W.O.R.K.

What up!

And the question says:

HOW DO YOU PREFER TO WORK THE MOST, AND WHY?
-INDIVIDUALLY?
-IN PAIRS?
-IN SMALL GROUPS?
-OR AS A TOTAL CLASS?

HEHEHE

Well... first of all I have to say I believe the best and the most important thing when you work is doing it placidly. Every action you perform mustn't be alienated from any approach. Working is the way that human beings have to change the world in order to ensure them welfare conditions of existance.

So, matter of fact, if my partners agree on be to learn of practically everything the other person will do. That sort depends on the kind of work you are planning to develop.

Unrelevant or easy works could be done in pairs or small goups, even if you don't know the partner you will be working with. Working in pairs it's nice if the other person has a plenty level of knowledge about what are you talking about.

Personally, I prefer to work in small groups, maybe 2 or 3 persons (including me), because on that manner each activity can be assigned as well as each person's skills permit, and also ensure commitment on everybody. As more participants on the workgroup, as more dispersion of responsability.

Don't you think so?

XD

Finally, I want to share with you guys a song I really like
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great

Click HERE to listen

Amazing things

Hello guys!

I do not have a specific question; therefore, I will speak of two topics:
a) listening strategy and
b) amazing things

a) listening strategy
The last class, we saw the topic of listening strategist, this is very important because for most it is difficult listening the language, because has sounds that we don`t have in our mother tongue, is for this reason that I believe that the only way to get used to the English language is through practice, so I leave here some links, to practice their listening strategy:

http://www.esl-lab.com/
http://www.mansioningles.com/listening00.htm
http://www.parapal-online.co.uk/listening.html

b) Amazing things

Why I'm going to talk about amazing things? well, this is because to get to enjoy something, it must first be interesting.

1. - Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
2. - The dollar symbol ($) is a U combined with an S (U.S.)

3. - Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.

4. - Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

5. - No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.

6. - Emus cannot walk backwards!!!

So, I invite you to Google "listening exercise" and "amazing things", so you can put into practice your knowledge of English and have to talk about at parties (jeje).

Like latter suggestion, I think that weekend, more people can write, because that's when we have more free time.

I finally say I am very comfortable in the group and very happy to have a teacher so interested in their students. :)

Hi!

I hope everyone is doing great. I have been thinking about the question I need to answer:

What do I plan to do in the future with regard to my English skills?

-I'm planning on practicing my English skills by talking with some friends I haven't seen since some years ago.

Actually the reason that moved me in a first moment for looking to return learning English was that two years ago I needed to communicate myself with a big group of americans, it was a very good opportunity for practicing... until I realized that I could understand them but I wasn't able to express myself. It was difficult but a little time after I was able to talk with some of them, so that I understood that I need to strive practicing in order to have success.

-I'm trying to improve my English skills by thinking how could I say some phrases, descriptions or songs in English, on my leisure time. I dream about doing some studies out of Mexico, and I am looking to take advantage of all the oportunities that gives me our University, for example: learning English at CELE.

-I'm excited because we need to read a novel in english, it has been a large time since I read an entire book.

This are just some things I could visualize. I have many things to improve, many dreams and goals to reach. I'm so thankful with our University because of the opportunities we have for being better every single day. What do you think about?

Tongue twisters

In order to improve your speaking and intonation skills, I have found some tongue twisters for you, I'm gonna post some of them but you can find many on the web.

These ones are the funiest (I guess)
I hope you enjoy them:

1st level: Three witches watch three Swatch watches. Which
witch watch which Swatch watch?

2nd level: Three switched witches watch three Swatch watch
switches. Which switched witch watch which Swatch watch switch?

3rd level: Three Swedish switched witches watch three Swiss
Swatch watch switches. Which Swedish switched witch watch which Swiss Swatch watch switch?

What are your strengths when you speak English? What are your weaknesses?

Hi to everybody!!!!

Today is my turn, and I have to recognize that the question I have to answer don't seems very easy :)

Theses kind of things are a little difficult to answer about myself, it is something that people can see easily than oneself.

But never minds, I would try...

First the weakness:

-If I have been so much time without speaking English, is difficult not to translate what are you thinking in spanish.

-And if I try to thinking in English, the speech could be veeeeeeeeery slowly.

-It is difficult to remember some specific pronunciation, it's funny, but sometimes, the most easy word is the one that always I say in the bad way.

