Canary News

Hi everyone!
       You have probably come across one or two free newspapers in English we have in Gran Canaria. One of them, The Canary News, can be read online here. You can also read News in the Sun. There's another one, but I can't recall its name, does anyone know? 
       Moreover, you might also have a look at Tenerifenews and Sur in English) and Round Town News to find out what's going on in the south of Spain.
       It's a great way of keeping up to date with local news while practising your English, isn't it?

GENERAL STRIKE

OMG!
It's Wednesday night, the general strike has just started... but the BBC has nothing on its webpage, nor do "The Times", "The Independent" or "The Guardian"!!!  Well, at least "The Telegraph" mentions something, it focuses on the flight cancellations, but that's about it.


As regards the USA, nothing is mentioned in either the "The New York Times"or "USA Today".  However, the CNN does! Thanks God someone remembers us! You can read the article here (there's a video as well). And ... "The Washington Post" also devotes this article to our country, which offers quite a good general overview.


And all this makes me wonder, does the rest of the world really care about our situation? Will anyone help us out or is it up to us to get out of this crisis just by ourselves? Will the reform be implemented? Will the trade unions succeed? In what ways? What would you do if you were in power?  


Please leave a comment with your opinion on any of these topics; it'll be interesting and excellent writing practice for you! You can remain anonymous if you wish (but if you let me know which comment is yours, it'll count as one more writing task for this term)

New Year's resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR and welcome back everyone!

Have you made any New Year's resolutions, or not yet? If you want to hear again the recording we listened to in class, visit the BBC page here.

Maybe one of your resolutions is to stop smoking, especially after the new anti-smoking law came into force on Jan 2nd.  This is what the BBC says about it. You can also read this article. This video from videojug proposes some techniques or tips to quit the habit.
What's YOUR OPINION? Please leave a comment (and sign it), speak your mind!

Finally, if you want to revise some narrative tenses, go here, here, here, here or here. This page and this one are also good practice. Good luck!

THE NEWS TODAY

If you want to watch the news to know what the world thinks of today's general strike... watch these two videos. Then you can do the comprehension questions below. The answers... you'll get them by e-mail. Good luck!

The BBC talks of austerity measures.
1) How many unemployed are there, according to the video?
2) How long was Jose working for the same company?
3) Why have many ambitious projects stopped?
4) Which 3 consequences of austerity do they mention?
5) Does José agree with the timing of this strike?

In Youtube you can find this headline: "Spain austeriry package fuels anger"

6) How much will the government save with these measures?
7) How much more unemployment is there in Spain, if we compare it with the rest of Europe?
8) How much less will the Spanish Prime Minister get at the end of the month?

British Newspapers

Click here for a link to all the day's front pages of British newspapers. If you want to be redirected to the website for that paper, click on the front page. Can you see the differences between the tabloid and serious press? The front pages look different, don't they? Why not read an article and compare the styles? Which do you find easiest to understand?