Something to improve

1. Can you see an improvement on your level of English in these last two years? 
Where, for example?
Of course I can see it. Two years ago it was difficult for me to speak, and now, I think I do it fluently and with an acceptable pronunciation. Of course I understand better the listenings but because I use to watch films in English.

2. Which activity best shows your level of English? 
The speacking of course, and the listening. 

3. Which activities were really USEFUL for you to improve your English? Why? 
The grammar activities for the exam, and the speacking, even though people don't use to take part in the class.

4. Which activities did you not find useful to learn English? Why not? 
I think the activities were good, but it's difficult to improve English only watching videos twice a week. If we had more classes it would be perfect.

5. Which activities would like to do again next year to keep on improving your English? 
This stressing days we have a lots of exams, it's grateful to relax our mind, with some nice videos and songs. I think we'll have to do more grammar or vocabulary activities.

Dialogue

Polly: I'd better leave... I don't want to...

Tania: Shut up b***h! I don't want to see you anymore. And now, please, don't call me again, you two-faced wh**e.

Jamie: Girls, please... come on! Peace and love, ha,ha,ha.

Tania: Really Jamie? Peace and love? Yeah, of coure you love, but not me.

Polly: OK, I don't like that stupid thing, so... I leave. Bye. By the way Jamie, you can call me later and we go for a drink. And... well, (she winks) you know, we can do it all over again, can't we?

Tania: (Tania terribly upset and about to shut) I'm freaking out! Are you f*****g kiddin' me?

Polly: Bye! Kisses to you, darling.(Polly says this with irony)

Jamie: Wait! Hmmm... Tania, sorry.

Tania: What?

Jamie: I'm leaving with her.

Tania: OK, f**k you both.

listen to ‘Ire and ona dialogue’ on Audioboo

We have almost respect the World. Do you agree?

We are destroying our future every day, and now, it’s too late to come back to the bast when the environment was more or less fine. In my view, I think that the sentence “we have almost learnt to respect the world” is totally false. You can check it watching the news or listening them.

Firstly, it’s not a thing of the present, it’s also an effect from the past, and we can see that for what scientifics say, the ozone layer is breaking up and degrading because of all the toxic products we emit.

Secondly, it’s not just what I’ve said before. When you go walking anywhere you see the street full of rubbish and then, if it’s not enough, behind you, there’s someone throwing things on the floor.

In conclusion, there are a lot of things to say that are destroying the Earth and we are just beginning to understand all the consequences about it.

The only thing I can say about all this is that if we don’t look after our environment, we’ll destroy our planet a bit more than now, every time. 

American Vogue (oral presentation)

EVALUATION:

Presentation: I think it's a good presentation because it was original, with a lot of images and funny.We used the Prezi that it's easier to manage and its more beautiful than the powerpoint.

10%

Body language and eye contact: I have to stop touching my hair because sometimes the audience can't understand what I'm saying. 7%

Structure: we started with the history, that it's the boring part and then we talked about different things. I think it's a good structure. 10%

Content: We found different information and we used it. If people weren't interested on this topic maybe didn't like what we were saying, but I think it was good. 30%

Language: I explained everything with my words, I only studied the principal idea and then I developed the topic with my words, trying to be as clear as possible. 17%

Pronunciation and intonation: I think I don't have many problems in this part. Maybe there's some words I don't pronounce good, but I think it's not my biggest problem. 18%

Self-evaluation: In my opinion, I need to improve my eye contact and some pronunciation.

FINAL MARK: 9'2

PRESENTATION

VOGUE MAGAZINE
INTRODUCTION
Hi, we are Ona and Irene and we are going to introduce you our presentation. We’re going to talk about this magazine, the American Vogue, because we thought that it was an interesting topic to talk about and it was related with the film “The devil wears prada”, that we’ll talk about this later, and with the last unit where we studied fashion.Vogue is a fashion magazine and it’s one of the most important magazine in the whole world. I’m sure you all have heard about that., and maybe, some of you use to buy this magazine.

HISTORY
The Vogue's history started in 1892 when Arthur Baldwin Turnure founded the first issue from this magazine in New York. His objectives were speaking about life's styles and the interests for New York's elite. In this time Vogue was a weekly journal.In 1909 Mr. Turnure died and Conde Nast publications bought Vogue. The company wanted to be bigger and in 1916 he established separate British Vogue and later French Vogue and the Spanish one. Today Conde Nast publications owns many magazines such as Glamour, Allure, W, Self, GQ, Details, Elegant Bride, House and Garden, Domino, Lucky, Golf Digest, and The New Yorker, just to name a few.Conde Nast transformed Vogue's advertising base and thanks that he made Vogue a completely women's fashion magazine. He also pushed for the covers of Vogue to be done by the best illustrators and photographers.Conde Nast died in 1942, but Conde Nast Corporation still lives on today.In 1973, American Vogue became a monthly publication.The other most important person who has been working in the magazine is Anne Wintour. She has been the editor in chief since 1988. She transformed this magazine in the most fashion's magazine in the world. Today some people called it "The fashion bible". Until this moment, on the magazine's covers only appeared the face from famous people. Wintours changed it, and her covers appeared all the body, unknown models and famous women. Like Michele Obama, Hilary Clinton, Kate Moss, Anne Hathaway, Sara Jessica Parker, Sienna Miller and others.In one year it’s possible to sell 132 millions copies.In 2007 they presented some photos from their magazine in the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York.Nowadays, it's published in more than twenty countries, like Italy, Spain, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Mexico...