-About the pronunciation, if you hear to or read the word by first time, you can try to say it, but the pronunciation rules in English are not always logical, then... good luck! :)

-The way of talking is also one of my weakness, because I think I have a very strong ton in spanish and some letters are difficult to pronounce in English.

-Sometimes I don't have the vocabulary I need, and it is so frustrated to want to say anything and never can.

-For me is very difficult to understand the English from America, I have always been learning English with British teachers, so I'm so happy to have an Australian teacher, I can understand her quite good!

Sure that I have more, but now the strengths:

-Well I think that I'm not shy speaking English, then I talk, and talk, and it is the best way to improve.

-When I began to study English I was so motivated, I have a more or less good basis, and I think it is important to speak well, it doesn't mind that now I'm not so motivated, jeje :)

-I think that a good thing to speak in English, is reading a lot, it is so important to speak fluently. And watching films. I try to do it very often, like 30 minutes every night at least.

So, it is about the today's question.

But it is not the only thing, I want to make two questions to everyone.

First: Somebody knows where can I watch online films or series in English with English subtitles???

Second: I know the translation of 'rather', but I don't understand very well how to use it, could somebody help to me!!!

Thanks!!!

Hi guys!
Well, today I have to tell you about my struggles while learning English.
I think that my greatest struggle is to understand native speakers. I mean, I can understand my partners, my teachers even I can have a nice conversation with some foreigners but when I have to listen to a record or a movie I find some problems ja. Fortunately Im happy because the teacher helps us to practice our listening by playing different kinds of recordings.
I like our group I think you are very nice. Have a nice week. :)

The World's hottest chili pepper.

Hi guys!!!

Well, I was very busy so I found which is the hottest chili pepper in the world: the Bhut Jolokia pepper, also known as Naga Jolokia from the Assam region of northeastern India.

The measure of hotness or "piquancy" of a chili pepper is defined, in the Scoville scale, by the amount of capsaicin it contains. Capsaicin is a chemical compound which stimulates chemoreceptor nerve endings in the skin, especially the mucous membranes (look at me, writing as an expert!, Wiki is the key).

India's Defence Research Laboratory reported a rating of 1'041,427 Scoville Heat Units, for comparison Tabasco Red Pepper Sauce rated 2,500-5,000. In February 2007 Guinness World Records certified the Bhut Jolokia as the World's hottest chili pepper.

Here is a picture of this criminal chili pepper:

See you guys.

What did you enjoy most about today’s class?

Hi everyone! I’m Zahet is my turn :) of write in the blog, my question is:

What did you enjoy most about Thursday’s class?

I enjoyed knowing about the reading strategies, because in my job I must read several texts in English. For me it’s important to read quickly and efficiently.

Some of the reading strategies that were studied in class were:

You do…

• Read the first and last sentence of the paragraph carefully. They usually contain the most important information.


• Skip over words and phrases you don’t know, or can’t guess immediately. You can come back to them later.


• Try to summarise the three or four main points of what you have read after you have finished the text.


• Read as much as you can in English: newspapers, graded readers, websites, lyrics, subtitles … anything! You won’t improve your reading speed without practice!

Also, we can use dictionaries, translators and others. Nowadays the internet is an excellent tool.

These are some interesting links:

Dictionaries
http://www.freedictionary.com/
http://www.wordreference.com/
http://thesaurus.reference.com/
http://dictionary.reference.com/

Lyrics (karaoke)
http://www.subingles.com/
http://www.karaokeparty.com/

Videos
http://es.yappr.com/welcome/VideoList.action

Subtitles
http://www.opensubtitles.org/es/search/imdbid-1010048/sublanguageid-eng

Translators
http://translate.reference.com/
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=es

Others
http://www.inglesavanzado.org/
http://www.filos.unam.mx/delefyl/recursos_ingles.html

YouTube and Google also can help :)

An interesting topic in the class was the question “What types of things do you read?” I think that it is very important because you can discover fun forms by learn English. If you enjoy reading novels, scientific books, comics, music lyrics (I love it!), etc. in English then you will enjoy to learn the language too.

Well, that it’s all. Happy St. Valentine’s day.

Learning Vocabulary

Hi everyone!

I was just thinking a little today about how to increase your vocabulary in English. Don't underestimate the power of your memory! Three different suggestions I have are:

1. Keep a small notebook in your bag in which you write down new words as you read them. Find their meaning later and write them next to the words. When possible, write the entire sentence or phrase that the word is found in. For example, if you see a news article that says "Suicide bomber wounds 5 people", write the entire sentence in your notebook, and search for the meaning of "wounds". This will help you remember how it is used.

