PORTFOLIOS ENTRIES N°13 & N°14

Portfolio Entry N°13: 

Before I´ve attended this subject, I´ve never stopped thinking about what a coherence and a cohesive text is. I knew that my writings were not so good but I did not know how to improve them. I could not realize my mistakes and asked for help many times. During my first attendance, I´ve learned different ways in which I could improve my language and also my writings. One of the most important ones for me was reading. But not only reading from a bottom up perspective but also from a top down perspective. I´ve started to analyse how ideas are linked together into a coherent and cohesive paragraph using different techniques such as reference, the use of synonims, hyponims, etc. During my second attendance, I´ve focused on improving my formal vocabulary and also my language in written and oral expression. I´m still working on it but I think that little by little I can improve my writings and how to express myself not only in English but also in Spanish. 

Portfolio Entry N°14: 

Portofolios encouraged me to sit down, think and study. They were unpleasant sometimes but in the end, they helped me improve my study skills. Using different strategies such as making different kind of charts, reflections, analysis, questionaries, presentations has been useful in terms of understanding some topics better. They also have been important because I had the possibility to learn different strategies which I could implement in my classes.They will also be helpful in the future, when I´ll attend for my final exam, because some of them are kind of a summary of every "book" we have already read. To sum up, although most of us complain about them, in my case, portfolios have been a way of improving my knowledge about the theory, the study strategies that I could implement and my way of writing.

Portfolio Entry #12: VIDEOS

VIDEO N°1:

The Inspector needs "a flawless American accent":

In this video, the focus is on the concept of "accent" and "dialect". As we know, the term "accent" refers to "the description of aspects of pronuntiation that identify where an individual speaker is from, regionally or socially". In this case we can distinguish two different accents: the French accent and the English one. Moreover, another concept is being conceptualized which is the idea of "dialect". The term "dialect" describes features of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation which are shared by a specific social group. In this video, the inspector tries to learn English because he is going to travel to America and he does not want to be noticed.

VIDEO N°2:
Student 'dialects'?

In this sketch,  a group of students is sharing the same English class and each of them has to deal with different difficulties. They belong to the same speech community since they “share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language”. In this opportunity , it is not the accent that gives away the social background; instead, they encounter with the use of the language (grammar, spelling, intonation and the lack of vocabulary). Another important factor is their background life (educational or social) which provides them with some specific vocabulary, phrases, etc that they probably share in their community. However, they try to be comprehensible to their partners improving their language together.

VIDEO N°3

In this video, the men were from Irak. The man who was being interviewed complained about the use of subtitles when he was talking. He claimed that he had been studying the language in the American University in Cairo which allowed him to express himself perfectly well in English. In that country, English is learned as a second language in order to "take part in the larger DOMINANT linguistic COMMUNITY". Although he was a bilingual man, his accent differed from the audience´s one which made a good understanding of the message difficult. In conclusion, not only the use of grammar and vocabulary is important but also intonation, accent and pronunciation are.