Learning Journal 7

Today we started with the Group Work Assessment. I'm very happy with my 18 and the general marks of the group. I hope we'll keep up the good work at the following tasks! After that we read Chinua Achebe's text and we analysed it. Actually I didn't analyse anything because I was speaking all the time. I need to focus, I need to pay attention to the lesson... "Otherwise I'll fall", as I said at my first message. Anyway, I'll try to be focus next time. All in all, the lesson was normal and Friday we'll have more! See you

I have a suggestion...

First, the video campaign. Then, a simple magazine. Two little things that made me think.

I am very interested in helping people, giving something to this world, being aware of what's happening out there, opening my mind (!)... so I registered myself on the Amnesty International's site. I like to go there and read some interesting things, some powerful histories...but my real wish is to do something. I want to get up, to stand up, to convince people, to try hard to make my message heard. And so I would like to make a suggestion. At 10th of December the 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are marked. The Amnesty gives a lot of ideas and activities for us to use at the school, in order to give importance to the Human Rights and this remarkable date. One of them was to show a movie related with that and I thought that we could see GoodBye Bafana, which is about Nelson Mandela. I bet that many people have no idea who he is and what he did and I think it was very interesting to do something like this. Probably the program is too extensive and we can't "waste" time with this things but... asking is trying. And I like to try :)

Learning Journal 6

Today we did some interesting things. The lesson started with some noise: my classmates were discussing the strikes that have been happening lately! Very good topic, I think, but not the best moment to discuss that. Some expressed theirselves, some didn't, but we will have the opportunity to debate that another day and I hope so. Then we did the Group Work Assessment. I actually didn't understand that we were supposed to deliver it last lesson, so we were one of the groups that didn't do it at the time. But we did it today and now we are curiously waiting for the teacher's assessment. Then we had some time to do some excercises about Reported Speech. My group didn't work very well today, we were always talking. I don't feel able to shut up the girls, sometimes I say things like : "come on, let's do it". But the conversation continues and I love talking, so I let myself go and I don't do the exercises. I need to avoid those situations. We corrected the worksheet and then we read an extract of the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Abebe which I found a little bit difficult, honestly. But I liked it.

Thank you for the feedback!

As soon as I can, I will make sure all the corrections are done and I'll post my texts. It seems that the Portfolio has been stopped but it's just now, during the first round of tests. Thank you for all the suggestions and the motivation you keep giving to me. I really appreciate that. :)

Learning Journal 5

Today we corrected the exercises of Amartya Sen's autobiography and Linking Words. I actually dind't like the autobiography, it was boring, I didn't like Amartya's writing. I liked a few moments at the lesson in which we gave our opinion (I actually didn't but my classmates did...) about English as being an important subject for us, for example, and i liked it. The lesson was normal, there's not much to say. I realized that maybe I'll have to make an effort in order to participate more. I usually want to but... I think I feel shy. Whatever, I'll try!

Learning Journal 4

This is the Learning Journal of the last lesson which was yesterday, 7 November.

In the begining we talked about where we would like to go in a study visit (is study visit correct? I don't think so) and i could see a lot of expectations. We would love to go to England but that is not an easy thing to organize, at all. Anyway, wherever we'll go, we'll enjoy it, I believe. Then we did an exercise which was a biography of Martin Luther King and after that we were supposed to read Amartya Sen's autobiography and answer some questions, but I forgot to print the text and the worksheets and so we did another task related with Linking Words. Despite the problem of not having the worksheets the group has worked well and followed the alternative task. In a general way I think our class is going very well and I hope we'll keep up the good work.