What do you think about vegetarians?

Nowadays there are many people that are vegetarians. Vegetarianism can be adopted for different reasons:including health, religious, political, environmental, cultural, in addition to ethical reasons. It's a diet without the inclusions of dairy products or eggs, and with the exlusion of meat.

On the one hand, they have a healthy life because they eat many vegetables and fruits add vitamins to the body. Their ethical reasons are to protect the rights of animals as they can't do it alone. They consider reprehensible and cruel the death of animals especially its abuse and explotaition with the sole purpose of producing food for animals.

On the other hand, people need to eat a little of everything for the body and have a complete diet. The thropy chains are one cycle and the human being is part of them.

To sump up, I think it's good that there is people who worri about animal rights and I respect them. For example, when I work in the bakery, we have products for vegan people they exclude all animals flesh and animal productes. We have special cakes without milk and eggs, I have tasted it, it is somehow different but delicious.

Grammar revision

Can you tell the difference between the following pair of sentences?
Think about it and if you are not clear about any of them, ask me in the next revision class.

• He must be a good musician. 
• He must have been a good musician.

• He might not have existed.
• He can't have existed.

• You must have seen the film about King Arthur.
• You should have seen the film about King Arthur.

• You don't have to do it.
• You musn't do it.  

• I have lived in Barcelona for 10 years. 
• I lived in Barcelona for 10 years. 

• When Desi got home, her parents went to bed.
• When Desi got home, her parents had gone to bed.

• I'm going to paint my room.
• I'm going to have my room painted. 

• I wish I knew that.
• I wish I had known that. 

Buying online is the best way to shop

'Buying online is the best way to shop'

Discuss

Today, we can do almost everything with the computer. Now, a lot of people are buying things online. You only need to open a bank acount, then you can buy things that you need. Now I will discuss the advantages and the disadvantagesod buying online.

On the one hand, buying online is very fast. You don't have to go out, only type on your keyboard. In addition, you can compare the price easily. Always the price of product online is cheaper than in a shop. If you buy too many things, you don't have to worry that you can't carry them, because they will take them home.

On the other hand, shopping online it is not safe, sense a virus can come in your computer anf it will store your bank acount password. Moreover, you only see photos of the product, so it's difficult to find out if it suits you. For exemple, if you want to buy a piece of cloth, you can't try it on.

In conclusion, buying online it is fast and easy. although it is not quite safe, but you should think that when you go shopping in a shop you can be robbed too. In my opinion, buying online is the best way to shop.

The evolution of internet.

At present the evolution of internet has recently inmmensely and new there are a lot of people that use it.

On the one hand, the internet has adventages;
It lets you in a simple way connect with a lot of people or distant family. Also, it makes it easy to meet people of other countries.
Searching information without moving from your house.
You can find many different perspectives about some news. Moreover, it allows you to download software, books, movies.. You can buy things or run a few errand. To finish with, you can share a lot of personal things that other people can benefit from it.

On the other hand, all things are good and bad thongs as well.
In the same way that it is easy to find good information also you can find wrong information.
Internet takes free time from and keeps you from doing you homework.
Internet makes students strive less doing their homework and students might copy English compositions.
Internet dustracts employees in their work.
The internet connection spends electrical energy and light.

To sum up, in my opinion we need to know how to balance the use of the Internet to be beneficial in our lives.

Buying online is the best way to shop

In recent years, internet shopping has increased. Many of us have bought something online but some people are afraid of buying the services which are offered on Internet. In this essay, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of "buying online is the best way to shop".
On the one hand, buying online is the best way to shop because there you can find things cheaper than in stores. Besides, you can find brand articles at a lower price than in stores. You can also find good second-hand items at half price. Another advantage is that there is an indefinite time: you can buy at any time of day. For example, people who work and who do not have time to go shopping in a store can make all their orders via Iternet becausa in this way they save time by not having to leave home and they can buy even though the shops are closed.
On the other hand, online shopping has many risks. You must enter the credit card number on the website to buy, so they can charge you twice for the same object and it is very difficult to claim. Furthermore, they can steal your personal information to buy with your name. This means that they can cheat you. For this reason, customers are disappointed, outraged and cheated, so they do not dare to buy online. In addition, you can not try the item of clothing and objects and you can not know if that suits you or if that is your size. Moreover, you can't return something if it doesn't suit you or if you don't like it because, often, the cost of return exceeds the cost of purchase.
In conclusion, although it has many advantages, I strongly believe that buying in shops is better than buying online. Despite this, Internet shopping is good as long as you use safe web pages.

