News

I am "free" so I want to whatever I can't did the last 6 years so I am searching of scholarships so I found this: beca de  movilidad internacional estudiantil sep-unam-funam but I need TOEFL or IELTS https://www.ielts.org/what-is-ielts/ielts-introduction

News and government

The last two classes of the second week of May.

9th May, 2017.
At the beginning of the class we did an exam of reporting speech, here is my exam:

Then we were looking at News in leves site and the teacher put us the following note:

https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/first-chinese-plane-level-3/

that is about a plane. Then we made reported verbs sentences about the note in teams. Here are all the sentences per teams:

1. The journalist mentioned that the plane was designed to compete with the Airbus 320 and the Boeing 737.
2. She explained that the plane had taken off from the Shangai Airport.

1. The journalist (said) reported/announced/explained/added that the C919's maiden flight took/had taken 80 minutes.
2. She described that the C919 had been considered as a success by a Chinese company.

1. The journalist reported the jet was had been built by COMAC.
2. She explained that the C919 was designed to compete with Boeing 737 (also: as a competitor).

And the teacher gave us the following homework:

Choose a piece of news of News in Levels I choose https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/japanese-and-american-warships-level-3/ and I made these two sentences:

1. The journalist mentioned that Japan had dispatched its largest warship.
2. She described that Izumo was escorting a US supply vessel within Japanese waters.

11th May, 2017.

This day we talk about different types of government.

My team and I talked about the types that we knew that are the next:

• Anarchy
• Democracy
• Monarchy

And the last three we did not know:

• Commonwealth
• Emirate
• Sultanate

Laboratory class

8th May, 2017

This day we had class in the laboratory. When I arrived there was only 2 persons in the class, so my teacher told us that we had a problem. So the problems is this

Problem: Many people in this class are constantly late or absent. Next he gave us a solution.
Solution: A 10-15 minutes quiz from 17:10 -17:20 or 17:10 - 17:25.

This situation was a motivation to begin to talk about 3rd conditional, the regret is this:

Regret: I didn't know these many students were going to be so irregular

3rd Conditional

• Had I known this, I would have given 10- minute test from day one.
• If (only) I had known  this, I would have given 10 -  minute test from day one.

Then we did some examples. The next sentences are my examples:

1. If I had known that it was raining, I would have brought my umbrella.
2. If I had saved money, I would have bought more manga books.

After of doing this exercise more people arrive and the teacher gave us another activity in teams, the activity consisted in report what happened in the class since he arrived. Here is my activity:

The last activity was another exercise of reported speech. I only had some answers because the picture I took is blurry. Answers:

1. She said me to come quickly.
2. She asked if he arrived before seven.
3. She said that she would have visited the hospital if she had known that he were sick.
4. She asked if he usually cooked at home.
5. He tell that they had never been to Scotland until last year.
6. She asked me how my holidays had been.
7. She told me not to touch.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (first part)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

My father began to buy the books published by audiobooks that are stories of several authors. These books are bilingual (Spanish and English) and they have a CD that a narrator tells the story in English.

I choose The Curious Case of Benjamin Button because it is the first book I haven't seen the movie but  I heard that is a good movie.

Well, I only read and listened chapters 1 and 2 and I understood this:

In these Scott Fitzgerald describes Benjamin Button's family, they had money and good reputation. Then the Mr. Roger Button  entered that his baby was born and he asked for his wife and the baby but the physician of the family answered rude and tell him that he doesn't  want to be his physician anymore.

Then Mr. Button go to the hospital and  search his boy and all the nurses he cross look scary, finally he find his boy but he is an old man and he doesn't believe it but the nurse that help him to find him tells him that he is his son, this boy can talk perfectly. Mr. Button search cloths for him and at the end the newborn ask him about his name and Mr. Button tells him that he probably will call him Methuselah.

That was everything I understood of the chapters 1 and 2.

In the book there are a lot of words I didn't understand and phrases too, here are some of them.

