Analysing my work

Written documents:
During these two years I have been doing a lot of things in English: blogs, portfolios, writings, speakings...I 've learned step by step and now I can see the evolution between my first work and my last one. Th first thing that I can remark is that I've get so much fluency in my writings but also in my orals, I've been learning more vocabulary. When I compared my first and last writing in my portfolio I could see how much I change my way of writing.
At first both writing differ on the topic but also in the structure. The first one was a presentation of my self. What I could see about my first entry is that it was a bit short, I used short sentences, the text lack from connectors and the repetitition, sometimes without reason, of the conjunction (and), I also think that it was not a complete text it could have been more detailed. About the fluency I think that I had it. The common mistake that I've made and that I still made is the use of the right verbs time. In the structure I made a bit too much paragraphs and the lack of connectors made the text boring. About the vocabulary I see that I used the basic thing that In that time I knew so it doesn't have the maturity that I get now.
My final writing was an informal letter that I enjoyed doing it because I didn't need to use any dictionary, the world were coming into my head naturally and this is very important , because in the exams we don't have any support so arrived in this level has been hard but justified, I used more connectors and I win in maturity.
Finally, I would say that it has been a good exercise to see steps behind and realized my evolution, if I'll repeat the same entry now it will probably be different and much better but there will be always mistakes! But all this works and the results that I get wouldn't be possible without the English teacher who had been always behind us , so Thanks for all you've been doing for our success.

Oral presentations:

When I analyzed my first oral and my last one, I didn't see so much differences, but it's true that I've improved in my fluency and I introduced new vocabulary which make the presentation richer.
In all my presentations I've been nervous but when I start to talk I controlled my nervs. In my first oral I had to talk about a personal topic so it had been easy for me to do it, a big part of my oral consisted on improvisation then I talked about hobbies. The fluency was quite good but what I could see is that I needed vocabulary, because sometimes I had to stop talking just to think about how to say a word. The atmosphere of the class also helped me to calm myself, I had no fears to talk because I knew that I made myself understandable even if I used to talk a bit faster than now. I didn't used any power point and I think that it could have been better using it, because it a good support.
In my last oral presentation, I was not very prepared but I think that it was quite good, Also because I was not alone, and this fact helped me a lot, when we do couple presentation we feel more comfortable and we trust more in our selves. In this last presentation I used a richer vocabulary which give a kind of maturity to the text. I also used more connectors. But it's obvious that I've made some mistakes like using a female possessive when I had to used a male one but in most of the cases I correct these kind of mistakes meanwhile I speak.
Finally, what I can say about this detailed analyzed is that all the works we made in the blogs, the writing, and particularly the orals which helps us all to improve our speaking in English and our fluency had been necessary and very usefull in our future. Now we 're all able to have a thoughtful conversation en English.

My English skill in 2009

Best oral evidence:
One of the things that I enjoyed doing this two years have been the orals presentations, even if I always feel nervous when I start to talk the stress is over. When I check my orals it has been hard to choose the best one, I wanted to put my first oral as my best one, because it was a presentation of my self and I've made it with no difficulties, but in fact If have to choose the best one, it will be the presentation I've made with a friend of mine about the site comes. Because the topic was something that I knew and enjoy it so it was easy to talk about something that you control, but I choose it also because it record a good moment that I've pass with my friend, we were both in osmosis, and we even haven't prepared it before. So it's a good example of improvisation which success. The speaking was fluent, the eyes contact was important and the movement of my hands was quite calm. In my opinion the best orals are those I made improvising like my first one and the one I've choose today. Because you don't control word by word you just talk as you're talking in your own language.
In this oral I think that I've used connectors and a normal vocabulary with a monoton voice, it hadn't been difficult to understand, It was funny and amusing to talk about things of our childhood, the picture were colorful, the class was very attentive. To sum up it had been a real good moment, it doesn't seem that we were doing an exam.
For all these reasons I will present this oral to apply for my universities studies because it's an example of a natural speaking in English.