The mass media has a great influence on people and especially on the younger generation. Discuss.

nNowadays, our life is influenced by the mass media, including TV, radio, newspaper... Everywhere, people are being exposed to a boom of advertisments and information by the media. All that pressure can produce a lot of advantages and disadvantages.
On the one hand, the media can offer us a lot of opporunities and hopes according to our future. Since the last decade, everybody who has wanted to get success in his life or his job has needed to appear in the media at least once. Almost all people who have appeared in the media has had a successful life after it: everybody reconognizes him and many businesses want to sign him up. Despite of it, the media gives us a lot of information from all over the world and our mind can be influenced by all these events, perhaps, it helps us to mature.
On the other hand, the news are manipulated by the media and it's cheatting us. Therefore, young people grow up with a wrong idea from the world, which coerce us when we need to make a desition. Besides, the media controls our lives although we don't realize it. Adds, news and series tell us hoe to take part in our lifes, how to dress, how to speak, how we should have our hair cut... All that means that we cannot be free with our society.
Finally, all in all I think that the advantages are not enough and, for this reason, I can't say that the mass media has a good influence on people, But I also say that we cannot believe a society without information because it gives us culture.

The language of successful presentations

This is a really short but hopefully inspiring and relevant video (only one minute and a half).

You can see again our old friend, Steve Jobs, president of Apple.

I can tell you from my experience working in two multinational companies that the world is about presentations. Why? Because, let's be honest, nobody reads long reports and so in real life if you have a project, you will always be asked to present it to the managing team of your company, sponsors, .... Half of the people in the world are more afraid of oral presentations than death! And so, how can we overcome this fear? by preparing and over-preparing our presentation plus learning a few tips which will make us more confident and relaxed. This is a skill which is given a lot of attention in American schools. Maybe that's why some of the best speakers in the world are American.

So let's learn form the very best!! 

This one-and-a-half video is a series of short extracts taken from a 90-minute presentation. 

Can you make a list of some of the positive language that is used? 

We'll revise and put together all of these words next week in class.

How many new words did you learn?

I discovered this video in a blog I am subscribed to with Google Reader. The blog is DigitaLang and the post is: "The language of successful presentations".

We like Instalyrics

Instalyrics is a new site for music videos and lyrics. 

It shows you the lyrics to any song very, very quickly, along with a music video that goes along with it. 

The lay-out is very clear and clean. 

Have a try and have fun!  

Damien Walters

I just found a video of this guy and I thought you would love it.

Know a little bit of him:

Damien Walters is a former British gymnast of Derbyshire specialising in tumbling. He participated in four Trampoline World Championships. He won the European Title with the British team in 2006.

He also worked in many movies as a stuntman. In 2010, he won the Taurus World Stunt Awards for "Best Fight" in the film Ninja Assassin'

Damien Walters also has a passion for Parkour and Freerunning where he incorporates his gymnastic skills as well as his stuntman abilities. On YouTube he is one of the most watched Freerunners with his videos having a total of over 30 million views.

Currently he is running his own gym in Derbyshire and shooting films.

See all his videos in his youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/damienwalters

Here you have some of his videos.

The story of a sign

Hi guys!

I just found this video and I thought it would be interesting for you.

This short story, winner of the 2008 Cannes Festival, shows how the power of words and the kindness of strangers can have a big impact. Film produced by Alonso Alvarez Barreda.

Here you have the original short film and a UK version

Espiral Edublogs 2011

We’ve got excellent news today!!! I’ve just received an email saying that last Wednesday some blogs had been misplaced in the list and that we have been selected one of the 6 finalists in the category of “Blogs de alumnos –Bachillerato”! See definitive list. So we made it to the final! 

It is a great honour to be in such a prestigious list.

Congratulations to all of you who have contributed to this blog and enriched it with your posts, comments!! And thank you to all the readers! 

It is expected that the winners will be published on the 15^th of May! We’ll keep fingers crossed! 

Happy blogging!

Ric Elias: "3 things I learned while my plane crashed"

This five-minute talk is about regrets and living life to the full.

Ric Elias had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009. What went through his mind as the doomed plane went down? At TED, he tells his story publicly for the first time.

Remember you can read the subtitles in English.

Also, on the right-hand upper corner it says "open interactive transcript" and you can click on any part of the text and listen to a specific bit of the speech again.

If you go to the TED's page, you might also like to read people's comments and reactions, feel free to leave your comments below as well. What do you think about what he says?

Happy listening!