The importance of WRITING

Hi everyone!

As you must have noticed, the previous postings have been about Student's assignments.

I'm very excited to find out that, not only most of my students enjoy doing these tasks, that is, looking for a current events article, read, check the vocab and write about it, but many readers, from many parts of the world, are enjoying READING these writings.

This for me is extremely rewarding, as I am an avid reader and an "experimental writer" myself.

The sad thing is that, many people do not understand the importance of writing, especially if they are learning a new language.

Writing should always be a priority; it's when you write that you realize what you know and what you don't know. Also, it's an extremely rich way to improve your vocabulary and knowledge about current events and other cultures.

I hope that these samples can help you to bear in mind the importance of DAILY reading and WEEKLY writing. As you can see, these assignments are intelligent and simple. My students tell me that it takes them between 20 minutes to 60 minutes to read and prepare this assignment.

SAA 5 Oil Spill

Hi everyone!

This is a summary of a piece of news from Kariéllen. It's about BP oil spill.

BP finally seals leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well

On April 20^th, the worst accident about oil spill in the Us history happend, when the deepwater horizon rig blew up, killing eleven workers and later sinking.

After eighty seven days , the rupture was sealed after spewed more than four millions of barrels of oil into de Gulf of Mexico.

The BP company put a temporary cap in the hole on July 15^th, sealed the flow, but last Thusday they linked up with the rupture weel and started to pumping out cement. Because of this, the cap wasn’t necessary anymore and the spill was permanently closed.

The spill oil finished but the environment damage is still a nightmare to hundreds of miles of US coast. The oil arrived in many beaches and killed many sea animals. How to clean up everything?

Obama said: “we are commited to do everything possible to make sure the Gulf of Mexico recovers fully from this disaster. But will it be possible?

Maybe it’s impossible to rebuild everything or it will spend too much time and money. The oil can be degradated by the nature luckly, would be worse.

Now all the oil company must think about it and has a plan in cases of accident like this, because the consequences are so serious and affect all the world.

Kariéllen, Quality Control Analyst

ARTICLE http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11365122

VIDEO http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10848147

SAA 4

Hi everyone!

This SAA is from my student Eduardo.

This is the link from the website:http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/index.php?dir=inst&file=hist.php

And this is his summary:

New Sun Eruption May Supercharge Northern Lights

Today, everybody forgets to look the sky at least one time during the day, but even so, after billions of years, the sun light continues to reach the Earth with big power.

Day after day the scientists try to discover better renewable sources of energy and now some progress was obtained transforming the sun light in electricity to use in our home, car and industries.

In the interesting text published in the FOXNEWS site, you can see a few examples about the quantity of energy generated in the interior of the sun. Each ejection of matter

Is launched to the space in big speed (100,000 Kilometers/Second) and the plasma has temperatures around 1.5 millions of grades Celsius.

I believe one day in the future the man will find a way to use more efficiently all this energy we need.

The following video can help to illutrate this topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Bhf42uY3E

Eduardo, Process Manager

Very interesting, indeed Eduardo! Thanks a million!

SAA 3 (Student's Awesome assignment 3)

Hi students!!!!!

This very interesting summary is about and article from www.time.com:http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2013917,00.html#ixzz107C6vgcH

This is the summary my student Cristina wrote about it, as well as some key words:

Who Are Gypsies, and Why Is France Deporting Them?

Editorial review

The recent decision of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, promoting the Gypsies deportation in France, raises once again the question of persecution and intolerance with these people. They are offering 300 Euros to the Gypsies willing to leave France voluntarily.

The Gypsies or Roma, as they are known in Europe, is a people that haven’t found home since they were expelled from India, probably during the Muslim invasion in 11^th century. Most people thought they were from Egypt, hence the name “Gipsy”.

The intolerance with these people is recurrent, since their immigration to the Europe. Because of difficulties in establishing then, has created an image of them as nomads, bandits, children predators, but great dancers.

As the Jews and the homosexuals, the Gypsies were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis and now, with the Sarkozy’s decision, we probably went back to the Nazism and others kind of racial intolerance.

How long will we live with this kind of racial oppression, where a people judge themselves better than another and with the right to arbitrate in their lives?

300 Euros will be enough for the French to “get rid” of living with the Gypsies?

Are they members of the European Community or not?

Vocabulary

Somehow = de alguma maneira

Cheat = fraude

Slang = gíria

Bounced = devolvida

Settlements = assentamentos

Scuffle = briga

Allegedly = supostamente

Riot = motim

Aside = de lado

Bigotry = fanatismo

Unlawfully = ilegalmente

by Cristina, H.R. Manager

Congrats, Cristina! It's a very interesting topic and your essay was great, raising many points about prejudice, tolerance, bias, etc.

BTW, here is Shakira's video, called "I'm a Gypsy". It's quite catchy! ENJOY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-UgXXTffg8