CURIOSITIES
On the one hand, we can say that in this magazine only appeared 4 males on the cover: LeBron James, a basketball player, George Clooney and Richard Gere, who were actors and Ryan Lochte. They always appeared with a woman. Some observers criticized the cover as a prejudicial depiction of James because he was like King Kong.Does anyone knows about the relation between the film and the magazine? As we said before, the devil wears prada’s related with Vogue. Lauren Weisberger, the author of the book, was Anne Wintour secretary, and we can see on the film how Anne was (Miranda Presley on the film or book). This film is based in real facts, the experience from Lauren.The september issue:The September issue is a 2009 American documentary film about Anne Wintour and her staff during the production in 2007 issue of American Vogue. In this documentary we can see the longest issue in the world, that had 840 pages and it’s weight was about 2’5 kg. But this changed the last September that the magazine was bigger than the other, that had 970 pages.

COVERS
As you can see here, at the beginning the covers were draws, later only appeared the face from famous models, and when Anne arrived, started appearing famous women in general, and showing the body, not only the face.This cover is from Dali, and he drew it in 1944. We think it’s surrealist and original.

CONCLUSION
To finish this presentation we want to say that it’s possible that you weren’t interested on this topic, we understand you! but we thought that it could be a little bit interesting because we watched on the class the film and we studied the vocabulary related on it. These are the reasons we have presented this to you.In our opinion, we can’t realize how they manage all this, because we think that it’s only buying some clothes, but behind this, there is a lot of money and people working to make it better.We hope you liked our presentation. Do you have any questions?

Descritpion

I've known her since we were little. She's medium height, green-eyed and she's got wavy hair. As our parents always say, when we were extremely little we were always pulling out our hair and maybe we hated each other. But nowadays, I think she's one of my best friends.

She's a bit special, I think she has a mature mentality to be 16 years old, but I find it special. The most relevant feature about her is that she's really strong-willed in everything, especially on the studies. The other thing I can say about her is that she's very shy (sometimes I get surprised even knowing her). If she meets a person, she's not going to be chatty with him, but if she particularly knows you, she can never stop talking. And thats what I like about her.

I admire her because she shows you how important is a person to her, and that's something I really love.  Sometimes we argue about stupid things because we both are stubborn. But she's my friend.


Irene Menéndez

listen to ‘Ona description’ on Audioboo

A formal letter

INS Castelló d'Empúries
11th January 2013

INS Castelló d'Empúries
Dear Mrs Pintor,

As you know, I am a student from this high school and I am writting you yo tell what I think about the sistem of everything related with this school center.

On the one hand, always telling my opinion, I can say that this digital blackboards (IWB) are not good for the teachers. I mean, almost all the teachers spend ten minutes (more or less) during the class because they are not working. Shall we return to the old ones? I am sure it needs an improvement.

On the other hand, I think we are a lot o people in the class, and it makes difficult to each one to learn. I know we are not in a good economic conditions, but in mu opinion, it's one of the biggest problem.

I have written you about this, that I think it is something you already knew, but maybe you did not know the opinion of a student.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely.


Irene Menéndez

Discussion essay

In this story we could see that Victor Frankenstein worked on a project and he built a monster. It first was an experiment, but one finished this project, the monster left. Victor F. didn't know what could happen.

On the one hand, I think that doing experiments on human body lives is something that has been good reconized for all the adventages and all the operations that nowadays are possible to get to everybody.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that now we can't imagine that people can do, and we think that it should be dangerous. Sometimes, an operation, an experiment with a person, can finally kill this person.

To conclude, the only thing I can say about this, is that I think that doing experiments with a human life is good for our future, but it can kill a lot of people.

My clothes and me

In this post I'm going to talk about my clothes and my interest in fashion.
It depends on the day, there are some days that I don't want to wear myself, it's like if I could go everywhere in tracksuit, I would. But there are some other days that I'm really interested in wearing myself very well, so I can spend minimum one hour doing all.
On the afternoon, whe I'm going to ride horse, I use special clothes to do it, but I feel as good as I'm dressed on the school, because everybody thereis wearing these clothes, and nobody looks at me with a strange face, that it's what happens to me when I go to the supermarked after the train with my mother; I feel intimidated! But I'm used to it, so I don't rally mind.

