ORAL PRESENTATION ABOUT DREAMS

Last Thursday 17th of November me and my classmate Mar Oliva did an oral presentation about dreams. So, now, I'm going to comment it a little bit to see our mistakes and in what we can improve.


PRESENTATION:

I think our recourses were good. We didn't put almost any text in the presentation, just images to make it more visual and entertaining. We also used a video at the end of the presentation and, from my point of view, it was very interesting and helped the audience to know a little more about dreams. Focusing on the timing, it lasted 8:44 minutes, so it was all right.


BODY LANGUAGE AND EYE CONTACT:

During the presentation, I tried by best to look as less as possible my paper, but in a few times I had to just check on it. Even though I kind of like doing oral presentations, I always get a bit nervous, so it’s normal that I looked on my paper. But, of course, I didn’t read, so I think it was OK. I also tried to make eye contact with everybody in the class, and I think I did it all right.


STRUCTURE:

About the structure, we tried to organize all the information as good as we could, and I think we made it. We did an introduction, then we presented the ideas and finally we did a conclusion.


CONTENT:

While we were doing the presentation, we tried our best not to put boring information in it, we chose the most interesting things we found (according to the topic) and we tried to make it funny and pleasant. About that part, I can’t judge it properly, I think the audience has to do it. But, well, if I have to say something, I would say we did it very good.


LANGUAGE:

Now that I listen to the presentation, I see that I’ve made a few errors because of my nerves, but not so much. A good think that I see in myself is that most of the times when I did a mistake, I corrected it.


PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION:

I think I have quite a good pronunciation but, of course, I can improve a lot! About the intonation, I tried to make questions, change my tone of voice… to keep the audience’s attention.

So, in conclusion, I think we made a good oral presentation, but we can always improve!

NEWS

RITA BARBERÁ, EX-MAYOR OF VALENCIA, HAS DIED TODAY AT THE AGE OF 68

Today, 23th November 2016, Rita Barberá, ex-mayor of Valencia, has died of a heart attack at the age of 68, according to doctors. Doctors said they had tried to resuscitate her for half an hour, but it didn’t work out.

Rita Barberá had been the mayor of Valencia for 16 years in a row (since 1995 to 2011). While she was the mayor, both the City of Arts and Sciences and the Congress Centre were built. When she was voted out of the mayoral service, she took up a seat in the Spanish Senate.

Then, some months ago, she was accused of money-laundering during her term being the mayor of Valencia, as well as some other people of her team and the PP (Popular Party), but she denied it all. Most rival parties have criticized Barberá a lot, but PP members have always defended her. Even Mariano Rajoy, the president of Spain, has said Rita Barberá “gave everything for Valencia and the Popular Party”. Also, PP members accused those political rivals who criticized Barberá of causing her depression. 

The Podemos members leaving the parliament
during the minute of silence.

But, returning to the main point, Rita Barberá’s death has caused divided reactions. Even though all political leaders have shown their condolences to her family and friends, some of them refused to held one minute of silence in her honor in the parliament. One of these political parties is Podemos, and they have left their sits during this one minute of silence. They argue that they cannot participate in a political tribute to someone whose career is marked by corruption.

It says: "A minute of silence in Congress for the death of Rita Barbera is a tribute to her career. We refused and we left". Said by Alberto Garzón, leader of Izquierda Unida party.

PERSONAL OPINION:

Someone’s death is never a good thing so, even though I’m not a fan of the PP, Rita Barberá’s death has not been a good new. But, in regard to the minute of silence in the parliament, did she really deserve it? Does a corrupt person, which has made illegal business to make money, deserve a minute of silence? Well, that’s a question that you have to make to yourself. As far as I am concerned, I don’t want to get into in this type of political issues, so I’ll limit to give condolences to Rita Barberá’s family and friends.

NEW WORDS:

Amid: entre
Money-laundering: blanqueig de capitals
Vow: prometre


Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38075458

NEWS

SEA WILL EAT US

This new talks about climate change, and how now it is too late for some towns and cities (specifically, it talks about cities in the USA), that will disappear under the sea no matter what we try to do now for avoiding this situation.

In particular, there are 414 towns and cities in the US that will be submerged by sea levels within some years. Among this cities, stand out Miami and New Orleans. This information was provided by the website of Climate Central, the company who did this study.

Then, focusing on Florida, this study guaranteed that at least 40% of the people is living in this affected (or that soon will be affected) area. It says that an important part of the state (including Miami) is built on bedrock formed of “porous limestone”, so some scientifics compared it to a Swiss cheese. That means that water can go through it easily and levees will not be effective.

One of the objectives of this research is to make people aware that this is a serious issue, and to be a warning for cities that can still be saved if we reduce our carbon emissions. One of these cities is New York, but we have to take a drastic action soon or, otherwise, more or less one and a half million people will lose their homes because of the rise of the sea level.

Finally, this new ends with an important question to think about it: “Are we going to let the ocean take a state-sized bite out of America? If we make extreme efforts to cut carbon, we can avoid that”.


