Humor4u

Ellen MacArthur has recently won the Princess of Asturias Prize for International Cooperation, The Majorca Daily Bulletin reported last week . In 2005, Ms MacArthur became the first woman to break the world record as a solo sailor around the world and later she started the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to promote the circular economy and design a more sustainable future for the finite world resources.  As a result of their campaign, in March 2022 the UN adopted a resolution to negotiate a legally-binding treaty on plastic pollution, which is hoped to be drawn and signed by the end of 2024.  Dame Ellen MacArthur was invited to the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs back in 2009. In this 45' interview she talks about her background, her achievement in sailing, and her charity work. Her English is a perfect model for C1 and C2 students, because it is rich, but not pompous; there are technical terms, but it is not packed with jargon; the colloquial expressions fit natur...

Earth Day is a worldwide initiative to raise awareness and take action to help the environment. Here you can find a lesson plan for a speaking and listening class for B2 students, which discusses environmental issues based on some of the materials published on the website of earthday.org. In this class students are likely to activate words like:  climate change, greenhouse effect, waste, pollution, overpopulation, ozone-layer depletion, consumerism, extinction of endangered species, deforestation, destruction of habitats, nature reserves, breeding areas, conservationism, fossil fuels, renewable energy, non-renewable sources of energy, harmful, toxic, overfishing, to raise awareness, water management, landfills, solar panels, wind turbines, to tackle the problem, threats to the environment. Whereas in the video "Plogging Paul" below, they will come across words like trash, plogger, windy (winding) roads, country lanes, bushes, to make the biggest impact, to create a ripple [...

Belinda Gates, the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, has published a book where she talks about how empowering women can bring about positive changes in society all over the world.  In this NPR interview, she talks about gender equality in the US and in her own relationship with Bill Gates, about philantropy and a fair tax system within the capitalist society and more. This short interview (6':52'') with a script can be accessible to B2 students.

Chef José Andrés won the James Beard Humanitarian Award for his relief work in Puerto Rico after the devastating effects of hurricane Maria in 2011.  He used the local arena as giant kitchen to provide 75,000 meals a day to feed the hungry in the island.  He has published a memoir called " We Fed an Island " telling his experience managing chaos, which is like running a kitchen, he says. In the second part of this NPR interview (18':50"), he talks about his background in Spain, how he learnt to cook paella from his father, he jokes about the criticism he faced as an immigrant for daring to change a traditional American dish, the Philadelphia cheesecake, he celebrates vegetables and fruit ("vegetables are so sexy", he claims), he jokes again about "molecular gastronomy", and he concludes by stressing how important it is not to be afraid of failure if you want innovate, either in the kitchen or as a relief worker after a hurricane.