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EnglishWorld

 

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On March 17th, the Irish, in Ireland and all over the world, celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, considered to be the person responsible for bringing Christianity to this country. The shamrock is the national flower, because St Patrick used it to explain the Holy Trinity to his followers. He is believed to have been born in the fourth century, and when he arrived in Ireland, he encountered the Druids, who worshipped pagan gods. It is said that he converted the pagan chiefs and princes to Christianity, thereby abolishing their religion.

Saint Patrick’s Day has come to be associated with everything Irish: anything green and gold, shamrocks, leprechauns and luck. Most importantly, to those who celebrate its intended meaning, St. Patrick’s Day is a traditional day for spiritual renewal and offering prayers for missionaries worldwide.

It is, of course, best celebrated in Ireland, but there are Irish communities all over the world. In American cities, this day is a great festivity, and there are parades, music and songs, wearing of ’green’, and varied activities for children.

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WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL!

 

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Welcome back to a new year full of promise and wonderful experiences! We are all waiting to see you and extend the opportunity of improving your knowledge even more. I’m sure your holidays must have been great, and I hope you have collected enough energy to get you all through 2012.

Miss Christine

FIRST CERTIFICATE IN ENGLISH 2011

Best wishes and good luck to all my FCE pupils, who sit for the FCE 2011. I'm sure you'll all do great, and will obtain great results!

I'll be thinking of you all.

ABSCH ENGLISH DEBATING EVENT 2011

 

ABSCH ENGLISH DEBATE 2011

 

Last Friday 30th June, three St Paul’s pupils represented the school at the English Debating Event at The Antofagasta British School. Sofía Hayden, Lorena Pascual and Andrés Chamorro, accompanied by Miss Dimitra Halikia,  did really well in their respective debates. We are very grateful for the warm welcome, their very kind host families and for all the entertaining activities the Antofagasta British School put on for them. Congratulations!

  

MR MEN AND LITTLE MISS

You will really enjoy the following videos!

http://youtu.be/asb2apgceSU

http://youtu.be/4Hf5HyGqwnM

http://youtu.be/HZd_OxdgmOg

http://youtu.be/Lnps4icKapg

http://youtu.be/EvfOMG2tF_4

http://youtu.be/EHUhK7RxBuA

http://youtu.be/E0h_NWoY4Ck

HOMAGE TO ROGER HARGREAVES

I’m sure many of you, just like me, have spent many, many enjoyable moments with Mr Men and Little Misses! If Roger Hargreaves were alive today, we would be elebrating his 76th birthday. Below are a few of his endearing characters.    

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VIRTUAL CHOIR

This is fantastic!!!

READING EXPANDS YOUR WORLD!

The following link offers all sorts of reading material, for all ages and tastes. Have a look at it. I'm sure you'll find something to interest you. Remember that the more you read, the more you learn. A lot of the time you won't even realise how much you are learning!

http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic93.htm

WELCOME BACK!

2011 school year is beginning! And what better attitude to have than LOTS of energy, enthusiasm and commitment to the work we are starting.

A lot of the results we obtain during our working year depend on our approach to what we have to do. If you feel that it is a drag, that it is boring, and you will never be able to complete the required work, it will most probably turn out to be so. But, if on the other hand, you look at it as an opportunity to learn, to obtain benefits and successes in your future life, your attitude is positive, and only good things will come of it.

So, face the future with a smile. If you do so, the future will most surely be yours!

READ, READ AND READ MORE!

Now that we Chileans are on holiday, this is the moment to invest time in reading. Reading gives you knowledge, culture, vocabulary, and makes you reflect!  The following link takes you to several levels of reading on different topics. I hope you find it useful!

http://www.saberingles.com.ar/reading/index.html

 

May 2011 be the year of your dreams, may all your wishes come true and happiness and personal fulfilment be with you!

 MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND MAY 2011 BRING YOU PEACE AND LOVE!

