Here is a nice tool I have found which might help you when doing homework.
Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused ormisused.
Some of these words are homonyms (words that sound alike but are spelled differently) and some are just commonly confused such as “affect/effect”
You know that I have been for some time now trying to improve your written work making you aware of the fact that you always tend to use the same simplistic words when you write, even though we both know that you have a wider range of vocabulary. So why not use it? Look at this text and try to replace the verbs “say” and “look” with some others.
Click here when you finish to see my suggestions.
“Watch out” ! I said at the top of my voice; but it was already too late. Jim and I both stood there looking at the cyclist flying off his bike and hitting the enormous hole in the road. “Is he hurt?” Jim said quietly, trembling with fear. “I don’t know” I said softly. At that moment the young man slowly lifted his head and looked at us in confusion. “What happened?” he said, in pain. “Where am I?”
Here’s another one. This time replace the words underlined to make it more interesting to the reader. Click here when you finish to see my suggestions.
It was a nice sunny morning when we set off on our journey. The sky looked very blue with only a few small clouds on the distant horizon. The ship we travelled on was big and had good cabins. We must have been halfway there when I was roused from my nap by a bad scream. It took me a while to come to my senses, but then I saw a small woman in front of me, looking very scared.
And now an entertaining task online that shows you how you can develop a simple sentence like ‘I made tea.’ into a detailed text. Go to the website: http://www.telescopictext.com/. You will see the sentence with shaded words, click ing on a shaded you’ll see that part of the sentence expand. Read the new sentence and then choose another part to click on
Homework: Create your own detailed sentences from one of these:
– I went to the beach.
– I saw a film
Once you have finished your sentence you can post it in the comments below and I’ll publish it.
Sent by Mario Peláez Fdez
Everybody knows that mobile phones have changed our society, making our communication faster, but, has it become better?
It’s true that we’ve modified our communication habits, because now we can talk with anyone, no matter where he/se is, but: Do we know the importance of communication? Or do we just do it becauseit’s a habit, a routine? I don’t mean mobile phones are completely bad for us: They help us to keep in touch with our friends and to ask for help in case of danger, and they help other people to find us if there’s an emergency.
But, on the other hand, some people are starting to substitute the face-to-face communication with the mobile phone communication. I mean, they’re trying to “mobilize” our communication. For example: teenager couples send each other, on average, more than fifteen text messages per day! Are we going crazy? It’s the same kind of communication that we should eliminate between friends. A boy or a girl comes from high school. He/She’s going to meet his/her friends half an hour later, but she’s texting all his/her friends to ask them if they have any interesting thing to tell him/her!
As I see it, we aren’t caring enough about how we relate to each other . We’re addicted to our mobile phones, because we think we can’t live without them 
If you don’t believe me, ask a teenager about what he/she prefers: a week without his/her mobile phone or a weekend without going out. I think most of the teenagers would say that they prefer the second option (I wouldn’t, but I think most of the teenagers would)
However, there’s something that I consider a very important advantage about mobile phones: nowadays, most of the mobile phones have got a camera and a MP3 player on them. I think that it’s an advantage because it’s a way to keep your music with you at all times and to take photos wherever and whenever you want.
So, if you ask me, I think that mobile phones are a great product, but we should be careful, because we mustn’t be mobile phone addicts
Sent by Manuel Torga Rubio
I remember when we were studying unit 2, we talked about Rock Gardens of Candigarh in India and the name of Justo Gallego , a man from Mejorada del Campo,sprang to mind. He is believed to be a madman.He was born in 1925 and wanted to be a priest but when he was at the monastery, he came down with a serious illness and he was made redundant. Afterwards, he promised his mother to build a cathedral, to the greater glory of his God. He sold family’s lands and began to 
build the cathedral without an architect’s university degree.Everybody in the village laughed at him but he had a” can do” attitude, an eye for detail and he was passionate about his new job, he was keen on doing his labour of love.
Anyway, he used bits of rubbish from the buildings sites, waste material, bricks, lumps of concrete, girders; he recycled anything he could find, he had his daily job satisfaction as a workaholic. When he finished his money, he started to receive money from his neighbours. For more than 40 years he has dedicated all his physical efforts to fulfilling that vow, canvassing local support, donations and eventually some people helped him doing voluntary work When his buildings started to become real then some people changed their mind about him. Actually, he was building a cathedral, similar to other cathedrals.
In the end, he represents the perseverance, the idea that all you wish for can happen, you must onlt work hard. I was there and I know that´s true….
Cheer up, Don Justo!!!
This article has been sent by Ana Rebollo. Thanks a lot.
There´s always some good and bad in everything. I´m an only child
and I think that the main advantage is that if you are an only child your parents are able to provide you with all the needs, financial or otherwise. And they can afford a really good education for you. You don´t have to share your toys or wear hand-me-downs and you always have your own room. But on the downside, only children tend to be spoiled getting everything they want because parents don´t have to divide among other kids. Only children get the full attention of their parents and that can create self-centredness and that could be a problem in the future because they would not be able to accept other points of view. I think when you are an only child you are more independent and more mature as they often only have adults at home to socialize with. One of the advantages of being an only child is that you don´t have anybody to fight with and you are never compared to a brother or sister. However, it can be boring when there is nobody else to play with when your parents are too busy to entertain you so sometimes only children can be quite lonely. I think that if you have siblings you are more sociable and you can learn how to get along with people a bit more easily and you also learn to share, not to be selfish and to put yourself in someone