I think I have my own style, it's more or less like my mother's one. We share trousers, T-shirts,... a lot of clothes! And I'm happy that we can to this, we spend less money with it! And for this reason, I really like the brands, because my mother wears brands most of the times, and when I whear them, I feel more comfortable, I don't know why. Maybe because the fabric clothing is better.

Self evaluation

My oral presentation was about death rituals. I did this project with ona.
To evaluate myself, I have to say that the presentation was right, it was nice to see. On the video I can see that maybe, I have to improve my eye contact a bit more, because I was nervous and it made me forget some things I had to say. But the rest I think that was right. The only thing we have to care is the vocabulary, because there were a lot of key words, and we didn't write them anywhere. Anyway, I'm happy with the presentation because a lot of people said that I have a good pronunciation, and I think it's the most important thing when I speak english!

PD: I don't know how to download the video on internet.

Copy of DEATH

INTRODUCTION

Hi, we are Ona and Irene and we’re going to introduce you our presentation.

We’re going to talk about different death rituals; tzanzta,  satí and Burials in the clouds. We have chosen this topic because we thought that it could be interesting for you because it’s totally unknown.

If you don’t understand any key word, you can ask us and we’ll answer. Anyway, we’ve adapted the vocabulary to make sure that you understand everything.

TZANTZA

The Shuar tribe was located in the northwestern region of the Amazon. Their language was the shuar-chicham.

The Spanish conquistadors named this tribe as a Jíbaros, that the meaning of this word was WILD, because when someone died, they practised the tzantza, and it’s about shrunking their heads.

When two tribes confront themselves, the winner boss took the head from the loser and he shrunked it. This process was named tzantza, and he did this without eating in any moment and totally alone.

PROCESS:

They first cut the head of  the person  with a knife, they made a cut on the neck to extract the brain and they  stretch the skin (pulled out the skin)

The next step was boiling the skin with some herbs that were used to prevent the hair fall. They do this during 15 minutes.

After, they pulled out the head and it was reduced to half the original size and they let it dry. 

Later, they sewed the cut made on the nape and the eyes and the mouth. The head was like a sac, where they introduced inside a fist-sized stone.

Finally, they hung it above the fire to dissect it with the smoke. The head was now totally reduced. They pulled out the stone and stained the skin of  black.

SATÍ

The sati was a social funeral celebrated in India. This ritual is about what happen when a husband died, the wife was burnt alive with her husband, but he was already dead.
 

There are different ways to burnt the wife:
   First, the woman was burnt taking her husband in her arms, or sat with him.
   Second, the woman ran into the bonfire while her husband was burning.
   Third, the wife burned herself in the bonfire.

All these cases were voluntaries, that is, because the wife wanted to die burned with her husband. Almost all the bonfires were voluntaries, but there also were some that weren’t  voluntaries, in these case the women  could dies by three ways:

   First the woman was tied with ropes  with her husband.

   Second she was drugged.

   Third the woman couldn't escape from the bonfire, because around the bonfire there   

   were men with spears, and if the wife tried to escape from the bonfire, they would kill

   her.

On 1829 British banned this ritual (at this time India was a British colony). But still people continued doing this ritual. The last sati was in 2006, where the wife ran into the bonfire.

The origin of this ritual is religious. Sati was Daksha’s daughter, and she was married to Shiva. One day, Daksha insulted Shiva. Sati, in honour to her husband, she burnt herself. For this reason, Indian people celebrated this ritual.

With this tradition, you could imagine how big the chauvinism there was, but today it’s still going on.

BURIAL IN THE CLOUDS

This ritual is from Tibet.  The people who were from there, had the tradition that they couldn’t bury the dead bodies. For this reason, they had a special burial. 

When someone died, during three days the monks sang songs for them. After that, the family brought the body at the mountain and cut it. 

As the family thought about the reincarnation, they weren’t ashamed of the body. When they finally cut it, some birds came to eat the body. 

At the same time, the family was looking at after it. When the birds had eaten it all, there were only the bones left. The family crushed the bones and brought it again to the little birds.

At present, there are some people who do it.

CONCLUSIONS

To conclude, we can say that these rituals are very impacting, as you could see in our explanations. 

If you had to choose one of them, which one would prefer?

Irene doesn’t like any of them, she doesn’t want to die like this. But I would choose the Tibetan one, because I think it’s a beautiful way to end your life, because like this you are more useful than in a tomb. 

Do you have any questions?

