Final reflection

I think I’ve improved my level of English because I see an important difference between my first compositions and my last ones.

For example, if I read my first composition, which is About studies, what I first see is that is very squat and made by short sentences without connectors between them. Then, I also see that the vocabulary is not as well as in my last compositions, where I use new vocabulary learnt in class, like in Recording "Patorets" writing. This composition shows my level of English; it is too much longer than my first one and is also better structured: with a little introduction on the top, using new connectors like in order to, and ending with a good conclusion.

I believe that the reason of my improvement on my English level is this way of writing eight compositions per term compulsory in a personal blog. It is very useful because we have the opportunity of practice our writing expression of English and improve it little by little in every composition that we make. We improve looking up new vocabulary on the dictionary or reading our last writings which always have some mistakes that we can correct. We can read them easily because they are already posted in our blog. So, another advantage of this system of having a blog is that we can see our level progress, correct the mistakes if there is any, and what’s the most important, we can write them whenever we want during three month before the deadline.

A part from the blog, there are more activities which I find very useful to learn English, like doing oral presentations or recording podcasts, which makes you improve your pronunciation a lot. But, the thing that I don’t find useful is watching films in Idiom’s class because we don’t have enough time to see them completely and I also think it’s difficult to concentrate you reading the subtitles and listening the film at the same time that people are speaking around you.

Anyway, I enjoyed doing the rest of activities that we did and the one I’d like to repeat again next year is the phrasal verbs play because I think it is a good way to learn and memorize phrasal verbs playing and laughing.

Opinion essay

‘We have almost learnt to respect our world. Do you agree?’

I disagree with the idea that we are responsible or that we respect our planet. In my opinion, we do not take care of our world because we are very used to doing what we want without thinking about the consequences.

It’s true that we have cars, we like travelling and we like buying things. But, we don’t think how it affects the planet. We are cutting down lots of trees in poor countries, and we are polluting with our industries or with our cars, which we do not want to change for bicycles or public transport. Anyway, we are starting to use alternative energies in order to use less petrol which pollutes a lot. I think that it is not enough to respect the planet.

I also believe that we all know the way to respect our planet, but not everybody wants to do it. However, we are in the consumer society, which means that we need to consume to be something in this world. If we consume more, we use more energy and, as a result, we injure the planet.

In addition I think that, in the school, the children learn to respect the planet, but if the parents do not respect it, their children won’t either.

To sum up, I would say that we can do lots more to respect the planet and we can do it in different ways. We have the power to change, to do not injure our little world not only for our lives, also for our children. If we respect nature more, we will not have an injured world.

Podcast

The secret party

(Sally and Kate are in a café)

Kate: Wow! The party was great.

Sally: Oh, yes, I think so! It was fantastic.

Kelly: Hi girls! What are you talking about?

Sally: About nothing, nothing...why?

Kelly: Because I thought you were talking about a party or something like that.

Kate: Really? I think you are wrong Kelly, we were talking about last weekend.

Kelly: I already know this because I've just seen some photos on Internet and you seemed really happy.

Sally: You're right Kelly. We went to the party last weekend. But you weren't invite.

Kate: We don't want you to think that it's our fault because we went to talk with Jimmy.

Kelly: Who is Jimmy?

Sally: Jimmy is the boy who organized the party.

Kate: We tried to convince him but he didn't accept.

Kelly: You're making up excuses.

Sally: You have to belive us. He said that he didn't know you.

Kelly: OK girls, I think you're telling me the truth.

Kate: So, are we making up?

Kelly: Yes, we are.

Sally: Oh, look there. This is Jimmy.

Kate: Oh, oh, Kelly is going to break down.

Kelly: Girls I know Jimmy for years. I didn't realise that you were talking about this Jimmy. Let me talk with him a moment.

Sally: Look he's coming.

Jimmy: Hi girls!

Kelly, Sally and Kate: Get away!!!

(Kate: Júlia Feliu, Sally: Helena Sànchez and Kelly: Gisela Espigulé)

SUMMERCAT

I kissed you good bye at the airport.
I held you so close to me.
I said 'So here we are now and I can't stop from crying Lilly'.
And you said 'Hey hey hoo, you know this is the way to go
You will forget about me when I'm on that plane.
Forget about me when I'm on that plane.'

CHORUS:
Tonight tonight tonight tonight
I wanna be with you Tonight tonight tonight tonight
I wanna be with you tonight

The plane took off and my love went with it.
The chilly wind whipped my both cheeks hard.
And the man next to me said 'Everything is gonna be alright'.
I said 'Nothing is gonna be alright, but thank you anyway'.
And then I saw your face in the airplane window.
I waved my hands and I shouted to you:

[CHORUS]

I wore a T-shirt and my worn out hat.
Abandoned as a summer cat.
And as I stood there as a broken hearted I realized you got the car keys still.
So I broke into my own old car.
I fell asleep on the passenger seat.
I dreamed of summer sex with you and you whispered in my ear:

[CHORUS]
Why can't you leave me tomorrow instead?
Why can't you leave me tomorrow instead?

