Why you are here

Dear all:

Today I’d like to tell you a bit about myself. When I finished school I decided I did not know what to do. So I took a year off and worked to save money. Later I entered translation because I liked languages. I did English and German but right in the middle of it, there was a chance to travel to Germany and work there. So I did. When I got back to Chile I fell into teaching by chance. Later I got my English teaching degree.

I think teachers are a great contribution to society but only if they have a vocation. If not, they may be great researchers or academics, but not teachers. I feel a teacher needs to be alert and attentive to what is happening in the classroom in the whole sense of the word. They also need a lot of patience & knowledge in their area of study. A teacher needs constant training because the world changes, students change, and so does methodology.

I think one of my favourite subjects at Uni was phonetics. I loved the idea of studying & recognizing the English sounds and also to contrast them with the Spanish sounds. I also enjoyed pragmatics. The future of teachers looks more relevant all the time. I think we need to keep up with technology among other things because we will need to be more and more updated to connect with students. 

One professional I admire in my area of study is Rod Ellis. He is very well known in the area of second language acquisition. He has published a lot of books & I love the way he writes. He has got a very clear way to express his ideas and they make a lot of sense to me.

Now, write about yourself. Say:

-Why are you studying this career?

- How do professionals in your area contribute to society?

- What tools will a professional in your area need to have in the future?

- What is your favourite subject?

- Include this and more in your answer.

- 180 words minimum. One comment in this blog and one comment on a different blog 

A city or town

Dear all,

Nice to read you all again.

Today I thought we could write about something slightly different before we get back on the hard routine.

I have been very lucky and chosen to prioritise travelling over a lot of material things that people have to or choose to opt for. For this reason, I have visited  a number of places. Today, I would like to talk about a place about 5 hours from Santiago city. And this is Elqui valley.  I have had the chance to visit this place 3 times. One time with a friend and her boyfriend around 10 years ago,  one time with my mum, my husband and his sister in 2016 and the last time in 2018 with a couple of lovely relatives and my husband.

For this text I will refer to the very last time, I really enjoy every time I go there because I take the opportunity to eat a lot of papayas, drink nice pisco and watch the stars. In some countries like New Zealand or Japan, you can see amazing stars from any small city, in Chile, however, you need to travel south or north to do this. I personally enjoyed doing a star watching tour that was an hour and a half away from Vicuña.  All the people knew a lot about the stars, it was a very beautiful experience and I would love to do it again. I also tried different varieties of pisco, which was nice.

I love the mountain and the sky as you go down  Elqui Valley, I think it is quite unique and It is a wonderful place I strongly recommend.

Write about a place you have visited and enjoyed

Say:
When you went there
Who you went with
What you did there
Why you like this place

Write a minimum of 180 words and 3 comments on any of the blogs in this class.

Irregular Verbs in present and past