Blog Session 8: A subject you've enjoyed studying this semester

As most of you know, I studied translation before becoming a teacher, and I would like to write about those times. Studying translation was difficult because many of my classmates discovered that they didn't like translation during our third year, the year that we start to seriously translate. That same year, I discovered I really liked translating, we had a subject called "general translation" where we had to translate non-technical texts into Spanish, I loved it, because we were encouraged not to think only about the words, but the contexts, and to translate according to meanings and not word by word, following the different grammar of the languages we were studying. I had to put into practice the other classes we had had, such as grammar (English and Spanish), as well as culture and of course language. The teacher made us investigate the topic of the text, we had to learn a lot about different topics, that even though they were general it was very useful. We also had to investigate about the words that we used in Spanish, why "this word" instead of "that word", and we needed to have good reasons for choosing one word over the other.
The good thing is that I was really good at it. My teacher always asked for my comments in class, because she knew that I investigated a lot before my translations. I have to say that it was a very good experience, not only because I was good, but also because my classmates and I shared our knowledge, we didn't compete with each other, we always tried to help one another, if somebody found a web page or a glossary that was good we shared it, and I feel that it was so good for me, because I'm very competitive and this class taught me to share knowledge, which I believe is one of the most important concepts of being a teacher today.

What about you?

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Write about your favorite subject this term. Among others, include:

> Name
> Describe what you do in classes
> Mention the main contents you have seen
> Explain why you like the subject

> Word Count: 180
> Make comments on 3 of your partners' posts + a comment on the teacher's post.

Blog Session 7: My favorite Food

I still remember the first time I ate lasagna, I was a little girl and I was visiting my great-grandparents (my mother’s grandparents on her mother’s side) here in Santiago, I was wearing a beautiful dress, I believe it was white or a very light color and a plate was presented to me at lunch, I didn’t know what it was and I asked “what’s this?” “lasagna”, said my great grandmother. I’ve always been very picky, and I looked at the plate with suspicion, but once I started to eat I completely fell in love with this amazing dish, and since then I’m always looking for the perfect lasagna to eat. Of course, that day my dress suffered the consequences and my mother was not happy.

I love Italian food in general, but the lasagna was my first love, probably a close second is gnocchi, but I don’t remember the first time I ate them.

Lasagna is made with thin dough cooked with Bolognese sauce, white sauce, and cheese, all together in the most wonderful mixture of flavors. At least, that is the classic lasagna, my favorite.

Instructions:

Write about your favorite food or type of food

You need to:

-        Say what it is

-        Describe the food

-        Explain what contains

-        Describe an experience with it

-        Add comments to 3 of your classmates’ blogs + a comment on your teacher’s post

-        Word count: 170

Blog Session 6: Options 1 or 2

For this post, you have two options to choose from, in my case I've decided to opt for number 2, an expert on my field who I admire.
When I was doing my Master's degree, my main focus was on MOTIVATION, especially how to motivate students in the English class and how teachers can be motivated by their students as well, and one expert on this area is Zoltán Dörnyei. He was born in Hungary in 1960, he started to study at the School of English and American Studies at Eötvös Loránd University in 1988, where he also finished his Ph.D. in psycholinguistics. Ten years later he moved to the United Kingdom where he specialized in second-language acquisition and motivation in second-language learning, and now he is a professor and author of psycholinguistics at the University of Nottingham in the UK. In 2005, he postulated a new theory to study students' motivation in the second language learning classrooms, the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), which I used when I wrote my thesis. He is a very intelligent man who has helped other authors in their studies and has been a teacher to many experts on the motivation area, he joined different theories in different areas of study such as psychology and language learning and he created his new theory, which has been an important step for all teachers studying motivation.
I really admire him and I hope I can meet him in the future, and who knows? maybe even work together... anyone can dream...


For this post, you have to choose only ONE of these  2 options:

Post 1 (Instructions). 
Write about a career-related website that you enjoy visiting.
You have to:

- provide the link
- describe the website (sections, features, etc)
- say how often you visit the site
- explain why you like the site.

>Add comments to 3 of your classmates’ blogs + a comment on your teacher's post
>Word Count: 170

Post 2 (Instructions)
Who is a person/expert on your field that you admire?
Say:

-Who she/he is. (short biography)
-What she/he has done. (examples of their work)
-Why you like her/him.
-Include his/her image

> About 170 words
>Add comments to 3 of your classmates’ blogs + a comment on your teacher's post.