SPEAK ENGLISH AND MAKE NEW FRIENDS WORLDWIDE

 

These sites offer a lot of practice which will be useful for your English studies.

http://www.speakenglish.co.uk/

http://www.learnenglish.de/englishchat.htm

http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/phrases.html

LANGUAGE GAMES

 

 

 

FIRST CERTIFICATE IN ENGLISH

  

I’m sure all of you students would like to be awarded one of these with a beautiful A on it!  But as we all know, you must work hard to get it. Only practice, practice and more practice will help you (apart from your own intelligence, of course!) As the saying goes, "Practice makes perfect."

The time for the 2010 December FCE is drawing closer and closer. If you put in a little period of work and practice every day, your results could be MUCH better. Do it with time, and don’t let yourself wait until the last minute. Think how satisfied you’ll feel when your results come out, and you realise that the effort was worth it. Your summer will feel even better when you learn you have passed with a worthwhile mark.

Practice what is hardest for you, and you won’t regret it.

THEY LEFT NO MAN BEHIND

 

Everything about this rescue operation has been inspiring for the whole country and the world.  Viva Chile!!!!!

This article from The Wall Street Journal is really worth reading!

By Peggy Noonan

 

THEY LEFT NO MAN BEHIND

 

Chile! Viva Chile! If I had your flag, I would wave it today from the roof of my building, and watch my New York neighbors smile, nod and wave as they walked by. What a thing Chile has done. They say on TV, "Chile needed this." But the world needed it. And the world knew it: That's why they watched, a billion of them, as the men came out of the mine.

Why did the world need it? Because the saving of those men gave us something we don't see enough, a brilliant example of human excellence—of cohesion, of united and committed action, of planning and execution, of caring. They used the human brain and spirit to save life. All we get all day, every day is scandal. But this inspired.

Viva Chile. They left no man behind. That is what our U.S. Army Rangers say, and our Marines: We leave no man behind. It has a meaning, this military motto, this way of operating. It means you are not alone, you are part of something. Your brothers are with you, here they come. Chile, in leaving no man behind, in insisting that the San José mine was a disaster area but not a tomb, showed itself to be a huge example of that little thing that is at the core of every society: a fully functioning family. A cohering unit that can make its way through the world.

"Viva Chile." That is what they all said, one way or another, as they came out of the capsule, which was nicknamed the Phoenix. They could have nicknamed it the Lazarus, for those risen from the dead. Each one of the miners, in the 10 weeks they spent a half-mile deep in the Atacama Desert, would have known the odds. For two weeks, nobody even knew they were alive. Then this week there they were, one by one, returning to the surface. They must have thought, "Chile, you did not forget us. Chile, you could have said 'An accident, a tragedy, the men are dead, let the men die.' But you did not let the men die." What a thing to know about your country.

Viva Chile. So many speak of faith but those miners, they had faith. A miner's relative, as the men began to come up: "It is a miracle from God." A miner got out of the capsule and got on his knees in front of the nation, saying prayers you know he promised, at the bottom of the mine, he would say, crossing himself twice, and holding up his arms in gratitude, surrender and awe. A miner, after he walked out of the capsule, described his personal experience: "I met God. I met the devil. God won." 

So many nations and leaders have grown gifted at talk. Or at least they talk a lot. News talk, politics talk, spin talk, selling talk: There are nations, and we at our worst are sometimes among them, whose biggest export seems to be chatter. But Chile this week moved the world not by talking but by doing, not by mouthing sympathy for the miners, but by saving them. The whole country—the engineers and technicians, the president, the government, the rescue workers, other miners, medics—set itself to doing something hard, specific, physical, demanding of commitment, precision and expertise. And they did it. Homer Hickam, the coal miner's son turned rocket engineer who was the subject of the 1999 film "October Sky," said Wednesday on MSNBC that it was "like a NASA mission." Organized, thought through, "staying on the time line, sequential thinking." "This is pretty marvelous," he said. "This is Chile's moon landing," said an NBC News reporter. 

