Why is Writing important for an EFL teacher?

As we know, writing is one of the four skills an English learner must develop. But as in any disciplne we cannot master it by ourselves, it is necessary to have a guide or a teacher that can go from the very basic knowkeges to the higher levels of proficiency. If we consider this, we will realize that a guide in this process will be of great help to get what we want from the learner.

It is importat that the student feels he is being part in a practical way of the process of learning this area of English, since English is a non-phonetic language like Spanish.

The student has to get to realize that weiting is a way of output to many thing and a tool to better other areas like fluency or memory.

Reference

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~crandall/The_power_of_writing_presentation.ppt

http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa081701a.htm

Use of blogs in EFL classrooms

1. What is your opinion about using blogs to teach "writing" in EFL classrooms?

I think this is a very useful tool for teaching, but I consider this tool has to be used when the learner had acuiered the basic knowledge of the English language, otherwise the professor will take too much time correcting the grammar or the spelling mistakes,and the goal of any interesting activitiy will be lost. So in order to have good results in using blogs, is better to have students in more advanced levels of English skills language development.

2. Do you like working using blogs?

I like working with blogs, it's a good way to develop my writing skills and the use of technology.

3. What are some of the advantages of using blogs ?

Some of the advantages of using blogs is that you can work on almost everything you want concerning to the development of writing skills. Another advantage is that we can found many things on the internet that can help make our work more complete.

4. What are some of the disadvantages?

One of the disadvantages of using blogs is the easy way we have in the correction of grammar through internet, and the short range of imagination it provide us, since we just can go to a web page and find everything we need. Another disadvantage is taht we depend on the speed of the computer or the internet, because when the internet is slow the activities can be torn down.

5. Do you plan to use blogs in the future?

I think I can use some time working in the blogs, but I don't like the idea of depending too much on the technology, it doesn't work well anytime we want.

Do you have any suggestions to improve these "lab sessions"? or was everything all right?

I think the work on the blog was ok and I had fun doing the activities, and I think that he professor had a great chunk of time planning the classes in the lab.

The Dragon

What does it like to do on Saturdays?
He likes to go and play fireballs, it is similar to current baseball but someone trows fireball.


What is the secret it doesn't want anyone to know?
He can't throw fire like the rest of the dragons.

What does it think does well?
He can fly faster that anybody.



What is it NOT very good at doing?
He is not very good at hunting his meal, he doesn't like killing for eating.


What is its favorite memory?
The day he learn to fly


Is it friendly or nasty?
He is friendly but he doesn't like to be disturb while he is sleeping


Who is its best friend?
His best friend is a fenix bird


What does it want most in the whole world?
He would like to see other dragons since he is the only one.


Now write a story about how it might get the thing it wants most, who might try to stop it, and what dragon powers it might use on its adventure!

Long ago in mistic lands of the ancient Denmark, lived a big dragon called FireMog, it was said he was the last of his specie. There was also a powerful fenix a firebird, she was FireMog best friend. They lived happy days together, but the last dragon on earth had a feeling of loneliness every time he was alone. One day FireMog decided to make a long journey. He was convinced that there were other dragons like him somewhere, but he would never discovered it if he didn't go out. His best friend the fenix was decided to go with him and help him passing the dangerous land of Darkness. It was know that there were dragons hunters and that men had killed all dragons. FireMog was not afraid of humans so he flew away from his cave whith the fenix beside.

One night, after traveling for many days they were surfing the sky when they saw a lot of lights coming from the ground, soon they realize they were arrows by thousands, they just fly higher. Once they were high safe FireMog started to look for his friend but he could't find her. When he look downwards he saw flames everywere, it was his friends fighting with a bunch of dragon hunters, they had trown a special net for fenix so she was trapped, but without giving an inch of territory in the fight. He had to do something quickly, he couldn't throw fire, he had never done that since he never learnt to do it. Suddenly he felt desperated and thought no more but saving his friend, so he filled his lungs with high sky air and blow, he aimed to the men, but instead of throwing fire he throw freezing ice that paralized the hunters. He had discovered that he could fire ice instead of flames, and that was fine with him. Now he could defend himself and stop running away from danger. His friend was safe now.

After the fight with the men, he learnt that friendship was better than ten dragons. So after his journey he was no longer sad.

Story of imagination

Aretha was a common girl, she lived in LA, California state.

When she was in secondary school she was a very happy girl because she had a lot of friends, and she had fun every time she gathered with them. They used to go downtown and have icecreams, they went to the movies or the beach every time after school. Aretha had a great life because she belonged to a group that accepted her just in the way she was. But her grades in school were not as good as her parents would expect. Soon, summer after summer, winter after winter the years of school had to end, and she saw herself finishing secondary school and with a new challenge ahead, she had to face college. What she did not know that life in college would be much more different she expected to be.

It was summer time, during vacation, and she had an appointment with all her friends from school she had no idea what was going to happen then. When she got to the place, she saw all her friends with sad faces, they dicovered that their parents had agreed to send them all to different colleges far away from each one, in order to make them better students and face an adult life properly. They all cried since they realice that they would not see each other again in along time.

