Week 16

Today is my last class of the English course, I'm happy for it (because I have finals and projects)but also is sad know that I won't see a some of my classmates.The activity for today is a questionnaire  about our course that we can do the activity out of our classroom. 

Because the activity can be done in other place, I didn't go to the classroom but...

I just want to thanks to the professor all the effort that he did, I know that be a teacher isn't easy but he really try to do his best. The class is really dynamic, and normally a language course isn't. I enjoy all the different activities and movies that cause and impact in our process to reinforce English.

Also because I learned  that I can live without my cellphone more than 1 hour and the world is still as we know it and to be on time especially on lectures days otherwise I knew that the teacher will ask me what I though about the lectures of the day. 


Regards 
Cynthia

Week 15

The end is almost here, this week we only had one class and it was to present our work about the three American short stories: 

• A Horseman in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce
• Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemingway
• A Buddhist Tale by Thomas DeMaria

I really enjoy the lectures but my favorite is "Cat in the Rain" by Ernest Hemingway because of the doble meaning that not only the dialogue have but also the objects that is part of the “Iceberg Theory” that Hemingway use telling a story with the minimum required words so this way you can interpret it.

The lecture context is Italy, after the world war 1 but the characters are from USA that is why the languages that you can identify are Italian and English.

The characters' story are the American wife and husband (George), the hotel-keeper, and the maid.

Regards 

Cynthia

Week 14

This week, we watched "The power of one" was a really nice movie. It is about a kid and how just one person can do the change in this case get the union between races. 


The movie “The Power of One “ shows us a perspective of Africa during the second world war through PK's life also shows diverse representative elements of Africa.

I have to confess that I want to cry in the scene of Geel Piet's death, since it includes the situation of inequality and discrimination  that was lived with the wish to look for the better thing as well as the union between the people being the culmination of Piet’s dream of  that was so intense that it gave the life for seeing it to expire.

I REALLY like that the movies that we saw in class were cool ones, that I can recommend and I want to know what happen next or which is the end of the story not like the typical bad ones that are boring but you have to watched because you are in the classroom. 

On Thursday we had a quiz about the movie. I like when you talk with you classmates and they also enjoy the movie and want to share their reflection. 

Regards
Cynthia

Week 13

We are almost done with this semester and to start our week we took a test about the presentations of the last week. It was kind of difficult.

One of the biggest problems nowadays is the plagiarism, but what is it? “Plagiarism is the act of taking another person’s writing, conversation, song or even idea and passing it off as your own.” (The University of Southern Mississippi , 2015)

In our second session, we did a task about plagiarism after read two lectures about it and do a paper that connected it with as what is it? how to avoid? and the consequences of plagiarism.. This activity we had to posted on Blackboard and comment in our classmate works about what we think of it.

This week, we also did a work on teams about three stories that the teacher post on BB.

The Silence                       Love, Love, Love, Alone                              Unto Dust

My favorite story was Unto Dust by Herman Charles Bosman tells a story from South Africa about the equality and oneness of all human beings; that at the end, at our death, all that is left are bones. Also is my favorite one because I consider that is something that you can understand doesn't matter the country where you live, or the language that you talk.

Week 12

This week we worked on our presentation. Our team choose India, and I really enjoyed this activity and discover more about this country.

Before the activity I already know some facts of India as the country is in Asia or that some surrounding countries are Afghanistan and China but I learned a lot of new as the form of government is socialist democratic republic or that their president is Shri Pranab Mukherjee.

For our 2º and 3º sessions all the teams did their 10-20 min presentations some of them were with clothes of the country or even better with food. I really enjoyed the New Zealand and Afganistan presentation and of course have more information about the others countries.

Regards

Cynthia

Week 11

We started week 11 with a collaborative activity about a paper by John Donne

(From: Meditation XVII)

No man is an island, entire of itself

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

if a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls

it tolls for thee.

Rocio and me did an analysis about the poem, and all the implications of it. We though that the mean message is that we all are connected, we need us and all together made "the all" .We think that if people follow the "Donne's philosophy" consequences of this, will be positives because you will stop assume that you are in competence with the others, you will help them. As example be eco-friendly is think in the others, not only the humans also animals.

 I really like this activity but I discover that it is hard to me express in a more deep context as the analysis of this text. 

On Wednesday we watched "Boy" after a voting for our favorite. The movie was set on New Zealand in 1983 and talk about the Alamein, a kid who after lost his mother, he take care of his 5 brothers and sisters. I liked the movie and can discover how is their English pronunciation.

Regards 

Cynthia