Reading Newspapers in English

Everyday many of us read newspaper or some magazines, it does not matter if you do it on-line or you actually buy the "old" version. Reading newspapers in English could not be easier, thanks to the modern technologies we can access any the news all around the world. It is excellent devise to improve your English while doing something you would do anyway. Reading articles in English improves your vocabulary, your reading skills and keeps you informed. You just have to choose newspaper or magazine you like, it does not have to be the most reliable - what matters is to keep you interested so you would read it regularly!


Here are some British links:

The Daily Telegraph (daily quality newspaper): http://www.telegraph.co.uk
The Daily Mail (daily mid-market newspaper): http://www.dailymail.co.uk
The Financial Times (daily quality newspaper): http://www.ft.com
The Times (daily quality newspaper): http://www.timesonline.co.uk
The Sun (daily popular newspaper): http://www.thesun.co.uk
The Independent (daily quality newspaper): http://www.independent.co.uk
The Daily Mirror (daily popular newspaper): http://www.mirror.co.uk
The Guardian (daily quality newspaper): http://www.guardian.co.uk

Or just simply click here and choose what you like. 

Are Blogs a good idea?

These days is everything about being online, most of the things which are not online simply don't exist for some people. Most of us are using social networks, creating web pages and writing  blogs. To be honest I am not a fan of any of those. 
Of course each of them has its advantages and disadvantages but do you really need them in your life? Ten years ago we lived without Facebook and our personal blog which could read people we have never met and I can not say my life was less interesting or fun.
 I don't read any blogs regularly; actually the only blogs I have ever read were for the ICT course at university and my grandmother's. There are over 50 million blogs worldwide and the main question is: Do the blogging people have something interesting to say?  

Here is a link to Gerry McGovern's blog called New thinking, he published interesting article about blogging: 
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_08_23_blogging.htm 

Remembrance Day - a Piece of History

I think it is important to tell students some information about English speaking countries traditions and history. Thanks the American movies many people know about 4th July and Thanksgiving. Unfortunately in many cases they have no idea why are those days important.
Today I want to mention Remembrance Day. If you watched the news this week you must have seen David Cameron wearing a poppy on his suit. "It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918 (major hostilities of World War I were formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice)" Wikipedia.
So if you are going to be in Commonwealth 11th November don't be surprised about two minutes silence at 11 am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyQyhVXUwM0&feature=related

The Guardian weekly - great reading activities

We all know that reading a newspaper is a great way to improve your language skills and enrich your vocabulary . Many students do not have time to read English newspaper every day or they just simply can not be bothered. Excellent newspaper-based activities can be found in The Guardian.  The material have different levels and are ready for you to print. I think it is a good way to bring the newspaper closer to your students.

Funny and endificatory stories for students

When teaching in companies where people are very often stressed and tired you need something to entertain them while still learning English. As a good tool for this kind of reading I use a page called Darwin awards- The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it... The stories are true stories which are very often unbelievable and surprise the readers by mental processes of the participants.