Essay: My experience of learning english

My experience of learning english at the university has been positive and negative at the same time. To talk about it I have to make two distinctions. First of all, I have a diferent opinion about English 3 and about English 4, so I believe that by distinguishing between this two moments of my english experience I can better explain my opinion. Second of all, I have to make a difference between my own experience and the experience of people who did the four levels; this will aloud me to express the main ideas I have about english class.

I have to say that for me english 3 was horrible. I didn't like to use the blog, it didn't allow me to go into the learning of english because the subjects were very annoying and useless (for example, once we had to write about our favourite song), and because we had to post few times. Also, the teacher was mean, and she use to give us homeworks even during september's hollidays! I hated her. English 4 instead changed my vision about the use of blogs. I realised that to be constantly writing and correcting in english was very useful, even more if it was a topic I didn't know because it forced me to find out the meaning of many words so it increased my vocabulary.

In general terms I think that english at the university it's not good. I had english at school, so I had some background before starting the courses. Now that I'm finishing, I can't say "I speak english". Like I say, english 3 was useless but english 4 was ok; I learned a lot of new words, and there where a lot of talking exercises that were very good . The only problem is that we didn't read antropology texts, which I believe it could be very useful for our career (anyway I understand that it's very dificult to do that, cause it means that the teacher should be an antropologist). But the main problem of english class in general manifest itself when I see some of my classmates that did the four levels, they really didn't learn english very well. Maybe the objectives of each level and the articulation between them, because I feel that some contents repeat themselves.

To conlude I have to say that even if I think that english class at the university it's not achieving his main objective and should be improved, this year has been very positive for my process of learning english. The atmosphere of the class it's very comfortable, we joke a lot in english which it's very funny and we laugh a lot. English 4 made me awake the english knowledge I had inside me, and has motivated me to keep learning more and more. The last thing I have to say it's that our teacher is a real lovely person, very concerned about our learning, always available to answer any doubt we have. She was one of the reasons of my new good disposition to learning english.

The Faculty of Social Science

The faculty of social science of the University of Chile was created in 1989. It is located in Juan Gómez Millas Campus, along with other six faculties of many different disciplines from science to art. The social science faculty it consist of four department; psicology, sociology, anthropology and education, and the students of this four careers have to share the facilities od the building. The faculty has four floors and an underground. There are and auditorium, two computation rooms, a library, a cafeteria and some laboratories, beside of the class rooms for the different careers.

The facilities of the faculty have improved so much in this last years, for example in 2006, when my generation entered to the university, were few computers and very old and disrepair, but now, in 2009, there arte two computers rooms and the last month the number of computers was increased significantly, but still there are many aspects that need improvement, like the library and the cafeteria. Are needed to increase the number of books and extend the reading spaces, and also is necessary to create spaces for the students, especially study rooms for work meetings, because the library is the only space for do that and as it's small there are not enough space to read and to work in groups.

To face this situation the students have to organize and raise demands to authorities of the faculty and the university. In the different faculties of the university there are different realities in the facilities. Some buildings, like engineering and economy are very modern and have been recently remodeled with the ultimate technology, but the faculties of the JGM campus don't have many resources, for that, for resolve the situation of our faculty is necessary a better distribution of the university resources, more equal between their faculties.

The impact of this improvements can be very important for students and acedemics, specially because our carerrs are theoretical and the books are basic for our formation. Also, the study room would be very important because we do many investigations in group. Of course this thing are the basic and the priorities, but the next steps could be to expand the cafeteria, building more labs and improve the class rooms.

GO CHILE!

The last saturday the chilean football team won to Colombia and classified to the soccer world cup, that will be realized in South Africa in 2010. This classification is very important for the chilean society because since France '98 that Chile did not participate in a world cup, that's twelve years ago! In Chile is not common to have sporting successes, and then, every triumph is celebrated with much happiness. In fact, after the game a crowd gathered in Plaza Italia to celebrate the classification.

The actual football team has a very good level, there are very good players and the coach, Marcelo Bielsa, has demonstrated its ability to handle the team and guide it to good results. I like so much this team! My favourite players are "Chupete Suazo" and Mati Fernández. Suazo is a goalscorer and in this last game he had a goal with which he has nine goals and reached the Brazilian Luis Fabiano in the top of the scoring list of qualifying heats. I think that "El Mati" is a very handsome guy, he has a very cute face and very good legs!

