Hi everyone, Joe for jaskiescasewrakes.com coming out to a 21-22 tops finest UEFA Champions League soccer four-box random team break number one all-card chip the 20-spot break There's the team list right here Lot of the top teams from a lot of the big leagues a big thanks to this group for making it happen and There are the team list right there plus some combos. Let's roll it randomized names and teams three and a five eight times each one two three four five six Seven and eighth and final time After eight we got canard down to Daniel three and a five eight times for the teams one two three four five six seven and eighth and final time Three and a five eight times eight times we've got bruxa Dortmund down to sporting club the Portugal All right, canard with the bruxa Dortmund Taylor with inter Milan Harish with Chelsea Michael with Atletico Madrid Matthew with my club Liverpool Michael with Leipzig Will with Porto and Salzburg Ryan with Wolfsburg and Sevilla Carlos with Atalanta Michael with Byron Munchen or Byron Munich Allen with Bartholona Matt with Bruges and Lille Daniel with Man City Harish with Paris Saint-Germain Daniel Katz Real Madrid Taylor with Iax Harish with Juve Juventus Robert with AC Milan Harish with Manchester United and Daniel with sporting. Let's order these alphabetically by team and we're going to pause the video when we come back We're gonna see if there's any trades and then we will have the break stick around. We'll see on the other side All right, welcome back everybody. No deals were done here in this Champions League break 21 22 finest you wait for Champions League soccer Which is really just getting the top teams right just the Champions League teams also Fun fact these cards made in Italy All right, so we've got four boxes over here and four boxes over here We'll go one two three for the back four and four five six for the front four These are nice a Liverpool red dye right here one two three four five six And it's one so we'll be doing the back four right here and these we will save four For next time so we'll put those X's on the boxes right there so we know they're from the same case Away we go one autograph per mini box packaging feels a little a Little different made in Italy all card chip and if you're if you don't collect too much soccer But we're thinking about getting into it now now would be a good time Because the World Cup coming up this year usually It would have happened in the summer Actually in a usual World Cup cycle. I feel like it'd be it'd be the time would be over by now, but no it's in the winter I think for us it starts around Thanksgiving week, which will be an odd time for a Unique World Cup experience, that's for sure But usually values start to start ticking up on soccer players during a World Cup year So it might be a good time to get into it Jafilish this insert right here to prize footballers By our Munich. I like that. You start getting some R.C.'s rookie cards in there as well And we got Antonio Blanco to 199 that is For Real Madrid and I want to say That Real Madrid because their white jerseys or shirts as they call them Are the Los Blancos, so there's Antonio Blanco for Los Blancos There's Sané Virgil van Dijk Nice, there's Anzou Fati prized in David Alaba 008 out of 250 so Here's another one for Real Madrid Daniel Katz And then there are La Liga rivals. There's Anzou Fati a Nice young player here Barcelona that's gonna go to Alan Alan Murdoch last-bought mojo with Barça. I haven't seen our autographs yet It's Christian. Oh, there it is for Paris Saint-Germain rookie Otto Edward Michoud Not too familiar with this player, but this will go to Harish where the PSG 31 out of 150 Jude Bellingham. He might be in a Liverpool shirt by by next summer And here's a silver Christian Pulisette Alfonso Davies again price flip ballers and we got a Sadio Mane 18 out of 75 For Liverpool, I'm gonna miss this guy went to went to The Bundesliga, but we appreciate his time here at Liverpool Matthew Wood with Liverpool Frankie De Jong Now they're on to Fati insert and our second auto is Mark Andre Kirstigen Great great keeper for For Barça, that'll be for Alan box one in the books Box two all the major soccer leagues getting underway in Europe Probably start to see some early UEFA Champions League qualifying matches We'll start seeing proper group stage matches eventually Interesting FIFA. Here's a headline from ESPN FC.com Step on some coffee here. Um FIFA moves cutter World Cup a day forward Cutter Ecuador to be the first match FIFA has moved the start of the World Cup forward by a single day Meaning the tournament will now begin on Sunday November 20th rather than the initial schedule date of Monday November 21st The first game of the finals will now be the host nation's cutters class with Ecuador Sunday 7 p.m local time, which would be 11 a.m. Eastern time 8 a.m. my time Maybe a lot of a lot of early mornings During the World Cup a lot of sleepless A lot of sleepless nights a little a lot of tired eyes So it'll be cutter Ecuador instead of Senegal, Netherlands It means the World Cup will be extended to 29 days with the final taking place on Sunday December 18th So a day earlier for whatever that's worth and there's my guy right here Mohammed Salah 98 out of 250 Signing in a nice little extension with Liverpool Very excited about that Matthew Although Liverpool ended up with a drawing with Fulham to start the season I guess I'm not sure who not too familiar with Armando Sieb, but Rookie refractor You got to take care of that in case he ended up being a superstar There's nice Romelu Lukaku, and we got Jaden Sancho 99 out of 150 From Man United It's Harish with Man United One of my rivals and our autograph is Joe Concello nice Man City Daniel Katz, and we have a Kayo Jorge 99 out of 175 Nice rookie speckle for you. They went us. That's goes to Harish Like every time I flip these cards around We'll go upside down again There is again. It's more more about this kid here and nice Erlen Holland prized footballers insert And that is still a bruxa Dortmund edition that goes to canard bolt and we got 23 out of 99 Pedro Gonzales For Sporting Club de Portugal That'll be for Daniel and the final. Oh nice on Sufati autograph Great auto for Alan Murdoch and Barcelona 70 out of 150 a Rising star in world football How old is he? He's only 19 years old Alan. There he is. He's Barcelona's number 10. He's a forward He's 19 years old You know, that's that's what you uh That's what you want to see Right if he can say healthy a superstar says chase and plays for the Spanish national team So he may raise his stock During the season and during that World Cup under his Wikipedia page Under style of play first sentence widely considered by several pundits to be the most talented and promising young players in the world Fati's playing style had been widely compared to that a form of Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi a Versatile forward Fati is capable of playing in any attacking position Start his career as an out-and-out striker all they was later moved to position of left winger a death with either either Foot despite being naturally right-footed He could play on the right flank in the center as a false nine a second striker a number eleven or in a free Role as an attacking midfielder