English this year

This year has helped me improve my English skills, and I have learnt a lot about English speaking countries and global issues. I like how we have varied our ways of learning, like for instance all the movies we have watched and the books we have read. Through blogging I think I have improved my writing, and by reading other students' blogs I have been able to see things from several different perspectives. If I have to choose one thing I will remember, it has to be when Moliehi visited us from Lesotho.

Standard written English - a few tasks

Rewrite these sentences from non-standard grammar to standard written English:

1. You didn't see him, is it?
- You didn't see him, did you?

2. When you would like to go?
- When would you like to go?

3. That man he is tall
 - That man is tall

4. Her jewelleries were stolen
- Her jewellery were stolen.

5. I am understanding it now
- I understand it now

6. They two very good friends
- The two of them are very good friends

7. Sushila is extremely a lazy girl
- Sushila is an extremely lazy girl

8. When you leaving?
- When are you leaving?


Pick any four of these sentences and explain how the structure of each differs from the norms of standard written English.

- They two very good friends. This sentence is missing a verb, and is therefore not gramatically correct. The verb is "are".

- When you leaving? In this sentence as well, we need to add a verb. The sentence is not complete until we add the verb "are".

- Her jewelleries were stolen. This sentence is  not correct because jewellery can not be put in a "plural form" like jewelleries.

- Sushila is extremely a lazy girl. This sentence have wrong structure. The "a" should be placed before "extremely".

Two paragraphs from "The Catcher in the Rye"

This spring I am reading "The Catcher in the Rye", a novel by J. D. Salinger. The book was first published in 1951, and has been very popular since."The Catcher in the Rye" is a story about a 17-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield. Holden has a lot on his mind, among other things he has failed four schools, his brother died of leukemia and he has trouble with girls. The story is really about how Holden thinks that most adults are "phony". The Catcher in the Rye is really a boy who is trying to save children from entering the adult and phony world.  In this blog entry I will include two paragraphs from the book that I think represents one of the most important themes of the book.

So, as I mentioned before, I think the main theme of this book is how Holden thinks that almost all the people around him are phonies. I think this upcoming paragraph from early in the story gives us a pretty good idea about how Holden is as a person, and what he thinks of phonies. The paragraph is from when Holden visits his old history teacher, who tries to teach him a lesson about life:

 ““Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.” “Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.” Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game."

It is obvious that Holden gets very annoyed when the teacher tells him this, because Holden feels that the teacher is phony. I think that Holden feels that the teacher does not know what he is talking about, because the teacher probably hasn't experienced the hard side of life, where there aren't any hot-shots.

Another paragraph from the book that I think represents the theme is when Holden is listening to a speech from a man called Ossenburger, who used to go to the same school as Holden when he was young.

"He started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down on his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God - talk to Him and all - whenever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving in his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs".

In both of these paragraphs we clearly see how Holden is annoyed when grown-ups say phony things. If adults are bragging, exaggerating or simply not telling the entire truth, Holden sees them as phony.

Moliehi Sekese

Today, Moliehi Sekese visited our school. She is a teacher from Lesotho, a little country in southern Africa. She is the Educator's Choice award winner 2009 for the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum. She won this award for her school project about indigenous plants. The impressing part is that her school in Lesotho, Mamoeketsi Government Primary School, had no electricity while they did this project.

She began the school project by having her students borrow cell phones from family. The students were supposed to go home and ask their parents about indigenous plants, and then they would write their findings in a text message and send them to Moliehi. She told us that the students were very excited about using cell phones for the first time, and that she received text messages until midnight. Since their school had no internet access, they went to an internet cafe in town to blog about what they had found out. Moliehi told us that her school has only two computers, and with no electricity at school she had to charge them at home every day. They continued their project by going to the biggest botanical garden in Lesotho. They filmed how to grow plants and then they made their own botanical garden near their school.

Moliehi's school has over 700 students, and only two laptops to share. Despite the fact that they have only two laptops and no internet access, Moliehi does the best she can. Her country is one of the poorest countries in the world, and she believes that education will make a difference. Most of the children in her school are very poor; they come to school with no shoes, torn clothes and even hungry. And even when the classrooms are very cold in the wintertime, the students show up. They show up because they know that education is almost necessary. Education is how Lesotho can develop.

The last thing Moliehi said when she was talking to our class was that we should feel lucky. We are lucky because we have so much technology available, and we have no excuse not to get educated. We have no other worries than getting up in the morning and go to school. The children in Lesotho, on the other hand, have a lot of worries every day. Moliehi's strength and guts are very admirable and I think she is doing a wonderful job. The inspiring teacher is trying to make the best out of their situation, by using the little technology they have access to for all it's worth.

