PRACTISING
ENGLISH IN SAN JAVIER
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“Is
it difficult to learn a foreign language?” This
is the first question I asked myself three years ago
when I started to study English at the EOI in San
Javier.
Well, at first, I thought it was “Mission: Impossible”
(like the film), because I had never studied English
so then and I didn’t have enough free time to
study. But now, after almost three years, I can answer
my first question: “it is difficult, but not
impossible”. The most difficult thing for me
is to have an English conversation and understand
and be understood by the other person. If you can’t
afford to spend some time in Britain, it’ll
be hard to improve your level of spoken English.
Some months ago one of my classmates had a good idea:
we could try to meet English people and have a conversation
in English. Our teacher, Mª Ángeles, agreed
with her. A few days later, and through my daughter’s
English teacher, Sally, we met two English couples.
Their names are June and Neil (who are from Scotland),
and Beryl and Brian (from Blackpool, in western England).
They have been living here for five or six months,
more or less, and they speak only a little Spanish.
Since then, some of my schoolmates and me meet them
once a week in Príncipe de Asturias Community
Centre in La Ribera. They are very nice amusing people,
and we speak about everything (Spanish and English
customs, tastes, food, etc.). We hardly ever speak
Spanish, which is very good for me, although sometimes
I don’t understand everything they say. It’s
very interesting to go to those meetings and I think
it’s a good way to practise English in Spain.
I definitely recommend it.
Loli Martínez Sánchez
3rd year English. Extensión San Javier
DRESSING UP FOR CARNIVAL
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Nowadays,
in my small town, there are few people who celebrate
carnival, at least with the typical disguises. During
my childhood nobody used to dress up neither in school
nor in the streets. Something similar to a procession
(only some people dressed up) went through the streets
on the last Saturday evening before cuaresma. On the
next Monday and Tuesday, it was raining flour (people,
especially children, threw it to unprepared ones)
and everybody who was in the street was covered by
this white powder. I really hated those days.
The last carnival I went to Aguilas, a place where
disguises and music invaded its streets during these
days; there, everybody dressed up and me too. It was
more different than in previous years. I was wearing
a strange suit that represented SPRING; eight people
were wearing the same suit during all the weekend,
day and night. An artisan very short transparent green
dress of gauze was the principal piece. We stuck on
it plastic flowers and leaves with hot silicon and
we also stuck these ones in our green shoes and in
a cotton band for the head, like a beautiful crown.
We were wearing a very tight-fitting green piece of
cloth, with an uncomfortable zip on the back; this
covered all our body, except head and hands. The suit
was very simple and we all enjoyed those days a lot,
although we were cold all the time.
Montse
Martínez
5º de ingles
Terrorism
Objective: Tears And Destruction
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Like
a modern version of the wartime images painted by
Goya, a fatal vision of death in Madrid has shown
the senselessness of terrorism. In a barbaric act
of terrorism innocent civilians were killed. Why?
Trying to justify this act is an insult to everyone
who values life...
The touch of sadness of the train of death made Spanish
eyes cloud with tears, but Spanish people have been
willing to show the courage that has made this great
nation and democracy continue intact.
Madrid bombings were Spain’s first confrontation
with Islamic terror; but the scourge of terrorism
using violence such as bombing, shooting or kidnapping
to obtain political demands has been present in Spanish
society for a long time. In the name of an invented
oppressing country and lack of freedom, terrorists
oppress, extort and provoke a bloodbath of innocent
people.
Terrorism is deaf and blind. They fight an army whose
soldiers are schoolchildren, office clerks, hard-working
people, etc.; and whose lethal weapons are their valuable
own lives, dreams and expectations.
Terrorist attack: What a great act of cowardice and
lack of humanity! Killing is easy, setting bombs is
easy, killing innocent people is easy, killing a policeman
or a civil guard with a shot in the head is easy.
The only thing you need is to be a coward, a narrow-minded
person without principles and lack of respect for
human beings. They cannot be very intelligent, because
someone who is really intelligent has a more personal
and positive opinion of the world and his / her ideology
is not easily manipulated.
Spain is emerging from the horror, though this horror
will remain in the Spanish memory forever. Maybe one
day soon the terrorists will understand that the promised
paradise is here on the earth, living in peace together.
Gladys
Rozas
5th Year Student
Did
you know that changing your mobile phone for the latest
model is helping to increase the deaths in Congo’s
war ?
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We have only heard some few and short news about Congo’s
war. It is something that is happening very far from
us and it appears to be some kind of ethnic war between
hutus and tutsis. But, did you know that apart from
ethnic reasons people are fighting for controlling
the lands in which a mineral known as COLTAN exists?
And, what has coltan got to do with your mobile phone?.
Coltan , is the short name for columbite-tantalite,
when it is refined it becomes metallic tantalum, a
dense element, extremely hard and highly resistant
to corrosion, with a high melting point, which is
a very good conductor of heat and electricity. It
is used in capacitors for mobiles phones, computers,
video-games, aircraft turbines and in general in electronic
devices.
Since the late 90s decade, the demand for mobile phone
has hugely increased, and therefore coltan reached
it highest price in December 2000 at around $550 (in
January 2000 it was $65). The supplies are scarce,
it can only be found in Brazil and Australia, where
to open a new mine can take up to 10 years and two
years to expand existing ones.
The fighting in the eastern Congo, in order to obtain
the power over coltan mines, are involving several
countries, some of which, as Rwanda, Angola and Burundi,
are backed by the USA and financed by the FMI and
the World Bank. This hardly known, but devastating
war, has caused four millions of civil deaths, two
millions of displaced persons and half a million of
refugees.
Supporting military forces in the two fronts (Congo,
Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe against the Congolese Rally
for Democracy, Rwanda, Uganda), big companies are
every day wealthier as so the surrounding countries,
while Congo is every day poorer. Children are the
most looked for workers, who leave school in order
to work in the coltan mines, they are the cheapest
and more easily silenced labour. Prisoners with reduced
sentences, refugees, peasants and farmers, who can
not feed their families, are also employed in mining.
On the other hand, rebels have overrun Congo’s
national parks, clearing out large areas of lush forests,
while endangered elephants and gorillas are being
hunted because of the poverty and starvation suffered
by miners and rebels.
Coltan could be a rich source instead of a way of
oppression of Congo’s people. Some NGOs have
denounced this situation and asked the international
agencies to punish the companies that are taken part
in the country’s plunder, seizing coltan exports
temporarily in order to avoid that the war continues
being fuelled.
But, talking about so much money and big companies,
is there anything we can do as a single consumer?
Yes, there is. You can use your mobile phone until
it doesn’t work, don’t change it only
because it is out of fashion, and when you go to buy
a new one ask the shop assistant from where the company
is importing the coltan. Moreover, you can write letters
to the mobile phones companies to ask them not to
buy coltan coming from Africa. The fear of loosing
market share will make these big companies more ‘ethical’.