And above the clouds she said to her self 'I can't believe how naive a man can be.
That's why I love you so and that's why I can't be with you…'

[CHORUS]

(Billie and the vision)

Comment:

This song was the hit of last summer because of the last TV advertisement of Estrella Damm beer, which had this song as a background. However, it was written eight years ago by the group called Billie and the vision.

The advertisement was about a boy who went on holyday to Formentera Island. There, he met two beautiful girls, with whom he spent his holydays. In the island, there was a music group, Billie and the vision, which sang the Summercat song. At the end of the clip, the boy had to come back home and leave this nice holyday. What the advertisement shows is that if you drink Estrella Damm beer you’ll remember nice moments like this.

So, the advertisement is based on the main idea of the song because it’s about a boy who is coming home after a trip and who feels sad because he won’t see the girl that he has fallen in love with any more.

The part of the song that I love and I like to sing is when the singer sings “and the man next to me said 'everything is gonna be alright' / I said 'Nothing is gonna be alright, but thank you anyway”, because when you see that something is going badly and someone, who doesn’t know anything about you, says the opposite, then, you get very angry and feel really sad, so you say thanks to the other person to make him shut up. I think it’s a real situation because I do this many times: “when I’m sad I don’t want anyone to confort me”.

Anyway, the reason I like listening to this song is because it makes me remember my last summer holydays with my friends who always sang this song or put it on their mobiles phones.

News

There’s a platform against the project of making a wind farm in the south coast of Spain and there’s a man, whose name is Alberto Vázquez Figueroa, who talks about the reasons why he’s against this project.

He says that wind energy, nowadays, in Spain, isn’t profitable because we can only use this type of energy when the wind blows as it can’t be stored. But, when we need more energy, in this country, in the summer and at midday, when the wind doesn’t blow. So, why do we build these wind farms? This man answer the question saying that we build them because of some people who are interested in making lots of money, more precisely because of the interests of some politicians and some businessmen. What they get is a lot of money from government subsidies and not for selling this energy; if not, they would lose a lot of money.

The message that Velazquez gives is that this country won’t work well if we continue to allow this corruption of wind farms.

OPINION:

I agree with Vázquez because it's true that we are in crisis and that we don't have enough money to waste on an unnecessary energies like wind energy.

On one hand if we use wind energy means that we are using natural energy that doesn't pollute the atmosphere, but, on the other hand, there is the cost of this energy, which is too expensive compared to the result that we get. So, we should think a little more before we accept building a wind farm in our country. In other words, we have to fight to these types of corruption projects; and, as Velazquez says, we can only solve this problem if we cooperate together picking up firms or going to manifestations.

To conclude, I think everybody has to be well informated about the prize of a wind farm and about where is the money from to pay it. Only if we know the problem , we will act.

Matilda

This is a comedy film from the U.S.A. and is based on Roald Dahl's novel, 'Matilda'.

Matilda is a very intelligent girl who belongs to a stupid family that doesn’t look after her. She learns to read on her own and she loves reading, so when she starts the school she’s the best in the class. At school, Matilda meets her friend and teacher Miss Honey who helps her a lot. The headmistress of the school is Ms Trunchbull, a bad woman who treats the students badly. Matilda has magical powers (she can move things only with her eyes), which she uses to play jokes on her family or on the headmistress of the school.
At the end of the film, Miss Honey adopts Matilda.

When I was younger I used to see this film many times in my free time because I loved it. I said I wanted to be like Matilda and I loved the songs, too. The part that I can remember better is when Matilda puts glue on her father’s hat and then he can’t take the hat off, it’s a really good humourous episode.

I still consider this is the best film that I’ve ever seen.

If you want to laugh, watch it.

*** Fantastic

Summer Holidays

In one month we’ll be in summer, so today I want to talk about summer holidays.

Last July I worked as a waitress in the restaurant called Portal de la Gallarda, which is in Castelló d’Empúries. I worked there all the month, without any free day and working eight hours per day. I used to start at 2:00 p.m. and finish at 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. At first, I liked this job because I had the opportunity to speak other languages like French or English with the customers, but, the second week of work, I started to hate it because I didn’t have any free day, so I couldn’t go to the beach any afternoon! Lucky me I stopped working on August because the owner of the restaurant said he didn’t have enough money to pay me because of the crisis and, because I was the youngest waitress in that restaurant, I was the first to leave. I’ve got to say that the money that I earned wasn’t bad.

I enjoyed the month of August a lot: I went out with my friends, I went to the beach with my boyfriend lots of afternoons and I spent some time at home with my brothers. So, it was fantastic!

As you can see, I didn’t like working as a waitress, but next summer maybe I’ll work in Almata camping as a receptionist if they accept me. Anyway, I prefer to don’t work next summer because I’ve studied very hard in the high school and I also need the summer holidays to do the project work for 'batxillerat'.

To sum up, I’m hoping to finish the classes and to relax.