Books for the Summer

Si, ja em puc fer càrrec de la vostra situació actual, amb un trimestre curt de sessions però intens en contingut i càrrega emocional. És la vida mateixa… Ara bé, no em digueu que no esteu pensant en la platja, escoltar música tranquil·lament en un racó tranquil, sortir amb els amics… i tot sense la pressió de la jornada d’estudi al institut. Segur que no m’equivoco. Parlem clarament: ja pensem en el període de vacances d’estiu! Aquest article està relacionat amb les vacances i… en la lectura… i en l’anglès! Espero gaudireu d’una bona lectura. L’opció següent també és una alternativa… molt interessant!

HeadphonesApart from all the things you can think of doing on your summer holidays, here is a suggestion: audiobooks in English.

These are some webpages where you can find audiobooks in English for free:

Audiobooks for free
The books are classified (fiction, non-fiction, children´s…); they specify the number of files and their quality (bearable, tolerable, reasonable, good or very good)

Free Classic Audiobooks
The downloads are available in ipod format

Audiobooks recorded by volunteers
English is only one of the languages of the recordings; volunteers record chapters of books and Libri Vox publishes the audio files in the internet. You can even volunteer to record a chapter! Read how.

Sound is Touch at a Distance:
This is the motto at the beginning of this webpage. A group of actors and technicians from the USA have recorded the books listed here; being actors their ability to convey feelings through language should be taken for granted

Open Culture
“The best free cultural and educational media on the web”: that is how they advertise themselves and you can certainly spend hours on end having a look at everything you can find there. As for audiobooks: fiction & literature, non-fiction, poetry…

books (2)

Good Reads

 

 

 

 

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Good Reads

This is a post for Júlia, who has been an excellent  (though quiet) student throughout the year and who is likely to be a great doctor in the future.

books (2)Undoubtedly, the best way to learn English is through practice but when you cannot practise it with native speakers in an English-speaking country, you have to find some other ways to make up for it, and that means, basically, reading and listening.

If you like the cinema, one of the best ways is watching films, videos or documentaries – and there are plenty of them for free in the internet; listening to songs and singing along is another of my favourite ways to get better at English. As for books, here are some suggestions.

  • Classic reader is an online library with thousands of free books by authors such as Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare and many others.
  • Read Print is a directory that catalogs books that are freely available online; there are some 3,500 authors cataloged, with a wide selection of books, poems, plays and short stories.
  • Forgotten Books offers lots of classic works as free PDF downloads.
  • Learn Out Loud offers over 3000 free audio and video titles including  free audio books, lectures, speeches, sermons, interviews… Most audio titles can be downloaded in digital formats such as MP3 and most video titles are available to stream online.

audiobook-on-ipodClick here to go to a former post of mine where you can find a few web pages with lots of information about free audiobooks online. I would like to add one more page, Books Should Be Free which allows you to download some free audio books to either an iPod or an MP3; for example, Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

But the most convenient page for students, in my view,  is Google eBook Store. It is a great place to find free and paid ebooks to read on your computer or iPad. What makes it great is a helpful feature: when you’re reading a Google eBook title on your computer you can highlight and right click on words to find definitions and translations of those words. When you select definition, you also have the option to hear your highlighted word pronounced or you can search the web for information about that word… See how it works in one of these books, Aesop´s Fables or Jane Austen´s Pride and Prejudice

Some online books include videos, which makes reading really entertaining. Check this one, for instance, Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, the 21st century adaptation of the world’s oldest joke book. This edition includes an academic introduction by Prof. Bill Berg, videos of Jim Bowen performing some of the gags in front of a live audience in London and a selection of the jokes themselves.

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Song Of The Week

Mona Haydar´s `Hijabi´

Mona Haydar is a Syrian-American artist from Flint, Michigan,USA. She wears a hijab. She’s been a performance poet for 13 years, writing about love, trauma, loss and joy. She calls her music “resistance music” because it celebrates diversity and calls for women to be “unapologetic about who they are” with lyrics like: “Make a feminist planet / Women haters get banished / Covered up or not, don’t ever take us for granted.”

The lyrics of this song comment on the notion that the hijab is an oppressive tradition. What is your point of view about this topic?

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World Book Day 2017

World-Book-Day1

World Book Day is celebrated on April 23rd.

Why do you read? Watch the video below where a bunch of teenagers explain why they do. Do you agree with any of them?

As for this first image, you will need to know something abut Malala to fully understand it. Click here to learn abut her story

BOOK

And, finally, a video that shows the happiness of reading aloud and listening to someone doing so, the presentation of The Book With No Pictures

 

happy           w o r ld

b ook          d a y

 
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A Practice for Everyday Life

Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, or normal.

Human diurnality means most people sleep at least part of the night and are active in daytime. Most eat two or three meals in a day. Working time (apart from shift work) mostly involves a daily schedule, beginning in the morning. This produces the daily rush hours experienced by many millions, and the drive time focused on by radio broadcasters. Evening is often leisure time. Bathing every day is a custom for many.

Beyond these broad similarities, lifestyles vary and different people spend their days differently. Nomadic life differs from sedentism, and among the sedentary, urban people live differently from rural folk. Differences in the lives of the rich and the poor, or between factory workers and intellectuals, may go beyond their working hours. Many women spend their day in activities greatly different from those of men, and everywhere children do different things than adults.

Some people cope remarkably well with the pressures in their lives. They know when to take time out, look at the situation differently or turn to others for support. Unfortunately, many more people cope with stress in ways that are actually self-destructive. 

What most people don’t realize is that a lot of the stress we encounter is self-imposed. We contribute to our own stress when we don’t plan ahead, cheat ourselves on sleep, work too many hours, ignore relationship problems or procrastinate, among many other forms of behavior.

Most of us live by a motto, whether it’s one we’re taught or one we’ve developed over time.

Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So, love the people who treat you right and forget about the ones who don’t. And believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that it would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.”

                                                                                     Harvey MacKay

Each Day A Life

by Robert William Service

I count each day a little life,
With birth and death complete;
I cloister it from care and strife
And keep it sane and sweet.

With eager eyes I greet the morn,
Exultant as a boy,
Knowing that I am newly born
To wonder and to joy.

And when the sunset splendours wane
And ripe for rest am I,
Knowing that I will live again,
Exultantly I die.

O that all Life were but a Day
Sunny and sweet and sane!
And that at Even I might say:
“I sleep to wake again.”

london-england

My Last Trip To London City

 

Per cert… és possible que us pugui interessar el vídeo del meu últim viatge a Londres. Em fa una certa il·lusió fer-vos la presentació. Us deixo l’enllaç.        ⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒

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