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The Age of Exploration started in the 1400's. Europeans were desperate to get spices from Asia. Spices were used to preserve foods and keep them from spoiling. Spices, however, were expensive and dangerous to get. European rulers began to pay for explorations to find a sea route to Asia so they could get spices cheaper.

Portugal was the first country that sent explorers to search for the sea route to Asia. After Bartholomew Dias and his crew made it to Africa's Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama and his crew became the first to sail around Africa and through the Indian Ocean to India in 1497. Spain, however, would soon take over the lead in exploration. When Portugal refused to finance Christopher Columbus' idea to sail west to find the shortcut to the Indies, Columbus convinced Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to finance it. On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew reached the island of Hispaniola. Although Columbus believed he had reached Asia, he had actually discovered the entire continent of North America and claimed it for Spain.

Spain quickly colonized North America. Ponce de Leon discovered Florida, and the first European settlement in the New World was later established at St. Augustine. Hernando Cortes crushed the Aztec empire in Mexico and claimed it for Spain. Francisco Pizarro did the same to the Incan Empire in South America. Other explorers such as Francisco Coronado and Hernando de Soto claimed other portions of North America for Spain. Vasco Nunez de Balboa even claimed the entire Pacific Ocean for Spain. As the Spanish empire grew, explorers forced native populations into slavery and to convert to Christianity. Meanwhile, France began to explore North America. Explorations by Giovanni Verrazano and Jacques Cartier resulted in French claims of much of Canada and the north Atlantic coast. England would soon attempt to make its presence known by financing pirates such as Francis Drake to plunder Spanish settlements and steal gold from Spanish sea vessels. England also established a settlement in North Carolina in 1587. Territorial disputes and constant pirating resulted in a series of major wars between the competing nations. In 1588, the British Army defeated the vaunted Spanish Armada. The British victory proved a serious blow to Spanish influence in the New World.

Although Spain still controlled much of the New World after defeat, England and France were able to accelerate their colonization. England soon established successful colonies throughout the eastern portions of the United States, and France had colonies in Canada and the middle portions of the United States. By the mid 1700's, new territorial disputes between England and France eventually resulted in England gaining control over much of North America after the French and Indian War. English colonies flourished in North America until 1776 when the colonists declared their independence. The Revolutionary War ensued and resulted in independence for the colonists. The United States of America was formed. 

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Suez Canal reopens after giant stranded ship is freed Traffic has resumed in Egypt's Suez Canal after a stranded container ship blocking it for nearly a week was finally freed by salvage crews.

Tug boats honked their horns in celebration as the 400m-long (1,300ft) Ever Given was dislodged on Monday with the help of dredgers.

Hundreds of ships are waiting to pass through the canal which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

It is one of the world's busiest trade routes.

Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch salvage company Boskalis, said the Ever Given had been refloated at 15:05 (13:05 GMT) on Monday, "thereby making free passage through the Suez Canal possible again".

Egyptian officials say the backlog of ships waiting to transit through should be cleared in around three days, but experts believe the knock-on effect on global shipping could take weeks or even months to resolve.

A marine source told Reuters news agency on Monday evening that ships were travelling southwards towards the Red Sea while canal services provider Leth Agencies said vessels had resumed transit from the Great Bitter Lake.

Some ships have already left the region, preferring to take an alternative, longer route around the southern tip of Africa. 

Inevitably, cargoes will be reaching their destination much later than planned. There may be congestion when they arrive in port, while future sailing schedules have been thrown into disarray,

The cost of shipping goods to Europe is expected to rise as a result, BBC Business Correspondent Theo Leggett reports.

Adaptado de: BBC. 2021. Disponível em: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east56567985. Acesso em 30 mar. 2021.

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Brazil Becomes the Second Nation After the U.S. to Top

300,000 COVID-19 Deaths

Brazil topped 300,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, becoming the second country to do so amid a spike in infections that has seen the South American country report record death tolls in recent days.

The United States reached the grim milestone on Dec. 14, but has a larger population than Brazil.

On Wednesday, Brazil’s health ministry reported 2,009 daily COVID-19 deaths, bringing its pandemic total to 300,685. On Tuesday, the country saw a single-day record of 3,251 deaths.

According to local media reports, the latest coronavirus figures might be affected by changes in the government’s counting system. Newly appointed Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said in a press conference that he was going to check whether the numbers had been artificially reduced.

With daily death tolls at pandemic highs, state governors and mayors in Brazil have expressed fears that April could be as bad as March for the country’s overwhelmed hospitals.

Just in the past 75 days, Brazil has registered 100,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths, a spike health experts blame on a lack of political coordination in fighting the virus, new variants that spread more easily and a disregard for health protocols. 

President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday held a meeting with the heads of other government branches to coordinate anti-virus efforts. But he didn’t propose any policies to deal with the pandemic.

Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic, insisting the economy must be kept humming to prevent worse hardship, and he has criticized health measures imposed by local leaders.

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BOOK REVIEW: HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH BY

JEREMY HARMER

Right at the top of the recommended reading list for Eton Institute’s TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program is “How to Teach English” by Jeremy Harmer. Alisa W., TESOL graduate from Eton Institute, shares with us a review of the book and how it helped her own personal TESOL journey.

