Saturday, March 31, 2012

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

For extra science vocabulary and real-deal listening practice...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/series/science
Should you have any doubts related to the field of law, here's an excellent specialized dictionary.

http://blackslawdictionary.org/

Thursday, February 09, 2012



Another of the Guardian's treasures waiting to be discovered is its city walks podcast. You can download the audio files for free!!!

Author Ian Rankin takes you around Edimburgh!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/audio/2007/jan/10/cityguides885


Dickens's London audio tour. There's a map to go with it!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2011/nov/24/dickens-audio-tour-david-copperfield
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2011/09/22/dickens_walk.pdf

Poet Roger McGough's vision of his hometown.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/audio/2006/nov/27/cityguides880

Steve Bell's Brighton
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/audio/2006/dec/21/cityguides882

Monday, February 06, 2012

I'm still tripping about stuff I found last weekend on the Guardian's web. Well, this new discovery certainly does not fall short of the others...In the wonderful section of interactives, there's this brilliant city guides series . They only cover a few cities, though. Take your pick and plan a dream trip!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/city-guides

Other interactives worth checking out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2012/feb/05/what-being-british-mean-interactive
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/jan/27/how-european-are-you-quiz
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/05/chastleton-house-cotswolds-panoramic-architecture
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/jan/25/europe-migration-eu-interactive

Friday, February 03, 2012

The Guardian's webpage may prove to be a great tool to learn English. I've included a couple of video interview links about music and a few other engrossing videos on a variety of topics.


video interviews (music)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/video/2012/jan/05/al-spx-cold-specks-video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/jan/04/youssou-n-dour-president-senegal-video

videos (miscelaneous)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2011/dec/26/errol-morris-photography-video?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3486
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/jan/23/paul-mason-revolts-capitalist-realism-video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/jan/23/cell36-aljalame-prison-israel-solitary-confinement-palestinian-children?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/2011/sep/07/amnesty-tv-write-book-behind-bars-video?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3486

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2008/aug/06/albert.maysles?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3486
Check out these audioslides. They make brilliant listening and speaking practice material.

audio slides (miscelaneous)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/slideshow/page/0,,2044805,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audioslideshow/2012/jan/16/gil-scott-heron-holiday-martin-luther-king-day
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audioslideshow/2011/nov/24/photographs-beseiged-syrian-homs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/interactive/2011/apr/14/south-africa-photography-audio-slideshow
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/interactive/2011/nov/24/cyra-a-teenage-life-in-care-audio-slideshow
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/audioslideshow/2011/sep/22/faisal-barbers-harlesden-london-audio-slideshow

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Here's the TIME magazine vid we didn't have time to check out the other day in class. I'm posting a few other vids you should have a look at.

music
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,1313231133001_2101708,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,21552990001_1894785,00.html

cinema
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,795293566001_2052703,00.html

music and vid and tv and all that
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,86967646001_1990937,00.html
Have you thought about teaching yourself English? If you're into taking a more active role in your learning experience here's a webpage you might go nuts about!
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/lesson-plans

The activities range from A2 to C1 and they are designed to work on different linguistic skills!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

If you're searching for language conversation partners online. The largest sites are www.mylanguageexchange.com and www.livemocha.com but some other good ones include www.languageexchange.org, www.conversationexchange.com www.sharedtalk.comand www.italki.com
Free video courses.

betteratenglish.
http://www.betteratenglish.com/videos/

privateenglishportal.(Phrasal verbs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886hLlkwipI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qzd7zNt-qA&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kftdmgvBY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1bw_manHJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqKGAg0YFlo&feature=relmfu

privateenglishportal (idioms)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBhfw-b6Ubg&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWfHZkrA_Zg&feature=relmfu

podenglish.
http://www.youtube.com/user/podEnglish?feature=watch#p/c/ECDB3ECC0AF0E938/52/QJP72OwZZPM
http://www.youtube.com/user/podEnglish?feature=watch#p/c/ECDB3ECC0AF0E938/53/2pmn6hYU8tI
http://www.youtube.com/user/podEnglish?feature=watch#p/c/ECDB3ECC0AF0E938/54/ZuQxcI473wI

learnenglishlive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emBCa_aB0Rw&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd4Gtmy8e8s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVBQWgLobcg&feature=relmfu

Peppy English Pronunciation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek6jV2CiKtY&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=SP99AD0EB3EFC5C338
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Y7k2I6XDI&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DniS53RrZZg&feature=related
Free video course.
http://www.youtube.com/user/podEnglish?feature=watch#p/c/ECDB3ECC0AF0E938/0/nTSl4DuwJVk
Free online courses ranging from elementary all the way up to advanced level. All you have to do is registering!

http://www.englishtown.es/online/home.aspx

Monday, October 10, 2011

Visual aid and excercises to learn new vocabulary.
http://www.learningchocolate.com/

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

This is a useful set of questions to get you reflecting on your own learning process and help you start devising your plans.

http://www.learnenglish.de/strategypage.htm

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

For hip hop lovers who struggle daily to unfathom the seemingly unfathomable! Make sense out of the sometimes marvelously creative twististry of rhymes.

http://rapgenius.com
For those of you interested in amateur film-making and getting good quality clips, be them music video clips or otherwise.
http://www.vimeo.com

Tuesday, September 20, 2011


Johnny Cash. An old school artist that luckily got to have a horde of different admirers at the end of his life. This video is a monument to honesty.

