My experience learning English at the University

I'd like to talk about my experience learning English at the university. Firstly, I chose this topic because I’ve been studying English by two years, and I think that is necessary to evaluate this experience and make a reflection about what I learned and how much I should have to learn yet. Secondly, I’d like to reflect about the classes and the methodologies that the teachers used, because I think that it had a big influence in my learning process. Finally, I’d like to talk about the things that could be improved, in the course and by the student side, to make the English course better.

How I said, I’ve been studying English by two years in the University. I started my English course in 2008, in the second level. In that time Mr. Luzzi was my teacher. After that, in the third level, Ms. Castillo made classes in my group, and now in the fourth level, Mr. Luzzi is my teacher again. I think that I’ve learned a lot of things, above all in grammar, it was my weakest skill when I started. I think that I still have to learn a lot, I’m very bad in pronouncing and there are a lot of words that I don’t know in english yet. I think that make sentences and speak, is still hard for me. But I’d like to continue learning in other place, because I think that English is very important to my career.

Well, secondly, I’d like to talk about the methodologies that the teachers used. In one hand, I think the best methodology, was the blog because it was interactive and fun. I learned a lot writing in my blog. In the other hand, I think that the worst methodology was the listening, but I have a powerful reason to say that. I think that the England pronunciation sometimes is very hard to understand and it makes more difficult any exercise.

Finally, I think that courses should be more flexible, in the sense that should be more adapted to the reality of each group of students. Moreover, I think that the students should be more commited to the classes.

In conclusion I could say that my experience learning English at the University, has had a lot of good and bad moments. I’ve learn a lot, but I have a lot to learn yet. I think that there are a lot of things to improve to make this course better, and that the university and the students have to do a big effort for the next generations.This is my last blog, because this is the last class of the last level of the English courses. I’ve had very fun moments writing here, and I’ve told you a lot of my life, I hope that you've enjoyed this.

Hi! Today I will talk about my faculty. I study psychology in “Universidad de Chile”, so I study in the Social Sciences Faculty.

I have to say that the first time that I came here; I though that was a special place. I though that because it was small, modest, but it had a warm environment. When I came to my first day of class, I though that my faculty was a little revolutionary, and I wasn’t wrong. Actually, there are a lot of student movement, wich fight for the social justice, an a lot of other ideals. Sometimes also there are political demonstrations, the students and workers say what they think about important topics of the local and global context.

But not all the activities in my faculty are related with political, there are cultural expressions too. Sometimes in the lunch hour, some students or a guest person, make a performance and they fill the building with his/her art.I like all of this things, although, sometimes I’m disagree with the ideas that the demonstrators fight for.

I have to say that my faculty has a lot of bad things too. For example, the infrastructure is not good enough: the bathrooms are awful, there isn’t a study room, and sometimes the dining hall is not big enough, etc.

In spite of these entire things, I have to say that I love my faculty. I think that I will miss it when I graduate.

Friends

Hi! Today I will talk about my friends. I think that is very difficult to found good friends, who stay with you all the time, and who console you and laugh with you.But, sometimes in my life I’ve found special persons, for example at the school. I met my school’s friends when I was 11, and I was in the 7th grade. They are Cristina, Valentina, Loreto, Melissa y Valeria, and are one of the best things in my life. With the years we’ve created a beautiful friendship, which is alive yet. In fact I saw my friends yesterday and we past a great time, we talk and I feel really happy in that moment. I hope I can see them soon!Well, they aren’t the only persons who I consider my friends. For example, now I’m in the university, and here I found two of my best friends in the life. They are Monito y Makito. I really love them! I met them in the first year at the University, and since that moment we don’t separated anymore. They are very beautiful persons, and they are true friends, because they have been with me in the worst moment of my life. I know that we will be friends for a long time.Well, there are persons who you know and although you don’t see them a lot, you know that they will be there to give you a hug and tell you that everything is gone be all right. I’ thinking in some friends of mine that I love a lot and I miss too.Well I think that friendship is one of the most important treasures of the humans. If you think that you have a friend you must to take care of he/she, and you should feel lucky because you have a special person in your life.

“Criminals with a mental illness need a prison break”

Hi! Today I want to show you a very interesting new about the mental health, which is the area in which I study.

