the environment

The Environment and the animals.

In general , people are quite interested in the environment, but I think not many of them actually protest about environment damage. But recently the question of animal rights in England has united people from different areas of the country to protest against live animal exports. The British are passionate about protecting animals. Many people are vegetarian for reasons of conscience, not just health, and very high number of people keep pets. There have been regular campaigns and even violent protests against fox – hunting and other blood sports.

Of course, people are also worried about air and water pollution, traffic levels, deforestation and many other environmental problems, but the most emotive area for the general public is definitely animals.

CETA. A GOOD EXPERIENCE

The last weekend I was to Cordoba where had a sessions about how we can teach English through the new techniques.

First of all, this organization had the pleasure of having the most important teachers around the word. They tried to explain us a lot of things about education in he classroom such as: How to make materials work in our primary classroom, Children’s creative theatre, how to encourage to students to read, etc.

I think that the most important focus of information in the sessions was the following: We have to promote the bilingual project. This is based on a process that tries to be a framework of teacher and learners because promote the use of the own materials and the communicative interaction.

Also, we spoke with a principal person of British Council which is Mark Levy. His session was called “ Teaching: It’s no joke!. He told us a few jokes and used these to make some serous points about teaching and learning and how we might make these more successful.

I liked a lot the M. Silvia´s explanation which was based on playacting stories to provide an opportunity to children to be totally immersed in a wave of language.

But, What’s British Council. British Council is an organization to promote the interchange between different countries to improve the language. This organization designs a programs and activities that help us to improve our language. We prepare a interview with Mark Levy. We are going put them in the Legua inglesa IV soon.

TEACHING LITERATURE IN THE CLASSROOM.....

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  It is important that young children make contact with one of the best playwrights in the world. On way of doing this is with something children love- cartoons. Why not teach Shakespeare from The lion King?
  
  If young students like The Lion King, they will like Shakespeare. The teaching activities are related to the main aspects of narrative writing by obtaining as much as we teachers can from them: summarizing, critical thinking, working and learning in cooperative groups. Did Shakespeare write the plot for The Lion King more than 400 years ago?
  
  I would say that he did it in a way as we can find lots of similarities not just with his Hamlet but some other of his works such as A Midsummer Nights Dreams, Macbeth, Henry IV his sonnets.
  
  On the other hand, teaching Shakespeare to second grade students could seem a difficult task because today children are more interested in the technology than in other aspects of the education, such as English literature. But if we chose plays which contains a magical word, the interest can raise. We can quote fairy tales such as Midsummer’s Night Dream.
  

How to be a good teacher?

First of all, the teacher who has his own personality, is a good teacher. I think that teacher have to Know a lo of things. This is imoprtant because sometimes children ask him about something and teacher should know it.


Good teachers are flexible ennought to cope with the situations because they are focusing on the students and what they need.

On the other hand, teacher recognise that their plan might noot develop because there are days where pupils respons in other way.

To sum up, I think that a good teacher ought to know the child´s development, love his job and the most important thing, teachers have to transform the children in in an adult persons.

Taboo Words

There are three groups of taboo words in English. The first has religious, i. e. Christian, connections, and some people find the use of term like " My God!" " Damn" and " Hell" shocking.

The second group includes words related to sex, and parts of the human body. These are not used in polite or formal speech, and generally not is writing.
The third group relates to the excretion of body waste and, again, these words are not used in polite or formal speech or in writting.

All these taboo words are used to strong emotion, however, their constant everyday use has made them less shocking to most people, except when they hear them on radio or on T.V.

If you use swear words, it may look as though you think you are part of the group too. If you want to, you can use the exclamations" What on earth", " What the hell"...

RULES.........................

How to be British...
English people sometimes think foreign visitors to Britain are rude. This is often for two reasons:
-Their intonation pattern is very different from English.
Some languages are more direct than English when discussing. Certain subjects, especially when they are about money.

For example, if two people is having a cup of coffee in a café and one has no money, he wouldn’t say” can you pay for the coffee?” I forgot my money” as this sounds too direct in polite English( although it could be acceptable in other languages). It would be better to say” Would it possible for you to pay for the coffee?”” or”” Do you think you could possibly pay for the coffee?” Note that the word” could” is considered more polite than “ can” in these cases.

How to be British....(II)

Traditionally, The English are rather reserved when it comes to physical greeting, but this is slowly changing.
The handshake is the most common and the most formal way os greeting, but even this may not always be used when you meet someone. May people in all walks of life prefer to simply say:"Hello" or " Please to meet you" without handshake

How to be British?

It´s always difficult to interrupt without appearing rude. British people often cough discreetly and then say"Excuse me..."you can make it even more polite and apologetic by starting:

I´m sorry for interrupting you, but...
Forgive me for interrupting , but...
I do hope you don´t mind my interrupting , but...