Monday, July 12, 2010

English Listening Exercises

I have found a nice website, called English Listening Exercises, by an Englishwoman called Caroline Brown. There are several subjects you can choose from. Each subject has several types of listening activities. As you know, listening comprehension is essential to learning a language, so give it a try! Click on the name to go directly to the website.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Stonehenge

Located near Salisbury in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside, Stonehenge is probably the most important prehistoric monument in the whole of Britain. Watch the video and try to answer the following questions:
1-Why was Stonehenge built ?
A-To worship the sun B- It was a calendar C-We don't know.
2-The workers pulled the stones upright to form ...
A- a square B-a circle C-a perfectly horizontal stone.
3-The trilithons (two large stones set upright to support a third)were placed:
A-inside the circle B- outside the circle C- round the circle.


Script: Salisbury plain in southern England 2500 BC the same time as the pyramids in Egypt are under construction , workers here complete the outer circle in Stonehenge.
They haul huge rocks (Arrastran rocas enormes) some weighing up to 45 tons across rough terrain .
They work each granite-like stone into shape , then pull them upright (poner de pie) to form the great stone circle
Thousands of people work on this massive project … when they complete this phase ... an inner horseshoe (herradura interior) of five great arches will be enclosed by a ring of 30 stone uprights and topped by a circle of perfectly horizontal stones called lintels(dinteles)
But while we know this was an incredible feat (hazaña) of engineering… who these people were and why they built Stonehenge has remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the ancient world.. .


What is Stonehenge and what was it used for ?
According to Professor J.C Atkinson “There is one short, simple and perfectly correct answer; we do not know,and we shall probably never know ”. Anyway, several theories have been proposed to explain Stonehenge. These are the most common:
a-It was a temple for sun worship.
b-It was a sacred site for the burial of high-ranking citizens
c-It was a centre of medicine with the circle’s creators believing that the stones had magical powers .
d-It was a calendar and observatory . The stones are aligned with the summer and winter solstices-the longest and shortest days of the year.
e-A centre of mystical lines of energy that cross Britain.
f-A launching point for spaceships.…

What do you think it is? What was it used for ? What is so special about Stonehenge ?