INFORMAL LETTER

Hi Johnny! What's up? I decided to write this letter to you because, as you know, I'm in a very interesting journey around Europe, and I promised to you before I set off that I would write to you some e-mails, and here you have the first. But I don't have a computer here, so I'm writting in this classical way.
I found out that there were some very cheap train tickets. With them you can travel at some European countries. This is InterRail.
At first I went to Berlin, and the train broke down after half an our. I lost all the night waiting there. However, I met two new friends, Josh and Sue, and now we're travelling together.
We stayedin Berlin for three days. It was so funny and interesting! In fact, I bought a little gift for you, I'm sure you'll like it ;).
Then we took the train and we wet to Amsterdam, where we're now. And yesterday, a very weird thing happened to me: I was walking down the street when I came across a woman that I had never seen before, said to me that she was my mother, and she began to cry in front of me, saying that she had finally found her daughter. I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to upset that poor woman, she was desperate. But my surprise was that after a minute, maybe less, the attitude of woman changed completely, and a camera appeared from somewhere, it was at that moment when I understood that I had been victim of a television joke. After that I was laughing for a long time.

To sum up, I can say that it's being a very interesting journey!

I hope you answer me, actually, I really miss you.

Take Care!


Anna.

OPINION ESSAY: We have almost learnt to respect our world, do you agree?

As everyone knows, this world is full of problems, like pollution, poverty, global warming, and many more. And all this problems are very serious; they unbalance and destroy the world drastically. During the years, people have become aware of all these problems, but being aware is not enough. There must be a solution.

First of all, I think I have to say that in the last years people have realized of what is happening, and they have proposed measures to reduce it. That’s a good thing because it shows that we can stop it.

But on the other hand, I think there is a bigger problem: apathy. People are unable to cooperate in resolving all these problems, we know the solution but we don't do it. Moreover, we're too selfish and we only care about us, even though we know we're harming future generations, or creating a giant inequality in the world.

We tend to think that if our situation is good, the rest doesn't mind, and everything that we do, we do it because it benefit us, not at all the people. We should think a little for everyone and not only for ourselves.

In conclusion, I think that maybe we've learned a little more to respect our world, but we also damage it. Every step we do forward implies two steps back.

MONEY FOR NOTHING - DIRE STRAITS

Lyrics

Now look at them yo-yos thats the way you do it
You play the guitar
on the mtv
That aint workin thats the way you do it
Money for nothin and chicks for free
Now that aint workin thats the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys aint dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb

We gotta install microwave ovens

Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour tvs

See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy thats his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot hes a millionaire

We gotta install microwave ovesns
Custom kitchens deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators

We gotta move these colour tvs

I shoulda learned to play the guitar

I shoulda learned to play them drums
Look at that mama, she got it stickin in the camera

Man we could have some fun
And hes up there, whats that? hawaiian noises?
Bangin on the bongoes like a chimpanzee
That aint workin thats the way you do it
Get your money for nothin get your chicks for free

We gotta install microwave ovens

Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour tvs, lord

Now that aint workin thats the way you do it
You play the guitar on the mtv
That aint workin thats the way you do it
Money for nothin and your chicks for free
Money for nothin and chicks for free


Traduction

Mira els yo-yos, és la teva forma de ser,
Toques la guitarra
a la MTV,
Això no és treballar, és la teva forma de ser,
Diners per a res i ties gratis
Això no és treballar, és la teva forma de ser.
Deixa'm que et digui que aquests tios no són idiotes,
Potser et surt una ampolla en el dit petit,
Potser et surt una ampolla en el polze.

Hem d'instal·lar microones

Fer lliuraments de cuines,
Hem de carregar-nos les neveres,
Hem de carregar-nos aquestes televisions de color.

Mira aquell marica amb l'arracada i el maquillatge,
Sí, tio, és el seu propi cabell,
El marica aquest té el seu propi avió,
El marica aquest és un milionari.

Hem d'instal·lar microones

Fer lliuraments de cuines,
Hem de carregar-nos les neveres,
Hem de carregar-nos aquestes televisions de color.

Hauria d'haver après a tocar la guitarra,
Hauria d'haver après a tocar la bateria,
Mira aquella tia

Tio, podríem divertir-nos una estona,
i ell està allà dalt, què és això? sorolls hawaians?
Colpejant els bongos com un ximpanzè
Això no és treballar, és la teva forma de ser,
Diners per a res, aconsegueixes ties gratis

Hem d'instal·lar microones

Fer lliuraments de cuines,
Hem de carregar-nos les neveres,
Hem de carregar-nos aquestes televisions de color, senyor.

Això no és treballar, és la teva forma de ser,
toques la guitarra a la MTV,
Això no és treballar, és la teva forma de ser,
Diners per a res i ties gratis,
Diners per a res i ties gratis.

SUPERSTITION PROVES RIGHT

From "Think In English", number 26, page 6.

There are a lot of people who think that black cats are unlucky. There's one small sense about this superstition that might be true. The researchers at the Long Island College Hospital have done an study, and they have just discovered that the darkness of the cat correlate with the severity of the symptoms. However, they're doing more researches.Personally I doubt about the results. I don't understand why the color is related to allergy, perhaps there's a scientific reason, but it seems very unlikely. Yet I like black cats and I don't think that they bring bad luck.

