KES KES

“A Kestrel for a knave” is a book about Billy, a young boy who lives in a humble home with his bully brother, and unconcerned mother. Unfortunately, Billy’s school doesn’t make his life any easier, most of his teachers don’t understand him, and instead of helping the boy, they reprimand him frequently. Even though suffering both physical and emotional mistreatment, there is hope in Billy’s life when he finds a hawk up in a nest. He takes care of it, and even goes to a library to find a book to read about Hawks in order to know how to treat them right. Billy’s expectations were to train this hawk, and he really manages to do so. So we can infer that it is the hawk that brings light to his life, perhaps a new meaning for it. Ironically, he becomes more attached to “Kes” than he is for his mother and Jud.


To be continued…

September 18th, for Eduardo Muñoz

I like this date(ww). It’s my favourite month, season, etc. Fiestas Patrias means a lot of things for me; happiness, party, share, etc. It’s the anniversary of the first national council of government (WE), but it’s an excuse to celebrate the first step for a repulican life. We have two holidays, the 18th and 19th September. These days we do a lot of things, we play typical games,(P) like flying a kite, rayuela, and______(Mw) a greased pole, etc. Also, we eat typical foods (WF), overall(WW), barbecue and empanadas. And we drink a lot of things, but the most typical____(Sm) that(Nn) we drink(Nn) are chicha and red wine, but if you want to do all these things, you must go out to “fondas” in O’Higgins Park. When I was a child, I lived with my uncles, aunts(P) and my grandparents in a big house(P) and we eat a big barbecue for all the family. Nowadays, we still meeting(Wt) us(Nn),(Nn) to eat a big barbecue,(Sm) maybe we will meet in my house. My favourite 18th… maybe___(Sm) was last 18th, because I went out to Curacavi with my family, and we eat(Wt) and drink(Wt) a lot of things. Also, I went out to my grandparent’s house and also(Nn) we eat(Wt) a big barbecue… but before of(Nn) these dates I was(Wt) celebrate the(Nn) Fiestas Patrias in the “Fonda FAU”, where I danced(Wt) and drunk(Wt) too much…

Pedro D.

Pedro’s got no problem in writing his thoughts in clear sentences. He just needs to work on: punctuation, capitalization, and spelling (usage of words as well). Moreover, his biggest mistakes are related to grammar: tense, form and verb agreement. Pedro, needs to pay attention to his writing. In the entry “My English Experience”, It is noticeable that he didn’t pay much attention to capitalization and spelling. Anyway, well done!

Eduardo M.

Eduardo manages to write complex sentences, and has great fluency when writing his ideas. Nevertheless, he will need to work on tenses and form mistakes like:
“I never have learned”; “I liked learn”; “I don’t would like to work in an office”
Also…Vocabulary Usage: “travel to a foreigner country” -- > foreign
Those are the main errors I can notice in his entries.

Cindy

After reading Cindy’s last two entries, I come to realize some of her writing errors. There are wrong words, like (among others) “Majority” instead of “most” or “House friends” instead “my friends who live near my house” or something like that.
There is a word order problem, for example when she uses the word “also” which comes after the object:

“and ALSO in my house” ---> “ and in my house also”

Even though she’s got problems with punctuation, and usually deletes words in grammatical structures like “I didn’t not language classes”, she makes an effort and I can see that she recognizes some structures , for instance, when she says “I'd like to know more people who speak English” or “I liked listening to music in English” .

Blogging again :P

New semester, reloaded with energy...
mmmm....Have you ever felt so energized and suddenly something happens and it is like that energy was pumped out of your system????
Well, I felt like that for a moment, but as everything in life we must continue in the best way we can. Anyway, I`m excited about what this semester will bring to my and my friends lives. For instance, I`ll be helping Geography students to improve their English... which is challenging but at the same time fascinating because I`ll get to know little more about likes and dislikes of new people: Cindy, Eduardo and Pedro. Also, I had never known anyone studying Geography so I`ll have the chance to find out more about it.


.::nAtO::.

Blogger is a : Yes

What is it about blogs? Millions of people worldwide have integrated themselves to the BLOGGER family. In which they can realax and start objecting or supporting ideas, current events, or whichever topic they feel interested in, writing it and posting it to their blog.

During my first “working Experience” this semester, I have realized that students feel left apart from society. This is why, I believe it is so important that they create their own blogs. This is helpful for them, so they can let their stress out, empower their beliefs and also because that way they can read their other classmates blogs. Throughout this semester we had to open blog accounts and every Wednesday, and whenever we wanted to, writing was our main objective. I believe this is really positive for us, and I strongly think that teachers should give their students a chance to do the same. Why? Let us remember that through writing, we can practice “writing skills”, increase our vocabulary; for example if the teacher wants to know what students think about Environment and pollution in Santiago they would need specific words which they would find in a dictionary. Also group feedback, if they read their classmates’ entries they would be able to leave a respectful and enriching post. By doing that, students will even find out more about their friends. For instance, when we had to refer to the people who we would like to have a “face to face” and meet, I was very surprised to know that Jorge liked Elvis Presley as Bernardita did.

Those are for me the advantages of using the blog in the classroom, although as there are advantages there are disadvantages. The main difficulty I can think of is that posting requires practice. This depends on the time the teacher has for each class, it’s important to inform students the goal they need to reach before every “Blog class”. That way, they will not waste the time given for each session. Last but not least, it is imperative to give students freedom in their writing, but it is necessary to supervise the contents in their blogs. Since unsupervised blogs can wind up disturbing the main idea of being creative, critical, and contributive in their own learning process.

Concluding, as long as blogs are used in a respectful and risk-free way their practice in the classroom will only benefit, as I said before, students learning processes.