Phrases

Talk sense! (Sea coherente)

Pull yourself together (Cálmese)

Shifting his ground (Cambiando de opinión)

Words

Obdurate (Obstinado)

Scraggly (ralo/a)

Seized (agarrar)

Shears (tijeras largas)

Sternly (Severamente)

Whitish (Blancuzco/a)

I also search about Methuselah and he is a character in the Bible his father was Enoch. Methuselah appears in the Genesis and he lived for 969 years. I think Roger Button said this because Benjamin looked old.

Connectors

25th April, 2017.

This day the teacher explained us when he will check our blogs and what he expected to see about our work.

Then he showed us websites that we can practice our english and we did an exercise of this page https://elt.oup.com/learning_resources/?cc=us&selLanguage=en I only have the answers:

• We were having dinner when sally called.
• John got to the cinema late and the film had started when he arrived.
• I was driving home when the accident happened.
• Were you watching TV when I phoned?
• I'd Studied really hard but I didn't pass the exam.

And we have homework, that is research about connectors that express addition and find examples fo these words in sentences, so here is the homework:

Furthermore

He was cold and tired, and furthermore, he was hungry.

Moreover

This idea, moreover, was conceived in circumstances that were to prepare the way for its realization.

Apart from

Apart from the ending, it's a really good film.

That is 

I read the book, that is, I read most of it.

Namely

One group of people seems to be forgotten, namely, pensioners.

In other words

We are all the same, in other words, national differences count for nothing in these psychic regions.

That is to say

Our people is like us, that is to say, like the Europeans themselves.

For instance

When, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we combine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of consecutive command dependent one on another.

For example

I can play quite a few musical instruments, for example, the flute, the guitar and the piano.

That is the case

That is the case, for example, with the integration of new components into existing systems of the modernization of these systems.

Song

April 18th, 2017.
The teacher said us that we must bring a song and try to say what was the song about it. I chose Don't You Want Me by The Human League, here is the song with lyrics:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqtXyQEHC58

I chose this song because it was easy to understand. Well, the song is about a man who met a girl in a bar and he fell in love with her, then he helped her to have success in life but then she doesn't want to see him anymore and he thought that she doesn't love him anymore and if that is true he will take revenge on her. Then is the part of the woman, she said that he still love him but she wants to be independent and thats all.

Then our classmates had to make reported speech sentences with reported verbs of what they heard about the song and what they understand.

Others songs were:

1. Freedom by Anthony Hamilton and Elayna Boynton (Django Unchained movie soundtrack)
2. Englishman in New York by Sting

My sentences of the first song are:

• She refused didn't to be a slave anymore
• She felt that the wight of the world was on her shoulders
• She remake that she wants to be true
• They agreed that one day everything would be better
• They refused to living in slavery

My sentences of the second song are:

• He boast his nationality at New York
• He stay at New Your
• He was a legal in New York
• He reused to drink coffee wit a stranger woman

Reporting verbs

April 17th, 2017.

First we remember what are the reporting verbs:

• Reported verbs are verbs that we use in reported speech
• The most common are say and tell
• Tell and make more efficient the communication.

We try to gave a formula but it was difficult and we did examples with some verbs instead.

Encouraged (To motivate)

Jack encouraged me to look for a new job.

Argue ( To debate) 

She argued that she was correct

Apologize (To say sorry)

He apologized for being late.

And we talked about the verbs deny, think, admit and refuse

Deny is to say no but in special situation like "No I didn't do it" or "No I don't have it"

Refuse is no thank you, is reject an offer

Think is having an opinion

Admit is I did it or I have it

About reported questions

April 4th, 2017.

First we remember Reporting Speech, then we gave examples of open questions and yes/no questions and then we tried to made it affirmations, well, here are the examples:

Yes/No questions

• To be: Were you upset?/You are upset.
• To do: Did you understand everything?/ You understood everything.
• Modals: Can you swim?/You can swim.

Open questions

• To be: Why were were you upset?/Why you were upset
• To do: How much did you understand?/How much you understood
• Modals: Can most people swim?/ Why most people can swim

Then we did the next sentences:

• Arturo asked José Luis why he was upset.
• Arturo asked Omar and Nancy how much they had understood.
• Arturo asked the guys why most people could swim in Cozumel.
• Arturo asked José Luis if/whether he was upset
• Arturo asked Omar and Nancy if they had understood everything
• Arturo asked the visitors if they could swim

Then he gave us sentences and we transformed them into reported speech

1. She said: "I went to the cinema yesterday". She said that she had gone to the cinema the day before.
2. He said: "I am writing a test tomorrow". He said he was writing a test the following day
3. You said: "I sill do this for him". You said that you would do that for him
4. She said: "I am not hungry now". She said she wasn't hungry then.
5. They said: "We have never been here before". They said they had never been there befoe
6. They said: "We were in London last week". They said they had been in London the week before.

