my opinion about blogs

1. What is your opinion about using blogs to teach "writing" in EFL classrooms?
It is a very good idea because it is not the same to write in a piece of paper than writing something in your own blog and share it with your classmates or with anyone who wants to read it through the net. Having a blog motivates the student to write in a correct way because he or she knows that somebody else could read it.

2. Do you like working using blogs?
Yes, because it was somemthing new for me, and as I said before this motivate us to improve our English in order to publish well writing pieces of works.

3. What are some of the advantages of using blogs ?
That you can see the works of your other classmates and you can add some comments to them.

4. What are some of the disadvantages?
One disadvantage could be that sometimes the internet doesn’t work.

5. Do you plan to use blogs in the future?
I would like to use them with my students, if I have the opportunity I will work with blogs because I think it is very fun.

6. Do you have any suggestions to improve these "lab sessions"? or was everything all right?

I think this activity was very good planning, but sometimes there were too much things to do and we did’t have enough time to end our works in the blog.

Why is Writing important for an EFL teacher?

Writing is one of the best ways in which teachers can see the development of the language that his or her students are learning. Also with writing students learn how to put in order their ideas. Another important thing is better to learn grammar by writing than speaking, because you see what are you writing. Finally the spelling of words is one of the most difficult things to learn because in English we speak in a way and we write in another one, so for these reasons it is very important to write in English.
“Speaking and listening are natural, and as such do not have to be learned. Most people know how to speak and listen in order to communicate and most individuals can read as well. On the other hand, writing is not natural and it must be learned. Generally, someone has to teach you how to write”. (How to be an Effective EFL Writing Teacher by David Martin)

What is the best way to teach writing to children? to teenagers?
I read a very interesting article which explained us how we as EFL teachers can teach writing to our students in a better way. One important thing that appeared was that we as teachers must help our students to have a possitive attitude to writing, also we have to give them “feasible writing assignments” with very “specific instructions” and it is important to give them opinions and corrections so that they improve in their writing. (How to be an Effective EFL Writing Teacher by David Martin)

To know more you can visit this web site.
http://www.eflpress.com/how_to_be_an_effectwrt_efl.html

What does she like to do on Saturdays?

On Saturdays she likes to go to visit her parents

What is the secret she doesn't want anyone to know?

That she has super powers, she sees the future and the past and she can tell you what is probably going to happen in your life.

What does she think she does well?

She thinks that she is very good predicting the future

What is she NOT very good at doing?

She is very bad doing the washing-up

What is her favorite memory?

When she had to predict Brad Pitt’s future

Why is this watch important to her?

Because with this watch she can hypnotize people.

Who is her best friend?

Her best friend is her mother because is the only one that understands her.

What does she want most in the whole world?
She wants to eat chocolate icecream



Miranda wants to eat a delicious and big chocolate icecream in the living-room of her house, but as Miranda is too fat her mother doesn’t allow her to do that. Because of this she is very complicted and she suffers a lot. Being fat is not a problem for her. But for her mother this is a very difficult situation because she notices her dughter is alone and nobody wants to be with her becuse of her physical appearance.
One day Miranda decides to hypnotize her mother in order to fulfill her wish of eating an icecream. While her mother was watching her favourite soup opera Miranda stands in front of the TV with her watch and starts moving it from side to side and starts counting. After a few minutes her mother fell asleep.
When her mother woke up she realized that Miranda had already eaten the delicious chocolate icecream because her mouhwas covered with chocolate. Miranda’s mother never relized that she was the one who had bought the icecream to her daughter while she was hypnotized.

She is Rebecca Jones, a brilliant student Milton Secondary School . Now Beca, as her family calls her, is studying her last year of High School education. She won a scholarship to study next year Law at Harvard University. For Beca it has been very difficult to study because of her family’s economical problems. But as she is a very good student, her family is doing a big effort to give her the education that she deserves. As Beca is aware of her situation she is studying all the time because she thinks that she can’t fail her parents.
Because of her studies Beca has forgotten a very important thing in her life, this is “having friends”. Her classmates don’t even know her. They only see her when she has to give exams, but they don’t look at her. They just look her exams. The only friends she has are books.
One day Beca started to feel very sad because of this. She saw a group of her classmates planning a party to welcome a new student that was talking with them.
Beca thought that they were not going to invite her because nobody knew that she existed. The new classmate looked at her and noticed that she was a very sad girl. He walked by her side and invited her to the party but when he saw her face he realized that he knew this girl from a long time ago, when they were kids. But he remembered her as a happy and beautiful girl who loved playing with a green ball, so he got closer to her and said, Beca? Are you the same Beca that used to play with me when we were younger? When she turned and saw his face she couldn’t believe it was Daniel Brown, her first and only best friend she had ever had. From this moment on Beca never felt alone again and her life turned from sadness to happiness.