I'm not a fun of football, but I think that the worldcups are very entertaining, I enjoy watching the games with my friends, especially when it plays Chile. The World Cup next year will be in South Africa ... of course I would love to go there! I think there should be a fascinating place, but is far away and really, I don't think I can make that trip.

GO CHILE!!!!

Rich lavish most love on first child

This article shows the findings of a research published for academics from the anthropology department of UCL (University College London) about the disproportionate attention and care that the modern couples give to their first biorn in comparison with their minor children. The researchers support that this fact is culturally ingrained 'cause it can come from the class tradition of primogeniture (something very important in royal family and aristocracy). Another find is that the extra attention to oldest child is more pronounced in rich families than in poorer families.

The study was applied to 14.000 british families (!!) to examine how much time and attention gave each of their children and the results were clear: oldest children were receiving more attention and care of their parents. This situation creates the called one “later-born disadvantage”, 'cause extra care may lead to greater success in later life for older childrens, in decline of their siblings.

This findings were very clear for rich families, though one finds the same trend in poorer families, it is much weaker. The anthropologist explain this fact because "there are so few resources it is harder to give one child much more time, love or possessions than another".

The link for this article is:

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5733620.ece

Santiago

Santiago is a very interesting city 'cause is the capital of Chile and there are so many activities to do here. A foreigner tourist should visit in first place the city center 'cause there are the most emblematic places in the city and the historic buildings, like the government palace; "La Moneda", the central park; "Plaza de Armas", the cathedral, and some interesting and beautiful museums. On day the tourists can visit these places and also they can go to a typical chilean food restaurant and taste the "empanadas" and the "pastel de choclo" (these are my favorite chilean dishes). At night they should visit the "Bellavista" neighborhood, there are many restaurants, bars and discotheques of all styles, and the tourists can enjoy different types of food, have a drink (they have to taste the typical "piscola") and dancing from salsa to reggaeton.

For me these are the top five places in Santiago:

1) "Cerro San Cristóbal": In this hill the tourists can catch a beautiful panoramic sight of the city (if is a clear and uncontaminated day it's much better) and touring around the Zoo.

2) "Museo de Bellas Artes": The architecture of this museum is very beautiful and there are both, classical and avant-garde exhibitions.

3) The Cathedral: This is one of the most beautiful places in Santiago and has over three hundred years!

4) "La Moneda": In the palace government visitors can learn so much about the history of our country and under the building there are a museum that always has interesting exhibitions

5) "Museo de Arte Precolombino": In this museum there are exhibitions of archaeological and historical pieces from the natives people of Chile and Latin America, is so interesting!

September

In september we celebrate our national festivities. On september 18th we celebrate the independence day, though the sign of the independence act was really on february 12th, 1818, but we honor the first national government association in 1810. The celebration last practicly all the week and in some jobs, schools and universities there are vacations, for that some people go out of Santiago to visit their families and celebrate with them. In all cities there are so many activities during all the month, there are "ramadas" and "fondas", these includes music, dance, and traditional food. The food is very important in the celebrations, the most tipical are the "empanadas", the "anticuchos", and the "choripanes". The alcohol is very important too...people drinks a lot!

I'm going to utilize my vacation days to see my family and friend. Also on september 20th, I'm going to do a research in situ for a week in Choapa Valley with some classmates of the english class. The topic of our research is very interesting 'cause is a global view of the valley and the changes that have occurred in the last decades.

I like september, 'cause the national festivities are very funny, and i love vacations! Also spring comes and I like sunny days!!!

TRANSANTIAGO

I like Transantiago very much. I think that in general it's very much better than the previous system. In first place buses are cleaner and safer than the "yellow micros". The pay system (BIP) is more confortable because I don't have to carry coins with me and it's better planned (I love to plan everything!). In second place, I like the idea of combining metro and buses; it's more dynamic. In other hand there are too many people packed inside the buses and I can't find seats to read in my trip. There has been changes in the Transantiago; at the beginning there fewer buses, and less information than now. But, nowaday I think that the system works very good.
I know that my positive opinion about Transantiago it's because I don't have to use it in the "peak hour" and I don't have to do long trips. I think that for other people it could have been worst than the previous system.
To improve the system I would change the number of buses between lines because there are some that have to many buses and others much less than what they should.