What do you think?

Write a comment saying what you think about the ideas contained in the video.

What's in the news?

Click on Google news and write a posting reporting on a piece of news you find interesting.

What makes a good teacher? Podcasts

Igor + Alvaro



Laura



Lara + Garazi



Listen to the recordings and make a comment here saying what you agree or disagree with the opinions expressed in them.

Favourite songs

Check out the songs you have posted on the blog and write a comment on each saying what you think about them.

I really haven´t got a favourite song. At the moment, there are lots of good songs and I think that it is difficult to choose only one of them.

However, I have chosen for this exercise the Shakira´s one. It is called "Pure intuition" and, nowadays, you can often listen to it in the radio because it is quite famous.

In my opinion, the song is very catchy. However, the video, which I hadn´t seen before, is a bit boring and uninteresting.

Songs

Nowadays I haven´t got a favourite song. Nevertheless, there are several songs that I really like. Here you have several of them:
Linkin Park : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6GR-FgiFHg
If you are a fan of them... you will think the same as me: It´s the best song of them...

Marc Anthony: " que precio tiene el cielo"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjJERg23Vv0You can find this song in his latest disc. It´s great despite being a different kind of music. I´m sure that it will like you

And finally let´s have a look at "milk inc"and their song " Tainted love".http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz562ZMxjRI
It´s electronic music. Maybe their songs dont have an interesting lyric but the rythm is really good!

I rarely listen to English music since I´d rather listen to Spanish songs,which are easier to understand.However,there is an English group I enjoy a lot. This group is called Snow Patrol and ,despite the fact that few people know about it, in the future,it will be one of the most famous rock groups.
I reckon that their best song is Chasing Cars, which is a romantic song.Although the best thing about the song is its lyrics,the rythmn.

SNOW PATROL - You're all I have

I don't know the reason why I like this song so much. I like this band, Snow Patrol, a lot but is, with difference, the song I like the most from their repertory.

I usually pay attention to the lyrics, so I could expect to like it because of them... But, to say the truth, I did'nt undrstand it completely when I listened to it the first time. So, ¿is the secret the melody?

Like I said, I have no idea, but this is for me the best pop-rock song of the year and I definitely recommend it.

My current favourite song

I don't have a favourite song as I don't really have a favourite singer or group. However I've just remenbered a song that I think it's fairly good.
Someday by Nickelback.
Although this band is a rock band this song is quite slow, because it talks about a broken relationship. Here you have the videoclip:

And if you want to understan it better here you have the lyrics:

Someday Lyrics

LOS FASTIDIOS 'Antifa hooligans'

This group called Los Fastidois, was created in Verona (Italy) in late 1991. They sing most of their songs in Italian but this is in English. This group mixes powerful melodic strretpunk with classical 80's British Punk-Oi! sounds. I hope you like the two videos (Videoclip & live) and the song!!!





Link to the lyrics: http://www.lyricstime.com/los-fastidios-antifa-hooligans-lyrics.html

What's your current favourite song?

Create a post about the song you like best at the mo (please choose one in English!) and add a link to the video and lyrics.

Include in your post your reasons for choosing the song.

What makes a good teacher?

Watch this comedy sketch by Rowan Atkinson.






Post a comment here saying what you think about it.

Then, using your own experience of your teachers (at school, language centres or college), write about what you think makes a good (or bad) teacher.

Saving children

As most of us know UICEF is an NGO which help children to have a better life. I reckon that doing this is very important since these children are going to be the adults of the future an if we want this world to be a better place to live we must start doing that this children have a bit of hope.
Furtheremore the children are inocent people who haven't made anything wrong to have the nasty life they have.
For those two reasons and for much more i think the job UNICEF makes is really important and we all should make something to help them. However i'm not oblying anybody to give money to this NGO, but yes encuraging people to try a bit to change the situation of a big part of the children in our society.

Most of the times these children I'm talking about died because of illnesses, wars, abuses,... but have they done something to deserve that kind final? Altough , sometimes in these children life is better the death than living in the way they do. A lot of times they live as slaver or they don't have anything to eat. They suffer abuses,...

We should help them in the way we can and with the help of UNICEF that could be easier.

What's your carbon foot print?

Go to the BBC news page to calculate yours. Then go to Conservation International and see what you can do to improve your negative impact on the planet.

Finally, make a comment here about your carbon foot print result and your ideas on what to do about it.

