Wednesday 30 September 2015

IMAGINE: YOU MAY SAY I'M A DREAMER

This beautiful video combines two languages: English and American Sign Language  (ASL).
A very special version of one of the most famous ever songs: Imagine, by John Lennon!

Monday 21 September 2015

EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE WRITTEN BY PILGRIM WILLIAM BRADFORD (1620)

Here is an educational documentary that portrays the pilgrim's journey to America on board the Mayflower in 1620, their landing and settlement and the firstThanksgiving.  
William Bradford, a key figure in the settlement of the colonies wrote the History of Plymouth Plantation, the first colony. If you are interested, read  and listen to the this interesting text which describes "How they Passed the Sea, and (tells ) of Their Safe Arrival at Cape Cod.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

ENGLISH-ENGLISH DICTIONARY FOR ADVANCED

At this stage it is a good idea to look the words up in an English-English dictionary when you do reading, vocabulary or writing exercises because sometimes the meaning of a word doesn't have exactly the same connotations or doesn't even exist in your mother tongue. In addition, you find interesting information such as collocations or synonyms.
Ldoceonline is a good online English-English dictionary. Look at the following examples:

Example 1

Example 2



ADJECTIVE OR ADVERB?

Due to the differences between your mother tongue and English sometimes you may find it difficult to identify whether a word is an adjective or an adverb.

Here is an interesting explanation and an exercise, and if you click on "more on adverbs" you'll have two more good exercises!




Wednesday 9 September 2015

FANTASTIC PRONUNCIATION DICTIONARY!

howjsay . com

I'd like to share with those of you who are interested in improving your pronunciation, the link to this wonderful talking pronunciation dictionary, not only does it pronounce a word, for example "computer" but I think it also varies the tone according to the meaning of the word, try this word , doesn't it sound sweet?

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:COLONIALISM (1)

One of the issues in the first half of the twentieth centuries was colonialism, often qualified then as "The White man's burden" Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem with the same title. In those times, it was seen as a noble enterprise given the belief in ratial superiority and as a source of raw materials for the Industrial Revolution to progress.

 (click on the title to read the whole poem)                                       

THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

TAKE up the White Man's burden - 
Send forth the best ye breed - 
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.



Saturday 5 September 2015

GRAMMAR EXPLANATIONS AND EXERCISES FOR ALL LEVELS

The British Council offers this website with useful explanations and practice  of the most interesting grammar points. Here's a list of the different items in alphabetical order.