CHILD  ABUSE

 I chose this topic because I think our work as teachers in some way is to prevent and stop this from happening… first it is important to remember that:

“Child abuse is considered any form of violence or injury inflicted upon children, which can affect or diminish their physical or psychological evolution, and which hinder them from reaching a healthy development and emotionality. It is an aggression behaviour including all the members of a society through long time ago, therefore becoming a social pathology with many severe consequences”

7 of each 10 children are victims of violence in our country! How It can be this possible? ... In the areas of child between 5 and 9 years the most maltreatments comes from their parents… This is really alarming Every time I hear about child violence.. Makes me angry much!!, I can’t understand how there are people capable of hitting someone as helpless as a child, whatever the reason .. no excuses! It's horrible!

       What can we do as future teachers to help solve the serious problem of child abuse?

In my opinion I think is very important to inform schools about child abuse because it allows children to know their rights …What do you think?

Well…to finish here is a video that is intended to raise public awareness about the harmful consequences that child abuse cause in children and adolescents, UNICEF launched a campaign to eradicate violence against children, whose central theme is: "Any form of abuse leaves a mark"

                                                                       Catalina Olivari

LET´S TALK ABOUT AUTO-STEREOTYPES : "stuffs spanish girls say"

A couple of months ago, a series of videos became viral on youtube , they were called "stuffs (x) girls say" and they showed different words or sentences that some ethnic groups may say  ( white girls, black girls , asian girls , mixed race girls , etc..) in a funny and ironic way.One of the most famous ones is "stuffs spanish girls say".
This video was created and performed by a latin male , who lives in new york .
The fist time I watched this video I thought " This is so funny", and indeed , the video is very funny , because it shows the different stereotypes that , due to movies , tv shows or the internet ; represent what people think about"latin culture ".
After we studied stereotypes at class , I re thought about this video and my opinion about it changed ... the video is still very funny , but it made me think ... if we agree that sereotypes are a bad thing , because is an ignorant and limited vision about a certain group of people  , then why do we sometimes stereotype our selfs ? why would a latin person made fun of "latin culture"?...
I know that is video is ment to be funny , but it also can create a wrong impression about our culture ( specially if is created by a latin person ).
If we want to stop stereotypes , we should start by stop stereotyping our selfs.
This video has created a lot of controvery, because people think that encourages to create even more stereotypes about latin pople living in USA and promotes a fake lifestyle among latin people.
The creator has also been criticized, because some people think that videos like this degrades his culture.
what do you think ?  do you concider this video funny or offensive ? what do you think about the fact that the creator is a latin person? do chileans also have auto-estereotypes?

Javier Cáceres

       

 "Make Goals Not War"

 Many may say that sports are just games for fun and indeed they are, but behind this fun there is also "C"ulture...

This is the first part of the documentary Called "Make Goals Not War" (referring to Football or Soccer), the main idea of this video it's to avoid international conflicts through football, with the motto:

"Imagine a future where all international conflicts are solved on the soccer field".

The documentary show us how football or sports in general can bring us together with no matter of distinctions, discrimination or social status and also as a way to forget problems of war or ethnic struggles, and the best part of it is that everybody can be part of this because in sports we all have the same language an "Universal Language".

 So now I pose the question what can we do to change War for football or sports in general? 

By José Calderón

My question about the film

Constanza Ureta Eugenio

Hi everyone! 

When watching the movie I could see the relationship between Bess and Elizabeth: the lady-in-waiting should have always been faithful with the Queen, to keep the respect that she deserves and she shouldn't have lied to her. Bess was very close to Elizabeth, but when Raleigh appeared, the relationship between those women changed. Bess betrayed the trust of the Queen, she fell in love of him, they be married and had a son. Although this, Elizabeth had to maintain composure, because for her, the Kingdom was more important than her feelings. Finally the Queen forgave this couple.

I wondered: What happened with Bess? Did she live happy with her new family? and What type of frienship had The Queen with her lady-in-waiting?

Dear Classmates! My question about the film is...

Do you think that if England had not been led by Elizabeth, the British Empire would have passed into history?

I think that Elizabeth was the support of this country, she was the force that held the empire, without her I think that England would not have survived the constant wars that happened in that time. Elizabeth is one of the women who made history because she had an extraordinary way to control her powerful empire.

She was the head that led, she was very well educated and an educated person in any field is an important contribution to the leadership of a country. Without her, the British Empire would not have survived to pass into history. 

