DIALOGUE

DIALOGUE

[Miquel, Norden and Aina, a group of three friends, were sitting on a table into a bar. They haven’t seen each other for a long time, thus they decide to explain themselves what are their future plans: what they are going to study at university, with whom they are going to share flat next years, etc.]

-Aina: Hi guys! What’s going on?

-Norden: Hello Aina, I’m doing well but I’m tired of my TDR and what’s up with you, Miquel?

-Miquel: I’m fine too, but I don’t want to do the TDR, it is such a long work…

-Aina: Yes I agree with you. I’ think we are in the same nightmare! I have been doing a little bit of my TdR project and I have to say that, even it is a hard work and a heavy one, I am learning lots of things, and overall, I am knowing new points of view about social media world and life. Incidentally, do you already know what are you going to do in a few months?

-Norden: I would like to do something connected with sports. Maybe CAFEM, an education cycle. I have been always passionately in sports, since I was little. I have been practising taekwondo and it has taught me many things in live. Success usually demands commitment, so you can apply these values in other aspects of life. Also you learn how to focus in something and fight for your goals, to not give up even when going gets tough, among others. It can sound a little far out, but trust me when I tell you that sports can contribute in many daily life situations.

-Miquel: You have became an authentic philosopher, haven’t you? It becomes clearer to me everyday, what I want to do. I will go to university and try to get an history degree. This is what I feel so comfortable with. I love history because I like to know our past, you can become a worship person and history is where all comes from. I like to know who faced the music when thing turn into the worst situation and whom fled. So I think it can be interesting and useful in the future, and my opinion is that everybody should have a minimal knowledge of our past.

-Aina: They both seem to be great ideas. In my case, I would also want to go to university, Pompeu Fabra University, and get a business degree. Even I am not enjoying at all business subject this year, because of selectivity pression, I know I was born for numbers and for manage money. I can spend our in front of a paper doing monetary calculations and having new ideas of products that can stand out in the market. So, meeting myself requirements, I think going to Pompeu Fabra, the best university in economic area, I can learn a mount of new concepts.

-Miquel: Ow! Brilliant. Maybe we will meet there. Are you going to share a flat?    

-Aina: Yes. It can be a really good experience and you can know the most deepest part of you. I mean, find out parts you don’t even know about yourself, your weaknesses and you strengths, etc. Maybe, I’m not pretty sure, I will share it with Mariona Isern, from 2nd Batxillerat A. Do you know her?

-Miquel: Yes, Of course! I also want to share flat with my colleagues . I want to change my lifestyle: go out to parties, meet new people, concentrate on studies and live the life.

-Aina: Hahahahah! I see that you are looking forward to it, aren’t you? Actually, I would go so far as to say that those are the plans all teenagers are waiting for impatiently.

-Norden: Hey! I’m still here! Do you want to know about me or shall I leave?

-Norden: Waiter can you give me some water, please?

Waiter: Yes, sure!  “What an annoying group” .

-Miquel: No, no. Don’t be impatient: Tell us about you.

-Norden: Hahaha! Ok. So as you said before, I also want to live the life . So I think I’ll find someone who I could share a flat with and I also want to keep going to gym everyday so i can keep my body in perfect conditions like I’m doing now. Then I’ll come here, to Riumors, with the family, at the weekends, to remember the old times . You are going to come to your family houses too, aren’t you?

-Aina: Yes, family will always be here, so we must come back every weekend just to remember them that they have to clean our clothes hahahha.

No, that’s a joke. If we want to be independent, we have to clean our things.

-Miquel: I absolutely agree with you guys. I think I have to go. It was really good to see you and talk with you. See you soon.

-Norden: Good bye Miquel. See you next day

-Aina: See you Miquel, don’t drink too much tonight at new year party.

Norden, Aina and Miquel

SELF-EVALUATION

Presentation (10%):

-          Do you use any resources? Yes. I have used Prezi with an organized information and complemented with some images. I think iit was easy to follow.

-          Are the resources focused on the topic? Yes. I think I have presented all the information I've been searching during my TdR's project and I have put it in a correct way to make it more clearly.

