Sebastian's Post August, 18th

My name is Sebastian Llantén and I live in ñuñoa. I have 23 years old and alive[11] in Santiago nine year ago and currently[12] I `m studying geography in the university of Chile and it is my last year in my career. Before I lived in Punta Arenas all my childhood and I think that is a great city for a boy, because I could play with the nature and this city is very safely for a kid, [13] moreover I could see wonderful landscape and I could play with snow and skate on ice and is [14] very funny for a little kid. My family is composed[15] for five persons my dad, my mom, my sister, my brother and me. But I live only with my mom and my sister, because my dad live in other place and my brother live with his wife and his little son. My nephew is very young, because he was born two days ago, and I `m very happy because is a beautiful boy and his name is Nicolas. Currently besides of study I `m working in the military geography institute for my professional practice and I think that is very funny[16] because you can read, talk for all building and the people are very friendly.

[11](WW)
[12](WW)
[13](P)
[14](T)
[15](WE) Wrong Expression
[16](WW)

Sebastian's Post August, 25th

My experience with learning English has had highs and lows,[11] because in the school I had good performance and I had a good teacher, but I think that I had a very few classes of English. When I sign[12] in university I had a bad experience, because I disapprove[13] the chance in English two and reprove[14] the class, because this time I not liked study English and I not went to all class, but now I like go to class, because my teacher is very motivating and he gives time to explain when I can’t understand in class, the major time I have problems with the vocabulary and my teacher explain of good form. Now, I enjoy with the English class and before I not enjoyed the English class. I think that learning English is not difficult but I feel that me study is very poor because with English I am very lazy. Personally when I find a web page in English I haven’t problems for read in English, but is[15] very difficult for me write or talk in English.
About the English culture, I feel very close because I hear[16] music in English and I have a sister that is English teacher but as the proverb says: “in house blacksmith, wooden knife”.
Finally, I know many people who speak English, for example my sister and me[17] girlfriend speak English. And I think that the learn English is very useful for[18] me, because I can read English text or see web site in English.

[11](P) Punctuation
[12](T) Tense
[13] (WW) Wrong Word
[14](WW) Wrong Word
[15](DP) Deletion of Pronouns
[16](WW) Wrong Word
[17](WW) Wrong Word
[18](PP) Preposition

Posts

Jaime has very interesting ideas. I can always follow what he wants to say even though sometimes he has some spelling mistakes which I believe it has something to do with writing too fast. He has some problems with mixing words but they can be improved. Good job!

Sebastian has some problems with mixing English and Spanish. You can notice this by the way he uses prepositions. However, I can still understanding most of his ideas and you can see he tries to do his best in some activities that are not that interesting for him. Keep working!!

Natalia has improved a lot and it shows in this last post. Maybe she was more committed to this topic or day after day she has improved. I couldn’t find big mistakes and after all, communication is the most important thing of learning a new language. Keep working!! Well done!!

This has been a very good experience. I hope I can help them to improve their English but what I would like more, to make them understand that communication is the main point of learning a new language. After all, we would have our own like to keep learning.

Common Mistakes

I can see the same type of mistakes in their writing. So, I believe it will be easier to identify those in their future piece of writing.

Most of Sebastian writing problems is wrong words. I believe this could happen because he is using a translator or bilingual dictionary that it is not giving them the right words. Also, this could happen because he wants to write more things about himself so he tries to use some words that he doesn’t know, what would be great.

In Natalia’s case, it is almost the same. She uses a lot of Spanglish, this mean she tries to express her ideas in Spanish using the same logic in English. This can be solved but I believe it is going to take more time to work it out. Anyways, I really like the idea of at least, try to do the blogs and improve her English.

Finally, Jaime understands better the idea of writing in English although he needs to improve his vocabulary. This means he also has problems with wrong words and expressions. Also, he needs to check better his writing because he has some spelling mistakes that I believe happen because he doesn’t read his blog after finishing it.

Diary: first impression

First day!!
I can feel how much I have improved my English in these years. I can remember when I was all alone in US without knowing any English and then how I could improve so much afeter a couple of months.
After entering to English Pedagogy I started to realize my learning and it is the same feeling that I had today.
I made some of the same mistakes these students did in their blogs and now I can realize the Spanish influence that we have to deal with.
So, I hope they receive my future comments in a good way and after all, they use them to improve their leven of English.

we can use technology...

Nowadays, we live surrounded by technology that can be use for many things; computers and internet is part of our daily life. So, why don’t use it inside the classroom?

First of all, we can find that most of our students know at least a little bit about how to use a computer and internet, so we can take advantage of that and let them use their previous knowledge in this area. This will provide us a new tool to work with our students and at the same time, we can use new ways to develop students’ abilities as part of the interaction needed in the learning process.

In addition, teaching English has become more difficult everyday so, I believe using technology will approach students to new topics and interests. For instance, in April, 30^th we use a video from youtube to talk about learning tools or April, 15^th we discover the web page that BBC has about education. Most of these posts help us as students to talk about new things that we don’t discuss in the normal classroom and also, gave us a new perspective of what we can do with technology in the future when we become teachers.

On the other hand, we have to consider that in most of our schools there are not many computers to use for a class with 40 or 45 students. So, in this case I think it is going to be very difficult for teachers to include this aspect because they will not have enough resources for all students. However, these students are going to have the previous knowledge and interest in using computers as part of their learning tools.

There will always be new elements and resources to include in our role as students and future teachers. We must consider the context in which we are immerse and the students that are going to interact with us. Technology is very useful depending on the way and context we use it.

The Commitments and Rumble Fish

People say that history is written by rich people but if we think about stories. Most of them take some lives experiences from people that all of us know and we feel represented in a book or script. This is the case of the two stories Rumble Fish and the Commitments, where you can feel your life or your neighbor’s being told as a part of the story.

Social class is a characteristic that was printed in the story. On one hand, we can see the commitments as a group of music that wants to represent all the working class people. If you have seen the movie you could tell in which part of the city most of the lived and the kind of places they visit and made part of them, when they started their musical group. All of this, you could see it through the book or the movie. On the contrary, in Rumble Fish you could see the social class represented by the places or parts of the city where you can include the gangs’ fights and the kind of living Rusty James and his brother had.

Also, social class is a characteristic that could be inferred from the story. On one hand, reading the book (The Commitments) you can feel in the air the issues that tell you about a group of people fighting and working hard to get a worthy life. On the other hand, in the other story (Rumble Fish), you didn’t have the same kind of information but using your imagination you could imagine in what kind of school Rusty James studied, in which part of the town was his house placed and what kind of hobbies Rusty and his friends had.

In conclusion, we can see that every story has something to tell and we can be represented or not for this but most of the time we are. Stories can be a resource to help us to see from outside our living and see ways we can change it, if we want to.