miércoles, 2 de junio de 2010

A toro pasado...(self-criticism)

These are my two composition that I've been doing all this time. Here are only 2 writing exercises because of the time. It's being a hard term supporting and mixing all those areas which I don't like them much.

There are a lot of mistakes. It is said than making mistakes is part of the learning proccess. Actually, I really believe it.
However, there are much more mistakes that I'd ever thought: Spelling, Vocabulary, Linking words... I think I've learnt from all those instructions, but 90 minutes is a very little time to tell a story, to develop it. Sometimes it is not a grammar problem or even vocabulary. I have really clear all the concepts, all the stuffs I nedded to learn, but I don't have any 'know-how' or 'savoir faire' in french.

This is more or less what I wrote yesterday in my composition exam. It is no exactly what I meant, because I had to change some ideas to fill the limitation of 300-350 words. According to this, I had to invent a big story about "the reasons why I got amazed last week". So, this story beggins with the following title: "I couldn't believed my eyes when...", and I tried to say that I was very suprised of getting back my photo collection, which contains hundreds of pictures I've done all this time; and, because of that, I had the chance to put some linking words, one passive sentence, and just one conditional. I believe it is not enought, but I find so difficult to stay longtime thinking about the cohension and coherence of the story you're going to tell.
Would you find lots of mistakes? I think so, but it's just a rough draft, the only way to have your say before being careful to the text structure and spelling mistakes...

I made up my mind while I was thinking about how to develop the story, but I've got just one question; I put "latin american people", or "cubans"...Should I put it in capital letters?
Reviewing it more times, I find a little poor because of the grammar structures, vocabulary, and many other things, maybe I'd fail this part of the exam. Everything is very improvised, and when I saw the final result, I believed it was a mixed of other kinds of compositions, like advantages & disad., linking words not very complicated, always using the same past tenses (past simple, sometimes the perfect one, and present simple...)
I'm looking for any other possible mistake in the text: "In Florida...most people are used to use...". I think the best way to express this idea could be "most people are used to speak spanish", however, I've had some doubts and I decided not to risk making a mistake here...
What part of the writing would you choose? This one, or the other about fashion, what people like wearing, to do when they go shopping...?
I really like the second one, but I didn't have enough time to study the main vocabulary, So, I was restricted by this reason...



In the firts part of the piece of paper, I was trying writing something improvised, but I didn't know how to continue the story, I don't so much imagination.
"When I was coming back to my brand new flat, and I just saw a women riding a motorcycle while I was driving my car. It was the last night I've been living in Madrid, about two months ago. She looked like an old woman, but she was wearing a uniform; perhaps she was working for a school or something similar..."

Speaking about other parts of the exam, I had to do also the listenning and the reading part. In the first one, there was a couple of people speaking about the city of Liverpool (How was built the city, interesting points to visit...) and in the tapescript there was a lot of gaps to fill in with a number or a word, So, because of the quantity of information and the accent, I just could understand half part of the text. I had a little headache, so I couldn't listen to anything in the right conditions. The other tapescript was much more easy. It was about British schools and kitchens, overwheight in kids...just a true/false exercise. I even got one more true.

About the reading part, it was very difficult. It was a text about new ways of journalism, new technologies, and its disadvantages for enterprises, and it treated about Wikipedia or Google. I had a true/false exercise, very difficult because all the sentences had the same appearance. And there was also a vocabulary exercise, very complicated because all the words were taken from other languages like french, german, and even the other ones were not very often to find in the standard language.
The second part of the reading was a clozed text (a multiple choice) about a new system of dating for people who want to fall in love, not very difficult, but some expressions were like chinese for me...
Next week I'll have to do the oral part... and I'm a bit frightened...:S

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