The Final Assignment!

This year our English teacher Chelsea encourages us to create a blog as a new method or technique of evaluation and learning. This is a very original idea, because in our times is more and more important to know how to use and learn about new technologies. Also, this a kind of subversion to the traditional learning techniques of the classroom.To use a blog aids on the construction of fun and interesting courses.

At first, it was very difficult to adapt to this new technique, because I only knew about the teacher-centric model of education. It took me time to learn about the elements of a blog and tenchiques. Our teacher every week gave us a new homework to do: to write on our blog about something frequently related to our career. This was very useful, because when she allowed us to write about our interests I think we felt more and more motivated to do homeworks, and this correlates as a increases of English learning. The comments that Chelsea wrote in our blogs were very useful and stimulating, because it gave us feedback one-on-one. It was great also because we have a lot of work and extra-work from our university course, and with whis kind of homework we were free to do it not strictly the same day: we could do someday of the week.

I think that blogs and other multimedia are very useful techniques in the classroom as learning techniques. They are new of course, and so on, they need to be experimented and tested for we to know if we can increase a better learning of English. I think there are no doubts about it. The step from a teacher-centered education to a student-centered education is great, I think that It is better in all senses.

Assignment 6 - Film Review

Kikujiro no natsu (El verano de Kikujiro)

I only have one word to describe this film: “sweet “ : as all films of Takeshi Kitano.

Kikujiro is and unlikely candidate to take a naïf 8-year-old boy on a adventure to find the mother of the boy that he has never meet. They travel through contemporany Japan (country side) where they meet many weird people. The duo’s adventure takes them from races to and abandoned high, class hotel and even to a gangster carnival. The purpose is to find the mother of the child. But almost all movie is about how Kikujiro and others characters have fun with the child, how Kikujiro entertains the child. The movie is about the beautiful lost childhood.: simple and no-sense child games.

The good points of this movie are: 1) it’s is funny. A special kind of comedy: slow and smart one. 2) it’s interesting because it let us to know more about a totally different culture: Japan. 3) It’s like a trip to childhood: a resurrection of child-games, fears and hopes. And the bad ones: 1) The course of the movie is very slow 2) Because it’s is Japanese it’s doesn’t let us know about the language tricks and games 3) the ending of the movie is very-very sad.

Director: Takeshi Kitano.

Takeshi Kitano as Kikujiro, Yusuke Sekiguchi as Masao, Kayoko Kishmoto as Kikujiro’s Wife, Yuuko Daike as Masao’s mother, Kazuko Yoshiyuki as Masao’s Grandmother, and others.

Assignment 5 - Evaluate a classmate's blog

This assignment consists in writing about a classmate’s blog. I chose Lukaa’s Blog (click here to visit his blog: http://ldenglish.blogspot.com).

Lukas’s blog is very interesting, first of all, because he is very interesting in psychoanalysis, as well I’m. He has a lot of interesting links, a lot of them linking psychoanalysis sites. Also, he links very interesting movies and paintins. The description that he writes is very clear and simple. The desing of his blog is simple and clear too. This is very useful, because is easy to read and beauty to watch. In contrast, the first desing that he created was dark and sad, the actual is fine (not to simple not to complex). The use of color I think is perfect, light green, blue and beige.

The numeration and the use of pictures is good: it causes to visit frequently to know if he has update it: this is always good, a good symptom of excellent content and desing: the perfect match (an optimum between spirit and flesh).

Assignment 4 - Fiestas Patrias

My holiday vacation was a mix of rest and a lot of fun.

First of all, the two first day of my week-vacation I dedicated it to rest. I was very tired of university work and other stuff that I’m interesting on. So, I slept almost all day. Then I wished to have fun, so with a couple of friends of mine we went to Valdivia, where a I have some family. I have never been in Valdivia until that day: It caused me a very good impression: it’s beautiful. And the cold weather is just perfect: i love it. So, me and my friends by day were tourists, buying souvenirs and taking photos to plants and recollecting them. We were in search of a mysterious mushroom (because one of my friends is like a mycologist) but we didn’t find it. By night we did have fun: party and music. We were almost all week in Valdivia sleeping a little, acting like tourist and having fun. We came back to Santiago I think 18 of sept.. I was so tired that I slept all day, next day in my house we prepared Chilean food and stuff like that.

Assignment 3 - A work of art

Madonna of rocks
Leonardo da Vinci

This portrait is a masterpiece painted by Leonard da Vinci.

In this picture, we can see Virgin Mary, Uriel (with his pointed fingers), baby John and baby Jesus. This painting was one of the most intriguing religious scenes to date, and of course, it caused a lot of commotion: because of its complex symbols of Christianity.

I saw for the first time this piece of art when I was 15 years old: I don’t remember where I saw it, but I know that it caused me a lot of things for the first time: I was so impress of the beauty of the faces, body, rocks, etc. Every little detail was painted with the same technique: “sfumato”. I even didn’t kew who was the artist, but since that, I was converted into a fan of that masterpiece: I remember that I bought a paper-copy of that art piece, and i put it in the front of my book.

Since today I enjoy watching this picture, not only because the beauty of it, I think I enjoy it so much because It makes me remember about when I was a teenager

Second Assignment: Career-Related Article Summary

Polyphasic sleep: facts and myths
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm

By Dr Piotr Wozniak

This articles debates about true facts and myths that has been told
about polyphasic sleep. The author says that there are a lot of papers
and works about polyphasic in the internet but he discredits the
information as false. In fact, he doesn't consider any paper as true,
for him, almost all information of polyphasic sleep is false. Then he
introduces the concept of Polyphasic sleep, polyphasic schedules, and also some
debate about the decision of sleep or no to sleep polyphasic (a lot of
references),then he writes about the bad effects that it could have to
implement polyphasic sleep as a life style, like less creativity, but
specially he refers to the bad health effects that it should have
polyphasic sleep. The he criticizes all information about the posible
polyphasic sleepers geniuses like Da vinci, Jeferson, Napoleon and so
on. Like a conclusion he copy&paste some texts of polyphasic sleepers
and makes fun of them.

first assingment

Y chose the website of Kirai: www.kirainet.com

He is a Spanish guy living in Japan since long-time ago. I enjoy to visit his web-site because i love japanese culture. I felt atracted to that mysteriuos culture where all is upside-down, from the write (kanjis) to the rite of drink tea. It does 2 years since i writted in google: cultura japon vida cotidiana. Now, I visit that site many times, because I'm a lot more interesting in Japan than i have been 2 years ago.

I visit kirainet almost every time that i have connection to the internet, this mean, almost everyday. He updates his site almost every day with a lots of interesting things of japan like: common foods, habits, technology, a many others! I like the site because it is writed by a common-man who enjoys simply things like: food, the nature of japan, its rites, etc. All of them are that I love too.