Best writing evidence:
To choose my best writing I had some difficulties because I enjoyed do every one of them in the portfolio, the writing are a good way to learn how to write every kind of genre like the discussion essay, the informal letter, the opinion essay... But it's obvious that My best one is the ''dialogue with the shepherd '' because before I had some problem with doing dialogues I didn't control it at all but in this one I was inspired, I enjoyed do this writing because the topic was original and also because it' was funny to imagine a conversation of this kind. The use of my imagination was very present, it was like I metamorphose myself in a journalist making questions after others one.
In this writing I improve in the structure, but also in the appropriate use of connectors, and at the end I finished with a sentence which can sum up all the conversation. I consider this writing a bit more mature then my first one, maybe because it was not a personal topic so I had to think more over then myself and also in the used of some vocabulary that I learned. But select this writing as the best one doesn't mean that it has been without mistakes, I need to made less mistake or even see them.
To sum up all, I want to tell that thanks to these two years of hard working I could improve my English in all the fields and now I'm ready to use it without any fear or embarrassment.

news 2

BBc News- 4 of May 2009
In Mexico swine flu strain viruses increased and decreased, just over 100 people are thought to have died from thevirus A, although only 22 cases have been confirmed. Spem health authorities says that the virus appeared between the 23 and 28 of April and the the evolution the the epidemic is now in it declining phase

The phantom of the Opera:

The phantom of the Opera:

The Opera of Paris is a great Opera where every night we can find amazing shows but not only, we can also find there a ghost who hunt every night the Opera. The entire artist who work there fear him but this ghost has a feeble point, he is in love of the most great singer of the Opera, Christine Daée, who has been taught by him how to sing well. Christine thought that the ghost was the angel of music, who was narrated in the stories of his father. But the night when Christine made a success on stage, her childhood friend, Raoul, was there. When she saw him she fainted, after that she didn't want to recognise him, because she knew that the ghost love her and if this ghost, whose name is Erik knew something about the love between she and Raoul, he will kill him. After this night Christine send a letter to his lover to explained to him all this strange story, but the ghost discovered the relationship and get angry, he threaten her that if she don't marry him he will burn the all theatre.

After that a strange man came to the Opera where he found Raoul and told him all the truth about the ghost, the ghost is in fact a real man with a horrible face, this is why he always wear a mask, he is also a good magician. This man is called the Persian and he was searching Erik to kill him.

During a night, Christine had to sing in the opera, she sang amazingly but when she finished the light go out then she disappeared, Raoul knowing that this incident was make by Erik he went to search her in the underground of the Opera helped by the Persian. Finally, Raoul could save her lover and they escape together far from the Opera to live happily.

Informal letter

23 Backer street, London
1st April 2009

My dear Sarah

You know that you're one of my best friends, and that we usually have a great fun together, but if I'm writing to you today it's to tell you something that unfortunately I'm not able to tell you face to face.
Well, in fact I have a big problem with you, you're a good person but you spend your time complaining, sometimes when we discuss you0re only explaining your problems, which they have no solutions. I mean that you're always talking about you, you want to be the centre of the attention and most of our friends are unable to stand you anymore. You need to see further that yourself. I'll add that you're too jealous, for how long have you been accusing me a relationship with your boyfriend ? which it's not true and you know it. So please try to change a bit your behaviour cause our friendship depends on it and if you continue this way I'm sure that pour relationship will break.
Before ending I want to tell you that we all have our bad and good sides so I'm not judging you, I'm just giving you an advice which in my opinion could help you in the future.
See you later,
Bye

Dialogue with a farmer

Hello, my name is Linda and today I'll try to talk about a topic which is less questioned, which is the difference between the jobs people used to do before and now.
In our modern times, there is no place for ( traditional jobs) like Shepherd or farmer, those works which made and cared the first materials to produce food. If you ask most youngsters what they'll want to do in the future they will probably tell you: a singer, and actor or a business man but few of them will tell you their dreams is to be a shepherd and carry the animals in the field.
Linda: what do you think Mr. Collins, when you were young did you want to be a farmer?
Mr. Collins: yes, sure. Actually all my family worked in the field, it became an old tradition. It was clear for me to be a farmer, I didn't have to choose or think a bout any other job.
Linda: but if your family was from the city and your father a lawyer would you work as a farmer?
Mr. Collins: well, I have to admit that I would probably make another thing.
Linda: so your family and the place you grew-up influenced your future, right?
Mr. Collins: yes, but anyway in my time being a farmer was a very important job, because without our work people couldn't have food.
Linda: do you think that the technology put this kind of jobs as an old and not trendy work?
Mr. Collins: Oh yes, I think that since technology appeared and helped to have a better life, people emigrate from the field to the city to work in the industry. And a lot of other jobs have appeared one after the other letting the most basic ones in the last position.
Linda: but this technology has also helped you to increase your production and make it better and healthier.
Mr. Collins: that's sure, as you know for my parents the work in the farm was very hard, they didn't have the tools and materials that we own now.
Linda: so we can consider that technology has been a good factor to progress in all the fields of life. And also our way of thinking.

