My English competence in 2009!

MY BEST ORAL EVIDENCE!

I think this is my best oral evidence because it’s the last one we had done and we weren’t as nervous as other times. So, the lack of nerves helps me to take more care about the pronunciation. Moreover, I think we speak more fluently and it makes it more entertained than the orals we had done before.

Another important reason why I have chosen this one is because during it I felt confident and meanwhile I was talking I move my hands and this made my speech more understandable.

The last reason of my choice is the structure we followed during the presentation. First we explained all about our trip to London and then, when we have finished, we showed some pictures of the trip and we comment them.

To conclude, I want to say that I like this oral in particular, because we told our own experiences and that was much easier than talking about something you haven’t experienced before.

MY BEST WRITTING EVIDENCE!

http://carles---porfolio.blogspot.com/search/label/discussion%20essay

I have chosen this evidence because it is my favourite one. In this writing I had been critical with one of the main tools of the modernization, but I think I did in an appropriated way.

In fact, I like the topic and it was easy to write about it. Besides, I think this is one of the best structured writings I had ever done because it is well separated and really easy to understand. I believe that another strong point of it is the use of the connectors, for example: on the other hand, to sum up…
Another reason why I have chosen it is because the arguments of this discussion essay are, in my opinion, really strong. I remember that before writing it, I decided what I was going to argue and why.

Finally, I want to say that this was one of those writings which are funny to write. I enjoyed writing it and, maybe, that’s why it is my favourite one.

Analyse your work!

As our teachers have recommended us, I have been looking at all my portfolio work and, now, I am really surprised. I have compared the first writing I wrote at the beginning of First of Batxillerat with the last writing I have done. As I said, I have been really surprised because the maturity and the structure of the first writing were really poor. Moreover, I have noticed that I presented myself talking about my family, my pet… Nowadays, I think I will do it in a really different way. Now, I think I write with more maturity and with longer sentences. Besides, I use more vocabulary and I try to write as an English person. It means that I try to write typical English sentences (with a better structure).

Apart form the grammatical point of view, I would like to analyse my fluency because I know how many hours I spend to write a composition in First of Batxillerat and I know how much time I need now. One year ago, I spent most of the time I had to write thinking about what I wanted to write about and with what vocabulary. Nowadays, I write more quickly and the vocabulary came to my mind more quickly than before. Moreover, I think that, now, I am not afraid to use complicated structures and I am more self confident than before.

To conclude, I would like to say that if I hadn’t done this post I wouldn’t have noticed the importance of the famous “Practice”. Today I have seen that these two years of hard-working have been useful, because I can appreciate a clear improve of my English level.

The interpreter!

I am going to take profit of the film we have watched with the English teacher Joan Carles, the interpreter.

All the story began when Silvia Broome, an interpreter born in Africa who works for the ONU, listens to a mysterious conversation. In it, she understands that a criminal organization wants to kill the President of the republic of Matobo. After listening to these whisperings, the life of the main character makes a radical change.
At this moment appears, Mr. Keller, a policeman whose objective consists on protecting the live of the interpreter. But he notices that Silvia is hiding some important information. Later, he knew that she grew up in Matobo and that she was a militant of a guerrilla who fought against Edmond Zuwanie (the President). Moreover, most of her family was killed by the soldiers of Zwanie.
When Mr. Keller discovers all of these things, he began to suspect about her intentions.
Lastly, when Edmon Zuwanie arrives at the ONU building, a killer tries to kill him but he failed. After that, they move the president to a safe room where there was Silvia.

She has the chance to kill the dictator accused from genocide, but after listening to Mr. Keller words, she decides not to do it.

The video of the news I have chosen is about the last year earthquake in China.

I think that it is really sad, because this disaster happened last year and until now the government hasn’t done anything to solve it. The landscape is terrifying; all of the houses of Beichuan (the most affected town) are completely destroyed.

Moreover, I get frightened when I watch that there are small shops which sold souvenirs of this catastrophe. I think it’s amazing that people buy souvenirs of one of the most important earthquake that happened in China. Besides, I think these souvenirs will remind the disaster for lots of years, and, in my opinion this is not good.

To conclude, I want to say that what surprised me most was the fact that lots of tourists go to this village to see what the earthquake had done. Imagine that you have lost most of the members of your family in this earthquake, how will you feel seeing all of these tourists and shops around the destroyed buildings?

Psychologists on our society.

1- Write about the influences of psychologists on our society. Are they well considered? Could they be the answer to our physiological necessities?

We live in a modern country and we have some of the most important physiological problems of the modern society. Now, everybody wants to live in an easy way, with no problems, always calmed. That’s why psychologists have appeared, but can we live without them?

