I`d wish it was Summertime

Have you noticed how beautiful Chile is? please, don`t think I`m being cheesy, because it`s true!, and we all know it...We can find the most beautiful landscapes of the desert in the North as well as all the lakes, volcanos, green areas and rain forests in the South, going through all the beaches along the coast. If I had to write about a nice place in Chile, I`d definitely do it about Pichilemu, which is a fine place located in Región del Libertador Bernardo O`Higgins by the coast, It is a small city and at the same time a good place to spend summer time, actually my family and I go every year to visit my grandaddy who lives there. What I enjoy the most from Pichilemu are its wonderful beaches, which are huge and well known for its enormeous waves that are surfed by many surfers (very logical...), men and women; most of them from different nationalities. Because of this, people can take advantage and practice English, what is what I usually do . My favourite beach is called Punta de Lobos, which is one of the biggest. I like it because it is never full of people and nobody bothers you when you`re having a sunbathing, and also you can enjoy the waves your way, but always being carefull. Around 7 o`clock many people have walks along the beach and wait until the sun set.

This is a very relaxing place, it`s not like all those crowded coastal towns. Go and visit it, and of course, try surfing!

"The Commitments" ...movie and book review

As I told you in some posts ago, watching movies and reading books are things that I really enjoy doing in my spare time, and it`s even more interesting, but tricking at the same time, when a book has a movie version or viceversa, as in the case of “The Commitments” (written and based on the story of Roddy Doyle). I say it may be tricking because, in my opinion, movies always miss details of the story told in the book, or it`s not like you imagined it when reading it. Which is also good because it helps to develop the imagination, and then make the contrast.
In the case of “The Commitments”, both things told the story of this hard working class band from Dublin, Ireland, whose members were recruited by Jimmy Rabbitte; the manager, in order to play R&B songs. However, there was a big "break" at the end of the story; what it´s true is that the band was disolved, but while in the movie the members were all separated, in different occupations, what happened in the book, is that Jimmy tried to make them join to start playing again. That was kind of dissapointing when watching it.

One of the best parts of this story was when Jimmy set the requirements to join the band, he wanted members who had SOUL, what did he mean by this?...then they found it out. At the moment of reading, it was a lot of fun to imagine how thet carried out their first rehersals, and the gigs. It´s really interesting and funny, how a band goes through ups and downs, and how well the performances are through gig and gig. The same happened to me when I saw the movie "Almost Famous". There are very simmilar situations. Troubles between the manager and some members, the ego issue, the groupies issue, the fights between members, etc....is not easy to be a "music star", don´t u think?

Apart from recommending this movie, as well as the book, I´d like to highlight the language that it is used, which I liked learning it a lot. It´s cool when we read things with all kinds of language, especially the "everyday" one. I don´t like the idea to speak like a grammar book because I´ve never tried something different.

Watch this movie..you´ll laugh and have a good time.

...Two of my favourites, which are yours??

One of things that most relieves us of problems, bad days, stressful times, etc is to listen to good music, don´t you think? Or at least, what we consider is good for ourselves. No matter what I´m doing or how I´m feeling, and although I´m not a musician, I can´t picture a moment of my life without any kind of music.

I´ll give you some clues for you to guess about what I like the most...Both are from the UK but one is from Ireland and he other from England, both are composed my women mostly, one is a group and the other is just a female singer, and both play the nicest songs ever. Did u guess? maybe yes.

The first one is The Corrs, an Irish band composed by Andrea, Sharon, Caroline Corr and his brother Jim. They play a mixture between traditional Irish music, celthic and contemporary rock. It´s acoustic sounds are the best. In my opinion, the unplugged performance rocks!!

And the other one is Corinne Bailey Rae, an English lady who is in her late twenties, and whose R&B sounds have captivated a large audience. Eveytime I´m home alone is the perfect time to listen to her and sing pretending my voice is just like hers, also when my best friend comes home, her songs are the best to cheer our talks...I´d say this is music for chilling out, resting, havin fun and fallin in love...

A USEFUL WAY TO PRACTICE ENGLISH! Take a look at this..

In times like these where almost all what we need for our everyday life is on the web, and everybody from the whole world is on line, it`s really necessary that all people could find material realted to their occupations. Easy to work on, attractive, complete, and reliable websites are the ones that we all need to support our learning or the teaching performance. So, in this case what could be more useful for teachers than a good website that provides most of what they need to carry out a lesson, or maybe what learners (not beginners) need to practice what they`ve learned?...

