Tribute

Tribute is the best-known cinema magazine is Canada. If you visit their website, you will find a throve of cinema-related stuff that might be of interest for the advanced English learner in search of authentic material: trailers, interviews, news, and so on.

The commercial campus

Corporations are hiring students to promote their brand on campus. At the University of North Carolina, American Eagle helps first-year students move-in, while Target hosts the inaugural party.

Watch this The New York Times video to find out more about this business practice which might be a bit unusual for us and judge for yourself.



You can also read the related newspaper article here.

The New York Times also presents a slideshow with the most general ideas of the scheme.

PISA -Measuring student success around the world

A test the whole world can take...

It's a breathtaking concept -- but for the OECD, it's a very real way of finding out how well-prepared today's students are to participate in society. If you're not quite sure what PISA is or does, and you've got about 12 minutes to spare, grab a comfortable chair. This video will help you to understand why the OECD's number-crunchers trigger such intense debate about the state of education around the world every time they release the results of the latest PISA survey.

I couldn't get hold of a transcript, so for comprehension purposes you will have to rely on YouTube's (inaccurate) CC, the powerful effect of the images and, best of all, your own skills.

Frontline

Frontline is a website that develops investigative journalism. Contains extended interviews, videos, transcripts, teacher's resources, and additional material related to its weekly documentaries.

Frontline has been broadcasting over 28 seasons each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human experience, with topics ranging from biographies, to politics, crime, education, religion, the environment, sports and so on.

As an example, here's the documentary The Atomic Artist, about a group of Japanese artists who are challenging Japan's faith in nuclear power. You can read the transcript here. Bear in mind, however, that most of Frontline's documentaries are on the long side, so our biggest difficulty might just be finding the time to watch whichever programme we wish to watch.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Great Questions

Great Questions is an interesting site for advanced English students to develop their listening and speaking skills. It is a section of Story Corps, a site whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of their lives.

The Great Questions Lists and Great Questions Generator provide you with excellent questions that you can use when interviewing people about their lives or about the lives of others. The Great Questions Lists is just a list of questions that you can select on your own. The Great Questions Generator will help you select the best questions for the person or people you're planning to interview.

You can listen to lots of stories in the section Listen to stories of the site, and some of the stories have a transcript and can be downloaded. Simply click on More Stories, and then click on Read more... whenever the stories allow you to do so. On the right-hand side you will be able to check whether there is a transcript, if the story can be downloaded as a podcast, related stories and so on.

As an example, I have included the story submitted by Frank Kovac, who explains how he built a planetarium in his garden. Frank's story is perfect for us, as it illustrates everything we can get from Great Questions.

H/T to Free Technology for Teachers.