13 vs Adrian Mole

First, we read the book of Adrian Mole. It's about this boy, who's thirteen years and a half and he tells us his adolescence; all the spots he has he tells us, he likes one girl but she doesn't, he has some problems with his friends...
And some days after, we watched 13, a film that the protagonist is Tracy and at the begining, he was a really good girl. She moved to another city with her mother and his brother and she started school. There she wants to be popular and she makes a friend, who's Evie, and I could see that she was a bad influency. In this film we see that Tracy has some problems with drugs, fiends , cuts herself, problems with her mother... That's the topic of this film.

I only can say that I like more the film than the book, because it's funnier and I think it's more or less some cases that are happening in this moment.

DIALOGUE

IRENE- You llok familiar, do I know you?
ONA- Yes, I think so! You were at Laura's party. Weren't you?
IRENE- Yes, of course! You are Paula!
ONA- No, I'm Ona.
IRENE- Are you sure?
ONA- Erm.. yes.
IRENE- I was joking!
ONA- Hahahaha, you're really funny. How are you?
IRENE- I'm fine like always. What about you?
ONA- Well it's difficult to say, but... I'm pregnat.
IRENE- Really? Who is the father?
ONA- He was at Laura's party too. Do you know Jhon?
IRENE- I can't belive it, he is my boyfriend. Well he was.
ONA- Oh I didn't know it... I have to go now...
IRENE- Yes, better if you leave. Bye.
ONA- I'm so sorry...
IRENE- OK.

listen to ‘Irene and ona’ on Audioboo

Two different lives

On 9th of February in 1990, two twins, who lived in an orphanage, were adopted by two different famiies. Paul went with Gomez family, they were poor; Robert went with Jones family, the rich one. 

Paul lived in Los Angeles, in a middel-class neighborhood. He has a good childhood, good friends and a nice relationship with his parents. The onli thing he missed eas the money.

On the other hand, Robert lived in Beverly Hills and he had every thing you could imagine, but he always arguing with his parents, because they always left him alone in his enormuous palace.

When they were twenty years old, they went out to celebrat their birthday, withoutknowing each other. By chance, they met in a club. One brother was waiting for getting into the club; the other one, got in without waiting. One they both went to the toilette, they found each other. They couldn't belive it!! They has seen each other time sixteen years ago. They were a bit drank, and they decided to change their identities, and for theat, they change their families.

A week later, they met in a park, and both thought taht It was better to have a good relation ship with their parents, and didn't mind if you had money or not.

Suddenly, a fairy appeared to them and asked:

  -Hey guys! I've been looking your families change all these days. Now you can decide between a poor life and have a good relationship with your family, or a rich family being being sad everyday of your lives. 

Both chose the firts option. Since this day, the've been best friends and their families have changed.

Rebel song

I've chosen this song because Amy rebels herself versus his father. He says she must g to rehab, but sh says no. That's the topic. Here yo've the lyrics:

Rehab 

They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'
Yes I've been black but when I come back you'll know know know
I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab but I won't go go go

I'd rather be at home with ray
I ain't got seventy days
Cause there's nothing
There's nothing you can teach me
That I can't learn from Mr Hathaway

I didn't get a lot in class
But I know it don't come in a shot glass

They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'
Yes I've been black but when I come back you'll know know know
I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab but I won't go go go

The man said 'why do you think you here'
I said 'I got no idea
I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose my baby
so I always keep a bottle near'
He said 'I just think you're depressed,
this me, yeah baby, and the rest'

They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'
Yes I've been black but when I come back you'll know know know

I don't ever wanna drink again
I just ooh I just need a friend
I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
have everyone think I'm on the mend

It's not just my pride
It's just 'til these tears have dried

They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'
Yes I've been black but when I come back you'll know know know
I ain't got the time and if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab but I won't go go go

E-mail

Hi Sonia, 

My name is Irene, as you know. I was born in Girona in 1996 but actually, I'm living in Empuriabrava. I go to school in Castelló, and I'm studying 1st of Bachillerato. I don't really like studying, but I know I have to do it for my future, to get a good formation and a nice job. My biggest hobby is riding horses, I really love it... But that's not enough for me; I play Horse-Ball, I don't know if you know what it is... but I can tell you that it's a "new" sport, unknown yet, but I think it's going to be important in a future. It's amazing!

My village is situated in the Alt Empordà, a really nice place. In my opinion, I think it's one of the most beautiful places in Catalunya! 
When someone who doesn't live near the beach, they think it's a beautiful place, but I don't apreciate it. Anyway, I'm lucky to live here.

As I've said before, I'm studying 1st of Bachillerato, and I'm a bit scared. It's going to be very difficult, a lot of hours studying, and I don't know from where I'm going to get the time. I say that because I have a horse, the one I have to take care almost every day, and I'm going to the gym the most I can. But I'll pass Bachillerato and a university degree. That's all my life at the moment! 

Nice to receive your email! See you soon. 

Irene