The titular of this new is: “Criminals with a mental illness need a prison break”. Here they tell us that in England and Wales, nine out of 10 of people who is in jail has at least one diagnosable mental health problem, a majority have two or more, combined with a range of other difficulties and disadvantages. In the prison there are 10 times more mental illness that in the population outside.This dramatically high rate of mental ill health among prisoners has given rise to a number of initiatives to improve mental health care within prisons and to divert more people away from prison to health services.Among those initiatives is the creation of two pilot mental health courts. They act as stand-alone courts for defendants with evidence of severe mental health problems. They employ mental health professionals to work alongside court staff to identify practical ways of addressing an individual's offending and ensuring they link up with services: where possible not in custody.

Diversion has been a feature of mental health service in England, since a report recommended national coverage of court liaison and diversion teams, today the role of many of those teams has expanded to include diverting people to community mental health services and to work in the police stations as well as courts.

A recent report has made 82 recommendations on improving the care of people with mental health problems and those learning disabilities in the criminal justice system.

The mental health courts being developed in England should now offer one way of achieving diversion, it should bringing their problem-solving approach into ordinary courts, which could make the system more efficient and careful, because imprisoning people with severe mental illnesses can have a devastating effect. Moreover a short prison sentence is expensive and, in everybody, is devastating.

You can read more in: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/jul/02/prisons-mental-health-illness

Hi!, today I will talk about pets. Actually I will talk about why I never have a pet. When I was a girl I wanted to have a dog, but my dad said me that we didn’t have enough space to have a pet. So I said him that we can have a little dog, but he said no, again.So I never had have a pet. Some friends had trying to give me a pet, but finally they repent because they know that to my dad doesn’t like the dogs.

I'd like to have a pet; actually I want to have a dog, a very furry dog. But if I never can have a dog, I'd like to have a parrot or a rabbit. I also like the turtles but they get lost very easily. An animal that never would have, is a cat, I hate them. I think that they are unfriendly, dirties and moreover they cause me allergy. Oh! This is other reason because I don’t have a pet!!

I like the animals, but I think that you have to be very responsible if you want to adopt one. You have to take care of it, give it food, water, it own space, and keep it clean.

I don’t know if I would adopt a dog from the street, although, they cause me sad. I think that you really have to be a dog lover to do that. I hope that the entire stray dogs, someday, can find a home, because the most of the time they are murdered for bad people who don’t like animals.

My city

Hi, today I want to give you some pieces of advices if you visit my city. I’ve always lived in Santiago, so I want to talk about my favorites places.

My number one is the Lastarria neighborhood. It’s in the center of the city, and it’s an interesting, fun and cultural place. There you can find a lot of café, restaurants, stores, cultural and memory centers, in old buildings, with paving stone streets. But this neighborhood isn’t just that, its outskirts are amazing too. For example, you can visit the Bellas Artes museum, it’s a beautiful building, and always you can enjoy different exhibitions of paint and sculpture. If you ask me, this is a place that you shouldn’t miss. After you go to the museum, you can visit the Forestal Park, it’s very nice. Finally you can go to a café in Mosqueto and enjoy a delicious cake and natural juice.

Other place that you can visit is Quinta Normal. This is a very big park, it has a lot of space to rest, it has a small lake and a lot of museum, like Natural History museum, Artequin museum and Contemporaneous Art museum. Near to this park, you can visit the Santiago’s library. It’s a big place with a lot of interesting activities. Finally you can go to “Matucana 100” cultural center, and enjoy the activities that it offers. I like these places because you can do a lot of fun and enriching activities.

I think that if you visit Santiago you shouldn’t miss the San Cristobal hill. In this place you can go to the zoo, I love it!. You can go up in the teleferico or walking, it’s beautiful. After that, you can go to the top and if rained a few days ago, you can enjoy a great view of the city.

Other places that you can visit are Clarillo River, which is in a beautiful park, and San Jose de Maipo, which is a little town that save some typical Chilean traditions. They both are in the outskirts of city.

I hope you like all of these places!

Our transport system

Today Chile have a complex transport system, which have been very criticized. I’m talking about Transantiago. But before talk about the horrible that the system is, I think that is necessary to do a comparison with the old transport system that we had.

