash, just good deeds. Instead of money, students shop using a point system.

    The store, which aims to address food insecurities for students and others in the community, is open Monday through Wednesday for students and staff within the school district. “A lot of our students come from low socioeconomic families,” principal Anthony Love told KTVT. “It’s a way for students to earn the ability to shop for their families. Through hard work you can earn points. You can earn points for doing chores around the building or helping to clean.”

    The pioneering project is run in partnership with First Refuge Ministries, Texas Health Resources, and Albertsons (a grocery store chain). But nearly all the responsibility falls on the students. They stock the shelves, keep track of inventory, address sales, and monitor registers when items are purchased. “I think the most exciting part of it is just teaching our kids job skills that they can carry with them as they graduate high school and move on into the world,” Love said to WAGA-TV. “Students are really the key piece to it.”

Adapted from https://www.southernliving.com/culture/school/linda-tutt-high-school-grocery-store

Leia o texto para responder à questão. 

    One school of thought which is widely accepted by many language teachers is that the development of our conceptual understanding and cognitive skills is a main objective of all education. Such conceptual understanding is arrived at not through ‘blind learning’, but through a process of discovery which leads to genuine understanding (Lewis 1986: 165). The things we learn for ourselves are absorbed more effectively than things we are taught.

    The practical implications of this view are quite clear: instead of explicitly teaching the present perfect tense, for instance, we will expose students to examples of it and then allow them, under our guidance, to work out for themselves how it is used. Instead of telling students which words collocate with crime, we can get them to look at a computer concordance of the word and discover the collocations on their own. Instead of telling them about spoken grammar we can get them to look at transcripts and come to their own conclusions about how it differs from written grammar. What we are doing, effectively, is to provoke ‘noticing for the learner’.

(HARMER, Jeremy. The practice of English language teaching. 4th ed. Longman, 2007. pp. 72-73. Adaptado)