News. News-News

PARIS -26/3/09

In France police has arrested an old woman helped to recharged cell phones for illegal immigrants

The 59-year-old volunteer with a lot of groups in the Calais region of northern France was put behind bars and interrogated for three hours before being free.

The French government forbids helping illegal migrants and sets quotas for arrests of those who do it. To try to control growing clandestine immigration. This year 5,000 have been arrested.

The evaluation of my second oral presentation

1- watch your presentation and answer the following questions:
NAME & TOPIC: English universities

Presentation:
-Did you use any resources? Were the recources elegant and attractive?To do this presentation, we've needed to surch some information on the net about the most famous and great universities in England. The resources were elegant and attractive at the same time. Both of us were interesting to talk about this topic, first because it our dream to go study there.


Body lenguage and eye contact:
-Did you look at your audience most of the time? I think that I've done it, but this time, I think that I was less prepared thanI should be and I was so stressed that I was often watching my information paper.

-Did you read from your notes? Yes I do most of time because.-Did you do any gestures/movement to hold the attention of your audience? I made a lot of gestures with my arms, it's a way to make me understandable.
Structure:
-Did you organize your ideas in order of importance? Yes we've start explaining of what our presentation consisit after we explained with more details four universities: Oxford, the Imperial of London, Lincoln and Cambridge.
-Did you use discourse markers to make your ideas more clear? Yes I do, like '' then, finally, so, first...''


Content:
-Did you introduce interesting, NEW information to your audience? I think that we've done it , because we've talk about something that should interest a lot of student of our class because next year we'll have to go to the universities, and the English universities are the most great and important.
-Did you look up information/facts/ideas in the internet/books...? we've look for informations and idees in internet.
-Was your information more superficial or more detailed and original? I don't think that the information was too detailed, we gave a general informations but we've specified it when we've talked about each four universities.
Language:
-Did you use check your grammar? yes for a few word that I didn't understand
-Did you use rich vocabulary looking up the dictionary? yes
-Did you use sentences linkers? yes
-Did you use fillers?

Pronunciation & Intonation:
-Did you know how to pronunce all your words? Did you ckeck a pronuntiation with a dictionary, a classmate, or a teacher?
I think that I've improve my pronunciation but I had a dificulty to pronounce the word ''engeenary''

-Did you change your tone of voice or use monotone tone all the time? did you speed in a fluis continuum or with breaks and interruptions? I think that I've used a monoton voice, I've try to talk slowly, but it's true that because of stress, I had some difficulties to remember some things so I've let some informations.

Self-evaluation:
-You are your teacher! what mark did you get? for this time I don't think that I was in my best day so I'll put a 7 honestly.

My second Oral presentation

Human rights as a social contract

Human rights refer to the "basic rights and freedom to which all humans are entitled"Examples of rights and freedoms include civil and political rights, right to life in liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law, the right of be a member of a cultural group, the right to food, to work or to receive an education.
''All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood''

To explain how and why human rights become part of social expectations, some theories trend to designate the influence from part of some philosophers. Hume for example says that the human rights point to a moral behaviour which is a human social product developed by a process of biological and social evolution. Philosophers like Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau remark that we need a social contract to live with a minimum of security and to own economic advantages but we have to be subordinate to some rules from a legitimate authority to made respect the law.Socrates and his philosophic heirs, Plato and Aristotil also posited that a natural justice or natural rights exist (dikaion physikon, δικαιον φυσικον, Latin ius naturale).
The development of this tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics ( a kind of philosofy wich defend that we have to control our desires and accept the rules of nature and the destiny)

In the XIX th century Thomas Hobbes founded a social contract theory of legal positivism on what all men could agree upon: what they want or look for (happiness) was subjected to contention, but if the most important fear of men is a violent death at the hands of another, a natural law was how a rational human could assure them to survive and prosper. In Hobbes' s opinion, the only way which could prevail or persuade them was to submit men to the commands of the sovereign. In this lay the foundations of the theory of a social contract between the governed and the governor.John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and philosophy.
Locke didn't agree with Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler went against natural law and failed to protect "life, liberty, and prosperty," people could justifiably overthrow the existing state and create a new one. Locke defend that all human have rights and possesions, the first possession of every men is of course his body, and all men inhere in his work and have the possibility to take advantage of the payoff.
The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested the existence of a hypothetical social contract where a group of free individuals agree for the sake of the common good to form institutions to govern themselves. This repeated the earlier postulation by Tomas Hobbes that there is a contract between the government and the governed - and led to John Locke's theory that a failure of the government to secure rights is a failure which justifies the removal of the government. But Rousseau believed and trust in the kindness of men wich Hobbes and Locke desapoint it.

violation:
Depending of the different kinds of cultures, some didn't and still don't agree for the acceptance of some human rights rulls, wich in fact, give place to some international conflicts.For example female genital mutilation occurs in different cultures in Africa, Asia and South America. The most surprising is that it is not mandated by any religion, but has become a tradition in many cultures. It is considered a violation of women's and girl's rights by much of the international community, and it's outlawed in some countries.

