Learning English experience nowadays

Nowadays in education, learning English have become indispensable to introduce students to the labor camp at global level. Since very early in school, the hours of the English subject have increased as a way to improve the education attending the demands of globalization culture. Before, only private schools teach the subject, but now, to the public education become contingent. The methods of learning English have changed if we take a look to the past at the present. Yesterday, we listen to the teacher, read the blackboard, speak in conversations with partners, study with books and radio mainly. We still use that, but also in the advanced levels, we took the technology and it became the principal thing at the hour of learning. Technology has revolutionized the way we learn English at school.
The experience learning English at the university is totally different to how we learned English at school when we were young. Here we are soon to work and we to need know how to explain our opinions, ideas, thesis, arguments, and how to write them. In the school, the education of English is so basic that we finished it without can do all this stuff. We have a base, for example, knowing verbs, grammatical, vocabulary, etc. but if we really want to use English in our work, we have to keep studying it.
So this is the case of the university, the place that picked up this old methods to learn, and transform it in technological, so using computers, we read texts and see videos from the Internet, improve our writing on virtual galleries where others can read me and vice versa, and all the universe of information of whatever kind this is, we broke the boundaries of the classroom context of school to open our mind to understand and think about all world in English, leaving behind the instrumental English that we receive in school.
Technology has made that my experience learning English at the university went almost by my own, also of the class and the teacher lessons. For example, the blogging method leave me work that I can do in my home, to write or read my classmate’s posts. This made the learning becomes more collective, because you are in constant tie with you classmate improving, show them what you think about it.
In conclusion, the learning of this language in the university is completely different from the learning of the same at school. In my opinion is better, because the student can improve more quickly and systematically the writing, the reading and the listening, apart from the speaking. The technology has replaced the book somehow, but not at all. Also, it can’t replace the teacher, because the student needs someone to guide the learning. It only revolutionized the method of teach, and give tools to the student to learn by its own infinitely.

Blog Awards 2010!

Hello dear classmates! Today the task is to award the blog of one of you, and I have already my decision. But before I say “and the winner is…”, I will say why. Ok, this guy or girl blog’s like to me because I notice a very intelligent person writing on every post, very simple and even ironic with its words. The elements on this blog that I love are the tittles of every post, because they are ingenious, and reveal that who is writing knows thoroughly what he or she want to say. Also I liked the style of writing that it have, cause between the lines we can realized that in many of the tasks is hiding a problem of what is the meaning of write for others, be read for others, and how much pathetic or absurd could it be, not in the bad sense, but in this condition, we still enjoying do it! And this is the most beautiful thing we can do, I think this is a message that I could bring from this blog.
The blog I enjoyed most is the one called “Open letter to the everyday day guy and to the everyday gal”. So you can have an idea of who is it! On this post, this person rebel herself, to the all national monument set, because she said that the greatest Chileans aren’t only famous people, but anonymous too.
And the winner is: Bernardita Horta, with her blog: Once upon a time or maybe twice. Cheers for her! Because this girl has really good English, I give her the deserved award!
At last, I could say as an advice to improve her blog that I hope she still writing on one blog at the future, because she is very talented to do it, and I would like to read one theme of her interest.
Congratulations!

The greatest one

Hello to all of you! I wasn’t in the class (yes, go ahead with the boo and the hiss… but I had my reasons!) but, obviously, I want to do the post. The task of today is to think in who is the greatest Chilean of all the time. Well, I am in problems now because I don’t have one at the moment. The premise “of all the time” is very problematic and difficult, because I may miss now parts of Chilean history, so the person I will choose would be only an important person to Chile, and specifically, to Chilean Art. I have to set boundaries, my choose is about Chilean music, and this music, is rock folk fusion. The greatest Chilean band, to me is Los Jaivas. Leaded by Gato Alquinta (R.I.P), they made one unique fusion of rock of 70’s and South America folk, and give to Chile a precious legacy of music, and international renown. Also, they are important because they value the traditional sound of the Chilean territory, the land, the Chilean poetry, the figure of Chilean people. As musicians, they are amazing, even the first drummer of the band is recognized as one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock.
I already had see them in a gig, a free gig in Maipú, and they made me vibe their sound. I don’t have the opportunity to see them with Gato alive, I know is not the same, but it still be great. I’m so proud to have a band like this in Chile, and if I could talk to them someday, I would ask them if they have imagined in the past, in the beginning, all the success that they already have, and if they seek it. I would ask too if they are regret about something that they had to do in the past, and if they have something to say to the Chilean people about the changes of the life style that we are carrying.

pd: What other band or singer would you put in the list of greatest Chileans?

