Hi, E.S.L. Bloggers!

My name is María Jesús Balán and I teach English at Avilés EOI.
It is a pleasure to welcome you to ESL Bloggers, my place on the blogosphere and , from now on, your place too. Make yourselves at home!
There are so many people , like you and I , who use English as their second language ! Many people who like listening to music, watching their favourite films or series, reading books, surfing the net , talking to others and making new friends ...
When we start learning a new language, we all think that we´ll never be able to understand fims which aren´t dubbed , or read books, or chat in the language we are learning. Sometimes it may seem hard to reach your goal but never doubt that you´ll succeed , as long as you keep trying , because the only key to success is practice, practice and more pratice.
This blog wants to offer you the chance to practise your English and ... why not ? have some fun sharing and talking about some of the things you enjoy.

10 blogs worth browsing

Our blog has been chosen as one of their ten selected Blogs worth visiting by our fellow bloggers Saro Rosales and Chiew N Pang. This mention means a lot to me, specially when it comes from two people who are doing such great work and whose blogs, Saro Rosales and A click to Climb are excellent.
This is part of an interesting inititiative called "Vale la pena ficar de olho nesse blog!", whose aim is to introduce a selection of blogs that you consider really interesting and valuable.
These are the ones I have chosen, among all the great ones I have come across throughout the blogosphere.
Visit them, they are really worth it!

• About reading
• Blog de Cristina
• Bloggin' away
• eoio's advanced students
• Feel like blogging?
• Helendipity Weblog
  
• Our Advanced English blog
• fromcangaswithlove.wordpress.com
• Shall we blog?
• The Full Monty

Finding the Famous ‘Afghan Girl’

Check out this great MSN Video: Finding the Famous ‘Afghan Girl’

She was one of the world's most famous faces, yet no one knew who she was. Her image appeared on the front of magazines and books, posters, lapel pins, and even rugs, but she didn't know it. After searching for 17 years, National Geographic has once again found the Afghan girl with the haunting green eyes.

The mysterious Afghan girl whose direct gaze has intrigued the West for so long is Sharbat Gula. She lives in a remote region of Afghanistan with her husband and three daughters.

Sharbat was located nearly two decades after her picture appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. She had no idea her face had become an icon, said Steve McCurry, the photographer who made the famous portrait for National Geographic in 1984, and who tried to find her again during many subsequent trips he made to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In January 2002, a National Geographic team returned to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan, where Sharbat Gula was originally photographed, to search for her. She was identified through a series of contacts that led to her brother and husband, who agreed to ask her if she was willing to be interviewed.

Sharbat has been photographed on only two occasions: in 1984 and at the reunion with Steve McCurry. She had never seen her famous portrait before it was shown to her by the photographer.

Special English offers you a very interesting course to learn American English while you watch videos or listen to real news taken from radio programmes. Click here and visit this great site.

Tips for Everyday life

BBC raw is a very interesting site where you will find loads of useful information, advice and tips for everyday life issues like money, shopping, computers, reading, etc.
The articles are really interesting and they are dealt with in an informal way, which is fun to read, listen and watch. You'll also find a lot of videos and audio files which will help you improve your listening as well as you reading skills. There is even a section dedicated to writing.
If you need subtitles to understand the videos, they are also available just by choosing the subtitle option when you play them. So, what are you waiting for? Click on the picture above and enter BBC raw!

Get that Job

BBC Learning English is full of activities and quizzes which can help you improve your knowledge of career-related vocabulary and offer some tips on things like how to write a good CV , a letter of application or do well in an interview.

You can work your way through the site step by step, from 'Job Search' to 'Interviews' - just click on 'What's next?' on the right of the page each time you have completed an activity. Or you can go straight to whichever units are of most interest to you by using the links you will find at the top of the page.