Powered By Blogger

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Final Oral Exam

General Questions

1. What are your weaknesses and your strengths?
2. What specialty do you want to follow? Why?
3. What qualifications do you have that make you feel you
Are right for this specialty?
4. Can you study under pressure or deadlines?
5. How do you feel about studying extra hour?
6. Do you see yourself as an employer or employee?
7. How are your grades so far?
8. What do you want to do after finishing high school?
9. Are you a self-motivated person?
10. What do you think study here is important?
11. How do you work better: in groups or alone? Why?
12. Do you plan to continue your education?
13. Where do you see yourself in five years from now?
14. Are you interested in studying: Administration/Accountancy/Secretary/Electronics/Metallurgy?
15. Would you like to travel to a country outside South America?
If yes, Where?
16. Why do you attend Colegio Inglés? Was it your decision?
17. What did you and your parents do last weekend?
18. How long do you stay at school?
19. Do you have a good friend, why did you become friends? How
long have you been friends?
20. How do you feel about classical music?
21. Which sports do you like watching?
22. Do you have any plans for the future?
23. It’s your dream day: What do you want to do?
24. Do you enjoy your holidays? Why?
25. What do you think of your work?
26. When did you start your studies in this school?
27. Describe Iquique. (weather, people, food, way of life, houses, famous buildings, landmarks, etc)
28. Are you an independent person?
29. What are your likes and dislikes?
30. What can you do in your free time?
31. Are you an independent person?
32. Who do you live with?
33. How often do you go to discos?
34. Describe a good student.
35. Describe a good worker.
36. Describe yourself psychologically.
37. What do you like doing in your spare time?
38. What do you and your family like to do in your spare time?
39. What do you have in common with your best friend?
40. Talk about your daily routine.
41. Where does your father, mother work?

PRE COLUMBIAN CULTURES

PRE-COLUMBIAN CULTURES
The Incas, the Mayas and the Aztecs were not the only people who developed important cultures in the Americas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
I. The Chinchorro people were fishermen-hunters-gatherers (chinchorro means “small boat”) who lived along the coast of the Atacama Desert of northern-most Chile from about 5,000 BC to 500 BC. There were many ancient cultures of people who lived simply among the arid river valleys of the Andes, but the Chinchorro made themselves unique by their dedicated preservation of the dead. People of the Chinchorro culture developed elaborate methods of mummification. The Chinchorro would prepare their mummies by removing the internal organs and replacing them with vegetable fibers or animal hair. In some cases an embalmer would remove the skin and flesh form the dead body and replace them with clay.
II. The Nazca culture flourished in the Nazca region between 300 BC and 800 AD. Their astronomers created the famous Nazca Lines and built an impressive system of underground aqueducts that still function today. The Nazca Lines are the most attractive feature in this culture. These large geoglyphs, drawings on the earth’s surface, make no sense on the ground. We can recognize the features only from the air. There are several kinds of figures, such as fish, birds, monkeys, a whale, spiders and plants. These lines spread on the ground more than 1,300 km. Since these lines are on a flat surface and the climate in the area is extremely dry, nearly all geoglyphs remain completely intact.
III. The Native Americans were living in America long before the arrival of white man on American soil. When the Europeans came, there were probably about 10 million Indians populating the North American continent. It is believed that the first Native Americans arrived during the last ice-age, approximately 20,000-30,000 years ago through a land-bridge across the Bering Sound, from north-eastern Siberia into Alaska. The name Indian was first applied to them by Christopher Columbus, who believed that the land he had discovered was India. The North American Indians were nomads who would hunt the buffalo for food and dress and would move around the land according to the weather.

Vocabulary

Pre-columbian
Arrival
Arid river valleys
Unique
Internal organs
Embalmer
Flesh
Clay
Flourish
Aqueducts
Feature
Spread
Flat
Surface
Intact
Soil
Ice-age
Land bridge
Bering sound
Apply



Questionnaire

1. What kind of people were the Chinchorro?
2. What does “chinchorro” mean?
3. When and where did they live?
4. Why did the Chinchorro make themselves unique?
5. How did they prepare their mummies?
6. What did the embalmer do?
7. When and where did the Nazca culture live?
8. What did the astronomers create?
9. What kind of figures can we see?
10. Why are the lines and geoglyphs intact?
11. How long were the Native Americans living in America?
12. When did the first Native American arrive in America and how?
13. Who gave this name to them and why?
14. What kind of life did the Native Americans have?

Monday, October 26, 2009

What is Halloween?





There are a lot things said about Halloween. Ignorance is the predominant thing. Personally, I think it is silly to celebrate something so far from our culture. That is one thing. On the other hand, I'm shocked of what I hear from some people who claim that this festivity is a celebration of a Satanic kind! Nobody criticizes the comercialization of Christmas, so, why Halloween? Here you have the history of Halloween, taken form the History channel website. Read it, an make an INFORMED decision.

HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

Jack o ‘lantern

Pumpkin carving is a popular part of modern America's Halloween celebration. Come October, pumpkins can be found everywhere in the country from doorsteps to dinner tables. Despite the widespread carving that goes on in this country every autumn, few Americans really know why or when the jack o'lantern tradition began. Or, for that matter, whether the pumpkin is a fruit or a vegetable. Read on to find out!
People have been making jack o'lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," and then, simply "Jack O'Lantern."
In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o'lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack o'lanterns.


Halloween comes to America


As European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid Protestant belief systems that characterized early New England, celebration of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited there.
It was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as the American Indians, meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included "play parties," public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance, and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors.
In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft..

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

SPRING EVENING 2009

This Friday, October 23rd, the English Department of Colegio Ingles presents the traditional "SPRING EVENING", a show with all classes presenting the product of a year of work. Everybody is invited!!!

This is the program:

1. Devotional. Kinder.
2. John Lennon’s speech (Public Speaking participant). Eighth Grade.
3. Who is the King of the jungle? Fourth Grade.
4. Getting fat or keeping fit. Seventh Grade.
5. The teen music award. Fifth Grade.
6. Song. Junior Class.
7. Myths and legends. “Navel of the earth”. Sophomore Class.
8. Animal song. First Grade.
9. Debate team. Demonstration.
10. At the jungle. Pre-Kinder.
11. Fund-Raising Campaign. Freshman Class.
12. Iquique: Yesterday and today. Sixth Grade.
13. The spring circus. Second Grade.
14. Specialties profile. Senior Class.
15. At the fair. Third Grade.