Goodbye, Mr Reed!!

Yesterday was not a perfect day, as the great Lou Reed passed away. There'll be no more concerts nor songs from him. It was a sad day for music or, as Don Mclean would have said, it was the day the music died. But true artists like him never die. His music will live on forever.
Enjoy!

How good are the Spanish at English? Not very, sadly.

Languageknowledge.eu is a visualization of language knowledge in Europe by Jonathan Van Parys, launched to coincide with the 2012 European Day of Languages. The site uses data from the Europeans and their languages survey by the European Commission.
When the European Commission published a new Eurobarometer survey on languages in the summer of 2012, he thought it would be fun to do something interactive with language data in order to visualize language dynamics in Europe: which languages are growing in popularity, which languages are most spoken in each country, which countries are lagging behind in language skills, etc.
It's really interesting for us, teachers of English as a foreign language, to see what's the state of things in our country. It is sad to see that little has changed and we are still far behind our fellow Europeans.

Go to the site yourselves and see the Data. The site is interactive so you can choose any language spoken in the European Union, not only English.

Malala for the Nobel Peace Prize

Soon we'll find out who will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. I must say that to many of us that award doesn't mean much anymore, too many undeserving recipients... But Malala is different: She is an inspiration; a strong, powerful young woman who hopefully will help change this world for the better. After watching her recent interview on The Daily Show, I feel as much in awe as Jon Stewart himself. Please watch and enjoy this wonderful interview!