Outline of my PWP

 These are some topics I would be interested to study about.

• Promoting adult's oral production in english as a foreign language.
• Foreign Language Learning in Adults
• Critical Period for Language Acquisition. 

I would like to write about those myths that exists around Language acquisition in adulthood. I believe the comparison between children and adults process of language acquisition could provide a good theme to discuss.

Relationship between writing and thinking

Relationship between writing and thinking

 

Any kind of text you decide to write, whether an academic one where you have to do a research process, or an artistic one like poetry, writing begins in your mind. You have to clear your ideas and let them out. Then, there is a strong connection between writing and thinking because the second one gives you the tools for creating, or  imagine a mental structure related to  what  you want to write about in your text; later you consolidate your ideas through trial and error.

•  Writing in three different languages (Spanish, English and French) what is that like for me?

  
  
  
  Spanish: For me, writing in Spanish is like swimming because I enjoy it, I feel comfortable about it and It is something I think I can handle very well but I also know that if I would do it more frequently I even could be a really good swimmer. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  English:  For me, writing in English is like climbing a huge hill because is really hard and you can fall over and over again but when you get the top of the hill you feel so proud about it because it is not what you usually do everyday. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  French: For me, writing in french is like singing.  Although I really enjoy doing it, I know I can't do it very well and that I make a lot of mistakes. It is just something I wasn't born for, but I really like it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Writing for me is...

For me writing in Spanish is like a butterfly leaving her chrysalis, is the moment to show what she was changing in her body all that time, her metamorphosis. The butterfly can always be different, she can be big, small, colorfull, dark, pastel... but she always have something to show. I'm like that, writing the things that I feel, showing the mood that I have.

For me writing in English is like a quiz show of guees who? I'm always wondering if that is what I want to tell, if that is understood as I understand it, if is better write in this way or in that way, the truth is that I choose the better option for me.

For me writing in French is like to go to a place know with unknow people, I feel comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time, because I feel I can do a lot of things but for do them I need the help of that stranger people. So I feel that I have limited possibilities to write.

Possible topics for my PWP

These topics were selected from magazines:

•  Critical pedagogy

• Pedagogy as a tool for the teaching practicum
• Been  a teacher of vocation, profession or need
• The use of L1 in the Foreign Language Classroom
• Holistic training teachers' view of pedagogy
• Using culturally relevant Spanish/English bilingual books with emergent bilinguals
• Dar Luz - a transformative vision for a bilingual education teacher preparation  

These subjects are very attached with the idea of improving your teaching world and how you give a little more for the others. In the case of the bilingual books, they are been using in the USA as a new tool for helping immigrants to learn the language. I believe that with a very analyse and good manage of them, we could even use them here, in Colombia, perhaps it could help our bilingual program.  

Attention: Gustav, Marcela, Rose, Margareth

Dear students,
As you didn't attend our class today we urgently need you to post your contributions to the review of the article by Schneider and Andre.
Remember you should offer both a summary and an opinion of the section you are responsible for. This assingment must be completed before Monday.
Gustav and Marcela: Developing authority in Student Writing through Written Peer Critique in the Disciplines (pages 1, 2)
Rose: Theoretical Framework (pages 2, 3)
Margareth: Postioning Students for Effective Written Peer Critique (pages 3,4)

Writing and Thinking

Universidad del Valle

Licenciatura en Lenguas Extranjeras

Composición escrita en Inglés VII

Profesora: Sol Colmenares

Estudiante: Leidy Yareth Martínez López

 

FRIDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2012

Writing and Thinking

Writing and thinking are two processes that go together. Nevertheless, it occurs that the process of thinking is faster than writing and sometimes the ideas are clear in the writer's mind but it is difficult to organize them in a clear and nice way in order to be well and completely comprehended by the reader. 

It also happens that the person who writes tends to omit the ideas that he already has in mind because he does not realize that the people who will read the text do not know what he knows, it means that the author could make the mistake of avoid some information in his text that he considers irrelevant but it is not, in fact it could help to understand the whole idea of the text.

Another problem about writing is that most of the time some people, for example students who are just starting to know what writing is, tend to write exactly in the way they think or in the way they talk, that is why it is difficult to understand a written piece because when we are thinking our thoughts can go around and we can pass from thinking about a yellow blouse in a shop and then you connect that idea one about your grandma's dog and we do that in seconds by relating one idea with another. so, if a text is written based on what the writer has just thought it probably does not make any sense.

Universidad del Valle

Licenciatura en Lenguas Extranjeras

Composición escrita en Inglés VII

Profesora: Sol Colmenares

Estudiante: Leidy Yareth Martínez López

 

 

FRIDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2012

Writing in English, French and Spanish is like…

For me writing in English is like building a puzzle because it seems concrete. It is necessary to put all the pieces in the right order to make it good, if you don't do it, and you get lost with one piece, the result won’t have any sense. Besides, most of the time I've been told that writing in English is easier than doing it in other languages because it must go to the point and be simple. I think that's right but not all the time, most of all in the academic field.  I've read some novels and articles which use lots of metaphors and stuff because they need to emphasize some ideas or maybe because the text requires to be presented in a descriptive and detailed way.

Writing in French is like decorating a Christmas tree, it looks beautiful if you organize all the things in a coherent order, but if you don't make it following that order it will be the worst Christmas you've ever had. 

That language as our mother tongue (Spanish), has many forms to say the same thing. To express one single idea you can add some beautiful and harmonic expression that could make the sense of the text different and, if I can say it in that way, to make it deep for reader's interpretation.

Writing in Spanish is like riding a kymco motorcycle, because it seems to be easy but when you do it it's not that way, at least that's what someone who rode one told me once.

We can think that since Spanish is our first language, it would be easier to write in that language, but it is not. Writing in Spanish requires time and a complete knowledge about what you want to write or at least to have a clear map of the way you're going to make your text coherent and that it really gets the purpose it was meant to.

Maybe, at the end we discover that writing in any language requires a process that includes reading, analyzing, searching and putting in order our ideas and no matter what we do as writers it could be interpreted in many different ways since we all think and feel differently and have different interests or willing while reading a text.