Seventh Task

SECOND WRITTEN:

The importance of getting involved in grammar

 

Grammar is the backbone of any language and, not having it, any single thing you know could be flux, in a sort of jelly without much consistency. It also provides you with the necessary structure to set or organize and put your ideas, thoughts or “whatsoever” across. It is the “railway” by which any message is transported and then delivered to another. If it were not exist, you wouldn’t be able to convey your ideas because there’s not a way to pass them on. It means, whether you are second language users or not, going in deep really matter.

Now, in regards  the way it is taught, well, there are a lot of things that, might be, are going to turn many people around. Being instructed in grammar in our nowadays is a tough task due to education just has been focused on two main scenarios: the grammar as everything and context as main means. The first one is related to language’s formal structure and some lacks in contextualization of meanings; the other is just the “communicative” approach and how the context is the main means of expressing. So it has meant many people just get involved in the use of one these and fail at the other.  Finally, the results are a mass of misunderstandings and people falling in filatures that has to do with any language learning process.  In fact, there should be a balance in structure, context and language acquisition in order to cause a great and joyful experience in grammar practicing.  

Sixth Task

Idioms

This week we were getting involved into the world of idioms. As many of you may know, these are very common in other languages due to every culture's needs. It means each one is allowed to express its own wisdom by suitable statements. Now, here I let some English idioms and few explanations: 

Hit the road: this common idiom has two meanings. The first one is to begin or  to start traveling in an automobile or another road vehicle (if she’s going to make it by dawn, she’d better hit the road); the second one is to go away (hit the road and do not come back anymore, man!). Its equivalents in Spanish could be (in our paisa slang): “abrirse, largarse, pisarse; empezar.”

Tie one’s on: it means to drink alcohol excessively until the point of getting drunk (Mary tied her on after the party). The equivalent can be: “estar copetudo/copetón”.

Bite the Dust: this is a very common uphemism and has two meanings, as well: to die (my wife finally bit the dust after two endless days); to quit or fail from something (Eliot has bitten the dust because he thought it was enough). In Spanish may be like: “tirar la toalla; colgar los guayos”.

For a song: you shout for a song when something was cheaper or almost for free (we got it for a song). Its equivalent could be: “por nada; no valió nada; regalado”.

Have a Cow: it means to overreact or get angry because of something (he always has a cow when everybody speaks aloud). In our paisa slang can be: “estar/ponerse como un tití; estar/ponerse como una fiera; ser PA-TI-CO”.
 

Fifth Task

“We wander for distraction, but we travel to fulfillment”

  - Hilaire Belloc

Human beings, as per-nature-travelers, truly feel thrilled when they are traveling. Everyone has, even once, a desire of get-away and stays in other places just for a while.

Tatiana Chiquito

Laura Isaza

This week I was really delighted interviewing two “academic peers”. The first lady was Tatiana Chiquito. She was born here, Colombia, but she spent almost her entire live – at least her studies -, living in Milan, Italy. She is Colombo-Italian. She under graduated from a linguistic institution with emphases in English, German and; the second lady, Laura Isaza, is from here, Medellín, but after she graduated from high school at the age of 13, she started to travel abroad several times: she’s been in UK, Canada, US, and Argentina. She has studied Cuisine at Mariano Moreno Institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina;  fourth semesters of Industrial Design at UPB and a Minor in Graphic Design from SENA; now, she’s studying Physics at Universidad de Antioquia (in fourth semester) and Bachelor’s Degree at UPB (“ a rare kind-of seventh semester” , as she explains”). As life-long travelers, both agree that the experience of journeying is simply overwhelming (in positive terms). It has meant, for them, to be in touch with diverse cultures and spend time with many people who have many differences in comparison at the way they were raised and, the very best thing: learning countless manners from each culture, such as feeding differently, adjusting their vocabulary according to the place, and behaving.

Furthermore, in relation with their last updates on each one curriculum, both have got deep experiences by teaching. Tatiana was working on a kinder garden at a Military school; Laura worked in school where she took over a course for physically challenged children. So that is why she got involved in education; therefore they carried on this specify degree.

Finally, there’s another thing missed to say: “A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” – John Steinbeck.

 Questionnaire

1. Where would you like to travel abroad and why?
2. Is Colombia a good place for studing a degree?
3. Do you like or have you ever heard the term "Journey Literature"? whether yes or not, please what spring your mind where you read it?

 

Fourth Task

Music of the heart (1999)

 

This is very well-known movie, which its starring, Meryl Streep, portrays a remarkable person called Roberta Guaspari. She is a violin teacher who struggles to achieve a dream, an impossible dream (for those who are afraid of). As a sequel of an Academy Award’s best documentary feature nominated (1995): Small Wonders; a person from the real world, Roberta, founded a program for kinds named Opus 118 Harlem School of Music.

Educators have always had to defend their own position against many outside facts, such as: a tough environment, a well-structured system, and, most of all, each one particular story. Besides, the way everyone teaches might become in kind-of barrier for their endeavor, if they do not realize that the context and students respond to diverse needs and claims. It has meant teachers cannot reach what they have set as an achievement indicator for their work due to wrong methodologies. Roberta is a very interesting example of those teachers who, against many circumstances, struggles for raising these kinds at Harlem School.  At the beginning, she has no idea of how to handle the situation because of an inaccurate and closed teaching method that do not helps to manage this context where she is emerged. Then, after a long transition of failures and many advices, she understands how they, the kinds, need to be taught. On the other hand and bringing back the context, she has got involved on an extra-curricular program that is taken for granted by the School’s budget; therefore, the efforts are not seemed as truly worthy. Finally, she succeeds on her endeavor of creating something endless after a big and exhaustive fight. Now, in attempt of contextualizing this example, few teachers has won on "battlefield”. Improper outside outlooks and many other circumstances have been against them. In fact we, as future educators, ought to “play from the heart”.