For example, I remember that the “yellow” buses had routes that sometimes, crossed the entire city. Now you have to use 2 or 3 buses, because Transantiago system have a lot of central buses, which cover the principal avenues of Santiago in association with Metro. To get to these buses and to the subway, you have to travel in smaller buses. This little buses have different colors, each color belong to a zone in which this buses travel. So the old system was simpler than Transantiago. Moreover, in the old system you didn’t have to change of bus, so it was faster than the new system.

Other example is that to get on the Transantiago buses the most of the time you have to line up in the bus stop, with the “yellow” buses you didn’t have to do this and you didn’t have to wait for long time to get on the bus.

But not all things in Transantiago are bad. I can say that Transantiago buses are cleaner and more modern that “yellow” buses. These buses are cleaner because you don’t pay with coins, to pay in Transantiago you have to use you Bip! Card, which is most hygienic that the coins. I think that Transantiago have a potential, but is necessary that the authorities and all the people who use the buses, do their best to improve it.

Hi! Today I will talk about music. I really like to listen to music, it’s very fun, and it connects me with my emotions. Sometimes music cheers me up, and sometimes it helps me to live my sadness and fears. I love music, but I only sing in my shower, because I’m a terrible singer!

I like many singers and bands, all of them play different kinds of music. For example, in the mornings, when I go to the university, I listen to lively dance music because I need to wake up. So I often listen, for example, to “Calle 13”. I love their song called “Nadie como tú”

But my favorite band is Coldplay, I just love it! I first listened to them when I was in high school and I like all of theirs albums, but my favorite one is “A rush of blood to the head”. My favorite song of this band is called “Shiver”, and it’s a sad but amazing song. Other songs that I also like , are “Fix you”, “The scientist”, “Lost”and “Swallowed by the sea”

In February 14th of 2007, I went to the concert of Coldplay in Chile. It was in “Espacio Riesco” and it was a great experience. The concert was short, but very intense.

I’m waiting for their arrival in our country, during the promotion of their new album “Viva la vida or death and all his friends”

If you are interested in knowing about Coldplay, you can visit: www.coldplay.com

I hope you like music too!

First term.... good and bad points

Hi, today I will talk about the first term of 2009.
Firstly, I’d like to talk about some relevant things that I learnt. For example, in the university, I had 5 subjects which were specialization subjects. I studied laboral psychology, community psychology, clinical psychology, educational psychology and forensic psychology. If I had to say what were the goods and bad points of this term, I’d say that on the one hand, to me the most interesting was community psychology and forensic psychology. I think that, in the future, I’d like to have a job related to these areas. On the other hand the worst subject was laboral psychology, I just hated it. This subject became in an important challenge to me, because I didn’t like to study it.
Moreover, I get through the English course level 3, so I’m in the level 4 now. On the one hand, I think that the most interesting of this subject was the blogger experience. On the other hand, I think that I didn’t learn a lot in the level 3, because I don’t like English
Secondly, in terms of my free time, I think that the best thing that happened to me is that I becoming in volunteer in a home where 10 beautiful kids live. This has been a great experience, but I have to face a lot of challenges. For example, sometimes the kids are very messy or they are angry, so they treat me bad. But if you treat them with love, you can make them feel better.
Finally, with regard to my friends and family, I think that the first term of 2009, was a quiet time to enjoy with them.
I hope this term is better that the last one!

Hi, today I will talk about my ideal job. I’ve thought many times in it, but I’m not sure about how my ideal job could be.
Anyway, I think that my ideal job would be a job that involves children. I love children, because I think that they’re very sincere and creative. But, I would like to work with a special kind of children; I mean the boys and girls that are more undefended. I think that the children that have been hurt, in any way, we have to worry about them. So, I think that my ideal job involves the most unprotected children in society.
I think, that I can do all of these things in a job related to forensic psychology. But, to be a forensic psychologist isn’t easy. I think that a very important quality that I would need to do this job is grip. Because when a person confront this sad reality, he need mental strength to resolve the problems, and to don’t to become depressed.
In the other hand, I think that the skills that I would need are empathy, clinical knowledge and shrewdness.
I’d like it be good at this job, because I think that I have to do all the things well, whatever it be. Moreover, I think that is very important be good in this job, specially, because we have the happiness and welfare of a lot of persons in our hands.
Finally, I think that isn’t very difficult to find this kind of job, because this is a new area of psychology, and there aren’t a lot of professionals working in these topics.
I hope I can find a job like this!

