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

 

 

 

 

Publicat dins de Audiobooks, Books, Listening, Reading | Etiquetat com a , , , | Deixa un comentari

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.

Publicat dins de Books, Listening, Reading | Etiquetat com a , , | Deixa un comentari

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?

Publicat dins de Listening, Music, Songs, Student's Class Assignments | Etiquetat com a , , , , , | Deixa un comentari

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

 
Publicat dins de Books, Reading, Student's Class Assignments | Etiquetat com a , , , , | Deixa un comentari

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.        ⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒

Publicat dins de Student's Class Assignments, Writing | Etiquetat com a , , , | 1 comentari

Adverbs of Frequency

Frequency advs

Revise the adverbs of frequency (their meaning, their word order in the sentence, how to form questions and negatives…) in the video below (Simple English Videos).

Click on the subtitles (choose the ones in English!) to fully understand the lesson

Publicat dins de Grammar and Vocabulary | Etiquetat com a , | Deixa un comentari

Banned Books Week: Freedom to Read in the USA

During the last week of September every year, libraries and bookshops in the USA celebrate the Banned Books Week to draw attention towards the problem of censorship: there are hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States every year. Do you know the difference between banned and challenged books?: when a book is banned, you cannot have it in a library, bookshop or in the school system; a book is challenged when there is an attempt to ban it.

Books are challenged for many reasons: because they are too sexual, or violent, or show a positive image of homosexuals, or are offensive from the point of view of religion or race…But I´m sure you know (and have read) some of the books that have been challenged some time or other; for example, J.K. Rowling´s Harry Potter books, all of them (claiming they promote witchcraft- which reminds me of an article, “Le hacen a uno drogadicto”, written by Juan José Millás and published in El País Semanal Nº1721, page 21), Philip Pullman´s The Golden Compass (because it is anti-God, anti-Catholic and anti-religion), Khaled Hosseini´s The Kite Runner (because of its vulgar language and because a rape is described in detail), Mark Twain´s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (because of its racial epithets)…Click here if you want to read the list of the most challenged books.

Watch this video to learn about this special week: you can play it to see how much you understand (it shouldn´t be too difficult). Once you´ve listened to it a couple of times you can check the text below it to make sure you understood it correctly.

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. This year, Banned Books Week is celebrated from September 26 to October 3. 2009 marks the 28th anniversary of Banned Books Week. More than a thousand books have been challenged since Banned Books Week began. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. Hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The easiest way is to visit a participating library or bookstore. Check for special events around your community during Banned Books Week. Come join the fight and celebrate your freedom to read.

Amnesty International collaborates with the events this week to defend the people who are persecuted because of what they read or write.

And here´s a video which tries to ridicule the way some people challenge books:

Publicat dins de Books, Listening, Reading | Etiquetat com a , , , | Deixa un comentari

Adverbs of Degree

adverbs-of-degree-2-638

adverbs-6-638

Publicat dins de Grammar and Vocabulary | Etiquetat com a , | Deixa un comentari

A Sibling´s Story

skoty12_coverThe magazine called “Sports Illustrated Kids”  has given the award Sportskids of the year 2012 to brothers Conner and Cayden Long.

Cayden has cerebral palsy but that hasn’t stopped him from competing in triathlons with his older brother Conner:  Conner pulls his little brother behind him in a raft when he swims, tows him in a trailer behind his bike, and pushes him  when he runs; they have already  done this in 14 triathlons.

You can read their complete story here

This is what you can do as extra homework: write this story form the point of view of Conner: what you do, how, why, and explain how all that makes you feel.

Publicat dins de Listening, Magazines, Student's Class Assignments, Writing | Etiquetat com a , , , | Deixa un comentari

Free National Geographic Magazine

Which glass wouldn´t you take even if you were thirsty? Some people have no choice and they ARE thirsty so they have to drink what you wouldn´t.

468x60_8glasses

water day 2, end water poverty

March 22nd has been International World Water Day since 1993; it started as an international day of observance and action to draw attention to the role that freshwater plays in our world and lives. Watch this video to understand what we are talking about here.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/WDjIesJrojc[/youtube]

water day 1, toilet queueClick here to see more videos and impressive photos about the need for water in the world.

This year, again, the emphasis is on the fight against the global sanitation and the water crisis that’s killing 4,000 children every single day. Next month, in April, politicians from across the globe will gather in Washington DC. to discuss what they need to do to fulfill some of the most basic rights of the world’s citizens – access to a safe toilet and clean water. That is the reason why this campaign, The World´s Longest Toilet Queue, started. Click on the link to join the queue or learn about it.

There are many websites in the internet where you can either read and learn about this or take action. Twilight Earth, for instance, is a blog dedicated to saving the Environment through shared News, Discussion, Advocacy and Activism, as they say; while End Water Poverty, Fresh Water Action Network and Charity: Water focus on civil actions or organizations with the same goal: bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. And last, but not least, the Official Website of World Water Day .

This video shows that things can change, just like they changed in Europe in the past:

To celebrate “World Water Day” (March 22nd) and this year’s theme, “Clean Water for a Healthy World”, The National Geographic Society are distributing an interactive version of their April, 2010 magazine for download – free until April 2nd

This interactive edition of National Geographic magazine presents complete content from the print edition, plus extra photo galleries, rollover graphics that animate features like maps and time lines, video profiles of photographers who contributed to the issue, and other interactive features. National Geographic’s water issue is available in print on newsstands everywhere beginning March 30.

OUR THIRSTY WORLD

Did you know that only 1% of Earth’s water is fresh and available for consumption? Fresh water is the world’s most essential natural resource, but it’s also one of the most threatened. National Geographic magazine’s April issue celebrates and explores this important resource.

Learn more about this Special Issue

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater

natgeo

 

 

Click here for your free downloadable copy.

Enjoy!

 

 

“Serendipity is looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the farmer’s daughter [or son].”                                                                                                                                        Unknown

Publicat dins de Listening, Magazines, Student's Class Assignments | Etiquetat com a , , , | Deixa un comentari