FINAL TASK

1.  Can you see an improvement on your level of English in the past year/s?  Where, for example?

Yes, one of the biggest things in which I improved is in writing and speaking fluently without need to spend too much time on the translator (in the case of writing). I remember that one year ago, when I wanted to say something in English I looked for the exact translation, but in this year I learned that it  is better try to say these things in a way you know how to. 

2. Which activity best shows your level of English?

I think the one when you have to use more resources are the oral presentations, because apart from the thinks you have to know from your presentation, you also have to use connectors and if you forget the exact script, try to improvise something. And when you are improvising you gotta be ready to talk about anything, to put examples, to answer crowd's questions ...

3. Which activities were really USEFUL for you to improve your English? Why?

I think that doing your-says at the blog because you really try to do them as best as you can and that makes you to find the properly words to explain it, but the bad thing about this is that you only get more vocabulary from the concretely content you are working on. Another thing that has been useful is reading, because you get used on how are all the expressions you usually see are written and then, when you gotta write for yourself, you instantly use them well.

4. Which activities did you NOT find useful to learn English? Why not?

Every activity is good to learn a language, but I think the one from we learn less are the exercise sheets, maybe because we don't take them so seriously, but if I had to say a real argument would be that we don't learn from them because are not as much interactive as the other exercises. I also don't like watching movies in class, because everyone can do it at home and you learn from equal...

5. Which activities would like to do again next year to keep on improving your English?


More oral activities like presentations, because I think it is one of the "hardest" elements to improve in a language, and it is something difficult to improve if you train it alone. It would be nice to make all the class speak English for the whole hour, but also difficult because most of the people are ashamed to do it. After seeing this I ask to myself: If they are bad and ashamed of their oral expression or pronunciation, why they don't want to improve it? It is a mystery to me ...

6. Open Comments (...More ideas, suggestions for activities, suggestion for new topics...)

If I'm not wrong, when we were in ESO, to improve our mark we had the opportunity to perform an oral presentation or a special work about what we want, and I know we have the your says now, but it would be interesting to repeat this activity.

Formal letter

European Street, 106

Washington DC, VA 4385

5th June 2017  

Dear Sir Campbell,

I am writing to you to offer myself as a volunteer in the sports team coach gap year announcement. I just have finished my secondary school studies and wanted to pass trough this great experience before join the university .

I think all the work you do by helping childs giving them opportunities to initiate themselves into sport is amazing and I would like to help you out with this project. I have been a handball coach for a couple of years and I learned about how to make kids appreciate sports, so I thought I could be useful to you if you give me the chance.

 I hope that you receive this letter and consider my proposal, as I said before, I would be glad to carry out this project with you.

Your faithfully,
Pau Ripoll

GARY MOORE

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! In this post I'm gonna talk about about music again, but this time it will not be about heavy metal, or covers , no. I'm gonna talk about Gary Moore, a Northern Irish musician which has become one of the best ( the best in my opinion ) blues guitarists of all time. Few time ago I knew nothing about this legend, but recently I've been listening a lot of blues music because I love the way the solos sound like and I wanted to look for some inspiration before start learning to play blues in the guitar, and this man records got absolutely everything I wanted from a song. We could say his songs are "chill and slowly" or at lest the rhythm of the most of them is, so you can follow it easily, but over one of that rhythms, you got a freaking cool solo with so much feeling in it. Some of my favorites Moore's songs are over 7 or 8 minutes, some of then over 10, so people who is used to listen pop music songs, that usually last from 3 to 4 minutes, maybe are not able to keep listening the "same thing" along this time, but I enjoy every single minute. His solos are just insane, positively talking, if you search for Gary Moore's concerts you'll be able to witness how easily he picks the guitar and starts playing masterpieces without holding back any second. It's kinda funny the way he acts and the face he puts when he's playing, because it looks like he is one with the guitar, and I can't even imagine the passion this man had to this instrument ...

The thing is that some time ago I started liking this artist more and more and nowadays is one of the guitarists I admire the most. Another remarkable thing a lot of his work was just done by himself, he had a solo career, which is really impressive and shows a lot of bravery. But even that he is so underrated right now and I honestly don't know why...  Unfortunately, he died six years ago by a heart attack and with this post I just wanted to share my opinion of one of the most beautiful playing styles I ever heard... Rest in peace Gary "Windfingers" Moore.

In the minute 5:00 there is the part I like the most ...

Ransomware cyber-attack threat escalating - Europol

Last Friday 12 of May, a mysterious virtual virus was released and infected more than 200.000 computer users over 150 countries around the world, including machines from big companies like Telefonica and others... The virus main function is to block the computer kidnapping it and sending messages to the user telling him to pay over 300$ in order to save his computer. 

This kind of virus should be easy to control, but what's different with this one is that the virus creates copies of  itself and spread them across the network, infecting thousands of different users every time it reach one computer. To infect the computers, this malware takes advantage of a Microsoft Windows vulnerability, but this corporation noticed it and had been working to patch all the computers that could be infected. 

Nobody know what are the origins of this virus neither who created him, specialized teams still investigating about this issue.

I think that it is not normal to be attacked worldwide by an unknown virus without knowing anything about it... We're in the XXI century and a group of hackers can still outwit the system kidnapping millions of computers, this is completely unbelievable. Or this is what it looks like at least ... Maybe I'm the only one, but this all story looks really suspicious to me. In theory, the best computer engineers are supposed to be working in the government or in big corporations, like the ones that the virus attacked, but it looks like nobody did nothing... As I said before, nobody knows anything, they don't have even the smallest information from a worldwide attack, but they got the solution ready in just a couple of days. I'm sure that all the users who paid the amount of money sent that to someone, but why does nobody follow there the money goes? I'm not the kind of guy who's always thinking in governments conspirations and that kind of stuff, but in this case ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39913630

MY GAP YEAR, BEING A VOLUNTEER SPORTS COACH

If I was able to choose one of the possible gap years this webpage offers I'd probably go for this one. One year ago I had the opportunity to be coach of the Benjamin team of the Roses handball club, called Handbol Empordà, and I loved the experience! The only think that "disgusted" me was that it consumed a lot of my time... I had to go to Roses three days a week and stay there like all the afternoon, and I also had to be in the matches played on weekend! That's why I think this option of gap year is perfect for me, one of the most important things that gap years can offer you is time, to think, to take decisions, or just to relax yourself. In my case I'd love to use this time to repeat the experience of being coach but this time without having to be worried about my other matters as studies and this kind of things ... I honestly don't wouldn't care about the place I would go, it doesn't matter at all if the main objective is to repeat the coach experience, because the only thing you need  is a group of people who wants to collaborate and pass a great time...
Anyway, actually what you  need is a place to sleep and something to eat, so a great solution for that would be living as an aupair if somebody offered his services, that way the price of the gap year would decrease a lot.

One of the disadvantages of this kind of gap year is that this is really complicated to take while you are in a studies period, basically because you'd have to dedicate time on thinking in trainings and all that stuff, and if you are not so organized this could be a really big mess ( that's what happened to me ). Another one is that you can't take part of this if you are a really shy person or if you haven't practiced sport in your life. The entire plan includes meeting people and trying to instill the values of sport in them so ...
Even all the inconveniences I think this a great way to pass a gap year. Few things are comparable to be able to witness people discovering how grate is practicing sport in a team for the first time, how do they work together and help each other, how the ones that are better try to help the worse ones ... That would be such a great experience that impacts really positively in your life and would give you a new perspective of what do the coaches of any sport feel when they are with his team.

http://www.igapyear.com/placements/volunteer-sports-coaching-abroad-2718.aspx