3rd TERM ORAL PRESENTATION: BULLYING

Bullying

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Fiction Non-fiction violence bullying

QUESTIONS

Presentation

Did you use any resources? Yes, like the other oral presentations we’ve used a Power Point presentation with pictures and videos.
Were the resources relevant and attractive? Yes. We think that the presentation was entertaining, and the video whe showed at the end of the presentation was interesting as well.

Body language and eye contact

Did you look at your audience most of the time? We looked at the audience more than other times, but we were still looking at the paper, and also at the screen.
Did you read from your notes? Not all the time.
Did you do any gestures/movement to hold the attention of your audience? I think I did some involuntary gestures, but not specifically.

Structure

Did you organize your ideas in order of importance? Yes, we tried first to introduce the topic and then develop it.
Did you use discourse makers to make your ideas more clear? Not much really.

Content

Did you introduce interesting, new information to your audience? Yes, we think the information was not boring, it was an interesting topic explained in a very simple way.
Did you look up information/facts/ideas in the Internet/books...? Yes we did. We looked up information in the Internet about the topic.
Was your information more superficial or more detailed and original? I think there was a bit of everything: we developed the subject very superficially, because it's a very extensive topic, but we also introduced some interesting data.

Language

Did you check your grammar? Yes, we did.
Did you use rich vocabulary looking up the dictionary? We looked up at the dictionary very technical words that we didn’t know how to say them in English .

Did you use sentence linkers? Yes, we use a lot of times “and”, “but”, “so”, “In fact”,...
Did you use fillers? We used less fillers than other times.


Pronunciation & Intonation

Did you know how to pronounce all your words? Not all the words, for example, I didn’t know how to pronounce “environment”,but almost all.
Did you check the pronunciation with a dictionary, a classmate or the teacher? No.
Did you change your tone of voice or use a monotone tone all the time? We changed the tone of voice a lot of times, but I think it was involuntary.
Did you speed in a fluid continuum or with breaks and interruptions? It has been more fluent than the last time we did it.

Self evaluation

What mark did you get according to you? I think this oral presentation was better than the previous ones, it has been more fluent and more organized, and the pronunciation has also improved. But I think we still need to relate and link things. I'd put a mark of 7 or 8.

Translation

Well, in this term we've decided to talk about bullying, because we think is a social issue that exists in schools and high schools, and many times we don't realize that it exists.
Bullying is any form of psychological abuse, verbal or physical conduct among schoolchildren. The dominant type of violence is the emotional and it happens often in the classroom and school break time. Bullying is common in children between 12-13 years, and is more common in girls than in boys.
Because of the bullying, the victim generates psychological disorders. Victims live terrified with the idea of going to school. They're nervous, sad and lonely in their daily lives. In some cases, the hardness of the situation can get to suicide. Over 350 million children suffer some form of violence at school.

We can see that there are eight types of bullying:

1-Lock social
2- Harassment
3- Manipulation
4- Constraints
5- Social Exclusion
6- Intimidation
7- Assault
8-Threats

1. Lock social: The aggressor wants to marginalize and isolate socially the victim, so the victim feels weak, helpless and stupid.
2. Harassment: Harassment: The aggressor acts with contempt, disrespect, and without consideration of the dignity of the victims. The signals of this type of bullying are contempt, hate, the nicknames, cruelty...
3. Manipulation: It distorts the social image of the victim. All the things that the victim makes are negative.
4. Constraints: The aggressor obliges the victim to realize actions against himself. With this way the aggressor can control the victim and he can get what he wants.
5. Social exclusion: They don't want the victim to participate. Aggressors treat the victim as if he was invisible, they don’t want him to participate in their games.
6. Intimidation: The aggressor creates fear to the victim. The person feel threatened. The aggressors attack the victim in the hallways and when school finishes.
7. Assault: The aggressor hits the victim.
8. Threats: The aggressor threatened and extorted to the person and his family.

Risk factors

Profile of the aggressor:
- The aggressors not always have a mental illness or a severe personality disorder. The main problem is lack of empathy. Without empathy the aggressor can’t understand what the person suffers, is totally insensitive.
- A 70% of the aggressors blame the victim saying that he had begun the discussion, so they haven’t got remorse of what they do.
- It can also be a bad family environment: abuse, humiliation…

Profile of the victim:
- There are people that can't react
- They’re not sociable and they’re sensitive.
- They don't know how to defend themselves because they have shame, and aggressions are very harmful to them.
The school environment:
In the school where the environment is bad and the teachers don't know how to control conflicts, bullying is more frequent.
The television:
There are TV programs that show violence as a good thing, and children tend to imitate. However, experts are still debating the effects of TV.

Consequences of bullying

On the victims:
- They can suffer physical injury, fear and anxiety.
- In school performance gets worse, because they are not going to school or they have difficulties to concentrate.
- Stress causes suffering stomach pains, headaches, not eating ...


On the aggressor:
- They may have social problems; it is difficult to live with others.
- In adulthood they can have a criminal life.

Conclusion

- The female suicides could be reduced by 10% if the bullying disappears.
- 22% of Spanish children are exposed to suffer bullying.
- Being overweight and having a bad economic situation increases the possibility of suffer bullying.
- Bullying is a common problem in this society, destroys self-esteem and self-confidence.