PERSONAL OPINION:

Climate change is a very serious problem we have currently. I’m surprised how a lot of people don’t even give it any attention. Maybe that’s because it doesn’t affect us that much in our daily life. There are loads of studies saying that the ice of the Artic is melting dangerously but, after all, you woke up and you don’t feel like anything has changed. We have to change our mind. That we don’t feel its consequences right now and in our daily life doesn’t mean it’s not there. I think we only will realize its importance when it will be too late, when sea level will “eat” our house and everything we have. We are destroying the planet, and we are not conscious it’s the only planet we have to live in.


NEW WORDS:

Bedrock: base, fonament
Levee: dic (construcció)
Heritage: herència


Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/11932421/More-than-400-towns-and-cities-in-America-will-be-lost-to-the-sea-study-finds.html

NEWS

XENOPHOBIA OVER RATIONALITY

This opinion article talks a little bit about the “Brexit” and its consequences. On June 23, Great Britain decided to leave the European Union, becoming the first country to do it. For the writer of this article, this means one thing: national interests and xenophobia are winning over rationality, solidarity and common projects for helping everybody.

Among all the things that represent the Brexit, the writer stands out some of them, like the restrictions on foreign students or “making legal” the xenophobia. But, what’s more terrifying among all those things, is that Brexit isn’t it an isolated case, it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s happening in Europe. For example, there’s the case of Germany, who has an extreme right-wing party called Alternative for Germany (AfD) which doesn’t stop growing. This party goes mainly against immigrants and the European Union. Another example is the case of Ticino, a region of Switzerland, which approved through a referendum a priority of local workers over foreign people. These examples prove that more people every time think that immigrants are the cause of low salaries and unemployment.

Then, the author criticizes the fact that people prefer blaming the immigrants and close borders than fighting for higher minimum salaries, redistribute the wealth… This demonstrates that Europe is losing its rationality and national interests are winning against all.


PERSONAL OPINION:
I’m very concerned about this; it seems like we never learn… Well, as someone said, “Man is the only animal that trips twice over the same stone”. Because of this extreme nationalism, some years ago a man called Hitler reached to the power in Germany, and everybody knows what he did. And now, with the victory of Donald Trump in the USA is quite the same. Extreme nationalism is never good. From my point of view, I think a globalized world is a good thing; we worked very hard to achieve it, for everybody to have the same opportunities. Well, we still haven’t done it yet, but we’re working on it, and these extreme nationalisms are a step back to what we have been working for during all the history of humanity.


NEW WORDS:

Withdraw: retirar-se
Scant: escàs
Wage: salari


Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/07/opinions/xenophobia-over-rationality-mammone/index.html

YOUR SAY

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN?

At first, I didn’t want to talk about the American elections, because it’s such a common topic right at this moment, everyone is talking about it so I thought I wouldn’t be able to contribute with anything new. But, since Trump has won (unlike everyone was expecting), I found myself “forced” to talk about it.

So, yes, Donald Trump has won the elections, and now is the new President of the United States (really, one week ago I was completely sure that I would never say that). My question right now is why, why does a xenophobic, homophobic, sexist, racist and misogynist man have won the elections of the US, the land of freedom, of equality, the most important power of the world?

If I have to be sincere, I don’t understand, and I don’t think I’ll never be able to do it. But, I think to (more or less) understand the causes of this big failure (sorry, I meant, of this decision) we have to understand North America’s society. They have been selling us that America is the land of opportunities, of whether you’re black, white, Hispanic, Asian or wherever you came from, you can succeed in the US if you work hard. And now Americans put a man on the Presidency that wants to build a wall in the border with Mexico? Well, there’s something that I don’t understand here. I think Trump represents the dark part of what white American people think. When you talk to people most of them are like “Oh yes, I’m not a racist, no way!” But then, these people are the first ones to say inside their homes that all the problems of the country are there because of the immigrants. Trump basically says what most people in America think but they don’t dare to say in public. But, really, I never thought more than 60.000.000 people in America thought that way in the XXI century. Maybe one of the reasons why Trump has won is because it’s always easier to blame the others. “Why America have problems? It’s not because of American white people, no way! It’s immigrants fault, clearly”. But people who left their countries looking for a better life are Americans too, like they say “home is where the heart is”. Actually, all the Yankees that consider themselves the “real Americans” are actually immigrants from mostly Europe or some other places in the world. The real American people are the native Americans, so I found it quite stupid to say it’s all immigrants fault when most of American people are immigrants.

Personally, I’m not a big enthusiast of Hillary Clinton either, but I would prefer her in front of Trump. That two-party predominance in the elections is not a good think either. There were other options (like Gary Johnson or Jill Stein) but most of the people don’t even know they exist and that’s a bad thing, because most of the people didn’t actually like Clinton or Trump, but they chose one of them because they hate the other one more. And most of them maybe would have liked the Green Party (lead by Jill Stein) or the Libertarian Party (lead by Gary Johnson) but they didn’t have an opportunity.

But, what will represent Trump’s victory? Well, actually, I don’t really know. I hope (and I’m almost sure) that Donald will not do every stupid thing that he promised, or otherwise we would be finished.