All in a good cause

Decide what you think is a good cause, research it and write a posting about it.

Make a movie

Register at http://www.zimmertwins.ca/ and make a movie. Post it to annfore123@yahoo.com

News from Bilbao - Podcasts

Listen to your podcasts and write a comment about them either here or on the individual news posting.

Introduction - Lara


2 Urko


3 Alvaro and Lara


4 Garazi


5 Laura


6 Elixabet

FRANCE AND THE UFO

France has become the first country in the world in publishing secret documents about the cientific group who is working on UFO's and about all the investigations that have been done around it.
Althought these days people just can find information about 400 cases, sooner than later all the ones will be available in internet, which are about 1600 at all. Moreover, the one who is interested on it will be able to read 6000 witness accounts and about 3000 interviews. They are supposed more than 100.000 digital places to be available for surfers.
The group of cientists that is working called Grupo de Estudios y de Información de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales No Identificados explained the goal is that studies about UFO become in something normal just like any other subject who is beeing studied as they give the opportunity to people to know about different cases and stories that in some situations they had to calificate as inexplicable.
If you are interested in that kind of subjects I think that this is a good way to know something more about it by this new page: Centro Nacional de Estudios Espaciales

bilbao-venue of the velux 5 oceans

Bilbao- venue of the VELUX 5 Oceans yacht race


The 7th Edition of the 5-Oceans yacht race started in bilbao on 22 October.Two months later, the race arrived in Fremantle,Australia, and it will finish in Florida next week.There is a group of basque people taking part in it and it is said that they will win this race.However,this seems quite strange since it is the first time that a basque yacht has taken part in this sort of competition.
I reckon that the beginning of this well-known competition in Bilbao is as a result of the prominence the city is gaining all over the world.

Sad news.

Today, in the Philosophy lesson, our teacher told us something that I found quite astonishing and, also, sad.

A 23 years old boy has been visiting our school today who has just come from Africa, where he was doing some voluntary work. The problem is that, because of malaria, he had to go to an african hospital, where he was given a blood transfussion. That blood contained the VIH virus, so, the boy is now ill and has come home with this enormous and unexpected problem.

These kind of news make us feel really sad because, of course nobody deserves getting a terrible illness like that, but we think that it is very unfair that a young boy who has been working in a totally voluntary way trying to help other people has to have an end like this one, instead of the calm and happy life that he would have had.

NEW DISC!!!

The well known basque band 'Des-kontrol' has just put on sale their latest disc. The title of this new disc is 'Duintasunez eutsi', what it means something like 'Resisting with proud' and it is formed by 13 songs: which 10 of them are new and the last 3 are the most significant old songs reedited for the new Cd.
Th music in this disc is clearly influenced by the punk of the 70's and the Oi! and streetpunk of the 80's. Simple and agressive lyrics and shrt and fast sdongs is what you are going to find in this disc.
The price of the disc is of 10€ and you can find in a lot of shops as Streetwarriors, elkar liburudenda, gatazka gunea, Brixton (Romo) ...
I sincerely recomend you to buy it, you won´t regret!!!


More information: http://www.des-kontrol.tk/

the placing of the first stone of the Iberdrola tower

One week ago was celebrated the event of placing the first stone of the Iberdrola tower which is the seventh highest tower from all Spain.

There have been designing it from more of 11 years. the construction of this building will cost a lot, between 200 and 240 millions of euros. it is supossed to be finished on 2011. This skyscraper(175 m of high) will become one of the most inportant architectures of Bilbao like the Euskalduna palace or the Guggenheim museum. Around 3000 workers are expected to work there and it is situated in Abandoibarra.

This tower symbolizes the agreement of Bilbao with the Iberdola enterprise. although there was a strong wind the event was assisted with 400 persons, the most inportant guests were Azkuna(the mayor of Bilbao)and the lehendakari Juan Jose Ibarretxe.

Bilbao Live

Last year, in July, a great concert was celebrated in Bilbao. Lots of groups and singers from all over the World came to give us their art for a weekend that many people won't forget. This is last year's poster:



this year, there's just one group confirmed yet: Red Hot Chili Peppers. Even though, Bilbao and BBK are working on taking more groups. We will know the complete list soon.

The concert will take place the next 21st, 22nd and 23rd June in Kobetamendi. for more information go to http://www.lasttourinternational.com/ and http://www.bilbaobbklive.com

A bout of snow

This week the temperatures in Bizkay have gone down so much causing a lot of dammges specially near the mountains.