That`s why I mark the BBC Learning English website with a nice, big, and wonderful 7! I haven`t found such a good webpage for students and for Teachers of English as well before, It`s not necessary to sit in front of the computer for hours to learn something. There are all kinds of activities and things to do. There are long and also short listenings and readings, and some sections where you acn check your pronunciation. It`s such an easy, modern and efficient way to help yourself.

I`d like to recommend, the link "Vocabulary and Grammar", and then go to the "How to..." section. You`re gonna find phrases and expressions for all kinds of situations, as you can imagine that helps a lot for acquiring a natural (kind of, but with effort you can achieve it) way of communiacting, and you can also improve your vocabulary of course.
See also the phrasal verbs section and have fun with the story, where the plots are aminly based on phrasal verbs.

Here`s the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

Let´s let them be THINKIN´HEADS!!

Didn´t Mr. Robinson´s talk remind you of those days at school when you tried to give ideas and the teachers just ignored you? At least for me, it was like that...

However, all what he said it was true, and what he talked about was a big concerning issue, I just couldn´t help laughing at his style...he was really funny.

Anyway...

It´s absolutely true that schools make students do what they have planned for them to do..and usually they definetely do not accept when they try to change part of the class or turn it into something more fun, or when they question what they say. Why don´t teacher ask students what they would like to learn about, or what kind of topics they would like to discuss about? I´m sure that children would support with ideas that would make the lesson DEATHLY!

This man invites us to reflect and do something for our future performance. He is a really thinkin´head...let´s be like him, and let´s wellcome our students thought to encourage their creativity and critical thinkin´.

JUST CLICK ON THAT!!

We all know that internet offers a HUGE! variety of websites for us to click on, we can find everything there, don´t you think? We need to sit in front of our computers and start surfing the web and clicking on what calls our attention. However, I bet you that you`ve been there, sat on you chair, not knowing where to start or what to look at in all of those millions of pages.

I remember that long time ago, I was searching on I don`t remember what and I found http://www.about.com/ . I`ve been discovering it little by little and I`ve realized that has everything that someone might be looking for...from a granny who needs some advice about gardening, to a teacher or maybe parents that are interesting in teen issues. It`s is pretty good!...very helpful to start your research, because it doesn`t provide much info about what you maybe are looking for.

Apart from the one above, I can tell you that there`s another one that it`s being very interesting for me by now...

Few years ago, a friend of mine and his buddies; who are all into music, radio, journalism, films, and literature, founded http://www.paniko.cl/ (he told me to click on that) It provides info about all what is happening in terms of concerts, movie releases, movie reviews, book reviews, etc. Its stuff also comments on current issues that might be interesting for young people, and the readers can give feedback about them by posting.

Since the first time I saw this page, I`ve been informed about new chilean music, writers that I didn`t know, and websites related to this as well.

If you wanna have fun and new topics to talk about...just click on that!

What we should be keeping eyes on...

We all know that technology can be either a great and helpful tool for young people, or a very dangerous "sub world" for them as well. Nowadays, children have access to everything on the web, there are ways to rate what they are expected to look at according to their age, however, it is reallly hard to set limits for them not to see inappropriate material. Even though there are websites aimed for children, most of them create profiles in webpages for older users.

What if we ask about parent`s role...

Even though they know that there are many benefits in the internet use, they don`t want to know about the dangers that it carries. Therefore, if they let their children go online without supervision, they need to know about the risks their children are running.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/02/socialnetworking.ofcom

Tell me what you read...

Even though we haven´t been told to write about another topic, I´d like to start with the kick off to share thoughts about books. Don´t u think it´s a good idea?

I know it is hard to keep reading something of our own interest, apart from all that we have to read for our subjects especially one book called ¨The Commitments¨ (joke for Simon) but we should make an effort, it is not that hard.

Time ago I started reading ¨The Power of Play¨ by Dr. David Elkins. It´s is such a good that talks about the importance of play time in children who, nowadays, live under many pressures. The author reassures, through examples of daily situations, and different kinds of games; where children can develop their skills, that all what they do during play time, would help them in their academic and social skills, and therefore succeed in them. This is because they learn about respect and cooperation, as well as negotiation of rules and taking turns, and many other things. It even shows how parents make desicions for the best of thier children, and how they are influenced by their peers in order to make good ones.

I strongly recommend this book cause it is very easy to read, it also explain situations that you can feel familiar with, and also gives plenty of good ideas for us, as future teachers, to carry out. Let´s be aware that the greatest student´s input come from outside of the classroom, and let´s invite parents to channel play time into a meaningful thing.