Prior to the training course I took to learn how to be an EFL teacher, I had no formal teacher training, I had a limited exposure to different styles of teaching, and I had never even done basic self-reflection about why I preferred some instructors over others (I always assumed it was their personality that I enjoyed). If the CEFR gave teacher ratings, I would be at the A1.1 level. I read ‘How to Teach English’ by Jeremy Harmer as part of my TESOL training course, and it was perfect for my level. It is by no means a replacement to a full teaching course, but it is a valuable supplement to those who are learning and a good refresher for those who have been out of practice for a while. It provides contemporary teaching practices and keeps its descriptions pithy and hands-on.

While some of the sections are a bit obvious or too shallow to be useful, the book is so well organized that it is easy to find what you need and skip over what you don’t. Each chapter is divided into main sections (also listed in the table of contents), and subdivided again, bolds important words, and features a list at the end of the chapter that allows you to briefly review what you just read.

As with any well-designed reference book, the glossary, index, and appendices in the back are good sources for extending your self-education as a teacher.

The book comes with a DVD that has clips from real classes so you can observe good teaching practice in the comfort of your pyjamas and the support of a bowl of chips. The DVD wouldn’t play on my MacBook, so I can’t tell you if it is helpful or not. Another feature that is nice-to-have-but-I-didn’t-use is the “Task Files” at the back. After completing a chapter, you can quiz yourself by completing info tables, answering multiple-choice questions, matching definitions, and the like.

Adaptado de: ETON INSTITUTE. Disponível em: https://etoninstitute.com/blog/book-review-how-toteach-english-by-jeremy-harmer. Acesso em 27 mar. 2021.

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HOW YOU CAN LEARN ENGLISH FROM READING

We all know that reading books is a great way to learn English. What about if you don’t like books, though? Reading a whole book can be tough and timeconsuming, especially if you aren’t interested in reading books in your native language. So, what can we learn from reading something other than a book? Here are some tips:

1- Newspapers use a wide range of vocabulary to describe the world around us. If you feel like you already know all the vocabulary in your textbook or online study course, pick up a newspaper and you’ll soon come across some new words to add to your vocabulary.

2- Most fields of business have English trade journals that people use to keep their professional knowledge up to date. If you are a teacher, get yourself a teaching journal or if you are an architect or designer, subscribe to an interesting design magazine. Reading about your area of work in English will help you learn all specialist English expressions you need to do your job in English.

3- Practise scanning, scanning for specific information in a text is an important skills to master in English. Practise it by reading product specifications in English. Set yourself a task to find out a specific piece of information about a product and see how quickly you can look it up.

4- Reviews are great for finding out which products to buy or which films to see. See if you can understand the gist (general idea) of a review by reading the review and guessing what score the reviewer will give the product out of ten. Check if your guess matches the reviewer’s rating at the bottom of the review.

5- Read instructions to learn how to describe processes. Describing how things work in English is an important skill. It also often comes up as a task in English exams such as IELTS, TOEFL or TOEIC. Next time you buy a new gadget, work out how to use it by reading the instructions in English. You will build your comprehension skills and learn how to describe the process of using something in English 

Adaptado de: ENGLISH LIVE. Disponível em: https://englishlive.ef.com/blog/study-tips/can-learnenglish-reading/. Acesso em 25 mar. 2021.

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It’s the Perfect Time to Discover Avatar: The Last Airbender

Spend your Labor Day weekend watching a 15-year-old Nickelodeon show aimed at children. You won’t regret it.

I’m a TV critic who’s constantly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new television there is to consume; I can’t imagine how the average viewer must feel. Currently, 10 episodes of a new space opera, six episodes of a Civil War drama, a mini series about chess, an adaptation of a beloved novel, and the fourth installment of an anthology series are all vying for my attention—and those are just the ones I’m interested in watching, not the ones that I’ve already written off as being not worth my time.

Yet time and again, I’ve been frustrated by television in 2020. Seasons are bloated and meandering; character arcs are picked up and then abandoned; episodes don’t seem to cohere around any single idea, let alone a good idea; and often, shows are more interested in playing out their premise for as long as possible than they are in telling a story that has a compelling arc and a stunning end. Too many current shows seem to have been greenlit based on someone’s slightly deranged moodboard, or a movie idea spun into a series pitch; not enough are dramatically paced, well-written, coalescing around strong characters and a powerful theme or two. So it was a delight to spend some of the doldrums of August marathoning Avatar: The Last Airbender—a show so good, it puts prestige dramas, expensive streaming series, and wry comedies to shame. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it took the beloved Nickelodeon series’ arrival on Netflix to finally get me to watch its compact, elegant three seasons, which are purportedly intended for children but somehow also managed to make me cry like a baby. Anyway, I’m late to the party—Avatar premiered in 2005—but I’m not alone: After debuting on the platform in May, the series stayed in Netflix’s top 10 for 61 days, topping a previous record held by Ozark. 

For an animated half-hour that lasted just three seasons, this is a lot of metaintro-text—but if you’ve seen it, it’s not surprising. The series, from creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, introduces viewers to a fantasy world guided by fully non-European tradition, where certain powerful individuals can manipulate one of the four elements. The Avatar is a particularly powerful individual who has the ability to master all four elements; as their title implies, one is reincarnated every generation, holding all of those past lives inside them.

SARAYA, Sonia, 2020. Disponível em: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/09/avatarthe-last-airbender-netflix. Acesso em 24 mar. 2021.