On the one hand, I think that sometimes we aren’t strong enough to solve our own problems. Moreover, we haven’t got time enough to think what’s happening to us. So, maybe, going to the psychologist is like taking our car to the mechanic because they have to repair us quickly, like the car.

On the other hand, psychologists are really useful for these people who have important problems such as: murderers, drug-addicts… For those people, going to the psychologist is really useful, but, normally, these are the ones who don’t want to visit counsellors.

To conclude, I think that if evolution has given us the psychologists is because we need them but I am not sure that they could always be the answer to our own psychological necessities.

News summary!

DYING LANGUAGES

When a language dies, the UNESCO says that the world loses a cultural heritage (legends, poems, knowledge, live style…)

In 2008, died the last native speaker of Eyak, and she took the language with her. She was Miss. Marie Smith Jones and she died at the age of eighty-nine.

The UNESCO says that if we want to preserve our language diversity, we have to be proud to speak our language and prevent it from the extinction.
In the last five years, the governments of Mexico, New Zealand and the United States managed to make sure people are conscious about the danger of losing one language. But according to the UNESCO, the phenomenon of dying languages appears in every region and in very diverse economic conditions.

A great deal of: many, a lot of something

Campaigning: taking an action aimed at achieving a goal.

First swine flu case in Europe

The first confirmed case of swine flu in Europe has been diagnosed in Spain. The health ministry of Spain confirmed the case on Monday morning.
The patient is twenty-three years old, and he is from Albacete. He had fever when he arrived home from Mexico last Wednesday and on Saturday night he was isolated in a hospital room. After that, twenty suspected cases of swine flu are under investigation, these twenty people are from Madrid, Barcelona, Mallorca and Basque country.

All of them had recently returned from Mexico but, none of the cases is thought to be life threatening.

Fever: unusually high body temperature caused by an infection

To be life threatening: to be severe enough to cause death

Third term!!

Come on classmates, one hard month and we are going to finish this school year!

Amazing!!!!

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Listen at this song! It is taken from a dialogue we had done!!

My oral presentation !

Oral presentations

Fiona and Chainez

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work other oral presentat

News summary !

President of Guinea-Bissau is killed


The president of Guinea Bissau, Nino Vieira, has been killed by the military. His residence came under attack hours after the head of the armed forces was killed.
A military spokesman told the French news agency that President Nino Vieira was killed by the army as he tried to flee his house. There was heavy gunfire around the presidential palace during the night. A few hours earlier the head of the armed forces, General Tagme Na Waie was killed when a bomb exploded in the military headquarters.

to flee: to escape from

military headquarters: main offices of the army

News summary !

Arabic T-shirt payout

In the United States, lawyers for Raed Jarrar, an airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed an Arabic script, say he has been awarded almost a quarter of a million dollars in compensation.

Payout: a large sum of money paid to someone (here, as compensation)

News summary !

Turkish plane crashes in Holland

At least 25 people were injured when a Turkish Airline plane crashed while trying to land at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. It's thought 135 passengers were on board. All flights to and from Schiphol have been suspended. Pictures from the scene show the wreckage of the Boeing 737-800 in three pieces in a field close to one of Schiphol's runways.



Wreckage: the broken pieces left after something

Self-Evaluation

I’m really happy with our oral presentation of the second term. We have prepared it in the same way as the others, but I don’t know why I have enjoyed more this one.
We have talked about our trip to London. We tried to explain what we did during the trip to the people who didn’t come. Our objective consists on summarizing the most important places we visited. First we explained what the trip had consisted of and then we showed a power point with some pictures of these nice holidays.

As I said before, we did the oral in the same way, so we used the dialogue as a tool to catch the attention of the audience.
Moreover, I think that the idea of talking first and then explaining the power point, has improved our presentation.
But, as Lourdes told me at the end of the last term, it’s completely impossible to make a perfect job, so I think that in this oral we could control ourselves better, because in my case, I was really nervous and that make me forget some important information.

To sum up, I want say that I’m proud of our presentation, and I think we have reflected how we have enjoyed this fantastic trip.

Internet!

People surfing on the net are increasing every day. The net is like another world, there are rules, shops, coffees, chats, virtual-persons… In our society there are lots of “mad people”, so, it happens the same on the net. That’s the reason why we have to control the information we gave to the websites or to the unknown people. Now, blogs, fotolog, facebook… have appeared but… are they safe?

On one hand, it’s funny to use these pages and they are very useful, because through them you can share information, knowledge, photos… with people around the world. Moreover, we can meet new people and make some friends.