Lost boys

Hello dear classmates and teacher. Today I want to talk about a film that I been watching since I was a child in the 90’s. A 1987 film called “Lost Boys” of the director Joel Schumacher take the vampire ancient figure and move it to the present, the 80’s present. When I was around six years old, I saw this movie with my uncle, and I remember that it didn’t fright me because the horror of the film is very charming, for example, the vampires look like young people that want to have fun like everyone, the music isn’t melodramatic but a soundtrack called “Cry little sister” that is a very sensual ballad, put the rock of it period, and ends with a strong children choir. Also you can find songs of many artists like Aerosmith, INXS, Lou Gramm, etc. in this movie.

I remember that I liked the music and the look of the vampires overall, because they really don’t scare, and seem very friendly between the people of their same situation. They look like common people, they don’t hide or locked themselves on a coffin, but they go to parties and know new people, etc. Vampires were as a different family, but they were lost, they live in an abyss of being a myth of the town, as a spoken collective fear.

I think that I liked everything of the movie, I can’t see anything wrong with it. Also, I used it to do works to the university, for example, to see the Sublime Aesthetic in the vampire figure, in the music, the camera sequences, the light, etc. It was very useful to me.

An interpretation of the figure of “Lost Boys”, that in Spanish became something as “The Lost Generation”, could be that the vampires as a social figure that could be any social corp, that it’s been discriminated for any reason. The lost generation of vampires is the young generation of 80’s that results of the precedents revolutions and social changes, the dictatorships, the mercantilism, etc. and don’t have things to do, they are the victims of whom future is hit rocks… looking for fun as an breakout. Or maybe other interpretation possible is that the lost boys are the darkest part of the social order, the necessary but sadly part, and to kill it have to kill the main, the top. Like if we want to stop the social inequality, we have to start from end society.

Pd: These are my questions:
- When did you see the film?
- What likes you of the film?
- What didn’t like to you of the film?
- Can you give some interpretation to the movie?

What a wonderful job...

Hello everybody. The task is to think in jobs I would like to work. In general, young people think that the job is something that we do to get money, but you have to do what is your vocation, if is possible. Others, might a little older, think that the job is only to get by on what you earn, maintain your family and pay for life. I think that is a mix of both, and the path you take depends of how much possibilities you have in the decision’s moment.
When you don’t have possibilities to choose what you want to do, for example, finished college, if you want to study something before get a job, and you can’t because of the money, so you have to get a job before study what you like, and there your desires and your time have to invest for need. Many people have to do a sacrifice in these cases and others similar, and after this, they’re not happy with what they are doing, and the jobs obtain the worst part, all the carry of boredom, unhappily and frustration. It is really dangerous because the people in this situation can fall in a deeply sadness.
A job that all of us would like, I think is to be a rock star, because the people think that is a job of fun and pleasure, like KISS. Obviously, if I could choose one job, I would choose it. I will enjoy it because I would have free pass to go to any concert, I would have fun, I would doing something really creative, and without any annoying boss. Also, go around the world, know every country, city, stadiums and theatres, I would see the museums and arts of every place, etc.
I know some guys who have a life of these characteristics, like a rock star, but they aren’t very famous or rich, they are Chilean musicians, so the reality here and today is very different. Many musicians that I still can call them rocks star, can be founded during the day working in a store and at night, in a gig with the band, because we all know that music in Chile isn’t profitable.
I’m sorry if my post isn’t very serious, but I think that dreaming is funnier than think about what really I would finish doing in my life. I hope you like it.

