Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a great site to practice your listening skills. Each video lasts just 20 minutes and are full of thought provoking ideas. If you want to download an mp3 of the talk click here.

"With the same humor and humanity he exuded in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore spells out 15 ways we can address climate change, from buying a hybrid car to inventing a hotter brand name for global warming. First, though, comes a hilarious set of stories from The New Gore, who turns out to be a stand-up comedian. The former Vice President has plenty of joke material, and he's funnier than you've ever seen him. Then he gets down to grittier matters with a list of actions ordinary people can take to stem the tide of global warming. His message: Doing something is easier than you think."

Natural Disasters

Just a bit of revision on the basic ideas. Here are good explanations from Wiki about earthquakes, tornadoes and El Nino.

Tourism

For more info on different forms of tourism check out these videos on Lonely Planet TV.



For a more serious analysis of what the EU thinks will change in the future check out this report.

A recruitment agency

Last week we talked about recruitment agencies I thought I'd post some links to help you get a better idea of what they do.

"Manpower is the UK’s leading employment expert offering a full range of options to help businesses and individuals choose their way in the contemporary world of work. We employ over 30,000 people every day through a network of over 300 UK offices providing staff for around 5,000 clients. With employment opportunities in the public and private sector, on both a permanent and temporary basis, we make it easy for people to find employment and for companies to find staff with the skills they need. Permanent and temporary positions. Holiday, maternity or sick cover, through to large workforce transformation and outsourcing contracts."

Here is a link to a video that explains what they do.

Here is a the site for the Greek branch.

A short biography

I am a 24-year old and my name is Christine. I was born on 16 April, 1983 in Thessaloniki in Greece. I am the youngest child of a Cypriot father and a Greek mother.I am an undergraduate student at the Law School in the Faculty of Law , Economics and Political Sciences at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ( www.auth.gr ).

In 2006, I had a first-class work placement and improved my professional skills by working in Public Prosecutor’s Office at the District Court Judges of Thessaloniki.

metallica

metallica

metallica

300

my favourite film is '300'

this is a test posting

Getting to know this.

One of our favourite songs is Getting Away.

welcome

This is a list of different things you can do to improve your English outside class.

1 Use the internet - How ?

a Surf the web on a regular basis - 10 to 15 minutes a day is enough.

b Use chat rooms - Mirc or Yahoo have easy to use (and FREE) chat services.

http://www.mirc.co.uk

http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/chat/chatbylycos.html

c Listen to radio or download podcasts from the net.

www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Or download a book and listen to it. It costs nothing.

http://freeaudio.org
http://www.scottsigler.net
http://librivox.org

d Set up your own blog (web page). It's easy and costs nothing. Also it is a great way to practise your writing skills and come into contact with others

www.blogger.com
www.myspace.com

e Use Skype (www.skype.com), which allows you to make free phone calls over the internet in order to find speaking partners from all over the world. MSN and Yahoo also have similar services.

www.kantalk.com is a good place to start.

f Watch Youtube (www.youtube.com) in order to see clips in English. There are plenty of videos aimed at those learning English, e.g

http://thedailyenglishshow.blogspot.com/.

For longer programmes see;

Google Video (http://video.google.com)

2 Watch DVD's - without subtitles - at least once a week. This is a great way of preparing for the listening test.

3 Read something other than your course books. Literature, short stories, magazines, newspapers; In fact just about anything you can find in English. All reading is good practice for the Reading Comprehension part of the Cambridge exams. All these things can be found at the kiosks in Aristotelian square or in central bookshops.

4 Record yourself. If you have a cassette recorder, mobile phone that can record or a microphone for your PC, record yourself speaking. It's a great way of correcting errors in your spoken English. You can record part of a film you've seen, a page from an audio book, a listening exercise from the course book etc. Listen to the original and try to copy it as closely as possible.

5 Speak only English in class. This is probably the only chance you'll get to speak English before the exam so make the most of the opportunity.

Nobody expects students to do all of these things but if you try some of them during the course of the year then you'll see a great improvement in your language skills and of course you'll greatly increase your chances of getting a good grade in the exams.