Blog Session 5: A photograph you like

My siblings and I like to appear in pictures together, we usually take similar pictures for birthdays and special occasions to compare them with older pictures from when we were little, and sometimes we like to get silly on them.

These pictures were taken by my mother with her cellphone, they aren't very professional, and my mother is not the best at taking pictures, but these are some of my favorites because my mother wanted "nice" pictures of us, and when she said: "look better", all of us acted silly for the pictures, without asking each other, it was our natural response for our mother telling us to "look better".

I don't remember if these pictures where taken in a special occasion, but I know they can't be older than three years (I didn't have that dress four years ago).

I love my brother and sister, we are very different, we look similar, but our personalities are very very different. My sister is the oldest and she is a mechanical engineer, and my brother, the youngest, is a drivers' instructor. However, the three of us teach: my sister teaches future engineers, I teach English and my brother teaches people how to drive.

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Write about a photograph you like.
Say:

Who took it
What it shows
When it was taken
Why you like it
Upload it too

Include any other information you'd like to mention.
Write at least 150 words.

Don't forget to leave a comment on my blog and 3 other comments on your classmates' blogs

BLog Session 4: My favorite movie

It’s very difficult for me to choose my favorite movie because I love movies. I like thrillers, dramas, comedies, action movies, I don’t like horror films very much though.

Because I couldn’t decide, I asked my husband what was my favorite movie and he said the first movie he thought of was Dirty Dancing. This movie is a romantic movie from 1987, which is set in 1963 where “Baby” and her family are vacationing in a resort in the United States, there she meets Johnny a dance instructor in the resort. The problem is that they come from different worlds, she is the girl with the rich dad who has all the opportunities to succeed in life and he has struggled all his life to get to where he is now.

The movie was directed by Emile Ardolino and stars Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. I have watched this movie many many times, and one thing that I love about this movie is the music, and how the music connects well with every part of the story. Also, it was supposed to be a low-budget film but due to its music, it became a box office hit. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite, but I do love it.

_____________________

Write about your favorite movie

Say:

What it is.
The genre.
The storyline.
Actors/directors.
Why you like it.


- 140 words minimum.
- Include a picture. 
- Comment on your teacher's post and 3 of your classmates’ blogs.

Blog Session 3: My favorite piece of technology

I know I will sound like an old lady, and maybe I should lie and tell you that my phone is my favorite piece of technology, but I could live without my cellphone. However, I cannot live without my washing machine. I learned to love this piece of technology when I lived in Brazil with my husband (he was my boyfriend at that time) and there wasn't a washing machine, so we had to wash everything with our hands, and believe me, jeans are the worst clothes to wash with your hands!


So, when we moved together, in Chile, we bought one immediately, and we use it about three times a week, or sometimes less.

I hate washing clothes with my hands so much that when I want to buy something a read the label, and if it says "hand wash", I don't buy it.

If I didn't have my washing machine I would spend a lot of money trying to clean my clothes, because I don't want to wash clothes by hand never again!!!!
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Write about your favorite piece of technology

Say:

What it is.
When you got it.
How you use it.
How often you use it.
Why you like it.
What life would be like without it.


- 140 words minimum.
- Include a picture. 
- Comment on your teacher's post and 3 of your classmates’ blogs.

Blog Session 2: Why did you choose this career?

When I was a child I wanted to be many things, a psychologist, a police officer, an actress, and a teacher.
After taking the first PSU test, I had to decide what to study, I really liked English and I was good at it, so I decided to study English pedagogy, but my father told me that I wouldn't make money being a teacher and it was a bad idea, so I decided to study translation instead.
I studied translation in English and Portuguese at USACH, but in my free time I worked as a private English teacher to earn some money, and when I finished Translation I discovered that Chile is the worst country for translators, so I decided to continue teaching English, my real passion, and because I wasn't a "real" teacher I studied a Master's degree to learn to be a better teacher.
I loved my time at university (USACH) because I met people from different origins, and some of them became my best friends because we had similar ideas for the future. There, I also met my husband, who is my favorite person in the world. Also, when I returned to university a few years ago (UNAB) I met very intelligent people who had similar experiences working as teachers, we were mostly women, and we talk about life and work until today.
I hope that in the future, I can continue working at different universities, and I would also like to work in a study program related to English so we can discuss our love for the language with the students.

________________________

Write about:

- your dream jobs when you were a child

- other career options that you had at the moment of applying to university

- what made you decide in the end

- your experience at university until now

- the kind of job you would like to have

 > word count: 130 words

 > don't forget to leave comments on 3 of your classmates' posts and on your teacher's post as well.