Thursday 18 February 2010

" We are the World" 2010

25 years after recording "We Are The World" they have taken the big decision of re-recording it. On that occasion, in 1985, they decided to help the people of Africa. Now, big stars meet to record again this song to help the people of Haiti.


I hope you like it!

Sunday 14 February 2010

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!



I want to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you have given a lot of gifts, and that you have not missed any particular person.

Today I want to share with you a beautiful song. And maybe you can use it to practise the future, because in this song they use the "will" a lot.

I hope you like it!




See u in class!

Friday 12 February 2010

The Richter magnitude scale

Charles Francis Richter was an american seismologist. Together with american-german Beno Gutenberg established a scale to measure earthquakes.
The Richter magnitude scale is arbitrary and logarithmic, so each asigned value increases not lineally but exponentially. The scale has no maximun or minimun values. In fact, technical development of seismographs have allowed to measure sismic movements of -1,5 degrees.
Actually, no one talks about earthquakes until 2 degrees are reached. Under this level there are 8.000 tremors registered every day, although they’re imperceptible. It’s only above 4 degrees that a tremor can be noticed, but it would be uncommon for a 4 degrees earthquake to cause significant damages. Damages appear starting from 5 degrees.
A 6 degrees earthquake might destroy a 160 km. diameter area. The 2009 tremor in L’Aquila (Italy), which was 6,9 in the scale, caused 294 deads and 50.000 people lost their houses.
The biggest earthquake ever measured in history took place in Valdivia (Chile), on May 22nd, 1960: 9,6 degrees in Richter scale. The land shaked for ten minutes, killing 3.000 people. The sea rised four meters in the harbour just before moving away, sweeping away all the ships, and returning as a 10 meters high tsunami that hit the coast villages at 150 km per hour. The shock wave covered the Pacific, causing seaquakes in Hawaii, which is 10.000 kilometres far from the epicenter. Effects of the Valdivia earthquake were noticed in Japan, Philipines, California, New Zealand, Samoa and the Marquise Islands.
The 10 degrees in Richter’s scale is the estimated measure for the impact of a meteorite with 2 kilometres in diameter at 25 km per hour. It’s just like placing the armaggedon in the scale.
Charles Francis Richter died in 1985. He probably never visited Haiti. Anyway, he couldn’t do it anymore. Because Haiti no longer exists: on January 12th, 2010, 7,3 points in the scale swallowed it.

via: invitadodeinvierno

 Si deseas leerlo en castellano click en "Read more"

Thursday 11 February 2010

We're in Heaven (11-S)

Hi guys! I want to share this with you. It's a very sad story, I'm sorry,but I promise to look for a funny story next time. This story is about a little girl who lost her dad in the 11-S. She explains to her dad all she has done in that year that has passed since his death. The story is sad, but the things that the girl says are beatiful. The song that plays in the background is "Heaven" of DJ Sammy. I recommend that you listen to the song, and read the lyrics. It's a really good song.
I hope you like!




See u in class!

Sunday 7 February 2010

Avatar - The Making Off

Hey guys!

I want to tell you little things you can do to improve your English.

One of the things is watching TV shows or movies in English with subtitles in Spanish. This is so great because you can hear the pronunciation of the words in English, and you can hear the real voice of the actors. This is cool, because sometimes the actors have really fun voices or when they say certain expressios, their voices change completly, and you can hear how do you say this expression. You can see this on the page: seriesyonkis.com. In this page there are many TV shows in English with subtitles, and you can see the episodes before they are emited in Spain.

Another of the things is reading a fan fics (stories written for ordinary people) of you favourite TV show, movie, book or others. I know that surely you don't like reading, but you can read about the things you want, so maybe you can enjoy reading a fan fics. In this page: FanFiction.net, you can read about many things.

In this page there are incredible writers and amazing stories. The stories are of different genre. You can read about love, humor, adventure, drama and other genres.

With the fan fics you can learn much about American or English expressions. You can learn many new words.

Well guys, I hope my post is usefull for you to improve your English.

Goodbye!

Friday 5 February 2010

Past verbal tenses

The other day I was surfing the Internet and I found by chance this great power point presentation created by an English teacher and I thought I should share it with you. So here it is.
It presents all the verbal tenses in the past. We have not studied the past perfect continuous yet, because this is in the 2nd of Batxillerat syllabus, but have a look at the other tenses for revision.
The Dark Past

Interview to Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona")

"Chuck the Movieguy" interviews Penelope Cruz and her dog Vino about the film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Penelope talks about her character María Elena in the film. 

In my opinion it is a very entertaining film, I really recommend it. If you haven't seen the film yet, maybe you want to check The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) before you decide to see it or not. Whenever I want to know about a film I always check this website. There's all the technical information and details, plus summary of the plot, plus some interesting quotes from the film, plus user reviews, plus a lot of photographs...  

With Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Penelope Cruz won an Oscar in the category "Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role". And now she is nominated again  to the same category for her performance in the musical film Nine. Good luck! 

Now, listen to the video carefully and answer the questions in the worksheet.



You might also want to listen to Javier Bardem's interview for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. His English is very good! Don't miss it!

Monday 1 February 2010

TELEVISION vs. INTERNET

TELEVISION vs. INTERNET

On the one hand I’m going to talk about the Television, it is both good and bad. It all depends.
At the moment, the television has many channels, series, the news, films, sitcoms, cartoons, also we can see the entertainment for children.
Furthermore, we see documentaries and the news these programs are to inform.
The news announce some information happening at the moment in the world, however, sometimes the news do not tell the truth.
Besides, people watch some films at the weekends so as not to get bored.
However, the television is not wonderful at all it is harmful for the eyes.
TV is bad for the people because they do not do any sports. Besides, it is bad for young people because they do not study.
To sum up, good television is a technological showcase.
When you're bored you can see it.

On the other hand, The Internet is a very developed technological apparatus along the time.
The advantages of the computer.
You can see things quickly.
Translate phrases or words in any language at the moment.
We can connect with people in another country for example, a distant relative you can see them with the webcam.
Also we can look for work without leaving home.
Furthermore, you can play games, watch movies, download music and for videos free.
The disadvantage is that internet steals a lot of time to study because it is a vice for young persons.
So much time in front of a computer may hurt your head, for example in an extreme case you could became blind.
A lot of pages also inform us that they aren't 100% certain.
If you get a virus on your computer and can break down.