FINAL REFLECTION ON MY ENGLISH SPACE

FINAL REFLECTION ON MY SPACE

My English progress from 2008 to 2010.

First of all, I’ve visited my last year English space and I’ve seen that visually, it’s easy to see that the most of the posts are shorter than the ones I’ve did this course.

In reference with the last year’s first post, which is called “Introduction of myself” I can say that it’s simpler than the others, and totally different to the ones I’ve posted in my blog this year. It is a simple writing because just seeing its topic we can see that it talks just about me and my life.

In the one hand, there’s no introduction, which is a part that right now I would never forget. Also there aren’t any paragraphs, and now, I know that they are important because of distribute the information. There aren’t connectors and linking words, and that’s why I constantly repeat “I was…, I live, I am…” so, that’s a thing that I’ve improved, and that’s important.

In the other hand, the vocabulary I used is quite different from the one I use this course, so currently, it’s richer and more elaborated. Also, I’ve seen I had some little problems with the verb tenses, and now it’s an aspect that I notice.

In relation to my last post I’ve did this course, which is a piece of news form the disaster on Japan, we can see easily, that just the topic is elaborated, so it’s a piece of news from the currently and it’s more interesting and original than the simple email “Introduction of myself”.

We can see that the vocabulary is richer, and that I’ve tried to use correctly different complex verb tenses, and that’s a fact I think that improves a lot the coherence of a text.

In conclusion, just seeing the title of both writings we can see a difference between them, and also, that this year I’ve improved a lot in relation with the verb tenses, the using of the vocabulary, the inclusion of connectors and the coherence of my writings.

In reference with my two oral presentations I’ve had to compare I haven’t seen many differences there, maybe because I’ve improved just the writings, or maybe is also a difference but I cannot notice it.

Apart from that, in my first oral presentation called “My summer in Portbou” we can see that also, the topic is simpler than the ones I’ve worked on in this course. Maybe it was shorter than the last presentation I’ve did, but I think that the oral level is the same, probably because we have not worked on this aspect this course.

I may have improved in the fact that, right now, when I have to do an oral presentation I don’t get nervous and I feel more tranquil than last year, maybe because know all of my classmates and my teacher, you can have a look also at my last oral presentation, which I did as an extra point because of the improving of my mark, so its topic is “The beatles”.

My English competence in 2010

In this part I have to choose my best writing evidence and also my oral best evidence, so I will start by telling you which is, in my opinion, my best writing and the reasons why.

In order to show my level, I will may choose a free writing post called “Unfaithful, a tv series”. This post talks about a tv series which is maybe the one I like the most right now. It’s a description of this series and especially, of the main characters which appear there; I did it consciously and trying to descript them with good adjectives and elaborated vocabulary for tell their characteristics, so that’s why I think it’s the one I’ve did better.

Also, I divided it in parts, and introduction talking about the series and its history, and then, a description of every single character; so, as I said before, now I give a lot of importance in the division in parts of a writing, because it’s a fact that improves a lot the quality of a text and that makes it easy to understand.

In relation to my best oral presentation, I’ve chose the one which talks about my research project, which is called “The animals in Aesop’s fables”. Maybe I think that that’s better than the others because I think that the research project is a topic which we have worked on a lot of time.

Also, before of doing our oral presentation about the research project in the English subject, we did it as a part of the mark of the original research project, and that’s a fact that has improved our trust in this topic.

I prepared a lot this oral presentation and I tried to make it understandable for everybody who was there, so that’s why I make my power point more visual, which lots of images and pictures of animals.

After seeing my video, I’ve also noticed that I wasn’t nervous and that I spoke correctly and fluent, so that’s important because it showed that I had trust in me and that I was calmed.

Finally, I can conclude that, in general, this year I’ve improved in relation with last course and I think that the English space has helped me to do it, because it’s a way to show all our knowledge in the English subject. I’ve improved my writings and I’ve learnt to use correctly verb tenses, also, currently, I know how to write formal documents, such as a letter.

I’m proud of the work I’ve did in this time, and I recognize that those, are the two years in which I’ve learnt more English. Now, I hope I can use it in my life and show to everybody that learn English isn’t difficult if they are enthusiastic.

NEWS ON JAPAN

Here you can read different news on Japan.

Japan starts shutting down Hamaoka nuclear reactor

Those news tell that the operator of Japa'ns ageing has started the closure of two reactors of the nuclear plant of Hamaoka. Also it has started the installation of different control rods in the number four reactor. So also, last week, Naoto Kan asked for the complet closure of that plant.

Myabe, Japan is now proud of those actions that the government of Japan is doing, but I won't stop to think that those problems have to be solved before the consequences that Japan has had. I'm not happy to see that, because it wants to express that the government is acting rwo months later the disaster.

You may now the similar disaster of Chernovyl, don't you? So after a disaster like that, all the goverments around the world should had improved the control on the different nuclear facilities, so maybe, Japan thought that it could never happen to them, but people only know that these things can happens until they are involved in a bid disaster. Maybe if the japanese government had acted before, they had avoid so much deads.