-          Do the resources support your oral explanation? Yes, because if you lose you speech, just watching it, you are able to find yourself.

-          Is the timing 5-10 minutes? Yes, I have spent about 7 minutes

Body language & eye contact (10%):

-          Are you looking at your audience most of the time? Yes, I think I had been studying myspeech for hours so I was able to explain without a paper helping. Well, almost without watching it.

-          Are you reading occasionally from your notes? Just once, but because I was really nervous. Maybe it can penalize me.

-          Are you doing any gestures/movement to hold the attention of your audience? I am not going to say that I wasn’t moving but I think that instead of moving to hold the attention of the audience, I  was moving because of nerves. In comparison with other presentations, I've improved my body language and maybe because I've already presented it, it was easier for me to move fluently.

Structure (10%):

-          Do you organize your ideas in order of importance? Absolutely yes. I think that the structure of my presentation was pretty good.

-          Do you use discourse makers to make your ideas more clear? I think so. I didn’t use too much of them, but the appropriate ones.

Content (40%):

-          Do you introduce new information to your audience? Although no question had been asked, I think I introduce new information because every single one who presents his Tdr project has given new information.

-          Is your information detailed, clear and…? Yes. Maybe I have introduced some new vocabulary and it is possible that the audience has never heard about those words, but I wanted to improve myvocabulary, so I try to put them on purpose.

-          Do you give/ show examples? I put three example about Influencer benefits, and maybe I could be added more than one. But in the other hand, it is difficult to show examples in this kind of serious presentations.

Language (20%):

-    Is your grammar correct, complex? I have chosen some new words to make it more interesting but I also have tried to keep our english level and speak in my usual vocabulary. I commit some mistakes in my grammar expression, for example, like my teacher said, it is "could speak" instead of "could spoke".

-          Is your vocabulary rich, varied? Like I said before, when I was doing the presentation at home, I had to search new words because I didn't know how to translate them from catalan to englsih.

-          Do you use sentence linkers? Pretty much.

-          Do you use fillers? Just in few occasions. I have to try to improve my "mmhh..., umm..." because it appeared that I don't know how to follow the sentence.

Pronunciation & Intonation (10%):

-          Do you know how to pronounce all your words? Did you check the pronunciation? I tried to pronounce new words correctly but it’s hard to say it well when you never have used it. Even though, my teacher said that I had to improve my pronunciation, so I'm listening the Tv in english everyday, hoping it becomes better.


-          Do you change your tone of voice or use monotone tone all the time? Do you speak in a fluid continum or with breaks and interruptions? I think I changed the tone of voice more frequently but after heard me in a video, I don’t think I have do it frequently, just in few occasions.

After this revision I consider that I have made a good presentation, with a very good structure and content, and I have shared all what I have learnt with the audience.


Finally I evaluate myself with this marks:

-          Presentation : 10 % out of 10%
-          Body language & eye contact: 9% out of 10%
-          Structure: 10% out of 10%
-          Content: 40% out of 40%
-          Language: 18% out of 20%
-          Pronunciation & Intonation: 9% out of 10%

TOTAL: 96% out of 100% = 9,6 out of 10

LINGUISTIC INVESTMENT

Two years ago, I went to Ireland with a travel company because I wanted to do a linguistic investment. I have to say that it was a really good experience but, the problem was that I shared the trip, the classes and all the activities with people from Catalonia and Spain, so we spoke almost all the time in Catalan or Spanish.

So this is what brings me to talk about traveling into another country. I love traveling, and I think I repeat it in almost every post I do, but when my parents said that I would go to Ireland I was really exciting.

At first I thought it would be difficult to integrate into the group because I was traveling alone, but everybody was super kind and there wasn’t any problem for meeting new people.

Using Ireland experience as a reference, I would like to repeat it again, but I would change something. I would like to travel alone and without any company, I mean, going in a foster family and feeling the obligation to speak all the time in English. I think this is the best way to improve my English and maybe I can meet people from that country (if it’s possible, from USA, my dream destination) and get in contact with them, having the opportunity to travel again to the country and having the chance to offer my house to them, to bring them into my country and share with them all we have here. In other words, carry out an exchange.