Regards!

Pd: "God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you! Put it in the soul of everyone"

- KISS

Sing!

Hello dear classmates and teacher. Today I will tell you about a famous person that I would like to meet in the present. After look at a large list, I have chosen an important woman musician. Her name is Anneke Van Giersbergen, she is the singer of Agua de Annique and ex The Gathering. I would like to meet her because I’m admirer of her for too long ago, because her voice and creativity are unique and wonderful to me. I have seen her in a gig with Agua de Annique in 2009, and I love it, but now I would like to have a conversation with her and ask her for her life, for the things that she had to work and pass to be in the place she is. I think that her life weren’t easy, because she start her musician career very young, maybe she had to leave her family or boyfriend to get her goal.

I would like to tell her that she is so talent, well, she has to know it yet, but the thing is that I found in her an inspiration to go on in the music and band’s things. Also, that to my eyes, she is different from the rest of singers of her genre, there are many very talented women but she is the one that, for example, emphasize in the music, in the singing, and not in the image, she never want to be a sexy icon or a beautiful model to the audience, and I value it very much.

I think that meet her would be interesting because I listen her music, and I believe that it has very much of her within. Somehow I feel that maybe I am like her, because we both are singers and we both try to sing and play guitar or keyboards, but on instruments we aren’t very virtuous in a theoretical sight, we like the interpretation, our strong is the voice and what we can say, I think. She is very humble, so I would like to meet her someday and ask her for advice.

A perfect Day

Hello my dear reader. The task is really creative this time. I have to devise a perfect day, think in what I would do, with who I would spend it, where, etc. Before this, we had to hear a song that says ideas about this topic. “Perfect day”: what amazing song by Lou Reed, holy lord! My imagination turns on with the first verses and chords. I have the feeling that a perfect day wouldn't be made by the place where you be, even not by with who you be with, but for what and how you feel at the day. Like the song says, a perfect day could be in the park, at the zoo with the animals, etc. but the perfect day have to “keep me hanging on“, I mean, the day have to make sense inside of me, or take away the sense of maintain routine, and make me feel like there’s nothing else to do tomorrow that make me concern, like song said: “problems are left alone“.

The thing that give sense in my imaginary perfect day, could be a person, for example, one guy I would like to stay and spend time, and maybe fall in love, because I think the first approaches to a person you like, are the best of love, when you're knowing someone. Other thing that would make me happy would be a concert of a band I really like, but it would be absolutely perfect if we could buy the VIP ticket and hear the concert in a very comfort place, instead of being crushed against other sweaty backs... jaaaaa.

Well, the perfect day is not so utopian, I think I've had perfect days. For example, my last no-birthday, I was with people that I really love, family and friends, they made me a celebration and they gave me a gift, something really tender to me, and they made me really happy.

This is my devise of a perfect day. I hope you like it.

In the picture, my dear friend Coke and me. He is a special friend of mine, he make me laugh a lot.

TIME STAND STILL! Now!

Hello everybody, I hope you had a awesome weekend. I had it, I had recovering much sleep, lost in the last two weeks because of the university. But, well I’m here for the task.

After all, I have to say that I hate to name some music piece like a favourite, because in my case, it change all the time. I have songs in a list, but it is something like my own Golden List, were I put songs that really touch me, forever and ever. At the moment, I have a song blowing my mind far far away. I don’t know when I heard it for the first time, but I remember what struck me out, and this is definately the lyrics. The song is called Time Stand Still and it is by RUSH, of their album Hold your Fire. The special thing of this song, is that it is an amazing description of when we all feel that the time is passing too fast, and we don’t even notice that we are living. Life is full of meaning, that we make from the impressions and and sensations that we take of it. But sometimes time flies, and we ignoring all this feelings, having a life without sense. The song said that the little moments of living and feel, like feel the wind, the light, the sun on you back, stop and “see all the people and places that sorrounds me now”, all the things that the most part of the time we let fade away from our memory, because we focus in other thing, like job, university, we focus on the comply, beyond the enjoy the minute of life. When finally realize this, we wish to freeze time for some minutes, and we would feel the really taste of living. The final task that this lyric said to us, is to live every feeling as the last. I like it very much, apart from music, the message is strong and true. In this moment, in this minute, in this freeze sensation, Time Stand Still is my favourite song. And next Sunday, I will hear it live in the concert of RUSH in Chile! I’m so happy!

