2014 World Cup: Will Brazil be ready?

by Waldirene Biernath

Source photos: Google image

Brazil, Soccer Country!!! That’s how we are known all over the world. We have already won the worldwide tournament five times. No doubt, Brazilians have always had their own style on the pitch. It is fair to soccer country hosts a Word Cup, isn’t it?

Some people do not agree with that and criticizes that the championship will be held in Brazil.

The Fifa organization’s general secretary, Jerome Valcke, recently said: "It's amazing that Brazil is already very late. They are proving how difficult it is to hold a World Cup in Brazil, just as it was in South Africa."

Many of the stadiums are behind schedule and over-budget, and pressure is mounting to put things back on track. The rising price of building materials, costly changes demanded by Fifa and delays have left an air of uncertainty over the project.

In June, according to an article from BBCNews, workers at the stadium in Belo Horizonte walked out, demanding higher wages and improved conditions, because the rising wage inflation. The economic reporter, Mark Broad who wrote the article, still says that the project is already behind schedule and will not be ready for the 2013 Confederations Cup, which is being used as test event for the World Cup.

But the operations director for the new Corinthians Stadium in São Paulo, Frederico Barbosa, appears relaxed as he surveys the diggers scraping away at the hillside on the site.

"As the work goes on, we will need extra resources. Eventually we will have 2,000 people working on the site," says Barbosa, "It's going to be a challenge to get the work done, as we will have to work through the rainy season. But we... expect to have it finished by December 2013, two months ahead of Fifa's deadline."

There have also been concerns of the cost of the project. The Brazilian sports minister, Orlando Silva, calling on the Odebrecht Developers to cut the budget by 20%.

Works in Maracanã Stadium

There are more than 20 men milling around the pitch at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The teams of workers are accompanied by four huge diggers and a fleet of trucks ferrying soil out of the stadium. To keep the project on schedule, work continues 24 hours a day.

The Maracanã was redeveloped in 2007 for the Pan-American Games, but Fifa argues that the organising committee had failed to meet World Cup regulations.

In an interview shown on Sunday, the President Dilma Rousseff said that Brazil certainly will be prepared for the World Cup 2014: "I am absolutely certain [that Brazil will be prepared for the World Cup 2014] (...). Because we have nine stadiums getting ready until December 12. (…)Airports, we are bidding with three airports, already fully formatted engineering. Let's make these bids later this year. "

Brazilian airports

One of the big challenges for Brazil is to transport the spectators between the 12 host cities across the country.

The number of internal flights has risen by 80 million in the past five years and the same increase is predicted by 2014. São Paulo international airport has only two terminals with a population of over 20 million people.

The government is selling shares in the state operator, Infraero. It hopes the cash injection will speed work to be completed in nine of the airports.

Carlos Alberto Torres, Brazilian football greater in 1970, says Brazil will be ready for the 2014 tournament, "This is the Brazilian style. Fifa always come to Brazil, and they go to look at stadiums and ask what's going on, and we say, 'Don't worry, we're going to be ready before the World Cup,'" he says.

  

Give your opinion: Many Brazilians do not believe the country will be able to host the 2014 World Cup. What do you think about?

Vocabulary:

back on track: (Fig.) running according to schedule again. (*Typically: get ~; get something ~; have something ~; put something ~.) I hope we can have this project back on track by the end of the week;

walked out (verb):  stop work in order to press demands; leave abruptly, often in protest or anger;

scraping away: to scratch or rasp something off something. (Ted scraped the rough places away from the fender he was repairing. Ted scraped away the rough places.);

bidding (noun): the process of making bids for things, for example at an auction (=an event where things are sold to the person who offers the most money);

shares (noun):  any of the equal portions into which the capital stock of a corporation is divided and ownership of which is evidenced by a stock certificate ("He bought 100 shares of IBM at the market price").

Source:

http://fantastico.globo.com/Jornalismo/FANT/0,,MUL1672642-15605,00-DILMA+ROUSSEFF+RECEBE+PATRICIA+POETA+NO+PALACIO+DA+ALVORADA+E+DO+PLANALTO.html;

http://correiodobrasil.com.br/entrevista-de-dilma-para-o-programa-fantastico/295880/;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13960586

Schools debate: Is cursive writing worth teaching?

by Waldirene Biernath

Cursive vs. typing: Which should schools teach?

The future of cursive writing is in the headlines. Teaching cursive handwriting will no longer be part of the required curriculum in schools in the United States. Over the next three years, school districts will be in transition to new state standards, according to Patrick Gallaway, associate director of communications with the Ohio Department of Education. “The focus under the new Common Core standards will be keyboarding skills”, he said.

Source: Google image

Laptops, BlackBerries, iPads as technology improves, there's at least one constant:  the devices all have keyboards or keypads.   Because of technology, schools are putting more emphasis on teaching keyboarding.  That means cursive writing instruction could become expendable. Some schools in the U.S. are adopting a new language arts curriculum in which cursive writing will be evaluated.  If research shows interest in cursive writing is fading, it may be time to make a change.  Other school districts agree that it's a decision that cannot be made quickly.

Last year, Wisconsin and Illinois adopted the Common Core Standards.  Its Language Arts curricula calls for more attention to be put on keyboard efficiency and less time on learning cursive. Forty four of the fifty American states have adopted the Common Core Standards Program. 

Cursive is still widely taught in U.S. public and private elementary schools, according to a 2007 nationwide study on handwriting instruction by Vanderbilt University. It surveyed a random sampling of about 200 teachers in grades one through three in all 50 states. Ninety percent of the teachers who responded said their schools required instruction in handwriting. Of those who taught it, half of second grade teachers and 90% of third grade teachers offered instruction in cursive.

Give your opinion:

Do you think cursive is important for children to learn or should the time be spent teaching other subjects?

Vocabulary:

Headlines (noun): the title of a newspaper story that is printed in large letters;

expendable (adjective): used for describing someone or something that you are willing to get rid of, lose, or allow to be killed because they are no longer useful or necessary;

fading (verb to fade):  disappear gradually.

The Common Core State Standards is a U.S. education initiative that provides the curricula of what students are expected to learn. Something like our PCNs.