In the dark of the narrow tower stairway, all Mary could do was touch the cold stone wall and climb.
She was afraid of the dark. She was afraid of heights. But she had to go on. She had to find out who had a light on in the top of the tower.
Nobody was supposed to be here. This was her family's castle, but it was in ruins. She had never seen it until today. She and her parents had come to stay on the island for the summer. They rented the little house down by the gate. Mary had been exploring when she saw the light in the tower.
The stairway ahead was no longer black, but a faint gray. She must almost be there. Mary climbed ten more steps and came to a large wooden door. She eased it open.
Nobody was there. In the room, a lantern hung from a wooden beam. A sea breeze blew in through the window holes. There were many old things in the room -- a chest, a table and chair, a globe, and a big black hat with a feather in it. On the table was a large piece of paper that also looked very old. It had many folds in it. Laying across the paper was a shining sword and a half-eaten loaf of bread.
Curious, Mary tiptoed up to the table. The paper was a map. She bent over it. On it she saw a drawing of the castle on the island. On the castle was a big, black X and the words, "My treasure." Treasure? Mary wondered. There's treasure in our castle? Who wrote this?
Just then, a strange, high voice called, "MAN OVERBOARD!" Mary jerked up and spun around. Behind the door, a parrot stood on a perch. It tilted its head and stared at her with shining eyes. Mary sighed with relief. It's only a parrot, she thought. Don't be so jumpy!

Then she heard heavy footsteps coming up the winding stairway, Mary was afraid and she went to hide behind an old door. A big old man with a wooden leg appeared, he looked like a pirate Mary thought, and suddenly the door fell down and the pirate saw Mary. She tried to escape but the pirate took her by his arm. In that moment she thought that she was going to die, she started begging for mercy.
The pirate started to laugh and told her that he was too old and tired to hurt her and also he told her that he was a good pirate and that his name was Capitan Madness but she could call him “old Mad”.
Mary was very confused, because she always thought that pirates were bad persons, but this old man looked like a good grandfather wearing a costume of a pirate. Mary asked him what were all that things in the table and the pirate told her that he was looking for a treasure in the castle and asked her for help. Mary was very excited and she accepted, so they read the map lots of times until Mary realized that she knew the place.
The treasure was hidden long time ago in a place that Mary knew as her own hand, so she took the old man into an old and forgotten garden and she told him to look for the X, suddenly Old Mad started to laugh as a pirate does, and started to yell “here it is little princess, come now!”. Mary ran to the place and they started to dig all day long, until they found a big chest, but it wasn’t heavy said Mary. “What is it?” She asked when the man opened the chest. She only saw her grandfather’s clothes, but she haven’t seen her grandpa for a very long time. Mary, “What are you thinking about, my dear?” She looked at him, and with tears in her eyes she realized that he was her beloved grandpa, at last she had found her treasure.

Move Over, My Pretty, Ugly Is Here.

I liked this article because it was about the good side of ugliness and how ugly people is pushing away the beauty stereotypes.

In the article that I read said that ugliness always has been related with the bad and scary things like horror movies like Freddy Krueger, and also with the antagonist of some stories like the Harry Potter’s arch-enemy, Lord Voldemort and so on. But ugliness has changed its theme from bad and scary things to sweety and common things like those characters that represent life just like it is, like Ugly Betty who is an ugly woman that succeeded working in a company in which all the antagonists are beauty but mean women. And like the example of Ugly Betty we also have Shrek, “who is ugly and green but in a cute way”. The idea of this is to change the beauty stereotype to something more normal, like common people who are not sometimes as good looking as models.

new words:
Awkward: lacking ease or grace (as of movement or expression) .
Plainness: lacking beauty or ugliness

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/fashion/30ugly.html

Persona-Poem

Danielita…
Small, cheerful, funny, and smart
The daughter of her parents
Who loves camping, fresh air, and share with her friends
Who is afraid of the monsters under her bed, the little bees, and her hair in the morning
Who wants to see, the Big Ben, her back, and her future
Resident of nobody knows, but only her
...Roco