Exchange programme. Trip to England, November 2009

Composition written by Lucía P.R. 4º ESO A

The aeroplane landed in London at London Stanted Airport. First we went to the school where we were going to spend some of our stay. The school was impressive.
The families that would receive us in their houses were there to welcome us, they were waiting for us. They were very nice!
The students who didn’t have a family to stay with went to the hotel in a family’s car.
The second day, everybody went to the school; “King Edward Grammar School”. We had breakfast there and later we met our partners. We were with them in their class. When the lessons finished, we went to the shopping centre in Chelmsford. There were two shopping centres all together! Finally, we ate in an Italian restaurant and we went to sleep.
On the 7th of November, we went to London by train. When we arrived there, we walked and we got into the underground. When we got out of the underground, the first thing that we saw was The London Eye. It was very very big!
Then, we walked to Big Ben and took some photos there. After that, we went to Coven Garden Street and got into the “Market”. We ate there and finally, we went to Hide Park, a huge park.
When we arrived in Chelmsford, we went to the cinema. I saw “The Man who Stared the Goats”, and other guys saw “This is it”, Michael Jackson’s film.
On Sunday, we spent all day with our families and we were with the teachers in the village centre.
On Monday, we went to school. We stayed with our partners and we met more people.
On Tuesday we went to Cambridge. I liked it so much because the universities are immense! On that day, a Spanish guide was with us. She showed us all the important places in the city. We saw several colleges, universities and churches.
The next day we were at school for two hours and later we went to a close village to play tennis. It was fun because the man who was with us was very nice.
At four we went to a shopping centre in Chelmsford again.
On Thursday, we went back to London. That day we saw Buckingham Palace, but we didn’t see Queen Elisabeth!
Later, we went to Oxford Street and we spent a lot of time there.
On Friday, we went to school and we met the English Students. When we finished the lessons, we went to ice-skate.
On Saturday, we went to Colchester by train, an English guide was with us that day. We saw the village and a Roman theatre.
The day of the arrival in Spain: It was a sad day, because we loved England. We went to London Stanted Airport by bus and we got to the plane at a quarter to twelve.
The travel was fantastic and I will do another travel the same as this one, with all the people!

A bilingual student.

A lot of people think that it is excellent to be bilingual, but in my opinion, it’s not always that great. Of course you have advantages, for example: it makes it so much easier to find a job, companies always want employees to speak two or more languages; it also makes it easier to learn another language; it opens doors to communicate with all sorts of people with different nationalities. You can also help or even teach without difficulty. When you travel you can get your message across. It is also an advantage being able to understand songs, news, books and specially films, which is the most important thing, or one of them, because I can´t stand watching films that aren’t in original version, it’s fantastic being able to listen and understand the actual voices of the actors and actresses.
Despite all this you do get “lots of sticks” from other people that don’t appreciate bilingual situations. From an early age, I’ve been laughed at for pronouncing correctly, or for always having the right answers in class. Also teachers have expected a lot from me, I had a teacher who would have me marking my class-mate’s exams …
I’ve lived longer in England so I dominate the language better than I do Spanish, even though I don’t struggle, so it’s easier for me to learn in English, which makes me come to the conclusion that being bilingual makes the person easily adapted and change language while speaking and still, be able to understand which is different for those who aren’t bilingual. These have to process the information that they want to receive or send and then translate it into their original language.

I guess that it’s not that bad being bilingual.

By Natalia Hidalgo. 2º Bach. B

First group of the Bilingual Section

Our first-year class of the “Bilingual Section” had their first English lesson today.
They looked happy and interested in what they were being explained in English. This is the language that they will also hear and use in other four different subjects over the course of the next four years. This means a real challenge for them and it will be a nice experience for the teachers.
We hope these students can benefit from this opportunity and we wish them very good luck.
They were very excited about having some news about them published on the blog, and they all wanted to show up in the picture with their teachers Carmen and Marina from the English Department.
We’ll try to maintain this symbolic action every year and see how they look like when they finish 4º ESO. ;-)
Ana Suárez

Trip to London

During the last week of June, a Group of students went on a trip with Marina and Carmen, our English teachers. They stayed in London and had a wonderful time. We hope to enjoy this experience from now on, since we’ll start our “bilingual courses experience” in just two months' time.

Icknield High School visit

A group of students from Icknield High School, near London, came to visit us on the 21st of May.
It was a very nice experience for our students to be able to meet them, play paddle, football and basketball and speak English with British students. We offered them a tour. Some of our students performed for them at the gym, we tasted some nice “tapas”, and the students interviewed each other, using the language they are studying.

There is a picture of that intercultural day above.

Our trip to Gibraltar/Nuestro viaje a Gibraltar.

Here you have some pictures taken during the tour. I hope you like it.

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To be bilingual…

I asked one of my students to write a composition of the benefits about being bilingual, an this is the excellent composition she wrote:

“To me, to be bilingual is something special, a gift perhaps, something that some people can’t handle as well as others. The advantages that I have from other people by speaking two languages is an extremely positive thing for me, I look at it as a very important thing for me in the future.
For example, I get to know and understand two different cultures, people ask for my help in situations like going to the doctors, vet, police station, even court! I can also try my best to teach other people English or Spanish, I find it easier to pick up on other languages. It can also be quite funny when Spanish people think I can’t speak their language and start saying things that they shouldn’t!
Another important example is the day I have a job interview and I inform them that I can speak another language!
I suppose I have to thank my dad for putting me in a Spanish school when I was just four years old; straight from England; a choice that is difficult, hard and not easy for a parent to do, so I had no other choice but to adapt to it!
Hopefully this wont be an anticlimax and I will possibly learn another language fluently and enjoy a career in this field in the future”.


.Robyn 1º Bach. B