It's true that now the government is acting because of stop with these kind of problems, but now it's too late to save those people who has lost their families, or who has died there.

HOME, The film.

DUBAI, WHERE THE IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES POSSIBLE

As you know, Dubai is a emirate situated in the united arabian emirates.

Before, Dubai was a poor country, it was an insignificant place without any resources to notice.

We can't talk about Dubai existing until 1833, when the tribu "Bu Flasa" led by the Maktourn family, which settled down next to Dubai Creek, the natural river which is 10 kilometres long.

Right now, Dubai is a developed country where if the tribu "Bu Flasa" came now, they would not recognise it. So it's full of buildings, high flats and the most high skyscrapers of the world. That's why the tittle of this writing is "Dubai, where the impossible becomes possible"; so before it was hardly a tribu and now is one of the most rich countries of the world.

Dubai started to become rich when people found the oil that has made this country one of the most visited of the planet.

Dubai have got the biggest hotel, the biggest fountain, the biggest harbor, the biggest shopping mall, and the only seven-stars hotel of the world. It is called Brj Al Arab and most of the people know Dubai by its hotel. You may konw it also by the highest skyscraper of the world, called Burj Khalifa.

So, in conclusion, Dubai is an emirate which looks like a country of another world, so people can't compare it with anything, because that's impossible, and more if we consider tha

t two thousand years ago, it was just a place created by a nomad tribu. So in Dubai, the impossible has become possible, but I think that it can't happen in anymore places.

DIALOGUE

Ros Halley is a farmer from South Carolina who is proud of his job. He has worked as a farmer all his life because Halley's farm exists since his father created it in 1963.

We are interested in this guy because we have to notice that he's just twenty, so it's difficult to find young people working at this kind of jobs that we can say that are dying out. We have interviewed him:

V- Hi, Mr Halley. How are you?

H- Hi, I'm fine, thank you.

V- Do you consider that yours is a job which is dying out? So, we have made a statistical study and we have seen that there are 56, 2 % farmers less than fifty years before.

H- I think that there's approximately the same number of farmers, but it's true that maybe, we work in different ways and less than before, because, now, there are new technologies and machines that work for us, and help us.

V- So, do you think that there are as many farmers as few years ago, but their job is different?

H- Yes, what I want to say is that, maybe, our job is less considered than before, so, in conlcusion, my job isn't dying out, but, for example, the work of an officer is more important right now than mine.

V- So, you want to say that the farmers work isn't valued, don't you?

H- Not as few years ago, but I can't say that the farming is dying out.

V- Thank you very much Mr Halley!

H- Your welcome!

FORMAL LETTER

C/ El rentador 4
Castelló d'Empúries
14th April 2011

Mr John
Director of the NuclearPower Association
London
UK

Dear Mr Ritch,

I am a young student from the high school IES Castelló d'Empúries. I have lived here since 2000 and luckily there aren't nuclear power stations near to my town. After the events in Japan, I will be worried.

I don't agree that the other countries should be put in danger because of the nuclear power, because I know that it can make people's living conditoins worse.

However, I do understand that we need the power created by nuclear power stations. I'm strongly in favor with the idea of revising all the nuclear power stations to prevent the bad consequences that a non-safe facility can cause. I hope you take action to solve these kinds of problems which are causing health problems amongst human and animals. We do not want another disaster like Japan.

I hope you agree with my letter.

I look forward to what the plans for the nuclear power organitzation will be.


Yours sincerelly,

Helena Sánchez

PODCAST - Description of a friend

AIDA, THE JOY PERSONIFIED

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN IT!

http://www.goear.com/listen/efe9cc6/aidas-description-

2nd ORAL PRESENTATION

My research project: THE ANIMALS IN AESOP’S FABLES

First of all, I will start by telling you the structure that I will follow during my presentation. I will start with the introduction to my project, where I explain the topic of the project, the personal motivation, the goals and the method. Then I will go on to the body of my project, but because of time, I will only explain briefly. Finally, I will tell you the conclusions, which is the part that I consider the most important.

INTRODUCTION

With this project I wanted to do a complete investigation of the animals which appear in the Aesop’s fables, specially giving importance to their behavior and significance in these fables.

I was motivated especially because all the fables are related to animals. Also, I thought that the topics of the fables were so interesting because they talk about situations of human beings, but using animals as the examples

When I had to choose the topic of the project, I knew that I wanted to do it related to a classical subject, and then, it was my tutor who gave me this idea.

The objectives that I proposed at the beginning of the project were:

- To know the more important characteristics of the classic fable in relation to its characters, its structure, etc.

- Find information about the author of the fables, Aesop, and of the period when he lived.

- Find out which were the most representative characteristics of each animal that the ancient Greeks observed in the animal’s behavior.

- Classify which animals had got positive or negative connotations and explain why.

In order to find out all the necessary information, I followed a specific method.

- Make a careful reading of the two hundred and seventy-three fables noticing the behavior that the author gives to each animal.

- During the reading I completed a table, where I wrote the animals characteristics, (I will show you this table and how it works.)