Then we saw a video of British English vs American English uploaded bye Rachel and Juno channel and the video is interesting because there are two girls and one boy, the girls are one British and the other is American and the man is Japanese, and he asked them why his English's teacher said certain things well the conclusion is that some things are fine in American english than in British are not and viceversa here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gpjrais-Ik

Reading

March 28th, 2017.
A class before we did an activity related with a fragment of the book Lucifer's Shadow by David Hewson.

The book talks about a real history related with a cemetery and it has two stories that at the beginning they don't have anything in common but at the end yes.

The teacher gave us a sheet of paper with an activity and we did it and the he gave us another page that was a fragment of the book and we did questions that we could understand reading the page that he gave us, here are some questions I made:

• Who are the Characters? Rizzo, the Supervisor
• How do the look like? Rizzo looked young, well dressed.
• What are they doing? they are talking about bury a corps, costs, and, organization of the cemetery like how many years the corpse could be in a place (10 years) what they do to the body when the time ends.
• Where are they? Venice, San Michele
• Where are they? In the cemetery
• Whose grave was empty? Ganni Susanna
• How old was she when she died? She was 18 years old
• How does she look like? She was beautiful, healthy, she looked like a kid about to graduate from university, innocent

And he gave us homework, that is why I did the next sentences:

1. The supervisor asked if Rizzo was a relative.
2. The supervisor said that the dead have gotten to fit themselves in to his calendar.
3. The man said that they had ways of doing that.
4. The supervisor asked that if he wanted the headstone (lápida mortuoria).
5. Massiter said they'd work. They'd cost enough.

Compositions

March 14th, 2017.

Since March 9th to March 14th we talked in class about compositions and the way of evaluate them.
Here is  one of my essays that it has the tittle of "What would I do if someone I know posted an embarrassing photo f me on his/her website?"

Then the teacher told us that we musted choose a theme related to working conditions between one country and another country.

And we saw a compare/contrast essays on youtube. I chose working conditions in Mexico vs working conditions in the EUA and because this subject is big I only talked about 4 differences:

1. Salary
2. Hours of work
3. Days off
4. Benefits

More activities of 2nd Conditional

March 7th, 2017.

At the beginning of the class the teacher gave us all a card with a description like a extraordinary event of daily life, for example, a car crash, a street fight, etc. And then we had choose one classmate and try to guess what he o she would do if he or she were in this situation. I don't remember exactly my card description but my predictions are:

• I think he/she would pick up the garbage and throw it to the trash. (Alex/Sylvia)
• I think she would do nothing. (Nancy, Citlali)
• I think he would tell something to the people. (César)

It was funny because sometimes our predictions were no according with the opinion of the classmates.

And we learned new vocabulary

1. Litter: To throw garbage away on the streets.
2. Hitchhiker: Someone who is asking for a ride.
3. Outrageous: Terrible, scandalous and also elegant.
4. Fancy dress party: Costume party.

The we saw a interview of Barack Obama on Youtube and we tried to make reported speeches about it.

2nd Conditional

March 6th, 2017.

This week we talked about conditional and how many conditional are there.

We focus in 2nd conditional

Here is a short explanation about what is 2nd conditional.

We use 2nd conditional to talk about hypothetical situations.

The elements are these:

if + past simple, ...would + infinitive.

Then we did a chain of events in second conditional, here is my exercise:

And we delivered it to the teacher and he corrected our mistakes. In the last class we did an examen from the website: http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/ and I think it was easy.

Enrique Romero

March 3rd, 2017

That the Enrique Romero, that is a CELE's assitant come to our class and did with us some activities.
The first activity was like a test but in teams about places in the USA and my team won.
Then Enrique told us about his neighborhood and other places he knew.

