Summer practice: Reading & Listening - English magazines

Hi, guys

Here's a link to two well-known magazines for English learners that are suitable for your level. They include a CD with lots of listening practice and interesting stuff inside. Both magazines (and many other) should be available at El Corte Inglés or any other specialized stores.

Check the links below to have a look before you decide to buy them.

Hot English Magazine

Think in English

Pronunciation: Text-to-speech

Click on the picture, wait till the page is loaded, then enter the text to be pronounced (e.g. hello) and click on 'SAY IT'. You can also choose different speakers from the VOICE menu.

Try it! You can't miss it!

Resources: Online film: The Hunt for Gollum

Do you like films? Do you like the 'Lord of the Rings' saga? Would you like to watch a prequel for free?

If the answer is YES, you can't miss The Hunt for Gollum.

The Hunt For Gollum is a 40 minute fan film, inspired by the appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic trilogy, 'The Lord of the Rings', and was made for less than $5,000!

If necessary, click MENU for SUBTITLES in various languages and make sure you watch the film with the English subtitles!

Resources: www.visuwords.com

Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.

Enter words/topics (e.g. transport, travel, holiday, health...) into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections.

Hope you like it!

Resources: Splendid Speaking

Hi,

Here's a useful link so that you can do some oral/listening practice during the Easter break.

You just can't miss it!

Check the whole website at www.splendid-speaking.com

Resources for writing: www.ompersonal.com.ar

Hi,

The following link is strongly recommended for those who have difficulties with writing or punctuation. Lots of students at this EOI are doing the activities and they found the website really useful.

Also, you can't miss the other contents of the website. It's really worth a visit.

Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks Ana Fúster for the link

Resources: www.yappr.com

Practise and learn English in a funny way with entertaining videos at www.yappr.com.

Sign-up is not required, although it's free and quite interesting. Just click on the 'videos' button, choose your level (intermediate/difficult) and watch the videos with/without English and/or Spanish subtitles. You choose.

Highly recommended!

NA1 Resources: Grammar & Vocabulary Correspondence

Hi all,

If you want to check the correspondence between the coursebook (First Certificate Expert) and the grammar & vocabulary book (First Certificate Language Practice), please download and print out the following document.

Let me remind you that the book First Certificate Language Practice is compulsory and you should be using it autonomously as we progress throughout the course.

See you around.
.

Reading: 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'

'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' is a 2006 novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. Boyne is the author of 6 novels. Unlike the months of planning Boyne had for his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of Boy in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end. To date the novel has sold more than 3 million copies around the world. In 2007 it was the best selling book of the year in Spain.

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English resources: www.freerice.com

FreeRice is a is a charity website where users play a various educational multiple-choice games in order to raise money to fight world hunger. The games include chemistry (basic and intermediate), multiplication tables, English vocabulary (the game the site began with), English grammar, basic foreign language vocabulary for English speakers (French, German, Italian, and Spanish), geography (world capitals and country identification), and art.

Visit FreeRice, and somewhere in the world, a person will be eating rice thanks to the help you provided.

Online radio stations

Hi everybody!

In case you want to improve your English by listening to real radio stations, here are some useful links:

Radio Vaughan is an online radio station in English, especially recommended for English learners. It deals with a great variety of topics, and there are also interviews, English lessons and reflections upon the English language. Radio Vaughan also releases their programmes in MP3 format so that you can practice anywhere, any time... :)

Spectrum FM / REM fm is another radio station in English that can be tuned in most areas of the Costa Calida (92.7). Of course, you can also listen to the station online.

I'm sure there are some other local stations in English. I'll let you know when I remember their names! :)

Hope you enjoy them.

Textbooks and resources for NA1

Hi all!

These are the books we'll be using during the year 2008-09:

First Certificate Expert NEW EDITION (Student's Book) (Longman)*



* Please note bookshops are starting to sell the newest edition of the book (i.e. the one with the text 'NEW EDITION' and 'With December 2008 exam specifications" on the upper-right side corner).

In case you purchased the old edition, please return the book to your bookshop and exchange it for the new one, as the contents inside are quite different from each other.

First Certificate Language Practice (with key) (MacMillan) **



** The editions of this grammar book may vary. If you have a previous edition you do not really need to buy the newest one, as most of the contents may be similar.

As I said before in class, the Grammar book is to be done independently as we progress in the course, so you do not need to take it to class every day unless you feel like doing so.

Recommended readings: To be arranged.