$100 Laptop: this is not a toy.

When the idea of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) — popularly known as $100 Laptop — was first announced in 2005, nobody thought it was possible. Two years later in November 2007 the little computer that could went into mass production in China, and is now called the XO laptop. Read the whole article clicking here. Also, watch the presentation of this surprising laptop. Very interesting material.

Handwriting

Does your handwriting reveal aspects of your personality? Listen to an interview with an expert on the topic here, do a listening comprehension quiz by clicking here, and read the tapescript here to have a good look at vocabulary and expressions. Have fun.

Christmas Routine

Listen to this dialogue about Christmas traditions in Canada. You can also read the script by clicking on "transcript" on the web page, and do a listening comprehension quiz as well. Click here, and get to work. Merry Christmas!

Darwin´s Surprise

When the sequence of the human genome was fully mapped in 2003, researchers discovered that our bodies are littered with fragments of retroviruses. These dangerous viruses managed to embed themselves in the DNA of our ancestors millions of years ago. They are called endogenous retroviruses, because once they infect the DNA of a species they become part of that species. One by one, though, after molecular battles that raged for thousands of generations, they have been defeated by evolution. Like dinosaur bones, these viral fragments are fossils and they reside within each of us, carrying a record that goes back millions of years. Read the complete article by clicking here, and listen to its audio version here. Excellent material for those of you interested in science and evolution.

World population in real time

Do you want to know how our population increases by the second? Click here and see by yourself!

Living in Japan

Listen to this conversation between two people living in Japan. You can do a quiz, and also read the script to check on vocabulary. Start working by clicking here. Have fun!

Addictions!

What are you addicted to ? Coffee? Sports? Your job, maybe? Do this fun activity listening to people talking about their addictions! You need to click on the faces of the speakers and solve the exercise. You can read the script, which appears below on the same page to get every word they say. Click here. Enjoy it!

Tennis

Listen and do the exercise following a dialogue about tennis. You can click "transcript" on the page when you finish your exercise, listen again and read at the same time. Excellent activity to gain vocabulary. Listen to it once and again. Click here and have fun!

Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: "If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, please stop whatever you're doing and watch it now." Enjoy it!

Personal information

This is a short dialogue to practise names, occupations, and numbers. Click here and listen to the conversation. If you have problems with the vocabulary, you can press "Quiz Script" on the page and you can read the conversation and listen to it at the same time. Enjoy it!