FINAL REFLECTION- my english competence

I think that my best oral evidence is a video I did in London with Fran.
http://frapu17portfolio.blogspot.com/2010/05/londons-oral.html
Many other people did this task aswell, and I'm sure they will say it's there best oral evidence too because you're in an english speakers country speaking freely in english.

I think that there are many posts on my blog that are good, but mabey my best written evidence is a Dialogue between two friends.. http://waterskijake.blogspot.com/2010/05/dialogue.html
I think it's my best writing because in a short space of time I was able to correctly write a dialogue with varied vocabulary.


Thanks very much Sonia for your dedicated work to the subject of English, even if it's tough stuff!!

internet explorer is losing it's grip on society

The complaints about Microsoft's Internet Explorer are many. There have even been campaigns to get rid of it completly ecause it's so useless.

But despite all the haters of Internet Explorer, it has always been on top. For example in 2002 95 percent of all computers use the internet via this product that comes with your computer when you buy it. And even today it remains dominant, but Google and Mozilla Firefox are catching up.

Firefox now makes up 25% of the market, and google is up to 7 percent, 5 % more than last year. All Internet explorer is doing is losing. Professionals say that, even if Internet explorer are to bring out a new version of itself, there has been to much advertisment for google and other alternatives.

Which is quite good because many people don't even know what a browser even is(if your reading this and you don't know what a Browser is, don't feel bad ;))

Do you think IE is losing in the market? What browser do you prefer? why?

2 favorite teams

Ahh, just a little entry about my favorite football teams, Chelsea and antibarça(Real madrid)

Last weekend Chelsea had one way to take the title, by beating Wigan at home. the match started off really well, with a red-card to one of the Wigan defenders, in at first half with a 2-0 lead. The second half was brutal by chelsea, scoring 6 goals to won the Premiership in style, Manchester United in second. By winning 8-0 Chelsea acomplished what no other team had before, by scoring 100 goals in a premiership season. Also, Didier Drogba, the Chelsea striker took the golden boot for most goals scored during the season, scoring 3 in the match and beating Manchester's Wayne Rooney by one goal.

Real Madrid's situation is not so good at the moment , they have 95points, 1 point behind Barcelona, and there's ONE match left. It's amazing really how Madrid can have so many points and not win, the level in the Spanish league is dominated by Madrid and barcelona, with Vilareal 30 points behind. All we can do is hope::..

London Quiz

1. Find the Rosetta Stone. Why is it so important?
Because it made possible to translate Egyptian into Greek.

2. What's the most popular food in London?
Fish and chips.

3. What time do pubs close? What happens when the bell rings in a pub?
It depends on which license pubs have, either they are night pubs, day pubs, or both. When the bell rings it's time to get out.

4. What's an ale?
Its an alcoholoc beverage which contains a high level of alcohol.

5. Name six of the most common ingredients in a traditional English breakfast.
scrambeld eggs, toast, baked beans, bacon, sausage, black/white pudding...

6. The Globe Theatre: is it the same theatre where Shakespeare used to perform his plays? What happened?
It is not the same place because the real Globe theatre burned down.

7. What's the real nome of China Town street?
Gerrard Street.

8. Why are there so many ravens kept in the Tower of London? What do they do to them so as they don't escape?
It's the result of an old legend that says if the ravens leave the kindom would fall.

9. Have you seen any Beefeaters? What do they do? What's their real name? Where does the name Beefeater originate from?
Yes, they are the guardians of the tower of London. their real name is Yemon Warders. Their origin is uncertain.

10. Can you buy a living animal in Harrods? Which one?
There are actually dog's for sale.

11. What is one of Harrods most important customers?
anybody with some spair change

12. Establish the relationship between Diana and the owner of Harrods.
The owner of Harrod's son was Diana's boyfriend

13. Where do Londoners celebrate the welcoming of the New Year?
In Trafalgar Square.

14. Who was Nelson? Where can you fins his statue?
He was the admiral for England in a war against great Britain. His memorial statue can be found on the middle of Trafalgar Square on a 60 meter high base.

15. Find a Greek God in Picadilly Circus. What's his name?
Eros, the God of love.

16. Name at least four wax figures you can see in Madame Tussaud's.
President Obama, Jackie Chan, Victoria Becham, Elvis Presley, Tiger Woods...

17. What's the other name given to the London underground?
The Tube

18. Where was Sherlock Holmes supposed to live?
On 221B Baker Street.

19. What are the London Dungeons? What did Londoners use them for?
It's a place where thieves and murderes went, it was used for torture.