It was is first day at Loma Linda University and she found out that her parenta had sent her to a christian university, she had never imagined this. She felt alone, but she did not know how to make new friends. She felt sad when she saw a gorup of friends talking happily, she wish she could have her friends back. What she would do now? Just time would say.

NEWSPAPER'S ARTICLE

I tried to look for a positive piece of news but the only I found in this searching was killings, bombs, Obama vs McKain, world economics, etc.

So I finally chose a news from Spain. A bob car exploted in a university car park in Pamplona. The Police and the daily El Pais reported that the responsibles for this attack were the separatist grout Eta, that have been trying to get the independence from Spainfor a long time. The university of Navarra had to be evacuated after being the target of these attacks before.

Days later the police arrested some members of the Eta, and in the raid they seized guns, and large quantity of explosives. Despite the group resumed its campaign of violence in 2006, they keep atacking some point in Spain.

Article taken from the BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7699503.stm

New words:

Raid: it is a surprise attack to do harm or to make a robbery. But the police force use this action to arrest criminals and to seize llegal guns, drugs and explosives.

Blast: is a strong hot wave after a explotion.

Persona poem

Marcos
Sporty, creative, happy,faithful
Husband of Maria Jose
Who loves sports, traveling, movies
Who is afraid of dangerous people, being hurt, and failing to his loved ones
Who wants to see Jesus in heaven, my first child, the cure for cancer
Resident of this momentaneous world
Huerta.

ACROSTIC

E CHOS OF SINGULAR MINDS,
S YLLABLES AND THOUGHTS TOGETHER, ARE
S OMEBODY’S CREATION
A PPLYING KNOWGLEDGE ACQUIRED,
Y ET DEPENDING ON PROFFESSOR’S CORRECTION.

Second Agumentative Essay

I will chose the topic on video games. I used to play computer games, about four or five hours a day, and I think this is a matter of risk to other young people that do not control the time or the kind of game they chose to play, violence brings more violence. Also most of the time they spend all day playing with nobody to tell them to do other thing. Parents are often absent and they do not care about what their children are doing, they just want their children to be quiet and not bother them.

Fiction is mixed with the real world and young people do not make the difference when they turn in addicts to this way of entertaining. Terrible consecuences can occur in this matter. We all have heard about kids taking a weapon to the school and killing his classmates because they were his target to acomplished the mission.

Interview

Interviewee:
Prof. Rodrigo Ramos,
English Program Coordinator,
UNACH

I had the opportunity to interview our Program Coordinator and he told me about his life, his future plans and his motivations to keep on working on the coordinations activities. He is a very accesible person and he inmediately and gently allowed me to do this interview. I hope you get to know a little bit more about this person we see daily and who is the head of our program.



1. Professor, can you tell me about your life as a child?

"Well, I was born in La Reina, Santiago. It is a very nice place with lots of parks, and itis located near the mountain range. It is between Las Condes and Peñalolen. It is a very quiet place to live, simple people, not very rich people. I have very good memories about that place."

2. Did you have good grades in English when you were a student?

"Well, i have to be honest. I had good marks when I was in the elementary school. My father helped me a lot to get these marks. He likes English very much and because of thathe was able to help me.

3. Why did you decide to study to become an English teacher?

"I did not decide to be an English teacher. I have to be honest, I started to study theology first, despite I would have liked to study medicine or nursing, but when I realized that English was part of my abilities I decided to take advantages of that, so I went to the Bio-Bio University to apply for the English program and after 5 years I received my certificate."

4. How do you like the work you are doing in this university?

"I love my job. I love what I am doing right now. I know there is a lot to do. I think that the university has to improve in all the programs it has and I am part of that goal."

5. Have you ever had other chances to work in a different place/institution?

"Yes, I have been having some offerings. Recently I received and invitation to work in Eastern Island, in Concepcion and Santiago. But I am very committed with the work that I am doing here. I was invited to work here and I am trying to do my best, and it si a very hard work."

6. What are your plans for the future?

"I would like to travel abroad. I think it is a must for every English teacher to have an experience like that. I have had the opportunity to travel to other countries in South America but it is still not the same in significance."

7. What is your main motivation to keep on working?

"I believe that every student coming here is not coming by simple chance. I thinl that God is having a plan for all the students and I think that we are part of it. We have to share an important message with them, the salvation plan, and this is apart from making them good professionals."


§maquito_english©§

Argumentative essay

In first place, for an effective argumentative essay, you need to have two opposite ideas, obviously you have to be in one side and you have to try convince the other part through arguments. This is the main idea of this essay, to try to change the others way of thinking.

In choosing a topic, you don't have to use general ideas, nor questions, nor facts. You have to write objectively, logically and respectfully. So in general, argumentative essays are a useful tool to convince others about what you think, but you really have to know how to give the correct argument to get the goal of passing along your ideas, strongly.

Wellcome to myself...

Hello myself and everyone else, I am new in this world of blogging and I reached it because the writing class in the English Program of my university. My name is Marcos Huerta and I am in third year of the English Teaching Program at the Adventist University of Chile. Well I have to be honest, I don't like writing very much as well as reading, despite I know these are powerful tools to learn better. But since I got to this place I thought it would be a fun idea to create a blog, write comments, upload pictures, I think I will enjoy this and I hope so.
I say hello to my classmates and I will be waiting for their comments to share some thoughts.