or a classic number ten a 2019 profile by 442 magazine described him with the following words quote standing at five foot ten inches Fati boasts a powerful frame and brings a physical approach to the game Which is often lacking among a technically gifted Barcelona side nevertheless despite his robust physique the Lamassia graduate Possesses outstanding dribbling skills which combined with his speed makes him incredibly difficult to stop in one-on-one Situations, I think he hasn't really made a lot of appearances for the national team only four appearances for the national team But I'll bet I'll bet he'll get a lot of I'll bet he'll get a lot of run This winter so great hit Alan last-bought mojo strikes again 70% of the time. It's a hundred percent of time. Here's Jorge again with Juventus It's for Harish. Yeah chasing Spain has the midfield to set him up Barcelona to There's the all met the all messy in his PSG gear and There's Luke Shaw Man United defender Luke Shaw and that will be for Harish See what what what group is Spain in? Spain isn't a group group is in group E in the World Cup and Spain Costa Rica, Germany, Japan. Hey, what's going on man? I didn't realize you were here.  No, I'm good sir. Is it already quit in time? 6 o'clock already there. No, I'm good sir. Thank you Safe and sound it was a little little crazy on the roads Monday are you working Sunday? No, okay There's centurions Leonel Messi. I'll see you next next week then That's for Paris on German. That's for Harish and then we got Gavi finest futures Refractor rookie refractor for Barcelona and a nice What lava? To 199 Christian policy that is going to be for Harish and Chelsea. Hopefully this guy Also stays healthy. Maybe not for Chelsea, but for for us for the United States would be would be really nice We're in a wild group here We're in a group with England Iran and Wales England and Wales should definitely be tough match-ups. It's Kaio again. Hopefully Hopefully we'll make it to the knockout stage 174 out of 250 We should right? Should be should be England and the US 1-2. I feel like in that group. We've got a nice autograph here It is Donnie Olmo for Red Bull Leipzig That'll be for Michael P. Nice parallel here at 3 out of 99 Zlatan Ibrahimovic. There's Antoine Griezmann Jordan Henderson Robert Lewandowski and we got Jonathan David 26 out of 75 Did we not get a second autograph or no Luke Shaw was that first autograph right? All right fourth and final box very exciting to have a have a World Cup year here What's going on with the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League? I guess qualification has already started 21st of June to the 24th of August and then the the proper competition will start September 6th all the way through June so Nice little in-season tournament happening here. I don't think I don't think we're even in the proper I don't think they even yeah, they haven't even done group drawings yet. They have to do a lot of the qualifying stuff Where's the final this year? Wow The Olympic stadium in Istanbul will be will host the final. Yeah, the UEFA Champions League is is pretty exciting It'd be cool to Moments like that where I kind of wish I lived in Europe so I can just kind of You know you can you haven't built an excuse to do a little traveling to bounce around from from like a final city to a final city for the Champions League the MLS and Liga MX The Mexican League had their all-star game to play each other in all-star game yet last night a couple nights ago, I don't think it was last night actually and Yeah, I think they were talking to the MLS commissioner and he was like, you know this this all-star game has grown so much over over the recent years that they would love to You know, it's just good for North American soccer in general would love to see like would love to see like the conca-calf Champions League kind of reach or not. I don't think it'll reach UEFA proportions, but You know just be a little more Little more interesting for people would be nice All right, so there's a lot going on here. We got Alfonso Davies 21 out of 50 more top-loaders here These throwback uniforms in the field of dreams game here look pretty sharp. Here's futures Nuno Mendes futures finest futures insert rookie For Paris Saint-Germain, that's for Harish Alfonso Davies by the way goes to Bayern Munich. That's gonna be it's gonna be for Michael P We got a lava parallel 199 out of 199 Duván Zapada For Atalanta, that's gonna be for Carlos a Lionel Messi refractor I don't know how much these go for but it is Lionel Messi. It is a refractor. It is Paris Saint-Germain That's for Harish Well, and there's the autograph. It is Dejan Kulusevski for Uventus Uwe that'll be for Harish with that autograph first of two 11 out of 50 and Then we got nice Antoine Griezmann 86 out of 125 for Atletico Madrid Now it'll be for Michael P Gavi and Sergio Ramos everyone's favorite Sergio Ramos 105 what is he? Is he like the Like the Grayson Allen maybe of soccer? No, he's better than Grayson Allen. Like he's a good player, but a little dirty Dennis Rodman, maybe and the final autograph is Henrik Larson Another forward for Barca another one for Alan Murdoch Yeah, maybe little maybe Sergio Ramos little Draymond Greenish All right, we got a nice Erlen Hollen here. I don't know what these base cards go for but But he looked good in his first game with Man City That's not what as a Liverpool fan. That's not what I wanted to see Lewandowski made his move too. This is Byron still Byron Munich edition though And there you have it gang A nice break of nice four box random team break of 21 22 tops UEFA Champions League soccer Another four boxes in the store. Let's get it done. Jaspy's case breaks.com. Bye. Bye


Yes, dunk day finally, baby rim just gonna work on some tech technique and I'm feeling excited I'm feeling sore, but I'm feeling loose not really Start over. I feel sore, but I feel in a good way. I did explosive lifting a little different lifting So it feels really good gonna see how I feel and take it from there. You feel it sounds weird? I never I never like warm up properly during games. True I'll start When he barely breaks his sweat three six at East Bay normal right had some good dribble dunks for two-hand dribble dunks I'm hoping this is not my highest day It feels like I was jumping fast, but my body couldn't handle the speed which makes sense because that's exactly where I'm at Like I just started an explosive training to try to get faster Now I feel like I just want to practice and train to jump my optimal to try to hit the top of my window and fly and This guy just had hit the First one in a hang first one first one first time ever getting that so that's cool new accomplishment making goals every day


Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. Coming up on the program, John Russell reports on NASA's plan to put human-like robots in space. Gina Bennett has a story on being connected to the world. Brian Lin has this week's health report on how two treatments for sickle cell will be unavailable to many people who need them. Later, Andrew Smith and Jill Robbins present the lesson of the day, but first… The American Space Agency NASA's human-like robot Valkyrie looks powerful. It stands 188 centimeters tall and weighs 136 kilograms. Valkyrie is named after supernatural females in Norse mythology. The robot is being tested at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The robot is designed to operate in damaged human-engineered environments like areas hit by natural disasters, NASA said. But robots like Valkyrie could also work in space one day. Robots that look like humans, or humanoid robots, have a torso, head, two arms, and two legs. Engineers believe that humanoid robots will be able to work similarly to humans and use the same tools and equipment. They just need the right software. NASA dexterous robotics team leader Sean Osamy said humanoid robots in space could do dangerous jobs. Such jobs include cleaning solar panels or dealing with equipment outside the spacecraft. As a result, human astronauts could pay more attention to exploration and discovery. They're not trying to replace human crews. We're really just trying to take the dull, dirty, and dangerous work off their plates to allow them to focus on those higher-level activities, Osamy said. NASA is partnering with robotics companies like Aptronic, which is based in Austin, Texas. The goal is to learn how humanoid robots developed for purposes on Earth could help the development of future humanoid robots meant for space. Aptronic is developing Apollo, a humanoid robot whose jobs on Earth will include working in warehouses and manufacturing plants. The robot can move packages and organize objects. Aptronic plans to start providing the humanoid robots to companies in early 2025. Aptronic chief technology officer Nick Payne said Apollo has strengths in comparison to humans. We're targeting having this system online 22 hours a day, Payne said. This does have a swappable battery, so you can work for 4 hours, swap the battery, and then keep going. Aptronic chief Jeff Cardenas said there are many possibilities as new software and development increase Apollo's abilities. The approach is we're starting in the warehouse and on the manufacturing floor, but then it can move into retail, to delivery, and out more into what we call unstructured spaces, Cardenas said. In years to come, those unstructured areas could include space, Azami said. He said the robots are being designed so they can be easily changed to do many different jobs. Robots like Apollo are designed with modularity in mind to be able to adapt to many applications, Azami said. Azami added that NASA is aiming to find out what areas it needs to look into to bring a terrestrial system into the space environment. I'm John Russell. Sadat Sadikova is an English teacher in Jazakh, Uzbekistan. As a young girl, she dreamed of becoming a flight attendant and traveling the world. Her parents told her she would have to learn at least three languages in order to reach that goal. Although she was not able to become a flight attendant, Sadikova did study languages. She speaks Uzbek, Russian, English, and Turkish. Sadikova has never traveled outside Uzbekistan. Even so, she reports feeling connected to people around the world. The whole world is for human beings, Sadikova said. She still dreams of visiting many countries. Even Trina Bright worked in education for nearly 25 years. Today, she lives in the southern U.S. state of Arkansas. During her career, she traveled to many countries, including China and South Africa. Bright used stories from her travels to help her students in the U.S. understand their place in the world. She spent most of her career in a minority-serving school district. Sharing stories from her travels helped her students see value in their own cultures. There's value in all experiences, not just typical American ones, Bright said. Bright has visited more than 20 countries. But Bright, unlike Sadikova, does not report feeling connected to people around the world. Bright is not alone. She is among the more than half of Americans who report they do not feel especially close to people around the world. That information comes from a new report by Pew Research Center, an organization that aims to inform the public about the issues, beliefs, and trends shaping the world. The report, called Attitudes on an Interconnected World, was released on December 6. Pew recently asked people in 24 countries a series of questions about how connected they feel to their own communities and countries, as well as to people around the world. Pew researchers looked at, among other things, how international travel experience relates to feelings of connectedness. About half of all respondents reported they feel at least somewhat close to people all over the world. Being close to others around the world is more common in Europe than in most other places, the study found. In the United States, only 35% of the respondents said they feel at least somewhat connected to those in other countries. The percentage was even lower in Argentina, 28%, and Indonesia, 22%. The study found that, in general, respondents who had traveled to at least one other country feel more connected to people around the world. 99% of respondents in the Netherlands reported having visited at least one other country and about half said they had visited 10 or more countries. The Pew researchers found that 77% of respondents from the Netherlands said they feel at least somewhat close to people all over the world. But international travel does not always mean a person feels a closeness to people around the world. Bright, the retired American school teacher, is one such exception.  And, she said, her connections to them are not especially deep. Pew researchers found a similar case in Sweden. 99% of Swedish respondents said they had visited at least one other country. Yet a much smaller share of Swedish respondents, 47%, report feeling close to people all over the world. In fact, a higher number of Indian respondents, 68%, report feeling at least somewhat close to people all over the world. Yet just 3% of respondents from India said they had traveled to another country. Such findings show that international connectedness can be formed in ways other than traveling overseas. Sarikova, the Uzbek English teacher, told VOA Learning English she feels connected to people all over the world even though she has never traveled outside Uzbekistan. She said, some years ago it was difficult for us to get information about people in the world, but currently, because of media, it is quite easy to get acquainted with events and news. I'm Gina Bennett. United States health officials recently approved two new gene treatments for sickle cell disease, SCD. The treatments provide hope that the disease might be curable, but experts say high costs and limited availability will prevent many people from receiving them. SCD is a genetic disorder that causes oxygen-carrying red blood cells in the body to become misshapen. The condition can block blood flow and cause severe pain and organ damage. SCD is more common among black Americans, Africans, and Middle Easterners than other population groups. Many children with the most severe form of the disease die before age 5, usually from an infection or severe blood loss. Worldwide, the disease is believed to affect millions. It is known to be common in places with high cases of malaria, like Africa and India. Scientific research has shown that people who have SCD seem to