Last Class

On November 25th, 2008 it was our last class with Mr. Litman... so everyone had to present their personal presentations, including myself, because there was not enough time to do it in another day.

Some of the topics were: Teen pregnancy, work experience abroad, silent way (a method to teach phonetics in an English class), among others.

What I like the most about the class was that all of the topics were very interesting and helpful for our teaching life.

I have to say that I like having classes with Mr. Litman, because it was a good chance for us to express ourselves in different situations and a good way to practise English.

Femicide... a horrible reality!

Katherinne Gonzalez choose the Femicide is not fashionable as her personal presentation topic. What fashionable has to do with femicide? Well... let's see.

The brand Fess, a very well know jeans brand in Chile, recently launched a advertisement campaing promiting its products, but this campaing had direct relationship with Femicide. The posters showed women being hit by men, telling men using those jeans they can feel stronger.

What kind of advertisment is that? Probably the creators never thought those images would cause problems, but we are all aware that femicides is a very known topic nowaday and hard to deal with yet in this society. Every single day, tons of women are being murdered or attacked by their husbands or boyfriends...

Our duty is not to promote any kind of thing that support femicide!! women die every single day due to the irrationality and insane of some people who can not appreciate life how they should.

Stress... a hard issue to deal with

Stress is a used concept nowadays... why? because the end of the year is coming and everyone seems to have tons of things to do every day.

Nicole Mundaca presented this topic to the class and she talked about how can we cope with stress inside a classroom.

Not only the teacher gets stressful at this time of the year but also students, so we must be able to be patient and aware that this is something that happens to everyone. The classroom should have a nice and pleasant enviroment, no screamings... but I guess that is impossible!!

We and everyone should consider the following: not to perfomed multiple tasks at the same time, take a break whenever you feel exhausted, drink plenty of liquids in order to keep yourself hydrated, do not lock yourself into what you are doing... make some time to have fun and share with your friends.

These tips will help you to cope with stress and enjoy life a little bit more!

ITs

ITs or mostly known as Information Technologies, was the topic presented by Daniela Bilbao. She attented to a seminary about ITs at the Universidad Finnis Terrae. There different expositors talked about how these technologies have changed the world since their first release to the public eye.

This topic is very familiar to me due to my thesis topic is the ITs and wheather they can improve or nor the acknowledgment of reading comprehension and listening English skills.

What Daniela showed is simply the truth... ITs have changed our way of thinking and perfoming our tasks, the way we learn and the way we live is directly affected by these new technologies. These one are the Internet, Television, Radio, Softwares, Movies, DVDs, etc., everything that transmitt information as fast as possible.

We must be aware that ITs will keep changing our society and we need to learn to live with them, because in the future, there might be machines perfoming our jobs!

Personal Presentations... Drugs!

Diego Escudero, my classmate, today presented the topic of Drugs as part of the personal presentations for Mr. Litman's class.

He talked about the effect drugs have between our brain and body. It seems incredible but when someone gets addicted to drugs, wheather is marihuana, cocaine or extasis, the way they behave changes one hundred percent.

People who takes drugs start working less, they become self dependent of drugs and their start imagining things that are not real. Of course, school or college perfomance gets low and the capacity of thinking seems to be a hard thing to do.

Drugs not only affect the personal life of who is taking them, but also affect families and friends. What it is important is to be always aware if our children or friends are acting different... because they might be into something such as drugs.

In Chile, people from 14 years old or less take drugs and they eventually end up stealing or in jail, due to that drugs make them to things they never thought they could have done.

Suicide... what happens with teenagers?

Teens seem to be changing from generation. Nowadays teens are very different from what past generatiins were. Their interests and likes are very different, they tend to be more independent and capable of doing anything by their own.

If they are who they are is all thanks to society. These teenagers, this generation, were raised under different rules and life style, that makes them feel more free in front of life.

But not everything is happiness and rainbows... suicide is still a tabu topic, specially when it is related to teenagers. Why do teenagers suicide?.... most of them is because they have personal issues that lead them to not want to live anymore, but I guess that happens with everyone who does not want to be here!.

Peer presure, bullying, domestic violence, money problems, etc., are some of the most common factors that affect a teenager. Being in top of them does not work either....

What do we have to do? As future parents and teachers, we have to make sure our children feel safe, comfortable whenever they are, we have to let them know everything is possible and when they feel something can not be fixed, they must talk to someone who can help them... they should not be left alone specially at the teenage stage of their lives, where they are constantly changing (physical and emotionally).

Bullying at teachers??

As everything evolves in life, bullying is not only related to students but also to teachers. What? Yes, to teachers... now teachers are victim of bullying by their students.

How can they manage to this? It is very simple, thanks to the technology (cellphones, video camaras, digital camaras, etc) student can record the agression to the teacher and uploading it to the Internet. That is one way. Another one can be hitting to the teacher, yelling at him or her and making his or her life impossible inside a classroom.

How can we stop this? Probaly teaching our children that the teacher and their classmates are human beigns just like them and that we all deserve to be respected by some else. Let them know that with violence they can not accomplish anything, that is bad to be annoying other people, etc. Probably these are very utopic solutions, but I truly believe that we are what we are due to how we were raised, everything we are is buildt with our life experiences and parenthood.