martes, 26 de noviembre de 2013

Impromptu Speech

This week we presented the famouse and feared impromptu speeches. They were not as bad as we expected, at least a speak for myself. I was chosen to presento almost at the end, something which I do not enjoy alot. The topics were chosen by luck, in which there was a bag full with folded papers each with one topic. The one that I got to talk about was punctuality. As quickly as possible I came up with an interesting attention grabber, and the rest of the speech resulted easily. At the end everything resulted great, I hope I could receive a good grade since it´s the last activity for this semester. Overall I think I will get a good average grade.

lunes, 11 de noviembre de 2013

Week 13 Speech

This week we had another speech assignment which was carried out by teams of two. Once I had my teammate, we decided we were going to talk about cheating on classes. We thought it was a good topic since it leads to many interesting arguments. We discussed what causes students to cheat, which were mostly because of trying to save scholarships, competitive classmates, and also simply because of those who didn’t like to study on their own.  We also discussed the consequences which were to get caught; therefore, suspended or expelled. The day before the speech I was very busy, so I didn’t have enough time to rehearse; however, I understood the topic completely so I was able to improvise. At the end everything turned out great. We gave a good speech that our classmates and teacher enjoyed. 

The power of one

Last week we say during two periods of class the movie “The power of one”, which I enjoyed a lot. The movie is about the life of an English boy who was born in Africa. Before he was born he lost his parents, and afterwards at a young age so did his mother. The lived his life being bullied. Later on he learned to be a boxer thanks to an African coach, who ended up being murdered by an Afrikaner guard. He grew up with hatred toward racist people. Long story made short, he ends up fighting for the rights of the black people. He lost a lot of good friends during this fight including her girlfriend, but that did not make him stop. This movie taught me a lot. It showed me to show perseverance at all times, and to fight for what I believe is right.  

domingo, 27 de octubre de 2013

Second Partial individual Speech.

This week we had our individual speech which was very important since it consisted of 20% of our partial grade. We were given one hundred topic to choose from. After a while of looking for one, I decided to talk about the topic " Should fast food include a warning label and a extra tax fee?". The speech had to be five minutes long and the essay eight hundred words long. It took me a while in finishing my essay, and once I did I started to review it for my speech. Saying the whole essay I lasted approximatly six minutes which was ok. Overall I did a good job and received a very good grade from my professor. I think I am getting better each day in speaking in front of a public thanks to this class.

Second Partial Exam

A few days ago we had our second partial exam por public speaking  and academic writing class. That day when I presented the exam I was kind of tired, sonce one class before the exam I had just had my Math ezam. Thanks to this, I was tired and kind of stressed because it was kind of dificult; however, I felt good during the exam becuase I was able of answering almost everything. Later on I discovered I actually did good on the exam since I had a grade above 90. I was very glad thanks to my grade and I am looking forward in improving even more in order to help increase my efectiveness in this class.

Class Debate

Last week we had our debates at class, in which everyone had to present the topic that they chose by teams. The topic we chose was "Should death penalty be legalized?". The team consisted of one person agaist, the other in favor, and one moderator that presented the topic. I was against the legalization of death penalty, so I presented my arguments to the teacher and class in order to try to convince them. At the end everything turned out great. We were able to give a good debate to the class and received a good grade by our teacher.

sábado, 28 de septiembre de 2013

Home Session "Passive Voice"

On Friday our teacher gave us the liberty of working by ourselves. That same day I saw the PowerPoint presentation that had all the instructions that needed to be carried out. I chose my teammate and we agreed to work separately and use Facebook to communicate. First thing in the morning on Saturday we started working. I began to work on the essay as my other teammate began to work on the exercise given by the teacher. As we both finished, we exchanged our work in order to check out for any mistakes that may have slipped on each other’s work.  We finished without any problems and we were able to do a solid work, or at least we expected that. Overall, I think this home work was very useful for us since it helped us practice passive voice, which we can now use on our future assignments.