- I found out information of every real species to compare it with the behavior of the same animal in the fables.

- Compare the characteristics that the ancient Greeks gave to the animals, with the ones that we give them currently.

BODY

First, I started the project by giving an introduction to the genre of the fable in relation to its parts, its characters and their functions. In this part, I also talked about the general topic of the fables.

Secondly, I included information about the author and the period in which he lived, paying attention to some legends which talk about him; because there isn’t much definite information related to Aesop.

Then, I did the most extensive part, which was to look at the name of each animal in Catalan and its scientific name in Latin. To look also at an explanation of the real species, especially its habitat, its alimentation and its behavior, and finally the behavior of this animal in the fables where it appears.

Finally, I made the conclusion, where I explained the results of my study and some important deductions that I made with the information. These parts I explained with graphs:- which are the animals who appear most frequently, and also, which are the most representative characteristics of each one.

CONCLUSIONS

I divided the conclusions in two parts: First, with a graph, I talked about how frequently each animal appeared. And I could conclude that the animals which appear the most are the carnivores, because, I think, that they have a more evident behavior as they always appear hunting for prey to eat, which are more varied. I have to say that in this graph there are just those animals which appear four times minimum, because it was impossible to create a graph with eighty seven animals!

The other group of the conclusions is called “the most representative characteristics of each animal”. Here I did groups of adjectives, because many of them are close in meaning. With this part, I could conclude that the carnivore animals always appear with adjectives that give bad connotations, and that’s because their nature makes that they often appear hunting and being cruel with their prey.

PERSONAL CONCLUSION

After completing this project, I can see that I’ve fulfilled the goals that I proposed at the beginning of this study, but I have to say, that I would have liked to make a section related to the animal’s names lexicon, but it wasn’t possible, because it’s a very extensive project.

Finally, I will say that I’m very happy with my research project, because I’ve also learnt a lot of interesting things like: - the structure of a fable, the behavior of some animals, or simply their scientific name. I’m proud of the work, and to have met the objectives that I raised at the start of my research project.

1. Heart of being human, HUMAN RIGHTS

1. What are human rights?

The human rights are those rights wich every single one has got simply for being human. It's true that they are not always respected, but it shouldn't be like this. In my opinion, and I think that in general too, human rights were created to get that every one, wherever they live, could be protected and could live without fears. Currently, if I have a look at my town and also at my country I can think that they are respected, but it's incredible how people live in other countries, likeI srael for example, where its seems that nobody has heard about them.

2. When did human rights start?

Human rights started after the second world war, aproximately in 1948; but it was on 1976 when it became an international law. In my opinion they start because of the consequences that the war had.

3. Why were they created?

Searching information I've seen that it is really how I imagined, they were created because somebody, or something had to solve the problems that the war caused. Also, we can see with the content of every human right that they were created because of avoid that those kind of problemes came again.

4. How many human rights are there?

There are thirty articles about human rights. We can stand out some important topic like the freedom, the fact of being protected or simply, the right to life.

5. Wich human right are you not familiar with?

I'm not much familiar with the article which says that everyone have got the right of leave from a country and migrate to another whenever he want. I think that I didn't know it before because I've always thought that there are a lot of people who cannot immigrate and migrate to other countries freely; and maybe this is not always respected because in some occasions we can see people, specially from Africa, who wants to come to our country in order to solve diferent things, like get an employment, and finally, they have to go again to their native country.

6. (The fact of live in peace). Is it fully respected in our country today?

At first, I think that if we have a look around us, here in Spain, we can contemplate that everything is ok, but if we set a little more, if we watch the news on television every day and if we are more interested about what happens in our country, we may see that there are a lot of people who is continuously doing the opposite of human rights wants to enact.

I’m sure that everybody in Spain has heard sometime about the gender violence. I’ve seen a lot of times pieces of news which mentions it to the extent that, currently, when we hear something related with it, we see the violence like something normal. In my opinion we have reached to a point where we can’t come back.

In this topic of the “passivity” of human rights we can also talk about the war, which is a kind of violence too, so I think that currently and luckily in Spain we haven’t get this level yet.

Finally, if I’ve got to get a conclusion of this topic, I will say that human rights aren’t fully respected in my country, because just talking about the violence, we are talking also about more human rights. For example, in a case of domestic violence, the violent member of the couple is making that the other started to feel frightened and therefore is doing that he/she couldn’t live in peace.

7. Are human rights relevant in the world today? Why?

I think that people don’t give enough importance to human rights. Currently, nobody talks about it, and there is only a small group of the population who is really worried about human rights. When we see, especially in the television, that have happened bad things related to the violence, the war or the racism, we see it like a ordinary thing which is normal and we don’t give importance at these facts; but if we think a little more of what are Human rights, we will start to understand that somebody have to solve these problems because everybody have got the right of live in peace, without fears and in good conditions.

Also, I recognize that if we had not worked on this topic in class, I would not have thought of it for days and days.

10. ORAL PRESENTATION

BEAUTY - Antonela and Helena