Regards!

Which country would I like to go to?

Hello! Today the task is to write about a country I would like to go. Well, obviously this place is unknown to me, so the job today is to my imagination mainly. The country I would like to visit, apart from the entire European continent, is England. Why? This country has a plus over the rest of the continent, because I would like to live and work there. I don’t have any concrete information about on what can I work there, but I imagine that the labor situation wouldn’t be so bad to me. I would get a job in something with my career related, but nothing that consume all my time, attention and patience, because if I think about what I would do there, springs to my mind an image of me travelling along the country, and also other nearby countries, so to do this, I would need a lot of free time. I would like to go to the Wembley Stadium, and wish Freddy Mercury was alive to hear him there with QUEEN, but this is dream too much now… but I resign to the reality, and I would be satisfy with be there in a music festival, it would be great! Then, at the afternoon, I would take a boat around the Palace of Westminster, and see the beautiful lights that the pictures shows us in the Internet. I would enjoy even taking those of the red Routemaster double-decker buses.

After a time in London, I would like to move to Germany, specifically to Dresden. I would like to the same of what I would like to do in London, live and work, but mainly, to knowing places. I saw pictures of Dresden, and I believe is beautiful, it have the Elbe Valley, such a wonderful green paradise, that had a place in the World Heritage Committee during five years, but then the construction of an expressway made the valley lose it. Dresden has a grandiose architecture, which is combined with the nature perfectly. Also it has a very important classical music tradition and history, and this is very interesting to me.

hAAPPY hOLIDAYS

Hello everybody, today I want to tell you about an important national topic of the present, it is the Mapuche conflict, and how I see it related with the last national holidays. This thing made an important pressure on what suppose to would be the perfect celebrations of 200 years of independence of our country. Beyond what I think, I want to tell you what I notice of this in my daily life, I mean, on the ordinary things from celebrate with my family, go out with my friends, till watching television and news. I made this decision because in my opinion it isn’t lower that the media still manipulating all the information of this case, and this is affecting to us all. They are lying us, and we started to care less and less about the Mapuche conflict, misplaced for the stupid news of showbiz. The media is hiding important information and just there is it’s lies. I don’t know what are they hiding with accuracy, but I’m really sure that I don’t care about if Malene Olivarí is a lesbian, or drug addict, I’m waiting to know something that really care to the Chilean people. If my opinion sounds a little exaggerated, I attribute this to the same myth that the media created arround the facts, and it have the consequence of also a nocive group created to itself.

Well, I haven’t answered all the questions of the present task, because I consider very important to talk about the media work, I believe is so important to discuss more of it. But I’m writting for a mark, so I want to answer some of them. I believe if the Mapuche people are judged without the transparency that they and the nation need, they are being judged absolutely unfairly. But this unfairly judgement has been doing above all the goverments, no matter the wing, always the conflict has been dilated through the years, without gain any real solution. I can't say if Piñera did or not a good job, I only can say that things haven't changed till today, is the same as always. I am only waiting for something... something good.

Flower strike

Hello everybody, today I want to tell you about many things related to our university. Well, for what I have to start? First, the topic of this time is not very clearly-defined for me, so I will write some things that maybe could be useful to comment. So, I believe one of the most important things that happened during the last month in the university was the student organization and their strike to improve the education in the country. In our career, I think the directing ones have managed to make theirselves heard, and get succesfully a way to organize the force the movement. We still have the problem of an insufficient participation of all the student body, but already there are much path covered.

That's because we had a assembly many times, and discuss what we want of the education in Chile, what we wait of this, and what we specifically could be real, I mean, what of all those year of dreaming would come true finally.