One of the biggest problems, apart from the traffic jams which are really normal in this cases, had been the rescue of some students in a school in Dima, a mountain between Igorre and Durango.

This pupils got to school without problems in the moornig but at midday the wheather was so bad that they had to be taken out from there with the help of the firemen and the red cross.
Luckily all the children got back home without any big difficulties.
We cannot say the same about some drivers who have get traped in the snow for nearly four hours.

Howeve we cannot complain about the bad wheather as we have had a very good winter.

Film shorts from the BBC

There are some experimental shorts on this BBC site. You have the option of watching them with English subtitles - which is useful since some of the regional accents used by the main characters are sometimes quite strong.

Take a look at one or two of them and make a comment or posting saying whether or not you liked them and giving your reasons why.

News from Bilbao

Prepare a posting on some recent news that you’ve found interesting or entertaining.

It can be about something of local or global importance or just something you’ve heard about from friends.

If appropriate, find links on the Internet that relate to your news.

The Daily English Show

Go to http://thedailyenglishshow.blogspot.com/2007/03/show-314-tuesday-13-march.html

Before watching the video of the show, check out the video of the song Sarah talks about, Moon River

Choose another episode to watch from the Blog Archive (right-hand side of the page)

Write a posting on this blog:

• Saying what you think of the first episode you watched of the show and the video clip of the song
• Saying what the other episode you watched was about and whether you found it interesting

About Bilbao podcast

This is the group talking about the postive and negative features of living in Bilbao.


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What did you think?

Record an audio posting about the songs, video clips and lyrics you've put on this blog saying which you liked the best.

A new audio opportunity!

Try out this new We are the best audio channel and record a comment!

DOVER- let me out

This song is of a rock group from Madrid, wich was created in 1992. They sing in english. "Let me out" is the single of their latest album called "Follow the city lights" which was done a year ago.

You can see the lyrics in the next lynk http://www.onlylyrics.com/song.php?id=1002481 . If you read the lyrics, you will see that it describes a situation of a person who is whising to go out.

I was going to pick just one song because I though it was going to be difficult to find one with a story. And I mean a story with characters, problems, and, of course an end. Most of the songs talk about concepts like love, peace, war... But just a few tell stories as if they were films or even tales.
Finally, I discover two very different songs and I decided to put them both.
The first one has no title (in fact, it's called Untitled). Here's the videoclip of the song:


And the lyrics

It is about the feelings of a guy who, aparently, is dying. I think it's a very deep song, maybe sad, but also beautiful.

The other song I've chosen it's called Teenage Dirtbag, by Wheatus, and it's completely the opposite of the first. It tells the story of an institute boy that's in love with the most popular and, as it usually happens in american films, she doesn't even know he exists. It's a very funny song and the video is completely fool. It's the main song of the film Loser and its actors also take part in this video (there we can see Mena Suvari and Jason Biggs, both known from American Pie).

Lyrics

A storyteller song

Searching for a song related to storytelling, I have visited the www.youtube.com site on the Internet and, there, I have found the video of a song that I find really beautiful. It is a Bryan Adams' song and it is called "I will be right here waiting for you". The video that I have found isn´t the original one, however, it contains the lyrics of the song. You can see it in www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0K6d4qdBaQ

The song tells the story of a boy in love who, although separated from his girlfriend, as the lyric says, oceans apart, promises that he will wait for her whatever it happens. In my opinion, it is a very romantic story told in a beautiful song.

Telling a story

I have found a song related to the title telling stories. The punk-rock band BLINK182 tells us the story of a lonely guy who cannot talk to the girl he loves. This made him feel depressed and tries to hide his sadness drinking a high amount of alcohol. It is not what sometimes happen in the real life?

Apart from what it tells I think that it is a quite good song and here you have a video of a concert of this band singing this song.

Enjoy it!

Telling stories

Watch the video clip of the Tracy Chapman song Telling stories.

Read though some of the ratings on the same youtube page.
Then look through the lyrics of the song and check out if you want the alternative video.
Write a comment on this posting saying what rating you would give to the song and video clip.

Find another song related to storytelling. Write a posting about it.

What a record!!!