20. What is the newest bridge across the Thames called? Who designed it?
It's the Millenium Bridge designed by Norman Foster.

21. Where does the Big Ben take its name? What is it?
It's the great Bell of the clock at the north end of the palace of westminster.

22. Find all about the Union Jack.
It's the flag of the UK that unites the 3 countries formes by it; Wales, Scotland and England.

23. What does the Monument represent?
It's a reminder of the Big fire of London.

24. Find the Serpentine in Hyde Park, what is it?
When you reach the serpentine it divides into a fork in the road.

25. Add three of your own discoveries.
-The culture and general ways of life are more satisfactory than many other countries.
-Public transport is amazonly on time and very usefull (subway, bus, taxi, bicycle..)
-Coffe is a major part in a londoners day.

NEWS2

VIDEO NEWS CNN
Making gas from garbage
Hunna Fati makes cooking gas out of his own garbage. Kitchen scraps, stale tea, some tap water, anything he can find. With this he outs it into a homemade biomass unit on his roof. The kitchen waste goes to the bottom of the basin and makes methane gas, which roses to the top, through a tube and into his cooker, giving him two hours cooking time a day. After many days of putting kitchen waste in the basin, it tirns into good organic fertalizer. His project is sponsered by a big american company called Solar cities. Hunna also thought himself english from old news papers and when he's done he uses them to make his cooking gas.
He also built a solar waterheating system for his hot waterwhich cut his electricity bill in half. His goal is to become completly self reliant. He has even made a solar radio from bits he found in the trash.

DIALOGUE

>

Write a dialogue between 2 friends. One is trying to persuade the other to go for a popular mind-body therapy for his/her illness.

Ben: Good morning John

John:Hey Ben , how's things? And how's your chemo coming on?

Ben: Ahh i'm fine, today I have to go to the hospital for more treatment, which is supposed to make me feel better but I always feel so weak and sick afterwards.

John: I'm not spprised, it's no joke you know, having cancer and all. I'm sure you'll pull through.

Ben: thanks John

John: No problem mate. You know I went to a great place that treats mind and body near the Primaary school. I went there because a friend told me that they have treatments for high-blood pressure.

Ben:You never told me you had high blood pressure

John: (sniggers) Yeah I do, but I went there for a few sessions and they fixed me right up.

Ben: Oh, that's good.

John: why don't you go there and try it out.

Ben: Oh, I don't thik si, I don't think they could help me.

John: Of course they can, and I know you don't like things like this , but listeb. I met a girl in there who is having chemotherapy, like you, and she said that it made her feel a lot stronger, like she had more energy. I think that you should try it. You've done nothing but sit around for the past few months.

Ben: I don't know John, are'nt those places made just to give you false hope and make money, like fortune tellers?

John: I'm seriously telling you Ben, go and try it.

Ben: John, I just came down here to have a nive breakfast before going to the hospital, now, can you let me finish?

John: Tell you what, I'll leave the number here and i'm gone, see you later Ben.

Ben: See ya John (Ben finishes his breakfast , takes the number, and leaves)

NEWS 1

http://edition.cnn.com/video/

Georgia has its own language and its own alphabet which sets ot apart from its neighbouring countries. They are a very religious country and still maintain precious documents from way back in 500AD in special archives. It's alphabet is very similar to the greek one. In the archives that hold many scriptures mainly transcribed by monks that makes them very religious. They hold scripts from three diferent revolutions from the fifth, ninth and eleventh centuries. Their language is so central to their lives Georgians quote that ''he who loses their language loses their identity.

Letter to parents from Cameroon

Dear Mom and Dad

I have just arrived in Cameroon today, i'm in my tent now and it's HOT!!! I was brought to the town earlier in the day where my patients were waiting for me. The situation here is'nt as bad as I thought it would be. Most of the population here are in good health, although there are some malnourished children that can be treated during the next few weeks with food and accesable water. There is one woman also that is in a bad shape , we think she mught be infected might HIV. So I took a blood sample and we'll see the results in the morning.

All in all the people here are really polite . When we arrived most of the town were standing at the entry waiting to welcome us. I even got goosebumbs when they started cheering and shaking my hand because someone finally has come to help them. I am just happy for them because this state of life is unacceptable really in this day and age. I'll send you another letter at the end of the week to tell you how things are getting on

Take care and see you soon!

Maranello’s new ride

Despite the fact that the money is haemorrhaging from the Arab Emirates faster than the oil it's built on, Ferrari is about to open its very own theme park in Abu Dhabi.