Ok, the part of the student organization is there and at work. Many ideas result of the gatherings, and then, we make an unconscious slogan of fighting, a protest to get the promise of a top-quality education on Chile. Now, I wonder how we are protesting? How do the strike goes? I think is terrible. In our career is so much difficult to make people go to the strike in the streets, is quite a miracle if a few students go there. This is one problem, and the other is that some students think that violence is necessary to get changes. I think this is true, but there are many ways of violence, I believe that burn things on the streets and a chemistry fight between the students and policemen are definitely unecessary.

We have to find out another new way to make ourselves be heard. We could think in protest with art, maybe...

Love, Mary.

Hello everybody, today I will tell you about an interesting topic, this is what I think is the most important or shocking Chilean piece of news in 2010. This is in my opinion, I mean, maybe it is not really like this. Well, this year, that even isn’t finished yet, have began with one change at national level, the transition of Bachelet’s government to the Piñera’s one, and meanly, the back to the right wing government on Chile, after twenty years of “the other side”. But this was replaced by other scene. The earthquake that affect our country, everybody’s eyes were focused on it, because it affected physically and emotionally to all the population, the nation, even persons of all the world were touched by it. During a few months after the earthquake, on the television news we saw images and videos of this tragedy, because people needed to find out what happened, after the shocking minutes of fear that they lived. After that, the press passed all the day repeating those materials on and on, like a movie, with a lot of edition behind, I mean, at first, it was necessary to related with the news, but then, it became a business because of the TV and radio ratings…
So I think the press and media accurate the important news thinking in the gain that they can get by alienating people to the screen, because the TV gets more effect on the brains, I think it is terrifying. How can they transform cinematographically the tragedy, only for money? The media is powerful, is an effective tool to control people, but as a hard conviction, as the real meaning of what is be part of the media of a country, they are very empty in all the senses. To the rest of the world, I think it is familiar, because these practices that Chilean press has done, have their reference on the rest of the word media work.

The possessed Barbie

Hello everybody. Today I want to tell you about a concert that I went this summer. It was on the Tuesday 25th of January, a damned hot day in the Riding Club of Santiago, Chile. Always I was very excited to see one of my favorite bands, so when I knew that METALLICA came to Chile, I started to save money with a group of friends. So, when the time has come, we were all ready. We had to make and wait in a large line before we finally enter to the club, that had blocks and blocks of measure… It was so exhausted, but nothing compares to the waiting inside, without any type of shadow over us, at least. Hours and hours there, dehydrating myself, all the evening there to nine o clock when the gig began. I know it sounds horrible, but it was not that terrible. At nine the concert began and all the effort and the grief was forgotten by all the fans screaming for their idols. I enjoyed all that day, with the bad and good things that happened, because Metallica is an influence to all the actual bands, and that makes it important to the history of rock and metal, and I don’t regret for the reputation like a crazy headbanger girl, or “as a possessed Barbie” like a friend said, cause Metallica make that to girls like me with the classic "Master of puppets". That’s why I decided to go to this concert, because I would never forgive myself not been there. So I tell you, if you were there, you rock! And if you not, I probably mustn’t write here what I think about you. No, I'm just joking, but seriously, it was amazing, a great memory to keep to the rest of my life.

Education, made in Chile.

Hello dear classmates. Today I will tell you about something that capted my thinking during this week, is about education in our country, especially, the university education. Not long ago, I heard about a new proyect by the Education Ministry to give an incentive to all the students that will enter at university to study some career about pedagogy. The objetive is to increase the number of graduated techers in Chile and improve the quality of education. The incentive become reality with material settings, like credits, even money, free university fee, etc., all to relieve the economic burden of the students that enter to the university. That's all what I heard and I don't know the details, so maybe I am just lying... But it is not my intention. I have some worry about this proyect also. I will be short. I think this is a good way to incentive students, in fact, this method will get its objetives. But, I believe it has to extend to students that started maybe until three years ago to study pedagogy, because they did it without any incentive, whatever the kind of this. Maybe they did it for vocation, and I believe it deserves a prize. Even the graduated teachers that had excel in their works, deserve one. I think is the time to be fair and reward the work maded.