react less severely when they are infected with malaria. While an estimated one million people suffer with the condition in India, many of them will not get the chance to receive the new gene treatments. The situation is not new to developing countries. Many have long-faced limitations on medicines and other treatment methods for disease. But the problem is even more severe with the new SCD treatments and other gene-based methods. This is mainly because of the high cost of treatment. The two methods approved in the US, both of which are given as a single treatment, cost between $2.2 million and $3.1 million. In addition, the treatment itself can be difficult to carry out in developing nations. This is because the process generally involves several steps and requires longer stays in well-equipped hospitals. Vertex's treatment, called Cascavi, is designed to repair the genetic condition that causes misshapen cells in sickle cell sufferers. It uses a gene-editing technology called CRISPR to do so. The other treatment offered by a company called Bluebird Bio does not use CRISPR technology, but it requires a similar treatment process as Vertex's version. Dr. David Altschuler is the chief scientific officer at Vertex. He told the Associated Press that while there is clearly a great unmet need for the new SCD treatments, the process also presents challenges. Altschuler said Vertex is working to simplify the treatment process to make it available to more people. For example, his team is seeking to develop a medication in pill form that could perform similarly to the gene-editing method. But experts have warned that simpler treatments will likely still be too costly for many people. This has led to calls for governments and non-profit organizations to get involved to help provide financial assistance to patients. Gautam Daungray lives in the city of Nagpur in central India. His two children suffer from SCD. He told the AP he has been praying the treatment should come to us. Daungray's son is now 19 years old and his daughter is 13. They both currently take a drug called hydroxyurea. That drug has long been used to help prevent the formation of sickle-shaped red blood cells in an effort to control pain and other damaging effects. Daungray leads India's National Alliance of Sickle Cell Organizations. He said many patients in rural parts of India are dying at very young ages without getting effective treatment. He added that if the gene treatments for SCD one day make it to India, he would like his children to be among the first to get them. But Daungray noted that people in all countries, rich or poor, should be able to get the latest treatments available. We are all part of one single planet. He said, I'm Brian Lin. Brian Lin is here now to talk more about his health and lifestyle report. Thanks for being here, Brian. Of course, Dan. Thanks for having me. Your report focused on availability issues for two promising gene-based treatments for sickle cell disease. You pointed out the disease is common in places with a lot of malaria cases, India being one. Many people there likely will not get the new treatments. What other areas are likely to face the same issue? Yes, so another country is Tanzania in East Africa, which also has a significant problem with sickle cell disease. Officials there have already partnered directly with drug companies in an effort to improve availability to existing treatments for the disease. But as the report mentions, these treatments are not completely effective in getting rid of symptoms of the disease, which can be quite severe, especially in children. And it was also pointed out that the cost of these one-time gene treatments is very high, putting them out of reach for most people in both of these countries. Yes, this is the other major problem. The current prices range from two to three million dollars, which really puts the treatment out of reach for people not only in India and Tanzania, but throughout the world. Another problem in the developing world is that many areas lack the modern hospitals and equipment necessary to support this kind of modern therapy. The report does note, however, there are companies seeking to simplify the treatment process to make it available to as many people as possible. OK, thanks again for being here, Brian. You're welcome. Thank you, Dan. Hello, my name is Anna Matteo. My name is Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins. You're listening to The Lesson of the Day on the Learning English podcast. Today's lesson helps you do more with Level 2 of our video series, Let's Learn English. This series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. Today's lesson explains how we relate or connect two events in the past that happened at different times. In Lesson 3 of Level 2, Anna and her new work partner, Pete, talk about why they did not arrive at a meeting on time. But they disagree about the reasons they were late. Let's listen first to what Anna says. You two are late. Exactly 43 minutes late. What happened? He had to get his special coffee. Special coffee. She had to feed her birds. Her birds? Of course I have to feed the birds. It's very special coffee. OK, I can see already that you two need my help. You can't both talk at the same time. You have to take turns. All right, Anna, you go first. Sure. Kelly, Pete and I live in the same building, so we decided to meet at 8 a.m. 8 a.m. to come to work together. I had waited 15 minutes when Pete arrived. After Pete had wasted time waiting for coffee, we were late. I left you a message. Anna explains that they were late after Pete had wasted or spent too much time getting his special coffee. Notice that there are two events in the past here. They were late, but before they were late, Pete had gotten some coffee. When one event in the past happens before another event, we can use the past perfect tense to make this clear. We use the auxiliary verb had plus the past participle to show what happened first. That's why Anna said Pete had wasted time. The auxiliary had tells us that Pete wasted time before they were late. Now let's listen to Pete's explanation of why they were late. And listen for when he uses the past perfect tense. Yeah, that's not why we're late. This is why we're late. I had arrived on time at 8 a.m. but didn't see Anna. She was standing behind a tree. I think she was hugging it. I always walk to work, but she said that would take too long and that a scooter would be faster. It was awful. I hated it and it added too much time to our commute. Then Anna stopped by a pond to feed the birds. She had named them after characters from books and yelled the names out loud. Romeo, Juliet, Sherlock. By the time she had fed all the birds, we were late. Did you hear Pete use the past perfect? Listen again to this sentence. I had arrived on time at 8 a.m. but didn't see Anna. Now think what happened first. Pete's arrival or Pete's not seeing Anna. That's right, first he arrived at 8 a.m. and then he didn't see Anna. Here's one more example from Pete. By the time she had fed all the birds, we were late. We often use adverbs with the past perfect to help show how the two events relate to each other in the past. In this example, Pete uses the adverb phrase by the time, which means when an action has been