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EDAPI presentation (abstract)

Why are animal terms used as insults in so many cultures? This session intends to look into the reasons why many languages use animal terms as swear words, explain which features of animals carry negative connotations and explore how connotations vary across cultures and hence languages.This session will also explain some metaphors related to animals used by people to insult.

SCs&WRs

Relax! It's just a narrative!

When I was at school, I was often asked to turn in narratives and college essays. This made me a quite flexible writer. I wrote for academic reasons, but soon I discovered writing for pleasure. My school held writing competitions, in English as well as in Spanish. I won the competition twice and that made me feel as if it was my destiny to become a writer.

Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, I had to devote myself to studying and writing academic pieces. I had neither time nor energy to write for pleasure. Whenever I did find my muse, I would sit down and scribble a few lines, but then I was never able to finish a piece. This really frustrated me and eventually, I stopped trying.

Nowadays, whenever I have to write for a language assignment, I feel as if it was someone else writing. Usually these pieces have little of me, and a lot of what an English student should be like. I remember trying to "innovate" in my writings for Language II, but these innovations were not welcomed by my teacher.

Somewhere in between the past and the present, I realized I have been quite a good academic writer. When I was at Letras, I loved writing papers on theory on literature or human studies. I still enjoy having assignments that require working with different sources and usually, the results are good. However, this practice has led me to be what I consider a boring writer and to write plain pieces such as the present one.

As a teacher, I find it hard to assess the writing tasks I assign to my students. Usually I cannot really explain why I think the writing piece is not altogether well-written. I tend to focus on grammar and spelling mistakes although I know I am missing more important issues that would help me guide my students into successful writing.

This year I have begun to realize there is a whole world behind teaching writing skills. I'm very interested in process writing, not only because of what I have heard in this Language course but also because of what I have heard from other teachers at the Joaquín V. González.

All in all, I am looking forward to finding a different approach from the one I have been taught and worked with so far. This will not only help me improve my own skills but also those of my students.

SCs

What not to do at speaker's corner!

Speaker’s corner at the Joaquín was an excellent opportunity to prove that Language III students are as crazy as loons!

My speech was about the conflicts that were taking place at the Joaquín due to the disagreements in the History department. My speech required a strong but clear tone of voice and since I was describing events that weren’t shared by everybody I had to go slowly so that everyone could follow. You can imagine how many times I repeated the speech in front of the mirror, pausing, explaining and gesturing. Unfortunately, I had to go first. The worst possible scenario had unexpectedly turned true. I was really nervous, so I started rushing through the words of my speech, only thinking about when it was going to end. I was literally in the corner of the classroom so I started feeling claustrophobic and really hot.

However, since I was really committed and connected to the topic I had chosen, I got involved in what I was saying, and by the end of the speech I think I managed to convince the audience that what was going on at the Joaquín was serious, and that made me feel rewarded.

What I liked the most about Speaker’s Corner was listening to the rest of my classmates. I think I learnt a lot from their speeches, what I liked and enjoyed from their speeches and what I would have done otherwise. I loved Marina’s use of the space, how she walked around showing Cristina’s pictures and how confident she sounded. I looked up to Candela’s commitment to what she was sharing with us and the way in which she did. Hector’s challenging attitude was shocking at first but effectively caught the audience’s attention! Romina’s sarcasm was a great ingredient in her speech.

I still remember most speeches and what I learnt from them, so thank you very much people!

I hope we get the chance of a similar experience in the near future J