At the end he commented his feelings about Donald Trump, where he is living in the CDMX and he recommend us websites tu improve our english.

February 23th, 2017

We talked about the term "Mexican - American" and terms that people in other countries to discriminate and then we made questions to ask our guest the next March 3rd, we did it in teams. My team was Alex and here are the questions we made.

1) Can you tell us an exciting experience that you lived in the USA?
2) Are you interested in your parents culture?
3) Can you tell us about an American custom/tradition that you don't like?

Then we saw videos of people who lived in other countries but his/her parents were born in other country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OWs4VEcbxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG5sqVE2J5I

that belong to FLAMA and helpmefindparents correspondingly

Floe-joe quizzes and Sixth Sense

February 17th, 2017, February 20th, 2017 and February 21th, 2017.

These days we did floe-joe's quizzes www.flo-joe.co.uk and in the first two days of the activity I got low notes but in the last day I got 10 out of 12 and I was very happy.

Here is a video of what CEFR is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAehOcVfr3Y

February 20th, 2017
When we finished the simulation we read Sixth Sense's transcript. It was very interesting to me because I have never read a transcript of a movie and as the teacher says it give you plenty of information that in the movie sometimes lost. I learn new vocabulary. In my opinion Sixth Sense is the best movie of M. Night Shyamalan.

Here is the transcript http://www.lexwilliford.com/Workshops/Screenwriting/Scripts/Adobe%20Acrobat%20Scripts/Sixth%20Sense.pdf

A Story I Wrote.

At the beginnig of the class of February 7th the teacher asked us to deliver our homework, but, I missed the class of February 6th, so I wrote this. I need to practice a lot.

The teacher talked us about Lang8 that is an app where you post something and a native speaker corrects your mistakes.

Culture Shock

February 9th, 2017

We talked about culture shock that is, essentialy, the feeling of confusion someone has when they go to a new and very different place.

And then we talked about some experiences related with this topic in teams of four persons and then we chose one experience.

In my team we chose Alex's experience and we wrote it in a piece of paper and delivered to the teacher and he corrected our mistakes.

Here is a photo of our work.

I searched on YouTube about Culture shock and I found this video that explains very clear what is Culture Shock. The video belongs to rewboss channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2mixQ_n_5E

February 7th, 2017

In this day we remembered the concepts of "Be used to" and "get used to".

As I understand "Be Used To" is an expression to say that you are accustomed to do something and "Get Used To" is an expression that you are accustomed to doing something, is like "in transition"

And we did the next examples in class.

Note: The sentences in purple  are in the "Be used to" estructure. The sentences in blue are in "Get Used to" estructure.

I got used to shaving every week.
(Now) I am used to shaving every day.

I got used to driving a lot a moth ago.
(Now) I am used to driving only if I must.

I got used to studying English two years ago.
(No) I am used to studying English three days a week.

I got used to talking a lot with my friends at "Las Vegas".
(Now) I am used to talking to myself.

I got used to visiting my grandparents every week.
Nowadays, I am used to visiting my grandparents every moth.

A hilarous video

During the last vacations I saw Breaking Bad that is a series about a chemist teacher that have cancer.
I liked the series, not a lot, but is a good series.

One of the most amazing things of the series is the admirable performance of the character of Bryan Cranston (Walter White).

I think Bryan Cranston's job surprised me a lot because when I was a child I used to see "Malcolm in the Middle" and in that series Cranston's develop a character similar as Breaking Bad, I mean, a father of a family but in "Malcom in the Middle" the character is not "strong" enough and it not change like Walter White did in Breaking Bad.

So, because I loved the job of Cranston I searched on YouTube about him and I found this video of Jimmy Kimmel Live channel.

This video is about Bryan Cranston's 60 year old party and it is a parody of "My Super Sweet Sixteen" that was a MTV reality show.

Some parts were difficult to understand but whit the context is  easier to get the ideas of the video.

Please suscribe to Jimmy Kimmel Live channel on YouTube.

I hope you to enjoy the video!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot_V7Q8a6yc

A little story

My Learning Styles Results

Yesterday I did the test of Learning Styles on the this page https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html and I have gotten the following results.