completed or finished. Other adverbs commonly used with the past perfect are the adverbs already and never. For example, we might say, I had already seen that movie, so I didn't go with my friends when they went to see it. I had never given a speech before, so I felt nervous. Jill, those are good examples. But what about those times when we say had had? That might sound a little strange or perhaps surprising to some of our listeners. That's true, but if the main verb is have, the past participle of have is had. And because we use the auxiliary had, that gives us the two words had had. Of course, it's easier to understand if you hear it in a sentence like this one. Because I had had such a hard time learning, my professor didn't think I should continue with that subject. We should also tell our listeners that when they watch lesson three of level two, they can see and hear Professor Bot explain more about the past perfect. But now let's listen to the person Anna and Pete meet and see what she thinks about their disagreements. This is what I think. You two see the same event very differently. Does this happen often with you two? Yes. No. What are you talking about? Okay, this is good. This is good. It's good to see things differently. I have an idea. We will call the show, he said, she said. For every story, you tell a different point of view. That is a great idea, Kelly. Pete, we are different. That's why I thought of you for this job. I think you two understand perfectly. Let's get to work. Having more than one point of view or a way of thinking about things can be very useful for a team that is working on a project. That's true. However, if you have too many points of view, that can also be a problem. True. We have an idiomatic expression that relates to that. We say, too many cooks spoil the broth. Broth is another word for the liquid in soup. The expression too many cooks spoil the broth means if you have too many people trying to be in charge or in control, it's difficult to get the job done. Well, luckily for our podcast, we normally just have two cooks, so I think it works out pretty well. I hope our listeners agree. Listeners, we'd like to hear from you. Have you ever worked with someone who was very different from you? Write about it to us at learningenglishatvoanews.com. And remember that each lesson of Let's Learn English comes with a lesson plan you can download for free. It has lots of activities you can use to practice English. And don't forget that you can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. And be sure to share the lesson of the day and other programs from Learning English with your friends and family. And thank you for listening. I'm Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak.


d the new pathways involving colleges. We are looking at the broad general education as well in saying how we can get that focus on careers, management skills and skills for work for younger children as well. There is a strong national partnership emerging around that and clear, detailed implementation plans that we are working with that will be launched shortly. I think that it is important that we have a joined up approach in relation to CFE and the Woods commission. In fact, we spent a lot of our time when we met with Sunin Woods urging him not to reinvent the wheel because the senior phase was already on the stocks and it was how he complimented that. It is an exciting agenda going forward. Here is the thing. School college liaison budgets have been slashed over the last three years. The capacity of schools to work with colleges in relation to delivery of skills-based courses in schools has been undermined because of austerity measures across the country. There is a big agenda here about getting business involved and getting a resource through that, but we need to have an alignment between the policy ambition and the practice of resorcent. Otherwise, we end up with unfulfilled potential. I still think that the focus is academic and not vocational. We were talking in a parliamentary committee 14 years ago about parity of esteem, and here we are today. I think that you have all said very good things, but we are a long way away from getting this right. Is it the case that by August next year, when my, for example, S3 pupils or S4 pupils in that particular secondary school in Scotland, they will have clear routes into vocational, college and other options if they want it at the start of S4 in every school across Scotland by next August? The detailed implementation plan is not yet finalised, so we will not be able to answer that at this point. We certainly are developing a five-year plan. All the partners are to take us forward with a clear set of milestones and actions for each year. As I say over the course of the next couple of weeks, we will hear that response, but there is an absolute consensus around this agenda, and there is a real determination to tackle that, both the equity issue and the different pathways. Within Curriculum for Excellence, there is the room for those pathways to be tailored to young people's needs as much as possible. At the moment, secondary school would say that they have links with employers, but what we want to see is co-design and to see employers as consumers of education, so much greater engagement. We are working hard with everybody to develop that implementation plan, which will give dates around the kinds of things that you are looking for. The answer to the specific question about the S3 S4 pupil is that it depends what school that pupil is attending. One of the features of that—I thought that the striking features of the final report from the Wood Commission—was that there are probably very few of the 39 recommendations where you could not go to somewhere in Scotland and find it being implemented just now. The challenge for Scottish education and Scottish society is to spread out the best practice across all schools, all colleges and all employers. It is not going to happen overnight when you see the figure that only a very small minority of employers recruit directly from education. A very small minority of employers currently have links to education. All of that is in the final report. It is not going to happen overnight, and the timescales that the final report sets—some of them call for immediate action, some of them look at, for instance, the partnership agreement between secondary schools has got a three-year timescale, but the main timescales in the final report are 2020. That is an indication that there is a lot of work to be done, but there is also a lot of good practice out there on which to base that work. The option that you outlined in theory should have been there last year for the senior phase. It should have been there this year, so at the risk of agreeing too often, I would agree with Terry that it will be dependent upon what senior phase model schools have and what local resources have in terms of existing college links or existing business links. The answer would be, it is unlikely to be a universal provision across the board next year, but hopefully we will be moving towards a critical mass in terms of that being seen as the type of pathway that schools should be looking at. I have gone through a lot this morning, but one of the things that has not