My blogging experience

Hi!, today I will talk about my blogging experience.
After eleven blog session, I think that evaluate this activity is a very good idea, because it lets you to improve the subject.I think that it was a very fun activity for many reasons.

Firstly, the blog of the English course, was my first experience with this kind of internet tool. I've never had a blog before, and I think that it’s very useful. Secondly, I think that blog, is a very interesting opportunity to share my thoughts, because I can write about anything, and tell to a lot of people my most crazy ideas. Thirdly, this activity made the English subject more fun and more interactive.I think that this was an activity that I enjoyed, because I think that is more interesting that listen a lot of chairs, it are very boring. Moreover, I hate the CD’s with British pronunciation, because it’s very complicated. Above all, these recordings are very difficult for students like me, that don’t know a lot of English.

Actually, I think that the blog was one of the better ideas that had the English department.

About the advantages of blogging in English class I think that the blog let me learn a lot about vocabulary, grammar, and it enable us develop our creativity. But I think that sometimes the topics of the blog sessions were very boring. Besides, other advantage, is that it let us look for words that we don’t know, and it is good for our learning.

About the disadvantages of blogging in the English class, I think that the most important is that it just enable us practice our writing, but not our listening or speaking. I think that this is wrong, because these things are the weakest areas, for the great majority of students in this course.

I hope that I can remember all the things that I learned in this blog.

Education and creativity

Hi today I’ll talk about a Ken Robinson conference.He thinks that all children have a tremendous talent, and we squander it, in a pretty ruthlessly way. His contention is that creativity is as important in education as any subjectOne of the important things is that children are no frightened of being wrong, Ken Robinson said that if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up whit anything original.But, in our society we stigmatized the mistakes. And in all countries, we have a national education system where mistakes are the worst thing you can make, we are educating people out of their creativity capacitiesEvery education system in the world have the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are mathematic and languages, then the humanities and the bottom are the arts.His contention is that when the children grow up, the school educates them progressively from the waist up. He said that public education has the purpose of produce university professors, and they use their bodies like the transport of their heads, they all just have out-of-body experiencesI think that he is right. In Chile, the system education prepares the children for PSU. The school just educates their heads, and it imposes a goal:go to the university, if you can’t, you’re a loser.I hope that someday, the education can be a tool for develop the best things of everyone.
You can find the complete video in:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Hi! , today I will talk about my favorite subject in this semester. I think that the most interest subject for me have been Community Psychology. In this subject we have three teachers. They are Germán Rozas, Rodolfo Sapiains and Rodrigo Quiroz. They all are very nice, and they are very understanding too. I really like those classes, and I enjoy this subject too.The program of this subject, includes a practical work. To make it, my group had to go to La Legua. I think that this was a very constructive activity for me, because I met the real job of these professionals. Furthermore, I met a reality that exist very close to us.I like it because I think that is an alternative that enable me to make little changes in society. Moreover, I think that it's a more humane approximation of psychology, which makes me possible to be close to people.I think that the most important thing that I have learned this semester has been to know this branch of my discipline. Today I know what kind of tools the psychologist uses in this area, such as the Participatory Action Research. Moreover, I have known the history of this area, which let me understand the perspective that Latin American community psychology has.

Me in the future

Hi! today I will talk about what I like to be doing 5 years from now.

Professionally, I think that in 5 years I will be working in community psychology. I want to find a job in this area, because it's the most interesting for me. I'd like to work with tinny children, and make a lot of fun and constructive activities for them future.
Actually, I'd like to have two jobs. The first realted with the community psychology. And about the second job, I'd like to work in the family court. This is another area that I like a lot. I like to have a job like family mediator, because I believe it's very important to be a supportive to the families that are suffering.
Personally, I want to be independent. I'd like to live alone, and have my own things. I think that this is a very important goal to me.

I hope that my dreams came true!

Hi.. today I will talk about the best in my field. I think that one of the of psychology is Donald W. Winnicott. He was an English paediatrician, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. He was borned the April 7th, 1896. He has done a lot of contributions to the psychoanalysis theory. For example, in his work with cildren, he developed the concept of transitional experience, waich is the middleground between objective reality and subjective omnipotence. This is a concept that I like a lot because I think that offer a interesting explanation about the familiar inanimate objects that children use when they are tinny, Winnicott said that they use it to stave off anxiety during times of stress. In the picture I show a traditional tansitional object.

