A jar of water...

When Maria Musica threw a jar of water to the new Minister of Education, last July, everyone thought and including myself, what a lack of respect!! But after that, I started thinking after all what had happened with the secondary students and their protests in order to have a better education, maybe Monica Jimenez (the Minister of Education) deserved something like that.

Probably it was not the best way to proove to the Minister that what was happening at the moment was very serious, but I guess she represented every single secondary student that was protesting every day and was not beign heard.

I have always believed if someone wants to be in a public position, such as beign a Minister or any other Politician, he or she must be someone who can connect with people, someone who can at least be friendly or an empathic person, that can really understant what the rest of the normal and commmon people are going through in order to help them. But, in my opinion, this new Minister of Education did not take very seriously the big issue of Education, she took it very lighty and tried no to give it so many importance to the subject, when in fact, what the students were prostesting for was something very real.

That is why I agree with what Maria Musica did, because she got tired that no one was hearing what they have to say and that they were not getting any support from anyone and no solution at all.

First Debate (July 8th)

Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to see the first debate in classes due that I had a job interview and I had to leave early.

But I stayed most of the class and I remember Mr. Litman made us translate different headlines from newspapers into English. I think this is a very good exercise because here is when we realize that we cannot translate literally one word, sometimes in English, we can use more than one word to say the same and even we can make it longer without changing the sense of the sentence at all.

It was a funny exercise because it made us think harder, putting into practise all our knowledge of grammar we've learned so far.

The Debate Class (June 24th)

We're supossed to learn how to make a debate.... interesting! especially if it's in English because we're forced to prepare ourselves to perform well, more than if if were doing in it in Spanish, because it's out first language, and therefore, we can express more widely, but the dificulty is in the L2 when we have to be careful about the words we're going to use and the way we're going to express ourselves.

I think this new topic in classes will be very very, as I said, interesting because we will have the chance to discuss important issues of the world and Chile and to know what our other classmates think about it, which it's always nice to know the opinion of other people.

My presentation!!! (May 13th)

Today it was my turn to present "Troubled Teenagers at School" along with Marlene Toro and Maria Rios, my friends.

I truly believed we did a good presentation with the concise information about the topic, our pronunciation was clear and the language we used, was very easy to understand... which I think my classmates did.

What I didn't like was the fact we wanted to show the class a video about troubled teens but something happen with the computer that didn't allow us to do it... It was a shame because it was a pretty good video that showed how "normal" these teenagers are.

Anyway, we made some mistakes in the worksheet we gave out classmates, but this can happen right? not everyone is perfect, and we're learning... that's why we're at school for LOL.

After the presentations we went to the English Laboratory to keep updated with what it's happening in the world. This, I think, it's very useful because we live inside a society and this society is part of a big community call world, were every single thing that affects the world will eventually ended up affecting us... as a country and as part of this chilean society.

I know sometimes can be not some fun to watch news or read the newspapers, we let's face it... an uninformed person is someone that doesn't even know where he or she is and that doesn't have an opinion about anything, but we, as future teacher, must be informed about the world and about education (that changes constantly) and to have an opinion... a good one, were we can show off that we know and that we care about what other's think and about what it's happening outside this far away country called Chile.

Leadership (May 6th)

What can I say about this presentation? Well, I liked it very much. Especially the fact that Fernanda knew the information, she didn't look nervous at all and she was able to control the class to make it pay attention to their presentation.

About Fernanda's partners, Felipe and Rodrigo, they did well too but you could see that they were nervous (which is normal) but sometimes you have to learn how to control yourself in front of an audience, even when we have done so many presentations along the four years of college. But hey, I've got nervous too in the easiest presentations ever, so I get them very well.

Leadership... not everyone has the capacity of being a leader. Some people are born with that, with the talent of managing a group of people and to stand out as someone who can be in charge of doing something and do it well.

Of course they are different types of leaders, I'm not going to discuss that because we all know it, but what I do want to say it's that a good teacher is someone who is a leader. This because a teacher must be able to manage a bunch of kids, that sometimes can be very annoying LOL, and he or she has to be role model for them, someone they can look up, etc. A teacher, a good one even the best one, it will always be a leader no matter what.

Classroom Managment (April 22nd)

After 4 months of being away from Chile, this was the first class of the year and the first time I met Mr. Litman. It was a placer to meet you! as you told me when you were doing the roll call.

My classmates had to make a presentation about different topics, and today it was Classroom Managment. I must say I liked the presentation a lot because the information was appropiated, very clear and easy to understand. Besides my classmates were informed about the topic and they knew how to manage, not only the information, but also the class.

We were also discussing about some gramatical issues, how sometimes we confused words that are written very similar but that they mean something different. And I think this kind of discussions are very important because, for us students of English and not native speakers, it's so easy to get confused at the moment of writing when we use these similar words; not sometimes when we're speaking because if the pronunciation is the same it will only depend on the context and we won't get confused, but when we have to write something it's vital to know the difference in spelling and in meaning, in orden not to confuse ourserlves and the reader of our paper.

What students think...

Since 2006 secondary high school students have shown off that they can express themselven into what Chilean education implies. They let us know they are not just passive people who go to classes and do what the teacher says in order to pass the course, but they are active students who are involved in what it is happening with their education system, wishing and hoping to make it better for the next generations.


After the Revolución Pinguina, students movement seemed to have calmed down and that they had gone back to their classrooms as they used to. But it didn't happen such a long time untill they were back in action again.

The agreement on 2006 was that there was going to be a special comision of education that will improve the educational system in Chile and they were going to removed the LOCE due to different reasons students did not agree with. So they decided to create the LGE, a new educational system that will be better than the LOCE and where all the demans students asked for, were going to be included. But this didn't happen.

The students movement came back this year arguing their demands were not in the LGE and that this new law was just another political and economical issue and that it was focused on improving the education. Anyway, students protested again on the streets fighting for what they think it's right and just asking for what it's fair for every single student in this country.

What they asked is simple... they're only asking for a better quality of education, an equal education to every student without making any distiction between social classes or economic levels. They want to be better students, they want to have better teachers, they're just asking for what's fair.

It's important for us, as future teachers, to support them and let them know that they can be heard all the time, that their opinions are important even if the think they can promote and create a better future...

I must say what this new generation of students is doing is very admirable, because they have been strong enough to make themselves heard, they have closed their schools and they have recieved the support from their teachers and from other people who have nothing to do with the educational system. They have been brave along the way... they feel free to say what they think, which I think is awesome... this is what democracy is about, expressing ourselves without being scared.

Besides, let's face it.... these kids are the future of Chile, these people are going to be the next generation of teachers, doctors, etc., some of them are going to rule this country one day and if they are interested in make in it the best place to live, we should give them our support and congratulate them for the braveness old generations didn't have.