Gran Torino

Today we watched the movie "Gran Torino" in English class. The movie is a drama from 2008 directed by Clint Eastwood, who is also playing the main character, Walt Kowalski. Walt is a widow and a Korean War veteran, who is old and grumpy and has little contact with his family. His neighbors are Hmong people, which is an Asian ethnic group from China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

A young boy in the Hmong family, Thao, tries to steal Walt´s car, a 1972 Ford Gran Torino. Walt catches Thao in action, and the car is saved. But Thao is really a very nice boy who struggles to fit in with the other teenagers. His cousin, on the other hand, is a real gangster. The cousin and his gang are always bullying Thao, and saying that he needs to be a real man. It was this gang that pressured Thao into stealing the car. Walt feels sorry for Thao because the gang is always bothering him, and the two of them become good friends.

Even though Walt first comes across as an old, grumpy and even racist man, he still appears to be a really good man inside. It´s almost like Walt feels that his final mission in life is to save Thao and his family. When Thao´s sister, Sue, is bullied by some guys, Walt shows up with a gun to scare them. And when Thao is beaten up by the gang, Walt tracks down one of the members of the gang and threatens him with a gun to his face. But this turned out to get bigger than what Walt probably expected. Next thing he knew, Sue was beaten up real bad by the gang, while the Hmong family´s house was sprayed with shotgun blasts by the gang. This made Walt very angry and sad, and he decided that he had to act. Thao wanted to kill the gang who had raped and beaten up his sister, but Walt wouldn't let him so he locked him up in his basement. I think Walt kept Thao away because he couldn't risk that Thao would end up spending his life in prison. Therefore, Walt had to deal with it himself. He wanted to put the gang members away for good, and he ended up sacrificing his own life. I think Walt did this both because he felt sorry for the Hmong family, and also because he wanted to make amends for all the things he regretted from his own life. Walt died as a hero, while he was trying to light a match.

I think the main theme of this movie is friendship. We see the friendship between Walt and Thao, an older man and a young boy. Despite the big difference in age and culture, they manage to develop a strong relationship. When someone sacrifices their life for a friend, it means that the friendship is very deep. I though the movie was very good and interesting, and I really recommend it!

I found the picture here

The Catcher in the Rye

The book I'm reading in English class this spring is called "The Catcher in the Rye". It's a pretty famous book and I'm sure many of you have heard of it. "The Catcher in the Rye" is a novel by J. D. Salinger and was written in 1951. The book has been translated into almost all of the world´s major languages, and over 65 million copies are sold in total. The book was originally written for adults, but since the main character of the story is 16 year old Holden Caulfield, the novel has been popular for younger people too. Holden is a student at a boarding school who really just wants to run away from everything in this world that thinks is “phony”. Holden gets expelled from Pencey Prep for failing, even though he appears to be a pretty smart boy. All we get to know about his past is that he has failed four schools, he has been visited by a psychoanalyst and that his brother died of leukemia three years before we enter the story. So far I think the book is very interesting and different from other things I have read. The language is good, and the fact that it’s written in first person with Holden as the narrator makes it very exciting to read, because it makes me as a reader feel like I understand what Holden thinks and feels. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this book.

I took the picture here

Megacities

Today we are learning about Megacities in English class. A megacity is a city with a population of at least 10 million. In our English book "Worldwide" there is a text called "Megacities", where it says that the urban population is increasing a lot, while the rural population is decreasing. This means that people all over the world are moving from the country and into the cities. This is a global challenge that we have to deal with in the future.

In our English book there are also some statistics. The first one tells us about growth of the urban population. It says that in year 1800 there were only 2 % that moved to cities. But this number rose quickly. Already in 1950 there were 30% moving to the cities. The number still kept increasing, and in 2000 there were 47% moving from the country and into the cities. The statistics also predicts that in 2030 there will be 60% moving into urban areas.

The next diagram tells us about population in regions of the world in millions. It says that Asia is the region with the largest population in the world. In 1995 there were 2249 million living in rural areas and 1180 million living in urban areas in Asia. Africa is the other region in the world where the rural population is larger than the urban population. Europe, South America and North America all have a larger urban population than the rural population.

Finally, there is a list which tells us how many people lives in different megacities all over the world. On top is Tokyo (Japan) with 33,4 million. Number two is New York (USA) with 24,1 million and then comes Mexico City (Mexico) with 21,7 million. The next megacities on the list are Seoul (South Korea) Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Los Angeles (USA). All these statistics are from 2006.
I made a diagram of the list, which you can see here:

The picture is of New York and I got it here