I've been searching information about amazing or curious Guinenes worl records and I have found one which for me is really stupid. I know that this type of records could be really stupid, but why will somebody make the largest collection of aeroplane's sick bags? Yeah, as you listen, amazing, no? No, it is only the real life.
Niek Vermeulen of the Netherlands has collected 5,034 airline sickness bags from 1,000 different airlines since 1970. In the place where I have read the article about him doesn't put why he started this collection, but I think that he was just bored. Could anybody think an other reason for collecting sikness bags?
I'm completelly sure that the world is going crazy or at least very bored. It is true that a lot of people collect stamps or postcards, however, that's completelly different from collecting those type of bags.
All right, everybody has the right of having their own hobby; but does people really collet so many things, like the man in the example, because of a hobby or because they wanted to appear in the Guinnes world records book.

Blood donations.

In my opinion, the most interesting firsts are those that can help the society in any aspect that affects all of us, as, for example, the health.

Recently, we have been talking at school about blood donations. I have learned that we haven´t got enough blood for all the people who, after having suffered an accident or an illness, need it.
This is why Spain often needs to import blood from other countries, nowadays from the United States of America.

However, reaching the necessary blood account wouldn´t be a problem if people was more conscious about the big importance and the meaning that their donations have. I mean, an adult human body replaces the half litre of blood that is taken in each donation in the previous two hours. So, it isn´t unhealthy for nobody.

I have found on the internet a record guiness related to this that I consider quite interesting (http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/human_body/body_parts/largest_blood_donation.aspx).
In this case, this blood donation has attracted 17921 donors. I think we must do the same and colaborate with this problem.

World Cup records-football

While i was thinking in any interesting first, i decided to find a sport record, so i enter in a lot of sportwebpages. I enter in one webpage where it appear a lot of goal records in the football world cup,in fact i like very much the football world cups, the best football players from all over the world playing against, i think that is very exciting, maybe is because i have played football since i was a child.

To start with,watching to the ages,the youngest player to have scored a goal in the World Cup is Pelé of Brazil. He was only 17 years and 239 days old when he scored against Wales in 1958.On the other side,the oldest player to score a goal in the World Cup Finals is Roger Milla of Cameroon. When he scored against Russia in the 1994 tournament in USA, he was 42 years old and 39 days.

Then, looking to the velocity of scoring a goal.Turkey's Hakan Sükür scored the fastest ever goal in world cup history. Officially timed at just 11 seconds, it occurred in Turkey's third place playoff win against South Korea in the 2002 tournament in Japan/South Korea.
On the other hand,after it was appearing that the match was going to penalties, David Platt scored the latest goal in World Cup history (not including golden goals). He scored after 119 minutes in England's, second round match against Belgium in Italia 1990.

To finish with this especial goals, the first player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup match was United State's Bert Patenaude, who scored three against Paraguay in the first round of the 1930 World Cup.

Levels

This chirstmas I have made some exercises in order to improve my english such as watching MTV in english or reading a book.

While I was watching MTV programmes I realised that they were quite good for improving listening skills. As it was an international channel I could see either english programmes or amarican ones. That was a good point as I could try to understand both type of english and make my comprehesion much better.
By the end of the holidays I saw myself much more confident in listening skills since in this programmes they used colaoquial language and chatted between them faster than I use to hear.

During christmas I also read a book releted with the adventure. It wasn't areally good book but as a friend told me to read it,...
Not enjoying it doesn't mean that I have waste my time, it was a good way to try to improve my reading skills and to prove myself how good I was at it. I got a good surprise when I realized that I could understand nearby most of the book.

Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)

Guillermo del toro (the director of the film) fires up a classic cinematic fantasy in Pan's Labyrinth, a film for all ages.
The film is located in the Madrid countryside in 1944 after the Spanish Civil War, when Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his repressive fascist guard attempted to quell rebel uprisings, the film makes no attempt to hide or soften the brutality of the period.

As the film opens, Ofelia(the protagonist who is a little girl) and her mother, Carmen have arrived at a militar quarter commanded by Captain Vidal. Vidal is vey sadic, Mercdes who is a worker of the house helps the guerrillas(the enemies of vidal).Ofelia hates Vidal, which is too bad, since he is her new stepfather and her beloved mother is carrying his baby.

When her mother falls ill, Ofelia retreats into a fantasy world that mirrors the ferocity outside. She finds a garden labyrinth ruled by Pan a tall, goatish creature with menacing horns who sets her a series of tasks that have direct consequences if she can't complete them.

what would it pass with the little Ofelia? i recommend to see it , it is a very interesting film

The perfume

The perfume, directed by Tom Tykwer, tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a boy who, after being born in a repugnant market of Paris in te 18th century, developes the most sensitive sense of smell in the world.