It is possible that my obsession to travel and meet new experiences has led me to really want to find a job in which I can travel a lot and meet people from every country. I like to listen about different life and learning lots of worthy things we don’t appreciate here, seeing different points of view, and open my main to become more creative and innovative.

Concluding my text, I would say that do an exchange could be interesting if you travel completely alone, or if you make sure that you aren’t going to talk in your native language with those who are going to travel with you. And in my opinion, the best option is to be in a foster family, because there isn’t any other way to communicate with them than speaking English. And finally, you must choose a place you know you would like to visit, because getting out and discovering the city you can learn a lot of vocabulary and colloquial expressions which, after all, make your English more authentic.

NEWS

REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST'S FORGOTTEN VICTIMS

In Friday 27 of January 2017, International Holocaust Memorial Day was celebrated.

Although they defended people who died in death camps (mainly Jews, but also Roma, political prisoners and others), they also remembered people who were killed in the Nazi project “Aktion T4”, where disabled and ill people, even they were German, were gassed.

Anna Lehnkering, 24 year-old girl, and Ernst Putzki, were two victims of this project, and they their families talked in the name of their dignity.

Lots of people declare this act as the trigger of the big Holocaust that followed it and they have the same opportunity to be remembered like anyone else who were killed in those hell.

I found this publication really interesting because my school class and I went to German last year, and it was an educational trip. So we went to, approximately, three death camps and we also visit Hartheim Castle, which was the place where Nazis killed lots of people like Anna Lehnkering and Ernst Putzki, with disabled and ill people were murdered.

They talked us about the project “Aktion T4” and, even though I was really shocked about all the people who died in death camps, it impacted me to see that Nazis killed people of the same nationality.

Finally, I would like to say that it is a very good approach to celebrate this International Day in order to avoid this people to be buried. It has to remain for years and we don’t have to let dignity’s people die with their unfairly killed bodies.

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38773057

NEWS

THE READERS CHOOSE THE BEST YEAR SCIENCE

This 29 of January 2017, 8 investigations have been nominated for Vanguardia Science’s Award in this 7th edition.  

They are 3 of biomedicine field, 2 of fundamental biology, 2 of economics science, and one of physics. Vanguardia readers would be able to vote the investigation they consider the most interesting.

The award was created for Grupo Godó and the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera with the aim of giving visibility to Spain investigations. They consider that athletes and artists, they sometimes are better known than great scientists and offering the chance to vote for them, they give them the possibility to be well-known.

The eight finalists are: “Una estrategia contra la metastasis” of Salvador Aznar-Benitah and Gloria Pascual, “Vencedores y víctimas de la globalización” of Luigi Pascali, “Rejuvenecer los tejidos envejecidos” of Pura Muñoz-Cánoves and Laura García-Prat, “Nueva técnica para obtener electricidad” of Gustau Catalan, “Terapias para enfermedades autoinmunes” of Pere Santamaria, “El núcleo de las células genera energía” of Miguel Beato and Roni Wright, “Por qué se mantiene la brecha entre sexos” of Miguel Beato and Roni Wright and “La carrera de armamentos de las bacterias” of Francisco M. Mojica and Cristóbal Almendros.

All of them have been singled out by an advisory committee with the representation of highlighted institutions of scientific community.   

It is a Spanish news but I was reading the Vanguardia’s headlines and I came across with this interesting one.

It was really interesting to read all of the investigations, where you can get on by clicking the link of every investigation title, and see how our society is developing many worthwhile facts, and also to place value on fields that aren’t really known around the society.

Boost science researches instead of sports news, in my view, is value things that have a value of its own.

And finally I would like to say that, for me, the most interesting research was “Rejuvenecer los tejidos envejecidos” of Pura Muñoz-Cánoves and Laura García-Prat, because it can provides advantages in a near future and it is something that they have been investigating during a wide period of time. 

Link: http://www.lavanguardia.com/ciencia/20170129/413693003687/prenio-vanguardia-de-la-ciencia-2017.html