Human rights violations occur when any state or non-state breaches any part of the UDHR treaty or other international human rights or humanitarian law. In regard to human rights violations of United Nations laws is the only tribunal that may determine UN human rights violations.
Human rights abuses are controlled by United Nations committees, national institutions and governments and by many independent NGO, such as Amnesty International, World Organisation Against Torture, International Freedom of Expression Exchange...These organisations collect documentation of doubtful human rights abuses and apply pressure to enforce human rights laws.
Only a very few countries don't commit significant human rights violations like the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Costa Rica. They are the only countries that did not (in their opinion) violate at least some human rights significantly.

Which are the rights missing?
Even if it's not so evident, there are some missing rights such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Trans gender rights. Some issues like same-sex marriage, gay adoption and protection from discrimination are considered to be human rights. There are some organisations which fight for them but it's very difficult to find and accord because this questions is used to be considerate as ambiguous.

At least, for me the most important and basic human rights are those which defend the equality between men and women, the freedom expression, the education, cause I remember that my grand-mother couldn't go to school in her childhood, because she was living in a war conflict, and she really want to own it just for being able to read and write but she couldn't because she had to work.

News: Human Rights violation

Russia/ Georgia: 9th august 2008



The last August 2008, Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian forces committed a lot of violations of the law of war and abig number of human rights. This conflict caused many civilian deaths and injuries and widespread ( widely circulated )destruction on civilian property.
Some attacks by both Georgian and Russian forces, and the South Ossetian forces' campaign of deliberate and systematic destruction of certain ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia. It also describes Russia's failure to ensure ( make safe) public order and safety in areas of Georgia that were under its effective control.

South Ossetia is a breakaway region of Georgia that shares a border and has very close ties with Russia. The armed conflict started on August 7, 2008, and lasted until a ceasefire on August 15, with Georgian forces in retreat and Russian forces occupying South Ossetia and, temporarily, undisputed parts of Georgia. In the week of open conflict, and the many weeks after of rampant violence and insecurity in areas under Russia's effective control, hundreds of civilians were killed, and tens of thousands were displaced. Many of them have not been able to return home.

Both Russian and Georgian forces used cluster munitions and dropped multiple rockets causing civilian deaths and putting more civilians at risk by leaving behind unstable "minefields" of unexploded bomblets. Cluster munitions are banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which neither Georgia or Russia has signed.

During this conflict thousand of lives has been destroyed, ethnics and villages has been pillaged. Also great numbers of people to leave their homes for undisputed Georgian territory. But Russia instead to protect civilians, the Russian forces allowed South Ossetian Forces to burn homes and kill, beat, rape and threaten civilians. This kind of attacks are considerate war crimes and they must be prosecuted as a crime against humanity.


So as it's enough clear in this little summary of this news, the main Human right violated are:

Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
In this article, it say that nobody has to be subordinate to any superior power. There is no distinction between any kind of differences.

Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
In this article, we can see that this wright is more then violated in this conflict.

Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
In this news, most of civilians property has been destroyed by the armed fores.

Article 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

News

3 dead, 12 slashed in Belgium day care attack

updated 3:57 p.m. ET Jan. 23, 2009

In Belgium, a man apparently normal, entered in a nursery where he stubbed two babies and a worker and wound 12 others. The parents of the victims rushed in the hospitals. The efforts of the medical workers had been able to save 10 children and two adults with critically wounded.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28808916/

News

Gaza City, 9 Jabuary 2009

Israeli aircraft continued to bomb Gaza overnight. A Security Council resolution called for a ceasefire, access for aid workers and a lasting solution to the conflict.

Overnight, at least 50 air strikes hit Gaza, one attack reportedly killing five Palestinians. Militants fired several rockets into southern Israel. It is estimated 770 Palestinians and 14 Israelis have been killed so far.The children represent the half of the victims of this unjustified war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7820027.stm

Children, who make up more than half of crowded Gaza's 1.4 million people, are the most defenseless victims of the war between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli army has unleashed unprecedented force in its campaign against Hamas militants, who have been taking cover among civilians.

Gaza city