Two years in the making, Ferrari World will be a gigantic, tasteless altar to greed and consumption, a shrine to everything that's a bit sickly about having too much money and nowhere sensible to spend it.

Ferrari World is the largest indoor theme park on Planet Earth, with a 60 x 40m prancing horse on the roof, just in case you actually are navigating your way here from deep space.Among the 20 rides on offer inside will be an F1 experience that claims to hit speeds of 125mph and provide punters with the opportunity to feel the same sort of G-Forces that a driver endures at race speeds. This we like. On paper.Less convincing is the F430-based rollercoaster in which cars that look a tiny little bit like F430s will go head-to-head in a race that obviously isn't really a race.

There will also be six restaurants on site, all of them selling different types of Italian cuisine. Restaurants and rollercoasters. That classic combination.

snow day

I think the fact that it snowed in the province of Girona and left me 5 days withought electricity deserves an entry to my blog.

I had been at least 8 years since I had seen snow like this (not counting when I went to ski in the mountains of course) I remember when I was a kid in Irelend and it snowed enough so that we cold go up a little hill behind our house and slide down it.
This time it wasn't as fun...
When the snow hit I was playing a two player game on the playstation with my brother when suddenly the power went off. I knew it had been snowing, but when I got up and looked out the window it was a storm. I couldent believe it, my brither and I went outside to play in the snow and make a snow-man, usual things. Little did I know that I would be left withought power (playstation) for the next 5 days.
It was a real experience, I made my coffe on the barbaque, my dinner and my lunch. I didn't realise how much we depend on electricity, during the day I did'nt know what to do. So I even read a book, and studied next to candle light.

Anyway I really enjoyed the snow, and wish that it would come back a liitle lighter and more often.

self-evaluation

Comment
Presentation
To present my oral presentation I used a Power point that had photos related to my project and to help me during the presentation. The title of my project was Waterskiing , focusing mainly on the rules of the three disiplines. In this presentaiton I was less nervious but i took nearly 8minutes. So in my next presentation i will have to be more selective.

Body language and eye contact
I didn'e have to read my notes during the presentation because I had previously prepared it at home. I was constantly moving and making gestures, but I looked a lot at the power point, and i mainly looked at only one sector of the class.

structure
I had to reduce and take out a lot of information for this presentations and focus on the main topics of this project. I spoke of the 3 events of waterskiing, leaving aside the other work I did about the green-peace and contamination.

content
All the information that i said was new for the audience and I tried to make as interesting as possible to that they understood the concept of Waterskiing. The information I gave was clar, with the help of videos i explained the complex rules of this sport.

language
The vocabulary I used was correct for this sort of presentation. I made it easy to understand and I also introduced diferent words realted to the sport.

pronunciation
My pronunciation was good, i tried to slow down this time so to make it easier understand my accent. I spoke quite fluently

evaluation

Presentation 10%	10
Body language 10%	19
Structure 10%	9
Content 40%	40
Language 20%	19
Pronunciation 10%	10
TOTAL 100%	97%

the hangover

Now this is what I'm talkin' about. "The Hangover" is a funny movie, flat out, all the way through. Its setup is funny. Every situation is funny. Most of the dialogue is funny almost line by line. At some point we actually find ourselves caring a little about what happened to the missing bridegroom -- and the fact that we almost care is funny, too.
The movie opens with bad news for a bride on her wedding day. Her fiance's best buddy is standing in the Mojave Desert with a bloody lip and three other guys, none of whom is her fiance. They've lost him. He advises her there's no way the wedding is taking place.

We flash back two days to their road trip to Vegas for a bachelor party. Doug, her future husband (Justin Bartha), will be joined by his two friends, the schoolteacher Phil and the dentist Stu. Joining them will be her brother Alan , an overweight slob with a Haystacks Calhoun beard and an injunction against coming within 200 feet of a school building.

The next morning, Doug will be missing. The other three are missing for several hours; none of them can remember a thing since they were on the roof of Caesars Palace, drinking shots of Jagermeister. They would desperately like to know: How in the hell do you wake up in a $4,200-a-night suite with a tiger, a chicken, a crying baby, a missing tooth and a belly button pierced for a diamond dangle? And when you give your parking check to the doorman, why does he bring around a police car? And where is Doug?

The only bit in this moviw that i didn't like was the end, you could see it coming from a mile away, but everything else that in the movie is very random and misleading heh. One of the best movies I have ever seen. directing brilliance.