Trying to capture the wonderful smell of a girl he has seen in the street, he decides to learn perfumery. This is why he discovers the way of creating a different perfume to control each of the feelings that the rest of the human beings have for him. Between them, he also does, by killing the most beautiful women, the maximum perfume, the one that controls the human love.

Although, since the point of view of the critics, The perfume is quite a good film, In my opinion it is a bit slow and, moreover, when the main character kills his victim, the scenes are very unpleasant.

This exercise pretends us to discover by our own how good our English level is in two different skills.

Firstly, trying to test my reading, I have realised the best way could be searching on the Internet a newspaper's web so that I can find an interesting current new.
I have visited www.timesonline.co.uk . There, in the "women section", I have seen an article whose title has caught my attention "Divorce better than arguing, say children" (http://women.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,27869-2536077,00.html). I have read it and I have found I'm able to do the B2, I mean, although there is some vocabulary in the text that I don't understand, I can read this article concerned with temporary problems and understand it.

After that, I have looked for a video to check my listening in www.youtube.com . Searching something related to "radio programme", I have found this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWl4Z5pd0_s and I have discovered that I can do the A1, A2 and B1. So, I can understand the main points of what the people say but not everything because, depending also on the person who talks, there are some things I don't understand.

THE BuTTeRFLy EFFeCT

IT WILL ALL END IN THE BEGGINNING

"¿How can you change something without changing everything?"


Well known Ashton Kutcher stars in this film as Evan, a guy that's obsessed with the memory lapsuses he had during his childhood. At the age of 7, Evan starts writing some diaries, until college. Then, he realizes something strange happens when he reads them. Is he able to go back to the past? Can he change it?

This film is an original thriller that combines in just one story, different situations and consecuences. You must pay atention because every second something important happens. You won't find the answer until the end of the film and, even then, you'll have to think about the conclusion. Well job of the cast, starring Ashton Kutcher an Amy Smart. Commendable film.

my reading

Trying to test my English level in relation to reading, I have visited www.hellomagazine.com. There, I have looked for an interesting new (http://www.hellomagazine.com/film/2007/01/02/julia-roberts-baby/), and I have proved I´m able to do correctly the A1, A2 and A3.

practise english in a interesting way

I have been looking for interesting webpages where i can practise english in a enjoyable form. while i was looking for, i found a webpage where there were a lot of different activities or links to other pages were you can practise reading,listening...i think that is a very interesting page because yo have links to all type of webpages: pages where you can see funny videos, where you can listen to the radio, where you can see film reviews... The link of the page is www.bored.com

For instance, i enter in one site of the webpage where you can see a lof of videofilms:http://www.bored.com/watchfilms/index.html there you have documentals, cartoons so you can practise your listening without be bored.

i think that my level of english listening it would be between b1 and b2, because i understand the mainpoints of the conversations in the films and i can understand the majority of films in standard dialect, but sometimes i get lost.

to sum up, i recommend this webpage i think that you have a lot of activities to do, enter the link and you will see!

CAN or CAN'T

Most of the sites I usually visit are in English, but I'd never realized wether I understand them completely or not. Until now.
For this exercise, we had to choose two of the "can do" statements and test ourselves according to them.
Well, I chose the "reading" and "listening" statements:

There's an American music band I love, Lifehouse, so I inmediately selected the topic I was going to read about. After that, my good friend Google took me to the American MTV website, where I read this group's biography. this is the link for the information: http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/lifehouse/bio.jhtml
I can do A1, A2 and B1. in fact, the text was too short to try the rest of the staments, so I goy into the "news" section ( http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/lifehouse/bio.jhtml#/music/artist/lifehouse/news.jhtml ) and clicked on the third one. Reading this article and some of the band's lyrics, I think I'm able to say I also can do B2.

Then, I tried the listenig. Before I started I knew I could do A1. But I had to test myself at the others, so I went to youtube.com and search some videos of and about Lifehouse as an interview...



...a music video...


...and a piece of an episode of a tv show (instead of a film).


Watching this videos, I think I can do A1, A2, B1 and B2. In fact, I realized that I can understand scripted dialogues, some songs and the interviewed, but I will never understand the interviewer... Too difficult for me.