Dina Tapia Quezada

Different word, same meaning.

As many of you know I'm not from the Fifth Region and last year when I moved in I discovered a lot of new "concepts, words and expressions" for the same things I knew with another name, for example: "Caldo" (my expression) is the same as "Sopa", "Buzo" is the same as "salida de cancha" and so on and so forth.
It's unbelievable how the way of speaking changes from one region to another in te same country. So, since I heard those expressions I started to investigate more of them and I found a lot of expressions for the same context.
I'm leaving the list here and if you know more word from different parts of Chile, please, comment and let me know.
- Cocho = ulpo
-Pupo = Ombligo.
- Morrón = Pimentón.
- Tirantes = Arciales.

* The second word is used in the fifth region.

Yanareth Cerda Campos.

Differences make the difference

Last week, while I was watching the news. I found a really interesting report that I want to share with you. Fabiola Palomina, a chilean woman who has became to Islam, was discriminated by a chilean guy who works in the bank because he asked to her to take off her hijab or headscarf, which is an essential part of the woman in that religion. 

I'm really concerned about this matter because a lot of people are discriminated because a lot of reasons. People discriminate against others because are ignorant sometimes, or maybe because they are not enough conscious about diversity. And make people tolerant, and more important, respectful to each others, it's a really hard work in this country because a lot of chilean really think that if there is a culture which is not similar to our culture, it will be better to turn it into something that don't bother us and be easier to deal with.

This woman felt discriminated and her right were violated, maybe this is not a common case in our country, but as we could see over the years, discrimination is a very trendy topic and even worse it's a fact in our country. As we have maybe a different conception of life we don't understand sometimes why she acts of that way or why different people are so different to us. But that's why diversity and culture is so important, because everybody is different from each other and we have to respect so important right.


This topics are for us to reflect as future teachers of English. How will we can teach to our future students to be respectful to their peers?. What can we do now to make the difference in this society?. Do we really understand that the differences make the difference?

Law of the stronger one

Cruelty is one of the worst things in the human being. People are sometimes so cruel. I'm going to be a teacher and I can't stand abuses, because I don't like that, I hate cruelty to ''inferiors'', I can't understand that and problems like bullying is something that we need to solve, but what is bullying?
Bullying is the constant abuse of bullies to outcasts.
There are two types of abusers: the ones who make impossible a person's life by hitting them, doing them bad things, etc, and the ''witnesses'', people who see the abuses and don't do anything.

An example of bullying is a movie called ''The Final'', and it's about the ''revenge'' of the abused ones. That film made me realize that a lot of massacres in USA are made by the ''rejected ones'', that the outcasts suffer a lot, that society do nothing to solve the bullying problem and also how the press change the situations to make them look as the bad guys.
That kind of things makes me feel sad and ashamed to be part of this society, because some of them are good guys trying to fit in a world that treats them so cold...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ4kMo2ATdI


By Alexis Peñailillo

WHOF

WHOF, which stands for “wipe out homophobia on facebook”,  is a facebook page that has over 400,000 members from all over the world that support gay rights but most of all are against gay discrimination. Page members are welcome to share their personal stories and also to support each other. WHOF has become a huge gathering of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) support from all over the world. They also educate people; a lot of members are straight people, parents dealing with their children’s coming out, friends of gay people or just people that think this cause is worth fighting for.

The main mission of WHOF is to erase homosexual hate pages on facebook, such as “I kill gays for fun” and “gay’s be kill”. WHOF also fights against suicide, it is a sad but true thing that researchers have found that suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youth (LGBT) is comparatively higher than among the general population. According to some groups, this is linked to heterocentric cultures and institutionalized homophobia in some cases, including the use of LGBT people as a political wedge issue like in the contemporary efforts to halt legalizing same-sex marriages.

-Do you think gay people should be treated with equality?

-Do you think gay people should be able to adopt children and why?

-Do you think same-sex marriage should be legal and why?

Personally I think that we are all the same, no matter whom we love or where we come from we should all be treated equally. ¿When did loving someone and being loved back became a bad thing?

“Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?    ~Ernest Gaines

“No matter gay, straight or bi Lesbian, transgendered life I'm on the right track baby, I was born to survive”.  ~Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Lady Gaga)

“When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one”.        ~Leonard P. Matlovich

http://www.facebook.com/WHOF1

Isabella Poggi