This year I'll be working at a school of hospitality and tourism with adults, so I'm going to share a few links that may come handy:
(by Tagon)
1) Groups for language exchange in Madrid.
(To my high school ex-students, please note that these are intended for adults!)
http://www.multilinkual.com/
http://madridbabel.weebly.com/
Both groups have facebook pages associated to their websites. Apart from meeting regularly in Madrid for exchanges, dinners, visits to the movies and parties, they sometimes organize trips to different areas in Spain. For obvious reasons, this is great practice for students of tourism!
2) In Madrid newspaper.
Great for finding one-to-one language exchanges and for general information about news and events in Madrid, as well as stories about everyday life for expats here. You can get the newspaper in most Irish Pubs along the city at the beginning of the month. It's free so you need to hurry, they run out really fast! If you can't get hold of a copy, you can always check their website:
http://www.in-madrid.com/
(by Tagon)
3) A few travel sites I like:
http://www.quirkyguide.com/ A nice travel site full of interesting articles about little known sites and events.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ This is a travel site for backpackers mostly, but it is packed with information and you can do a lot of research on real questions and problems that occur to tourists through their forum, the
Thorn Tree section.
http://wikitravel.org/ follows the wikipedia structure to give information about countries and cities, specifically oriented towards travelers.
http://iwannagothere.com/ is a website that compiles traveler experiences in different countries and cities. It's great to find information about off-the-beaten-track attractions.
Fevered Mutterings is a blog by a friend of mine, Mike. He's currently working at
http://travelllll.com/ and, being an experienced globetrotter, he's my main source for travel advice so you might want to check these sites out, too. You might want to look at his huge blogroll for more inspiration, too :-)
4) A few
English as a Second Language sites you'll need to use:
http://www.wordreference.com/es/ THE online dictionary. You can also download an application to check the dictionary on your phone via Wi-fi or 3G. Great for having a lightweight dictionary always available.
http://www.forvo.com/ A pronunciation dictionary, especially useful for proper nouns and other words that may not be in a dictionary. Real native speakers record the words so you can listen to how they are pronounced. You can also contribute to it on the Spanish section.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/ is the simplified English version of Wikipedia. It's good for English learners who might feel a bit overwhelmed by the main English Wikipedia.
And, last but not least,
http://www.agendaweb.org/ is a great site to look for general English practice, especially grammar exercises. It compiles activities from a large number of ESL websites all over the internet.