2. Locate the word in your dictionary. Next to the entry, write down where you saw the word and the context you saw it in. This way, every time you flick through your dictionary, you'll see it and remember it better because your mind will link it to when you saw it.

3. Try to use the word/phrase sometime in the near future. Seeing a word is not the same as using the word.

Hope these help! See you soon.

Australia is in Mexico...

Two things above as evidence:

First, as we know, our australian teacher at Cele, that is a great chance for us to learn from a person who speaks English as a mother language.

And second, I don't know if you know that the executive producer of the centenary celebrations of the revolution and the bicentenary of independence is an australian man. Notice the relevance of the event because that is the reason (I guess) why our government has hired the person who has been behind the production of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of more that four Olympic Games (Including one Winter Olympic Games, in Torino 2006): Los Angeles 1984, Barcelona 1992, Sidney 2000, and was the International Artistic Advisor for Creative Director Zhang Yimou in the production of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. All of these events have been great productions.

So... Can you imagine what we can expect for the ceremony of the september 15th?

Sources
· Excelsior, November 23th, 2009
· www.spectak.com

Hi guys!

Well, Last class was funny for me; one thing I could learn was the name of Doctor House, lol, for those that such as me don't know it, it is Hugh Laire.

Really I think that the class is so good, I like it. Ummm, about the Shelley's question: What did you learn today in class? & what factors enabled you to learn?

My answer:

We studied relative pronouns and how We use it in sentences.

• For things (which,that)
• For people (who,that)
• For possessions (whose)
• Places (where, which/that + preposition)
• & Times (when)

We talked about relative clauses without commas (Defining relative clauses) and with commas (Non-defining relative clauses)

I like interaction with people,to know about their ieas and thoughts, that's cool for me; I think group activities are a good method for standing awake, lol.

During the last activity I knew a guy who talked to me about an instrumental music, which I love, that is performed by Kitaro and I wanted to share a piece of his music to enjoy as you are reading the next post. See ya!

TOPIC

hello everyone

well is not my first blog

but i will try to write my topic

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE ACTIVITY OF TODAY'S CLASS?

i'm in the group 612

and a tried to change to another grup the same days because is hard to me lost 2 hours, i leave the faculty at 3 o'clock :S

...

but i like so much the teacher's class, is a very dinamic class, and the teachers speak english since she began to speak, and i think is amazing she teach in mexico

...

well the last class(thursday)

was very funny because we did a personal internet page jajajaja

first we had to put our "picture"

and next to write about uor likes and dislikes

jajaja was so funny

and finally we write in the other page, and i think was a great idea to meet other people in the classroom, and some of my classmates have similar things in common

well i thin 612 is a very good group

and is the reason tha i prefer to stay in this group

good teacher

good classmates

and i hope this semester will be fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi 612!

Well, Hello everyone!
To tell you the truth, this is not the first blog I write, hehehe...
Finally, I could be here writing while I wait my next class ^^
I hope that everybody in this group can achieve their goals specially me hehe. I hope to learn a lot in this class, and to improve my vocabulary level.
Ok well, I gotta go.
Oh! I'm agree with Aurelio, it's so interesting to me to know about Australia and more countries (I would like to talk something about Finland, I want to travel to that country someday). But... in the coins, there are no rabbits! T.T
Anyway, It would be nice to continue with the strategy of the class. So dinamic!
see ya guys!

Hello fellows

Hi, I have been trying to access to this blog and finally I thoug I made it. I think it was very interesting know more about Australia since the places and aborigns to the money to handle there. It was very curious the special animals to get in the coins but, maybe, they missing the Koalas. Any approach to another culture always can be enriching.
Anyway, this is only a test to the blog, and see you later.
Aurelio.

Welcome!

Hi everyone, and welcome to your blog! I hope you enjoy spending time in here. Don't be shy to write, as each time you write you create something that comes uniquely from YOU. Also, feel free to make comments on each others' entries as this will enrich the conversations more.

Remember, the purpose of the blog is to write about what you're learning in class, struggles or victories you have with the language, new words you have discovered, internet websites you've found that have to do with what you're learning ... and to answer one question about your learning which I will give you at random! I'm not looking for simply "nice things" about the class, so please be honest with your answers. Having said that, you can use your real name, or make up a pseudonym if you wish.

See you soon!

Shelley (AKA "Teacher")