On our language, class we did several proyects and writings related to starvation and stories we read throughout the year.

This is the presentation I did with Mora Malenchini and Carolina Cremona on starvation:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1iEBccKVSY_viVj8-ewSrO-jKiDnCDpTt3zWmTExzjlc

This is the presentation I did with Federico San Lorenzo, Lucas Vorbeck and Serena Braun on a movie called Lion: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mSMMAp2N148SULPWzaKZs0B7yqLqByuZKFofkMxIuNI

This is a writing I did on a story called Full Stop: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11nJqxlZUMAmiSwCG6PTP_k

For our language class, we had to work on a presentation about causative Passive. I worked with Valentina Pease and Carolina Cremona and this is our presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11LFN2Nnh9j9zDdefNJBBl2kN3ZSaJE6-GIEMrR0AFVQ

For our language class, we read a short story called “Dumb Martian”, then got in pairs and worked on a presentation about the story. I worked with Rosita Tagle and this is our presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11xz_qKvSxhLSHsrvLlTm6Ola-fZ5j6SZjVntv4UXbkg

in our last language class we were told to work on an activity in our teacher’s blog about the movie “The Boy who Harnessed the Wind”. Here are my answers:

What did you feel when you watched it? 

When I watched it I felt amazed by what William was able to build even though he didn’t have much knowledge or resources. 

What did you learn about it? 

I learnt that even when something appears to be impossible there’s always a way to get what you want. 

What thoughts came to your mind after learning about William´s story?

I think his story is very inspiring since it shows that even if you feel you have very little of what’s needed to achieve what you want, you will end up finding a way to achieve it if you work hard. 

What message did the story leave you?

The message the story left me is that you should always try to achieve what you want even if people tell you you won’t be able to, or if you don’t have everything that is needed. If you do so, you will probably end up achieving it. 

For our language class, we were ask to do a group work on passive voice. I had to work with Mora Malenchini and Carolina Cremona.

1. The passive voice is used when you want to express that the action is more important than the one carrying it out.

Example: “The water was drunk by her”

2. In passive voice the agent is the person or object that performs the action.

Present simple: Starvation is suffered by more than the 50% of the world’s population.

Past simple: Two innocent kids were kidnapped by a psychopath.  

Present continuous: The lost plane is being searched for by the CIA.

Past continuous: A girl was being mugged while his boyfriend just stared at her.

Present perfect: The president has been re-elected for the second time.

Past perfect:  The police found two wallets which had been stolen.

Today, at our language class, we were told to start working on a guide about the movie we’ve recently watched. These are some of the answers I was able to answer today, since the activity will be continued next class.

1. Harness means make use of (natural resources in this case) mainly, to produce energy.
2. William Kamkwamba is a Malawian innovator, engineer and author who suffered from extreme living conditions and hunger as a kid. In spite of the poverty stricken area he and his family were living in, his parents made a huge effort to send him to.As an attempt to improve the village’s living conditions, he built a windmill which provided electricity to connect it to a water plump and provide water for his village.
3. The area where William used to live was really poor, deteriorated, dessertic and the food an water were scarce. Besides, the area was pretty dry and it had been a quite long drought, which deteriorated the land the crops grew on, damaging the harvest, and therefore, people’s health since they couldn’t eat and were starving. Furthermore, most of the houses where bungalows and only the most privileged or the ones who got a scholarship were able to get a proper education.
4. He harnessed the wind by creating a windmill which would provide electricity to apply a water pump and provide water to drink and grow crops. Among the materials he needed to crate the windmill, were blue gums trees, bicycle parts, a cheap dynamo and some things he found among the trash at the local scrapyard. He needed knowledge on engineering, mainly, which he pretty much learnt by reading books at the library once his parents weren’t able to afford the school any longer.
5. Famine means extreme scarcity of food and starvation means suffering or death caused by scarcity of food. It is related to the movie since this is what William’s village suffered from since the land was deteriorated, what led to their crops not resulting in a good harvest, and therefore, no food for people, what led to many of them suffering or dying.  
6. 
7. This quote is related to Williams attitude since even though people didn’t always support him, he knew what he wanted, knew how to get it and was not afraid to go for it in order to save his family and neighbors. He knew that if he didn’t start working on a solution no one else would, and the whole village would starve to death.
8. Writing Task

Young Boy Saves His Village

Last week, Malawi’s situation was absolutely changed by a young boy who built a windmill to provide electricity and water. He is said to have harnessed the wind.

William Kamkwamba, aged 13, was constantly seeing how people around him starved because there was a famine since the soil was deteriorated and nor food nor water could be obtained. Due to this issues, his family started earning less and less money since they worked in the farming industry (which was decaying drastically) and they couldn’t afford his school fees, so he had to drop out. As he was a really hard working child, who wanted to learn no matter how much it took him, he started going to the public library, where he read a book about engineering, which made him realize he wanted to be an engineer. However, he couldn’t just focus on what he wanted, he also had to take care of his surroundings. Therefore a great idea came to Williams mind: he would make an engendering work which consisted in building a wind turbine for his village in order to stop the provide water and therefore end such a disastrous famine.

After having that idea, he decided to go after the materials. He would need a dynamo, bicycle parts, blue gums trees’ parts and some other stuff he found at the scrapyard. After getting the materials he started working and, in spite of the difficulties faced at the moment of building the windmill, it was finally able to be built by the young boy. What the artifact does is provide power to water pump which would supply the village with water. Besides, it also provides electricity for the houses.

The windmill has been working for a week and Malawi’s population is enjoying food,  water and electricity for the first time in months and some even in their whole life. The village’s mayor is already hiring more workers to do some more and even sell some to other villages which are in need as well. All in all, William Kamkwamba’s work was a complete success.

In our last Language class, we presented our work on the final activity we did on War Horse. My group was formed by Serena Braun and Paz Bernusi and we had to present a medal Joey could have won, why he could have won it and what it each part represented.

We believe Joey deserves a medal because he was the most loyal horse, who would always look after and suffer the loss of his friends and riders and tried to get his beloved owner, Albert, back, and didn’t stop fighting until he got it. He also deserves a medal in honour of his braveness since he got wounded lots of times and never gave up. Moreover, even though he was scared he never even thought about running away and forget about Albert, his friends and all the people who were always by his side to look after him.

 We designed this medal like this because the red cross represent England, the little boy represents Albert and the loyalty he has toward him and the Horse represents Joey. Moreover, the horse represents his good friend Topthorn and the flags are of some of the countries involved in World War One.

In our last Language classes, we’ve been working on idioms. This is a Kahoot Quiz I did with Serena Braun on the topic.

Kahoot

Hope it’s useful!

Some Language classes ago, we finished reading War Horse and the teacher told us to make a timeline of the story. Here is the one I did:

Timeline