So this is a questionnaire for you, readers,

1.     On a tough context, what would it be a good method of teaching for any subject? (In base of the Trailer)

2.     What do you think about “play from the heart”? (From a proper way of teaching)

3.     From what teacher did you learn the most?

 

Trailer:               

 

Third Task

“Professor Adriana, professor Serna and I are the linguistics”

An interview to professor Olga Arbeláez

 

On wdnesday I got the opportunity of interviewing one of our remarkable professors in the Faculty of Education, Olga Arbeláez. She coordinates Etnoeducation program and teaches to some indigenes communities, as well, the subject: Introduction to Linguistic. 

As some may not know, the Etnoeducation program teaches to the indigenes communities being aware of writing through IPA¹. So the program, itself, it is on task of helping to design a Phonetic Alphabet for these people because of a highlighted importance of perceiving these languages. However, professor Olga thinks this is a big deal because the endeavour on this project is turning tough due to some facts on the process. She lays out this semester, she had to invite professor Serna to her class because her students asked to her a lot questions that had to do with transcription and IPA. Why? Well, --as she can interpret--, some misunderstandings and lack of information by Summer Institute of Linguistics have made more exhaustive the process.

 On the other hand, she has gotten much knowledge from them and her experience there. She learnt there’s another Emberá family: Esperarada Siapidara Emberá. In particular the ways they greet have some variations in transcription terms. She explains it is because one those families is son of a linguistic and the other ones are children of another linguistic, as well; those families’ tongues come from the same root but this variations in base of transcription terms, turn pretty difficult a well appropriation of the study of these languages.

 Besides, Etnoeducation Program by compound by some subjects, such as : Language and Culture, Introduction to Linguistic, and Linguistic Analysis. This bachelor’s degree has a distance modality; therefore they only have 32 of 64 hours by attendance class divided in 4 days long. Professors that lead this program as well as Olga are: Adriana Álvarez and Juan Manuel Serna. “Professor Adriana, professor Serna and I are the linguistics”, she highlights.

Finally, she remarks the context in which these communities live in. she considers that this experience, itself, has changed her life-outlook and the way she teaches. She says that when you are there, in those places, every single person is unique universe: the diversity is everything, even for them because each one from a tribe has a different way of being, way of thinking.

Questionnaire

1.     Do you consider these programs contribute to change our outlook in transformation terms?  

2.     How we, the outsiders of these communities, ought to remain these programs?

3.     Have you ever one take into account to study a degree like this?

 

 

 ^{1.               International phonetic Alphabet}  

Second Task (p2)

QUESTIONNAIRE

 

Paradise - Coldplay 

• What springs your mind when you listen to the following  stanza (5 thoughts at least):

“So lying underneath those stormy skies, she’d say: ‘I know the sun must set to rise’”.   

•  Have you ever consider the life as a Paradise?

• “Music is the soundtrack of your life.” – Dick Clark. Could this quote becomes an encouraging way of thinking? Why?

 



Second Task (p1)

FIRST WRITTEN:

"Paradise and The Emotions"

Many teenagers (and some children), in school-term, start to find out the influence of feelings in their learning process. In some circumstances the system, Educational System, fails because of a state of mind follow-up lack. It means the only thing that really matters, the most, is a learning process throughout academic content. So what about the feelings in that learning process? It seems too blurry.  It´s very important to educate them, the students, in feeling take-care.

In order to make sense on what it said, there’s a stanza from Paradise - Coldplay .

“When she was just a girl,  she expected the world.
But it flew away from her reach
and bullets catch in her teeth.
Life goes on,
It gets so heavy,
The wheel breaks the butterfly.
Every tear a waterfall.
In the night, the stormy night,
She closed her eyes.
In the night,
The stormy night,
Away she’d fly” (2^nd stanza)

Well, it sounds quite encouraging. Here it seems a situation, in which an ordinary girl is  on a endeavour of overcoming a “challenge” because she understands how the world works, and also, it is really worthy to give a try to that reality. Therefore, she is seeing the world by a different outlook and then she creates a new atmosphere to live in.

It is a fact, in Colombia many students – teenagers in general – commit suicide because they never learnt how to handle their own feelings along their growing up process; in high school they never were taught on taking care of what they felt; and, even worst, the teachers usually do not get involved in their student’s dilemmas due to the system bans that kind of relations between teachers and students.

From my personal point of view, Music eases my strain. Music by itself affects our perspective of life as well as school changes our thoughts because both reflect different way of thinking, indeed. In addition, my learning process in school was overcharging, as well: Everything had to do with our future as an individuals but nothing had any relation with how we should face the real world.  Fortunately, I had some teachers that encouraged me to overcome many difficulties even knowing that System forbidden them to act like that. At the end, I got by and I could achieve many life's aims.

Right now, I am studying my bachelor's degree and by this written I want you to beware of feeling follow-up in learning process. On the other hand, the effects of feeling lack of inside the System. What truly matter is our teenagers will be able to face their world, their reality, confidently.


Dear Reader, I would like to know how you feel in relation it with what it is said here. So, please, in your comment, take into consideration these three aspects:

1. An objective viewpoint
2. Our reality inside of the schools
3. Ways to resolve these kind of issues.