Moreover, he created a lot of concepts like true self and false self, good-enough mother and subjective omnipotence.
I like Winnicott because I think that his theory is very interesting, and it emerged from his own experince. So the theory is very solid.

Furthermore, I think that he is the best because he was very innovator, and he was a great psychoterapist.

I hope you like him too ...

the psychology.-

Hi! today I will talk about my career.
When I was in the high school, I didn't know what to study. I always thought that I went to study something related to biology, but when I went to the University I realized that this wasn't my area. So I decided to study psychology, because in this profession we work with people of many different age, social condition, pathologies , well a lot of human characteristics, all of them very interesting. Moreover, this discipline has a very huge field of application.
So today I'm studying psychology and I'm in the 3th grade. I really love my career.
I think that the principal contribution of psychology is that it helps to understand the human behavior. This is a very important tool to help people when they are suffering o when they have problems that they can't solve by their self. It's for all this things that a psychologist needs to be strong, and have a high frustration tolerance, because it's a very hard work. Sometimes you need to see the tiny achievements.
Some areas of psychology are: laboral ps., community ps., clinical ps., educational ps. and forensic ps. I really like 3 of these areas, and I don't know which to choose! But I like to work with children, especially when they are in social risk and have troubles, because I think that they need that somebody believes in them.

I hope I can be a psychologist soon!

Today I will talk about a picture that is very important to me because it shows my best friends. They are my friends since we were 11 years old. I knew them at the school.

In this picture appear Crsitina, Loreto, Melissa, Valeria, Valentina and me. I like to talk about the history of this photograph. I remember that we arranged a meeting in Loreto's house, because we were boring. It was a summer day in 2007, so we were on holidays and we decided to get together. That day we did a lot of fun things, when suddenly we thought: "we can take some photographs!", so we posed and we activated the camera's automatic mode. This picture was taken by Loreto's camera. We took a lot of photographs, but all of it was too bad. So after many attempts we took the photograph that I show here. We loved it, so from that moment, it's our official photograph .

In conlcusion I like this picture because it's nice, it remember me a precious moment of my life, and because it shows five persons very important in my life.

I hope you like it too...

And I hope that my friends don't get ungry because I put this picture in the web

=)

Psychology in the web.-

I will talk about the website: "Community psychology in Chile" . One day I was searching information about this branch of the discipline and I found this page and I think: oh it's very interesting!. So I saved the link in my favourites websites because I wanted to read some articles later. But for a few months I forget this page and I didn't visit it in a long time. But one day I was surfing the net and I remembered this website, so I visited it and I like it a lot.
This website exist since 2004, when some chilean professional of this area created the page to provide some tools to the people who works in community psychology. I think that it is a very useful site for the psychologist, moreover this is an area of psychology that I like a lot.
Nevertheless, when I'm surfing the net I don't visit this page frequently, because I read about another things that I like too.

Anyway, I think tou should visit this website if you are interested in Community Psichology.
You can find it in: http://www.comunitaria.cl

=)

My piece of technology

I will talk about my piece of technology. It is a black and beautiful mp4. I got it a few months ago when my old mp3 didn`t work anymore, and my mom brought this mp4 for me. I use it for watch videos and record voice. But I use it for hear music above all. I use it every day in the bus, when I go to university and when I back home. I use it when I go anywhere by the bus or the subway. Moreover I, sometimes, record some class and interview for univesity works.
I like it because the trip by the bus is very boring, so the mp4 make it fun. Furthermore I think is a very useful thing because it let you keep a lot of information.
I think, that without this piece of technology my life would be boring, because I use the bus a lot and it is very quiet and sad without my mp4.

I really love it =)

me and english

Hi! I'm Carolina Gutierrez Muñoz. I'm writing for the first time in my blog and i like to talk a little about me and my relationship with english.

I'm 20 years old and I'm on the third grade of the psychology career in Universidad de Chile. I realy like it.

I made this blog because i'm doing a degree in english, at present i'm in the pre-intermediate level. I like english, but i like other languages more than english. However, I think that english is a very important language because it's used all over the world, moreover in every academic areas it is the principal language.

it Is very important to me to learn english, but it is not easy. The hardest part is grammar and speaking. I have more skills for reading in this language.

I hope, someday, to know a lot of english.