been—strangely, one of the things that has not been discussed are the pupils themselves, to any great extent. I just wondered if you could tell the committee what actions you have taken to seek the opinion or feedback from the pupils who have just gone through the latest part of the curriculum for excellent development. Again, although I am speaking today for ADES, I can only give an example from my own local authority. So what we are doing at the moment in Weston-Bartonshire is two things. We have issued questionnaires to the current S5 to pupils and parents asking them about their perception of the S4 experience and the first round of national qualifications. We are also convening focus groups of staff, pupils and parents to tease out some of the broad questions within the questionnaire to try to get a bit more depth to that. We want to learn from the first year's experience and to improve the experience for young people going forward. I think that there is evidence that it is not just teachers who have suffered from assessment overload in the last year. I think that some young people have also felt that, and we have a duty to try to make sure that that is reduced going forward. Inspection programme, there is a pre-inspection questionnaire for young people. We are in the process of analysing the data for last year, which will be available shortly. However, we ask about our young people enjoying learning at school in the previous year. 90 per cent agreed or strongly agreed, 92 per cent agreed that we are getting on well with their schoolwork. We monitor young people's views on education very carefully through those questionnaires, which represent a sample of schools in different areas and sizes and so on. We monitor that very closely, and we will continue to do so. We have two areas in terms of feedback. One is that in the course of last year, we had significant feedback from pastoral care staff, acknowledging or recording increased levels of stress among young people who are going through S4. There are always some young people who are stressed out by assessment processes, but there was significant workload burden and related stress, especially in schools in which they were trying to do seven or eight subjects across a one-year course. The other is just the feedback from our subject teachers that, post Christmas, some young people were looking at assessments almost on a daily basis in terms of doing seven or eight subjects, and a number of subjects can't do the unit assessments end on. They have to do them holistically after you've caught a sufficient part of the course. One of the phrases that was used was that we used to be concerned about a two-term dash to hire. We've now got a two-term dash to national five. There was a significant issue for young people in terms of the assessment regime that was there last year, and some of that might be addressed through the use of more holistic assessment, but there were certainly pressures on young people last year. I would like the committee to know that we canvast the views of pupils as part of the reflections report. A number of the folk that were on the working group spoke specifically as they died to groups of youngsters, and I think there were two main messages came out. One was, as Larry suggested, the period from January until Easter holidays was a period of, in some cases, continual assessment and reassessment, very often for the very best of reasons that teachers want to give the youngsters the best opportunity to actually pass the unit assessments in there for pass the examination. I think the other thing that came through was that they themselves, like many teachers, were still getting used to the wider range of assessment approaches, whether that be portfolios or projects or whatever. Again, it's been a learning experience for them. I have to say that I did come across some youngsters myself who actually quite enjoyed the unit assessments and the regularity of the unit assessments and the regularity of feedback that they got from that on-going assessment. Although it was very much the case that most felt a burden of assessment and reassessment, there were a few who actually quite enjoyed it perversely. At the time that the reflections group was beginning, we raised the point of maybe having focus groups. Again, it was widened out through various organisations. That's as much as we've done in actual fact, except from hearing the messages back from members about their own particular year groups. In terms of assessing pupils' opinion, we haven't taken that forward. In terms of SQA, we have something called MySQL, which is a web-based engagement with SQA, which learners tend to like to engage with. That facilitates us on an on-going basis to get fairly open feedback from learners on what they're feeling about the courses, definitely around exam time. We get a significant number of pieces of feedback. We also monitor student room and other activities, particularly around the qualifications period and results time. Another area that we get feedback is from the liaison team itself as they go into schools and as they get feedback from pupils on what they're finding. However, one of the things we need to do—and we are going to be doing between now and 2017—is actually looking at monitoring and evaluating how the new courses have gone. One component of that will be talking to pupils who have undertaken the courses. This is something that we need to take the time to really understand the detailed implications of. That is a piece of work that we're initiating pretty soon to be able to not only understand this year but understand what's happening last year, understand what's happening this year and understand what's happening next year. We get a full understanding from different groups, including students, as to how they felt about the qualifications. Similar to Larry, our experience comes through pupil support and guidance teachers, rather than pupils themselves. I say that the two areas that we are aware of are that spring period when there has been, certainly last year, there seemed to be an overload of assessment for pupils and the society of stress and so on. Also, the perception among certainly some guidance staff that the leap in some subjects between national 5 and higher could be really quite a difficult leap. Concerns that some pupils might not be able to make that step. Can I thank all of you very much for your attendance today? Obviously, a number of those points we will raise with the Cabinet Secretary next week. However, as I said earlier, if there are any particular points that are going through the long session, we can't cover everything. Just send us an email and we'll hopefully try to include those in our discussions with the Cabinet Secretary next Tuesday. That concludes the public part of our meeting, and we're now moving into private session.


This paper examines the potential benefits of using cloud-based learning tools such as GeoGebra in the teaching of stereometry. It suggests that this approach can help foster student STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math competencies by providing them with a more engaging and interactive learning experience. This article was authored by Tessiana H. Cromorenko, Oles Pilipenko, and Ivan O. Musica.


