Parkour

What is Parkour? follow the link to the Parkourpedia, or explore the freerunning website.
 Watch the video by the BBC learning English  "Words in the News".
Now you are ready for the following video:



And learn how it works.
Explore the Parkour organization in the UK.
If you want to try, take care, we do not have nine lives like cats!.

Listen to the news

Listening to the BBC has never been easier than now, Click here if you like sports you will find videos and articles about your favourite team. Or explore the BBC radio.
 A different link here.
If you prefer different accents:
Down under:New Zealand radio.
NPR: National Public Radio.
CNN video news.

Happy surfing!

On this day

Image source

On this day in the year 1954 the first vaccination of children against polio took place, and how do I know? because I have checked The New York Times front page for that date.
When is your birthday? Do you know what happened the day that you were born? Easy! just explore the website called On this day , it is a webpage in the New York Times learning network, you just choose the day you prefer, ie, your birthday date, and explore the New York Times front page for that date.
The BBC also allows you to explore history just picking the day you please.
there are some other webs on the matter:

what happened in my birth year? You write the year you are interested on and wait a little, then you can read a lot of information about that time, only remember that this website was made in the US so most of the information is relevant for people who grew up in there.

dates in history

Millennium milestones if you want to expore the highlights of the millennium.

Meet the Flatmates

A soap opera (or just "soap") is a serial TV drama that features multiple related story lines dealing with the lives of multiple characters. The stories in these series typically focus heavily on emotional relationships.



This is not the first time that The Flatmates visit this blog, they even had a permanent place in the links on your right. The video above is the first episode of this online "soap opera" with which you can learn a lot of English.
The Flatmates is the story of some friends who share a flat in London, it is designed to teach English to foreigners, and to show them the British way of life.
So you can learn a lot about everyday life in Britain while you watch these videos.
It is possible to read the script while you watch if you feel like, and there is always an open question in the end of each episode.
Do you want to watch some more episodes? follow the link.
Or just watch the very last episode:



Visit the archives, there you will find some quizzes and explanations on difficult language points (on the right side of the web page).

A bit of jazz

I know that this is not your favourite kind of music, this is old jazz, much older than you are, but you should sometimes try something new.

This video is an amazing animation, in which Ella Fitzgerald is a big cat and Louis Armstrong (also known as Satchmo) is a very small bird but with a strong voice.

Here you have the worksheet with the lyrics to download.
Or listen to Gershwin's Rapsody in blue if you prefer something more classic.

Shakespeare sings a song

Listen to Shakespeare singing a song:

Or learn about Shakespearean insults:
And watch Romeo and Juliet:

A book exchange club

Source:BBC news

Old payphone boxes have become increasingly useless since most of us prefer calling through our mobile phones.
Many phone booths were in a bad condition so in the small community of Little Eaton they decided to buy one and recycle it as a real public library: you take a book and leave one in the red telephone booth,  look at the picture and see  what their library looks like.
"We've got the butcher, a chemist, a doctor, pubs and shops but we didn't have a library," they said.
So they bought this phone box for only 1 pound and the idea was followed by as many as 770 communities in the United Kingdom.
You can see that a phone box is not always a phone box, it can also be a library or anything else, remember you can do whatever you want or go wherever you like, it depends on your imagination only.

Source:FSB Associates

Sing along with the Prince

Sing along with Will Smith
Here you have the lyrics:
THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR
 Now this is story all about how my life got flipped
 turned upside down
 and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there,
 I'll tell you how I became the Prince of a town called Bel-Air
 In west Philadelphia, born and raised;
 on a playground is where I spent most of my days.
Chillin out, maxin, relaxin' all cool and all shootin some b-ball
outside the school when a couple of guys they were up to no good,
startin makin trouble in my neighborhood
I got in one little fight and mom got scared she said,
"you're movin with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air."
 "I begged and pleaded with her the other day,
 but she packed my suitcase and sent me on my way.
She gave me a kissin' and gave me my ticket,
I put on my walkman and said "I might as well kick it".
First class yo this is bad, drinkin orange juice out of a champagne glass...
Is this what the people of Bel-Air are livin like? Hmmm this might be alright!
I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said FRESH
and it had dice in the mirror.
If anything I could say this cab was rare but I thought
 "Nah forget it... Yo homes to Bel-Air!"
 I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to cab
 "Yo Homes Smell ya lata!" I looked at my kingdom I was finally there
 to sit on the throne as the Prince of Bel-Air."

Let's go to the cinema

 Or enjoy the crossword