Do you trust doctors?

Do you trust doctors? Perhaps you could try and answer this question before you watch this The New York Times video. So do you trust doctors? Do you have any doctors stories to share? Think about it first and then watch the video.



You can find a transcript of the video here.

The Internet cheating game

Read this lengthy The Independent article about the dangers of using the Internet for everything connected to knowledge and finding out.

A class divided

This is a really interesting programme from Frontline about discrimination in the US. It all revolves around the assassination of Marthin Luther King.

Watch the full programme by clicking on the image below.

You can read a transcript of the programme by clicking here.

H/T to Larry Ferlazzo.

The Wrongly Convicted

"The criminal justice system is a human system; it is so dependent on human beings.” As a prominent criminal defense lawyer, James Lockyer advocates for the wrongly convicted. Having worked on a number of high-profile cases involving unjust indictments, including those of Canadians Guy Paul Morin and David Milgaard, his talk in Idea City details the noticeable cracks in the criminal system, citing reference to many of his professional cases.

Awesome Blog

Bestselling author and blogger, Neil Pasricha, shares three things that helped him turn his blog into a bestselling book and helped him "grow himself." He calls them the three A's -- Attitude, Awareness and Authenticity.

This TED talk is worth a watch, if you can spare 17 and a half minutes. Pasricha, author of the wildly popular Awesome Blog, gets us thinking about these three A's and how we might apply them back to anything in life.

English Language Improvement Resources

The Collegial Centre for Educational Materials Development (CCDMD) in Canada has quite a few nice English Language Improvement Resources, primarily for advanced English Language Learners.

The resources include listening, reading, writing and speaking as well as literature and vocabulary and pronunciation.

All in all English Language Improvement Resources is a great site for Advanced Learners who wish to study English in a systematic way.

The Frugal Traveller

Watch this New York Times video on the series The Frugal Traveller, when they pay a visit to the Edinburgh Teathre Festival and try to make the most of it.



If you wish, you can read the transcript here.

Ashleigh McIvor

Ashleigh McIvor discusses her athletic experiences in this presentation and how they led up to her gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. She advises focusing not on the end result, but the journey it took to get there.

Guides to Global Issues

The Council on Foreign Relations offers a number of interactive guides to contemporary global political and economic issues. There are twenty-three guides in the collection ranging from nuclear energy to the Iraq War or the economic crisis and climate change.

The guides are divided into chapters containing videos, graphics, text, and timelines. Consequently, each guides makes an in-depth and detailed study about each of the issues.

H/T to Free Technology for Teachers.

Bridget Jones's Diary

Here's an activity for after the Christmas break I have adapted from The English Blog.

Discuss these questions with a friend or record yourself answering them:

Did you speak English over the holidays? Who with?
Did you read anything in English, or see an English film? Which one?
Did you celebrate New Year’s Eve? Who with? How?
Did you see your family or long-lost friends? Who? When?
Did you get any unexpected presents? What presents did you give?
Can you think of TWO things you were happy about from last year?
What are you looking forward to in 2011?

Now watch the first eight minutes of Bridget Jones's Diary and note down the New Year's Resolutions Bridget makes.

You can check your answers with the script here. At the same time, you may also wish to read all the script in the video click, as there are some tricky expressions which might have escaped you.

Now watch the video again and make notes about the following characters. How do they come across to you? It would be great if you could compare your ideas with those of some other English speaking friends, as this is an entirely personal activity, with no right or wrong answers.
Bridget Jones
Mark Darcy
Bridget’s Mother
Bridget’s Father
Uncle Geoffrey
Daniel Cleaver

Here are some popular New Year Resolutions. Would you like to do any of them?
Quit smoking, eat more healthily, do more exercise, lose weight, learn a language.
Have you ever made any New Year Resolutions in the past? What were they?
Are you going to make a New Year Resolution this year? Which one(s)?

110 Things New Yorkers Talked about in 2010

The title of this The New York Times article is self-explanatory. Here you can read the hottest topics for New Yorkers in 2010.

How well acquainted are you with them? What topics do you know anything about? Which are news to you?

What's Next in 2011

What this CBS video about what 2011 has in store for us.

H/T to Free Technology for Teachers.

New Anti-smoking Rules

It seems that the new Spanish anti-smoking law has had great repercussion all over the world. Watch this Newsy video on the topic.

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

You can read a transcript of the video here.

And if you want to read about this issue, the BBC published this article yesterday.

Christmas in Bethlehem

Some days ago The Washing Post released this video showing a different Christmas being celebrated in Bethlehem.

Holiday Windows

From The New York Times, On the Street, comes this video which shows different ways of celebrating Christmas along the stores in Madison and Fifth Avenue.