The song , which was originally written by Trent Reznor, was the inspiration for a video that made a whole lot of young people rave about a 70 year old artist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YizGd_bVEVk&feature=related

Song lyrics

http://www.lyrics007.com/Johnny%20Cash%20Lyrics/Hurt%20Lyrics.html

Interviews with Trent Reznor and Johhny Cash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlzjqPGdOSM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLjskiusfMo&feature=related

9 minute documentary about the end of Cash's life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6klx6ViCYsw

Monday, September 12, 2011

I realized it might be possible to actually see these writers having a goat what they do best: using words. True, They are novelists, not orators and some writers feel oddly ill at ease when confronted with spoken word.

Martin Amis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0QwZpUiT8

Kazuo Ishiguro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=batJu1ypW-Y

Salman Rushdie (very juicy stuff; indepth exploration of the issue of a variety of issues. This interview doesn't really have much to do with the author's novels):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc60ro81dIw

Ian McEwan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc60ro81dIw

Esther Freud (the authors interviews the author of Beirut Blues)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxVtrqfxjs&feature=related

Hanif Kureishi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzYMGkmkv_g

Rose Tremain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx3M7Kn-EME

Will Self
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-dBLO-Zn4g

Ben Okri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orNNO90R-JI

Philip Kerr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlTyoygUTII

Friday, September 09, 2011

The new enfant terrible of Scottish comedy (Not for political correctness adherers!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvOQxeQKrdw

A classic (between-bracket-warning still applies): Billy Connoly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDhETFcgWTE&feature=related

A bit of Scottish fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kuZICFk_is

Mr. Foul-Mouthed Scott vs. Mr. Razor Sharp Big Words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebviKewRtvc&feature=related

I got this info from a short essay Salman Rushdie wrote in 1993. Those of you who are into reading might get at least half as excited as I did when you lay your eyes on the lists, which obviously are not exhaustive but allow for quite a cluster of talented individuals.

In the early eighties these guys were given the weight label 'Best of Young British Novelists'. If Mr Salman Rushdie doesn't remember who were the bunch of literary critics who decided those and not other were the names and surnames on the lists, it is maybe not that important after all. Or maybe it is...

...I' ll try n google it...

Alright. The list was published in the literary magazine GRANTA, whose editor is Bill Bufford (Mr Rushdie did of course mentioned that further below. Why didn't I bother reading a bit further?) Anyway, here are the twenty writers:

Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, Ursula Bentley, William Boyd, Buchi Emecheta, Maggie gee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alan Judd, Adam Mars-jones, Ian McEwan, Shiva Naipaul, Philip Norman, Christopher Priest, Salman Rushdie, Clive Sinclair, Lisa St Aubin de Teran, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain and E.N. Wilson.

In 1990's list included the following word weavers:

Ian Bands, Louis de Bernieres, Anne Billson, Tibot Fischer, Esther Freud, Allan Hollinghurst, Kazuo Ishiguro, A. L. Kennedy, Philip KErr, Hanif Kureishi, Adam Lively, Adam Mars-Jones, Candia MacWilliams, Lawrence Norfolk, Ben Okri, Caryl Phillips, Will Self, Nicholas Shakespeare, Helen Simpson and Jeanette Winterson

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Friday, April 08, 2011

Excellent video with a fairly unlikely intro!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spBiWsgJOd4

Friday, March 04, 2011

Two amazing resources to get familiar with new vocab and explore the stunning world of synonymy.
http://thesaurus.com/
http://flashcards.dictionary.com/study/deck/5/reason-and-intention-logic-practice-quiz/
Great resource to practice listening and to learn new vocab.
http://www.esl-lab.com
http://esl-lab.com/review/review.htm
http://www.esl-lab.com/vocab/v-movies.htm

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

he remembered having once reflected upon the possibility of humans living like humans. there might have been a chance. some tribes had once truly believed in a pre-existing being, incomparable to anything real, endophoric to creation. an ironically centring exophora. this sole idea had made it possible to act humanely. they had feared the consequences of their injustices even if they were all essentially forgetful beings. some had lived hoping for an afterlife reward for their good actions. a few believed their lives were presents and followed a path set by their tenacious wills to be decent people.

an originator of duality and contradiction, possibility and opposition? modern notions of history and science din t seem to allow for such an entity.

the
fleeting idea of a being setting everything in motion or even surveying the unfolding of events in the universe was made more approachable by the existence of messengers; some were charlatans, others were unveilers.