But on the other hand, these web pages are really dangerous. We gave our information to a server, and everybody can watch it. If we want to create a new account, we have to write our name, our job, where we live, where we work, our social status…
And all of this information can help, for example, the thieves’ work, because they can know when they have to come if they want to steel.
Furthermore, these web pages create addictions. The number of illnesses because of the internet has been rising up since three or four years ago. In one or two years lots of “Internet hospitals” will appear, I think.

To conclude, I think that everyone can use the internet but we have to control what pages we visit and what information we gave. I know I look like very pessimistic, but I think that we have to frighten ourselves if we want to control the use of the net.

Joke of the second term !

“Some people ask the secret of our long marriage, we take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.”

Correction of London quiz

LONDON QUIZ

1. Find the Rosetta Stone. Why is it so important?
We find it in the British museum. It helps us to understand the Egyptians language.

2. What’s the most popular food in London?
The most popular London food is fish and chips.

3. What time do pubs close? What happens when the bell rings in a pub?
An old man told us that they close at 11 o’clock, but I don’t know if that is true or not. When the bell rings, it means that the pub is going to close.

4. What’s an ale?
It’s a strong beer.

5. Name six of the most common ingredients in a traditional English breakfast.
-Frankfurt, Sausages, Eggs, Boiled eggs, toasts, milk and juice.

6. THE GLOBE THEATRE: Is it the same theatre where Shakespeare used to perform his plays? What happened?
No it isn’t. The original one was burned because of the fire of a cannon.

7. What’s the real name of “China Town” street?
Gerard Street’s.

8. Why are there so many ravens kept in the Tower of London? What do they do to them so as they don’t escape?
Because it was a prison and lots of people died there. They cut their wings to prevent them to fly.

9. Have you seen any Beefeaters? What do they do? What’s their real name? Where does the name Beefeater originate from?
Yes, I have seen them in the Tower of London, they are the guardians of the tower. Their real name is Yeoman Warder. The name of beefeater came from an old legend who says that the queen pay them with the meat of the beef.

10. Can you buy a living animal in Harrods? Which one?
Yes, we can buy dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters and fishes.

11. What is one of Harrods most important customer?
Paris Hilton is one of the most important Harrods customers.

12. Establish the relationship between Diana and the owner of Harrods.
The son of the owner of Harrods was in love with Diana.

13. Where do Londoners celebrate the welcoming of the New Year?
They celebrate the New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar square or in Piccadilly Circus.

14. Who was Nelson? Where can you find his statue?
He was and admiral, his statue is in Trafalgar square.

15. Find a Greek God in Picadilly Circus. What’s his name?
He is Cupid.

16. Name at least four wax figures you can see in Madame Tussaud’s.
Indurain, Paris Hilton, David Beckam, Tom Cruise and Hitler.

17. What’s the other name given to the London underground?
The tube.

18. Where was Sherlock Holmes supposed to live?
It is said that he lived in Oxford street.

19. What are the London Dungeons? What did Londoners use them for?
They were a prison. Nowadays, the Londoners use them as a horror museum.

20. What is the newest bridge across the Thames called? Who designed it?
The newest London bridge is the bridge called Millennium. His designer was Norman Foster.

21. Where does the Big Ben take its name? What is it?
Its name came from the name of its bell because it is called Ben and it is very big. It is the famous clock of London.

22. Find all about the Union Jack.
It is the mixture of three different flags: The Irish, the Scottish and the England flags.

23. What does the Monument represent?
It represents the great fire of London.

24. Find the Serpentine in Hyde Park, what is it?
It is a recreational lake created in 1730.

25. Add three of your own discoveries.
– In London there aren’t any dogs.
– There aren’t enough litters.
– It is a great city.
– The police is really, really strict.
– In London we can find a large variety of different human races.

- “Punished for ten months”

The piece of news I’ve chosen is about a referee who has suffered aggressions from different players of Lloret Football club. The name of the most violent player is Antonio Guarnido and he is only seventeen years old. The Catalan federation of Football has decided to punish his violent behaviour with ten months without playing. This is one of the most severe punishments that this organization has applied.
From my point of view, this is a really serious problem because every day there is more violent people and if the organizations don’t do anything about it, this problem will become more and more popular.

There are some different human rights violated in this peculiar new and they are related to the article 3[1] and the article 22[2], because they talk about the personal security, and I think that this referee can’t feel safe nowadays.
The article 1[3] is violated too, because it says that all humans are equal in dignity and rights, so anyone has the right to attack, to insult or to despise other humans.


[1]- Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
[2] - Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person
[3]- All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

SECOND TERM!!!!

We are really fed up and tired, but we are just in the second term!!!
So... "C'mon let's work"!!