Holidays!

It's been a veeery hot week here in Buenos Aires. A lot of people are on holiday and some are about to leave.Listen to this dialogue about holidays and answer these questions:

1- Why was she nervous?
2- Where did she go?
3- What did she do there?

The speaker uses the word "vacation" instead of "holiday". What's the difference? Well,"vacation" is used in American English, whereas, "holiday" is used in British English. Do you know other words that are different in British and in American English? You may check the following links:

http://www.mansioningles.com/vocabulario71.htm
http://esl.about.com/library/vocabulary/blbritam.htm

Christmas 2.0

May you have a blessed Christmas Day!!

Videos games and education

This video explains how video games can be used to support democracy and conflict resolution. Captions in English are included.Once you've listened to (and read) it, you can take the quiz to check how much you've understood.

Video Games and Education » online testing

How important is it to be accurate in English? This is a commercial created by Berlitz and shows how little differences can be serious. Don't worry if you can't understand the first part...it's not in English!



The word "sink" has only one sound that distinguishes it from the word "think". "Sink-think" is called a "minimal pair". You may practise it if you follow this link: http://www.manythings.org/mp/m17.html

TV and health

How much TV do you watch? Read this article taken from http://www.dailymail.co.uk and then... go out and do some exercise!
You may click on those highlighted words you find more difficult

Every hour in front of the TV raises risk of heart disease

By Jenny Hope
Last updated at 9:00 AM on 24th June 2010

Watching too much TV can be deadly even for the healthy, claim researchers.

Every hour in front of the box pushes up the risk of dying from heart disease by 7 per cent, according to a study.

Those looking at their favourite progammes for four hours a day - the UK average - face a 28 per cent rise in the risk.

The study from the Medical Research Council says changes in lifestyle could stem the toll from heart disease which causes 193,000 deaths a year and is responsible for a third of the UK's deaths.

For almost a decade, researchers from the MRC Epidemiology Unit studied 13,197 middle-aged, healthy men and women in Norfolk.

In that time 373 of the participants died from heart disease, according to the findings published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

OK

OK, let's talk about it! What about? OK. No, it's not a riddle. Let's talk about the origin of the word "OK". How long do you think people have been using this word? Twenty years, thirty, forty... read about it and find out. You can also listen to the text while you read it.

http://www1.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/words-stories/OK--85357622.html

Building art out of Legos

How many of you have played with Legos? Learn about a man who does more than play. Actually, he creates art with them. Listen to this report.You can also read the subtitles.
Share your views. Can you consider this art?

Awareness Test

Cambridge's Dictionary gives the following definition for the word "awareness"
"knowledge that something exists, or understanding of a situation or subject at the present time based on information or experience"
Public awareness of the problem will make politicians take it seriously.
Environmental awareness has increased dramatically over the past decade.

Take this test and check how the results help you think about our everyday life. I'm interested in reading your comments.

Have fun!!

Football!!

In just a few days we'll be immersed in the world of football. Many of the words we use in Spanish to talk about football come from English. How many others can you add?

Read and then do the quiz http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/vocabulary/football.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/quizzes/football/shootout.shtml

How much vocabulary for food do you know in English? Do these quizzes and find out.
http://a4esl.org/q/h/9801/cr-nutrition.html (Pre-intermediate)
http://a4esl.org/q/h/vc-meat-lb.html (Intermediate)

By the way, can you name all the food in the photo?