World Animal Day

Do you like animals? If your answer is yes, October 4th is a day for you to celebrate.

World Animal Day was started in 1931 at a convention of ecologists in Florence as a way of highlighting the plight of endangered species. Since then it has grown to encompass all kinds of animal life and is widely celebrated in countries throughout the world. October 4 was chosen as World Animal Day as it is the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

It is intended as a day of celebration for anyone in the world who cares about animals. It is not restricted to any one nationality, creed, religion, political belief or ideology.

MISSION STATEMENT for WORLD ANIMAL DAY:
- To celebrate animal life in all its forms
- To celebrate humankind’s relationship with the animal kingdom
- To acknowledge the diverse roles that animals play in our lives – from being our companions, supporting and helping us, to bringing a sense of wonder into our lives
- To acknowledge and be thankful for the way in which animals enrich our lives

(Information taken from the World Animal Day official website)

Selectivitat

To practise your reading and improve your listening skills at the same time, try these two sites:

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
A news article with an audio file. You can do a number of comprehension exercises as well.

Learning resources
Another news article with audio or video and some interactive comprehension exercises.

Posa't a prova
English readings at 4 different levels of difficulty (but no listening!) and all the other Selectivitat subjects.

The Poet's corner

St George's day is coming. To celebrate the festivity, you're going to write some poems. To make things easier for you, try this:
Instant poetry forms.

It's Easter!

April Fool's Day

April the 1st

The first of April, some do say, April The 1st
Is set apart for All Fools' Day.
But why the people call it so,
Nor I, nor they themselves do know.
But on this day are people sent
On purpose for pure merriment.
-- Poor Robin's Almanac (1790)

Today is April Fool¡s Day, the day in which people play hoaxes and practical jokes on friends, family members and other people in general. Newspapers and the media also have their share in the celebration. Most of them publish fake articles or give fake news on television.
Here you have some articles taken from different British newspapers. Can you tell which is the REAL one?

• Honda demonstrates robot controlled by mind power
• Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink
• Ryan Giggs launches groundbreaking jumpers for goalpost technology
• It's the Mona Greasa!

Happy St Patrick's day

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

As you listen, answer the following questions:

1. What basic elements will you need?
2. Step 1. What should you wear?
3. Step 2. Where should you go? At what time?
4. Step 3. What special words must you say (the English translation!)?
5. Steps 4 & 5. What 3 dishes must you cook?
6. Step 6. What will you drink?
7. Step 7. How will you spend your day? Mention the 2 most important things.
8. Step 8. What the last thing you must do on St Patrick's Day? What's the superstition with a four-leaf clover?
9. Americans who claim to be of Irish descent now number more that 34 million. That's how many times the population of Ireland?

Red Nose Day

Red Nose Day is the main way in which Comic Relief, a British charity, raises money. It is held in the spring every second year and is often treated as a semi-holiday, with, for example, schools having non-uniform days. The day culminates in a live telethon event on BBC One starting in the evening and going through into the early hours of the morning, but other money-raising events take place all over the country.

To raise money on Red Nose Day, you just have to do something funny, like wearing plastic/foam red noses which are available, in exchange for a donation, from many shops. People are encouraged to wear the noses to help raise awareness of the charity. The design of the nose has been changed each year, beginning with a fairly plain one, which later grew arms, turned into a tomato and even changed colour. Over 50 million Red Noses have been bought over the years. Other funny things may be wearing something funny, or waxing a part of your body, selling articles or organizing competitions. There are plenty of ideas if you run short of them.

Red Nose Day has become very popular in Britain, with thousands of people involved. It has even spread to other countries like New Zealand. Since the Charity started in the 1980s, Comic Relief has raised over £600 million.

Futures!

We've been revising the future tenses in class. Here's a little bit more practice:

Future simple: WILL + Verb (4 exercises, 3 tests)

BE GOING TO + Verb (5 exercises, 3 tests)

Future continuous: WILL BE + Verb -ing (1 exercise)

Future perfect: WILL HAVE + Verb -ed/3rd column (1 exercise)

Future mix: WILL, BE GOING TO, present simple, present continuous (1 exercise)

The Oscars

The Oscars were awarded last night in the Kodak Theater of Los Angeles. Watch this video to learn about the winners.

or see the full list of nominees.
Have you seen any of the films in this list? Choose a film and prepare a two-minute talk about it: the plot, the actors, your opinion about it and if it got an Oscar, did it deserve it or not?

BRITs 2009

The Brit awards (the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards) were presented yesterday. Duffy picked up three awards. Her biggest hit to date, Mercy, was at number one in the singles chart for five weeks last year, and her first album, Rockferry, sold 1.7m copies in the UK last year.
Other winners were Girls Aloud, Kings of Leon or Katy Perry. Learn more about the awards and their winners, or watch some images and videos below:

Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day Comments by Crazyprofile.com

Enjoy this online exercise and video about the origins of Saint Valentine's Day.

Relative clauses

Practise the relative clauses here:

• some theory
• some practise

Conditional sentences

Watch this video on 1st conditionals:


Now try these six exercises on conditional sentences.

Martin Luther King's Day

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is a United States holiday marking the birthdate of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., observed on the third Monday of January each year, around the time of King's birthday, January 15.

King was the chief spokesman of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law (at his time, for example, coloured people had to sit at the back of the buses, or had to give their seat to the whites, and there were segregated toilets for coloured and white people). He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

His most famous words were a speech he delivered in 1963, which goes "I have a dream..."


Try to complete his words as you listen to the speech.