Always great to see you. You bring so much passion to your competitions. How excited are you to be here girl? Very excited. I'm happy to see everybody see all these new characters, new game They're super stoked to be here very happy moment. I'm gonna make the most of it. All right Go and have a seat and get ready. Let's introduce your competitor from Texas currently a free agent SCAR One question SCAR Sonya or Scarlet That's what I want to hear go ahead and take a seat folks We're gonna see this fan favorite from Mortal Kombat 9 make a return with one of the best Players on the planet will give these players a second to double check their button checks see what they need to do in order to Maximize the potential in this game and remember they've only had a couple hours playing this game, but it shows how long They have spent playing previous nether around titles to pick up the intricate Differences we see in the gameplay compared to Mortal Kombat X We'll give them a couple more minutes here as they flip through the menu and set themselves up for success. Gure you ready? Gure is ready scar you ready? Let's do it gentlemen match number two about to begin This one's exciting for me. Well, I'm looking forward to scarlet. I mean she's back But she's very different she might as well be a brand-new care and I am all in on MK 11 scarlet I think she looks amazing Let's talk about this dude right here So you immediately gravitated toward this character You should probably tell everyone why because he's very unique. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, so obviously he's the grappler By the way, some other characters have that too. It's not just him, but Baraka also does have a command grab does have a command grab so so gears has a Really strong command grab that goes really far at corner carries excellent He has some good buttons and man some of his there is the command grab and you see how long he holds you It has a unique property where if he's near a wall, he then makes a sand wall throws you into it It does a lot more damage what happens as well He has a little kind of atrocity sort of semi zoning as you saw right there He also has some crazy stuff in the variations and I'm not sure which ones he ended up with here But he's got some real nutty tools. Let me tell you he has a rewind time move He has a move where he can actually remove time from the clock He is a very unique. It's very he's like a hybrid character of a weird kind of trap character and then with the command grab Yes. Yeah, very very funky design, but these buttons right now at a scarlet the range is incredible Scarlet is the footsies queen the mid-range queen in my opinion She has she uses blood to conjure weapons and they all have excellent range Hold on here Multiple project and there's So when you're down below a certain percentage of light you get access to the fatal blow Yes, and it is a huge amount of damage as you can see around winning damage It is big damage and they have armor and armor is not as prevalent as it has been in previous games You really have to use your bin range to just avoid stuff So the fatal blow is going to be one of the best ways to have armor It is not tied to your stamina bar at all, right? Which means you don't have to use your resources in previous games You'd have to give up all your resources to do an x-ray attack now with fatal blow You're free to use it if you have 30% which just inherently makes them so much more powerful. Sure Yeah, you'll get it in every game every round the catches once it hits you can't use it again So one of the meta the game is going to be decide do you want to make a comeback at round one? Like we just saw girl will never have his fatal blow again now these use oh in the whole game Oh, I thought it was rounds Wow That is really so they are absolute game changers that are extremely strong But you only get the one cash in that was his command grab same one It just and at the wall like bit was saying it's a little bit different He can hold the the button to throw them even further like carry them even further. Oh now the fatal blows there for scar And that's the crushing blow that So the way that one works is the last hits and overhead of the string if you duck block you get the crushing blow He also Has a low where he does sand trap So it's a 50-50 if they think you're gonna do the low sand move they duck And if they get by that overhead they lose 40% of the life because of the crushing blow You're telling me his mix-up his mix-up has a crushing blow But he only can use that once per game, right? So that's one of the fun things about crushing blows. Do you do you want to go for that mix-up now or later? I see okay, and we'll see a Girl basically made a crushing blow and a fatal blow come back right there out of nowhere They did they do massive damage. Yeah, you can really see that I guess is the opponent You really got to pay attention combos in general in this game are Significantly shorter than they've been in the past and they do less damage and They kind of that damage you would get by doing the cinematic moves. Do you see that combo this guy already has? What do we say two hours of gameplay so far? So one of the big things would be to use your crushing blow your fatal blow to get damage instead of doing combos That's that's not to say combos are not still a big part of the game.  Okay. Here we go Can you get another time now? Yeah, Scarlett she has like four different projectiles, so yeah I know Scarlett's not the reason to do anything else just holding on to the space right here But gotta pay attention to that fatal. Oh, okay Fatal blow was available didn't end up coming up Scarlett is a good example of how the offense works in this game Her back to is that sight move that's an overhead But it does not pop you up and it is unsafe and blocked Okay, but then her back three four that one that can pop you up in the corner So she has a low that can pop you up, but she does not have an overhead Oh, he's really found a good tool. Oh Good job, probably looking for command grab didn't come and scar right back to the zoning You can see like the the frustration is still here One of the things I really love about MK 11 so far is that these characters that you've shown on this character select screen are very different So you have the credible zoning coming out of scarlet from garrus. You have really cool command grab mix ups He's got some other funky stuff as well if we were talking about really good very issues Fatal blow it's there Yes, and then we'll also have characters like sub zero who has great off some of the best offense in this version Which is unique so you typically you think of him as a very slow defensive character I really don't think he is in this one. He's quite different. Yeah, and Sonya's also has really really good mix ups You know girl, he's had a lot of heart as a player Looking pretty confident up there and I'm really glad that girl went with the big body You know he in injustice too as the game progressed He moved away from Bane and the command grab characters he traditionally used so I'm happy to see him back Yeah, I was very happy when I wanted but back there that he immediately had picked gears It really seems good for mm-hmm, and I'm very very hyped to see scar play scarlet One of the fun things about the development of his game since we didn't reveal it You know earlier was sitting there waiting I can't wait to see some of these you know which pro players gonna play which this character And I knew scar was gonna lose his mind because in him came on he came in late And he was the best scarlet in the world at one point, but Injustice came out and he never really got the chance to like get evo top-8 or MLG top-8 even though he was very talented even back So at the beginning of this round, we saw that it said first hit What does that do for you now without meter in the same way there is no more like first hit bonus? Okay, you do not get anything because meter recharges on its own and you always unlike typically you do not You actually start with all four