If the movie ends somewhat conventionally

chile earthquake

• First quake hit at 11:39 a.m. local time; second 16 minutes later; third 27 minutes later
• First shook the ground near Chilean coast; epicenter about 90 miles from Valparaiso

Three strong earthquakes rocked Chile on Thursday, causing significant damage in at least one city, the country's new president said Thursday.

A 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit followed by a 6.7-magnitude quake 16 minutes later, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. A third, measured at magnitude 6.0, came 27 minutes later.

They were the strongest aftershocks to rattle Chile since a February 27 earthquake on the country's west coast that toppled buildings and spawned a tsunami, killing several hundred people. Thursday's quakes shook the ground near Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins near the coast just as Chile prepared to inaugurate a new president, Sebastian Pinera.

"There is significant damage in Rancagua," the new president said. "We're going to send the necessary armed forces to guarantee citizens' safety." Rancagua Mayor Eduardo Soto said that no fatalities were immediately reported and that the biggest worry was damage to homes.

After his inauguration Thursday, Pinera visited Rancagua, where he confirmed there were no initial reports of fatalities.

The country's national emergency authorities also put in place a tsunami alert for the coastal area near where the earthquakes hit, and authorities ordered evacuations of some coastal areas..

Why America never fell in love with soccer

It is still regarded as one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history; the day the U.S. shocked the world.

in the group stages in the 1950 world cup finals in Brasil, Walter Bahr was the trainer for the team of semi-professional players who beat the favorite and best team in the world, England, 1-0. This created hradlines all over the world as America were a former colony for England at the time. Bahr celebrated his victory but when he left home, the only pearson waiting for him was his wife. Hardly any news informed America of this great win over the king's of football at the time. Meanwhile the rest of the world were in disbelief.

You would think that after winning such a prestigous prize like the world cup , the american citizens would take a liking for this sport, but they did'nt. Why?

To start soccer never started in America, it was brought over by colonial merchants. But soccer was pushed out by rugby variations of the game, they thought that they had to be more indeoendent and invent your own games, not to depend on merchants to show you. So all games that were seen as un-american were rejected by society. Before 1876 there were many variations of american fotball, until they decided on a federations and started to introduce proper rules.

Another factor is that immigrants wanted to fit in to the american society, so they followed the american football so not to be diferent.

To conclude, I think that it's good that every country has there own games, it formes part of the culture. Like in america there os american football, in Ireland there is hurling and GAA. I really like arriving to a country and learning a new sport I've never heard of before.

amazing sculpture

I saw this picture and i said, ''this deserves a description'' there are so many things happening.

It's a picture of a sand sculpture , totally made of sand made by an artist that gets paid to come to various events and build these amazing sculptures.

starting on the left you can see four heads of american presidents and behind them a massive sculpture of a castle. In the middle of the photo, where the most things are happening, you can see a gate with an imprint of a human face. this is sand!!. underneath the gate a ghost is lying down while a cat stands on its stomach in a pouncing position. Two angels are sitting on either side of the gate with sad expresions on there faces.

The amount of detail and time out into this is huge, thats why I like it so much. The first time I saw one of these was in L'escala where another artist made a sculpture of two lions. I'd like to go to one of these exebitions.

podcast

Dialog-

Application for a job at Microsoft

A: hello, my name is Albert and I’m here for the job interview

C: Yes, you’re just on time. Just pass through the door at the end of the hall, mister Bridges is waiting for you.

A: OK, thank you!

….. Hello Mr. Bridges, I’m here for the interview.

J: Oh yes, Albert right?

A: yes.

J: sit down please and we’ll Lets Start the interview.

J: Ok, so, what parts of your education do you see as important to this position?
A: well i have been studding for four years in university doing a career in computers and i think this job is a good opportunity for me to show my skills.

J: Tell me about a significant achievement in your life.
A: My most significant achievement was passing my A levels in computer engineering.

J: Tell me about a time where you had to work towards a deadline. Did you meet it? If not, what would you do differently next time?

A:I did arrive to the deadline, but i think for the next Project i Hill organize better my time, and not leave it to late.

J: Why do you want to work for us?
A: Because Microsoft is one of the biggest computer companies, and I think it Would be a great way to Start my career.

J: What are your long term goals?
A: In the long term i hope to be able to help in the design and manufacturing of new computers.

Ok, very good Albert, that’s all I need for now, ill give you a call in the next few days to tell you if you made the spot.

A: thank you very much Mr. Bridges.