our boy, though, was of a third kind. No categories could really be applied to him.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Here's an essay by Evelyn Glennie in which she discusses deafness and how it is widely misunderstood.

http://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing_essay.aspx
Here's an essay by Evelyn Glennie in which she discusses deafness and how it is widely misunderstood.

http://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing_essay.aspx
Here's an essay by Evelyn Glennie in which she discusses deafness.

http://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing_essay.aspx
Here's an esay by Evelyn Glennie in which she discusses deafness.

http://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing_essay.aspx

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

See what you think about this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElD40niJrio

Friday, December 03, 2010

HEre's another useful blog you can check out: www.englishfifthyear.blogspot.com

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Friday, October 22, 2010

Here's the first chunk of our communal writing project

The woman yawned. A long lazy noise came right out of her and was gone. It was an unearthly sound. She felt extremely tired after a bad night's sleep. Nightmares had plagued her since her early childhood but their vividness had increased of late. They had  become virtually indistinguishable from reality.

Nadia tentatively felt the other side of her bed with the back of her hand in vain. Her husband was gone.

Friday, October 08, 2010

Great alphabet song sporting an irresistible funky beat.

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/songs/the-alphabet-song
Traditional children's songs. Take your pick.

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/songs

My personal favourite
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/songs/if-you̢۪re-happy-and-you-know-it
Tongue twisters make excellent warm up practice!
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/tongue-twisters
The BBC put together this amazing resource. This is a sound by sound approach to the English phonemic system which will surely help you out with your pronunciation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/

Tuesday, October 05, 2010


Interview with Amy Winehouse. She had just published her first album at the time. She was only 20 years old.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbsuC_Y3bmM&p=0ADA4C02DF4EB578&playnext=1&index=29

Live performance of her debut album hit Stronger than me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOLJx0qoiNs

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Nerdy mockumentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWTmg4dHiKg
Song meanings. Do you not get the impressions that some songs are impenetrable. This one by R.E.M. will surely make that impression turn into a strong opinion.


http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/12323/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UE7tXDKIus

Tuesday, September 28, 2010


Karl Pilkington: The funniest man on earth according to Ricky Gervais, the man behind such works as The Office and Extras.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzc-0TzEFS4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUTH1coLIWE&feature=related

Friday, April 30, 2010

Impressive online catalogue. Many of the documents and books are available for free. You just have to submit your e-mail address.
http://ota.oucs.ox.ac.uk/catalogue/index-id.html

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Monday, April 12, 2010

Dictation exercises.
http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/omdictation/contenidotematico.htm
This podcast is a bit repetitive but quite good to learn how to pronounce irregular verbs.
http://www.manythings.org/repeat/

Here's a great free online English course for beginners as well.
http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/ELEMENTARY/presentacion1.htm

Monday, March 15, 2010

Great links for sound identification and postcard writing and learning new vocab while still focusing on sounds..
Rephrasing is a excellent of improving your written English showing-off capabilities.

Here´s link to practice rephrasing


Another way of becoming more proficient and boosting your vocab and syntax involves identifying a word used in different contexts and incorporating it into your language repertoire.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Beginners can practise their listening using these fantastic web.
http://www.agendaweb.org/listening/elem_interm.html

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I was amazed when i found this. This web is extremely useful both to get used to different accents and to get a feel of how everyday feels and souds. Listen to An English Accent.

http://englishconversations.org/

Check this one out. It´s a laugh.
http://englishconversations.org/2007/10/31/liverpool-accent/

Friday, January 15, 2010

Monday, January 11, 2010

Monday, December 07, 2009

Quite a good synonym game with -à different levels. Play for a good cause. If you know some other English learners who may enjoy the game let them know!

www.freerice.com

You can also change the subject if you're tired of synonyms: English grammar, Geography, Italian vocab, etc.
http://www.freerice.com/subjects.php?t=486260126360

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Amazing pictures of world leaders from all over the world with audio commentaries by the photographer.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/12/07/091207_audioslideshow_platon

Friday, November 27, 2009

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

More cooking stuff.

Surf the internet for long enough and you'll finally ride the wave you were so looking forward to find. Family relationships, thanksgivings, cooking, nice music, newyorkers. All bets are off!

Thanksgivings left-overs special.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCSkHErtGjM
Can a couple of Newyorkers cook tortilla de papas?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qtOU18g-BA

Monday, October 19, 2009

If you haven't checked this podcast out yet, have a go. You' ll probably find it both useful and entertaining. Once you get onto the vaughan radio web homepage click on podcast.

http://www.grupovaughan.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=22

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Quite an interesting dictionary to check out new expressions, idioms and the like. An interesting feature of the dictionary is that if you look up a common verb such as know and click on idioms a comprehensive interactive list of idioms and collocations is displayed.


http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/know
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/on+its+last+legs
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/lost+for+words