of your bars. Oh ding the combo out of the wake up All right. All right, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, that could have been cool You'll get there. You're does have his fatal blow We'll see though that now at this point though The round is gonna be very hard to win So it might be wise to best save it unless he gets a few hits and then it would kill. Mm-hmm. Wow Just goes for the sweep to seal it. Yeah I really like the mind game of that having to think even as the person using the tool if you should use it Now or you should save it for the next round or what? It's definitely one of my favorite things that we've added to the game Oh, wow, what's the condition on that the condition on that I believe is to counter hits with that move in a row Okay, I was gonna ask what counter hits do but I guess do they they help with that Counter hits are typically used in crushing blows Otherwise they just it just lets you know that you hit a counter hit for a lot of them are tied to that Okay, yeah, and that's the same when you see punish come up that it was a guaranteed punish and a lot of those are crushing blows Like for example that right there if that it hit as a counter it would have got the crushing blow got it Look how long he holds it It's holding them like they're a small child. Yeah, they are compared to that big boy And right back to a range where he can control things he's got good buttons. Maybe not in this match it But typically it seems like that's true. Okay. Okay here. That's the use of the fatal blow. He was about to lose it Not right and that's definitely gonna kill Now again, that means Gerd did steal that round, but you will not have it in the final and scar still has it So that means in the end of game scenario like right there scar will have a huge advantage heading into the spot around I'm hoping to see some forward movement in there. Now those those I'm not sure what to call it It's not puddle that thing you have to aim that right that is not tracking It is not tracking he has close medium and very far and you can see when he amplifies it It's when he gets an hourglass and it's letting you know the other one's gonna come out So you can see what he's girls kind of doing you put it out there then Do other moves walk in walk back and then it's gonna go and scar knows you can't get in Well, we were talking about whether guard girl could make another comeback doesn't seem like he needs it right now It's all on scar now scar does have access to the fatal blow up now It is on a cool down you did not lose it since it was blocked, but it's a significant cool down still available And it just came back. Unfortunately. It's too late So then you do have access to it More than once if it's blocked or with okay once it actually connects. It's used okay Now we've only seen it come up a couple of times, but talk to me about how Rose and throw techs work. Are they the same as in previous Mortal Kombat throws are very reminiscent of MKX You use the opposite button to break them. They have a forward and a back one a lot of crushing blows are actually tied to throw And the requirement will be if they opponent text the wrong way you get the crushing blow and they do Bigly damage like scarlet has one so her throat can do like 30% if you check wrong sick, okay? It's pretty awesome. So as the defender almost riskier to try to attack in some situations. Well That's exactly it and you could actually if you think they're gonna throw do an uppercut because that would trigger the Counter-hitting high attack for the uppercut crushing blow. Wow. All right So it kind of works both ways actually of how risky throws can be interesting. Oh, he had gone for the interactable You can still amplify interactables to get armor. It's one of the few ways that has armor in the game Okay, however normally an interactable takes 50% of your defense if you amplify it to get armor It takes 50% of offense and defense Armor across the board is significantly Lessened than it was in previous games. A lot of characters only have armor on their fatal blow Or a handful of moves So they're both finding pretty good strings right now and making the opponent block a lot Is there anything that they could be doing about that? Yes, one of the new mechanics is flawless block It's if you block an attack the last second within just a couple of frames Chip damage significantly reduced and you actually break out earlier and it allows you to punish things or recover faster than you normally would Okay, it's a very hard mechanic It's it's meant to be kind of you really have mastered the timing and you really know your opponent well But it can save your life like If you're about to die by chip damage, you can save you You also if you reversal a movement false block you have access to your wake-up attacks So the up two or the upgrade it uses your wake-up attacks you can do is a reversal So I'll give you an example Oh after blocking right like if you do some of your slide and I block it if I flawless block I can then reversal up to and get the pop-up attack. Oh Wow Like a great example would be scorpions and hands teleport is safe on block However, if I have the timing if I've mastered if I have sonic fox like reflexes I can flawless block the teleport and I can actually get a punishment normally I cannot okay This is like basically a dead even match. They're both playing their characters Pretty impressive for how little time they've had. Yeah, I feel like they are developing even as we're watching them right now We're seeing some cooler pressure out of both Yeah, they're both mixing up their zoning well and you put it out early like they're they understand their block strings up close Okay, so that was the up three one where she she doesn't really get significant damage or a knockdown It's just more of a get-off me tool and is that safe? It depends on the character. Okay. Yeah Oh And there he went for his temporal advantage move, which is interesting because while it combos he freezes time He cannot two-in-one into it. Hmm. It also takes one of his stamina. That's right There are certain moves or cancels that'll take stamina So it's not like you need to enhance it. It just does that it just does that which is that's why That was an anti-air cheese and the way that move works is the opponent is frozen and doesn't do a reaction So obviously typically an uppercut would knock you away that won't and they are both within fatal blow So this is the scramble. I'm so excited for in tournaments Oh, we saw scar try it, but it was blocked and now he's at match point They're patient right there. I like the anti-air. Why we text it Scar's getting a big combo Now there is a wall run interactable here that Gerr could use and Gerr has never done a wall I've seen a wall run that he hasn't used there. Yeah Gerr is definitely probably the interactable master in the scene. Yeah known to to be one of those. There you go Okay. Yeah armor The tongue not connecting And that tongue is a really really good move. It has really good recovery. It's that's my favorite of rezoning tools Looking good for scar we got fatal blow now for Gerr though. Oh He tried he tried the armor does not activate for a few frames. Okay So while it's very good armor and it's a good tool to have it's not full proof That might be about it. Yeah, it's gonna be it scar takes it Well, that's a really good back-and-forth and I like seeing the display of footsies from both I like seeing the different offense the different timings Very cool. I'm really excited to find out more about you know, how you trigger crushing blows. I think that's a super cool mechanic That is something along with the blocking option that you were talking about that really requires knowing the game in depth Yes crushing blows are definitely a lot of fun to learn the requirements and I've now seen them probably eight million times. I'm still high like every time So some of my pretty sick. I saw some back there. Yeah, like that Baraka aren't one where you just bite your arm And a chunk of flesh comes out man. I was getting hype watch