Technology was used capably, creatively, and as a force for good. It has not everywhere been used so successfully in the recent past, another reason the world needed to see this. Last summer Americans watched professionals and the government seem helpless to stop the Gulf oil spill, a disaster every bit as predictable as a mine cave-in. For months we watched on TV the spewing of the oil into the sea. In Chile, the opposite. They showed live video of the rescue workers down in the shaft, getting the miners into the Phoenix. Our video said: Something is wrong here. Theirs said: Something is working here. 

A government of a mature and complex democracy proved itself capable and competent. This was heartening and surprising. Governments are charged with doing certain vital and necessary things, but they are overburdened, distracted, so we no longer expect them to do them well. President Sebastián Piñera, in office five months when the mine caved in, saw the situation for what it was. Thirty three men in a hole in the ground, in a mine that probably shouldn't have been open. A disaster, a nation riveted.

What do you do? You throw yourself at the problem. You direct your government: This is the thing we do now. You say, "We will get the men." You put your entire persona behind it, you put it all on the line, you gamble that your nation can do it. You trust your nation to do it. You do whatever possible to see your nation does it. And the day the rescues are to begin, you don't show up and wring your hands so people can say "Ah, he knew it might not work, he was not unrealistic, he was telling us not to get our hopes up." No, you stand there smiling with joy because you know it will work, you know your people will come through, you have utmost confidence. And so you go and radiate your joy from the first moment the rescue began and the first man came out straight through to the last man coming out. You stand. You stay.

It was the opposite of the governor of Louisiana during Katrina, projecting helplessness and loserdom, or the president flying over the storm, or the mayor holing up in a motel deciding this might be a good time for a breakdown. This was someone taking responsibility.

The event transcended class differences, social barriers, regional divides. The entire nation—rich, poor, all colors and ages—was united. Scientists and engineers gave everything to save men who'd lived rough, working-class lives. "Every one of them who came up was treated like the first one," said a reporter on MSNBC. 

 

What does it do to the children of a nation to see that? Everyone from Chile will be proud as they go through the world. "You saved the miners." Chilean children will know, "We are the kind of people who get them out alive. We made up our mind to do it and we did."

What a transformative event this is going to be for that nation.

A closing note, another contrast. President Obama this week told the New York Times, speaking of his first two years, that he realized too late "there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects." He's helpless in the face of environmental impact statement law. But every law, even those, can be changed if you have the vision, will, instinct and guts to do it, if you start early, if you're not distracted by other pursuits.

"Shovel ready." Chile just proved, in the profoundest sense, it is exactly that. And in doing so, it moved the rough heart of the world.

Viva Chile.

 

 

WONDERFUL CHILE AND ITS PEOPLE!

 

I feel so proud to be a Chilean! Our country has made history in rescue operations, I’m sure! The government has been wonderful, sparing no effort or expense to rescue the 33 miners who have been trapped underground for over two months. The whole country has accompanied them and their families throughout this rebirth from the depths of the desert. They have given us a lifelong lesson in survival and how to overcome adversity in the best way possible. They never lost hope or faith, and are an example to the whole country and the world.

BRAIN TEASERS FROM YAHOO

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/brain-teasers/brain-teasers-and-optical-illusions/1400154

Have fun!

ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION WRITING COMPETITION 2010

 

On September 30th, St Paul’s School sent two pupils to the semi-finals of the ESU Writing Competition, which took place at the Ralli Museum in Santiago.

The two participating pupils were Magdalena Friedrichs and Carolina Gana, both from 4th Seniors. They had, about two months back, sent in a five-paragraph essay, and based on this piece of writing were selected to take part in the semi-finals. They were asked to select a work of art in the museum and use it as a source of inspiration for an original story, written in a three-hour period in the museum itself. The winners of this competition will be announced at a ceremony in the Ralli Museum at the beginning of November. The school thanks them for their participation and hard work!

CHILEAN BICENTENNIAL

Above , the presidential palace in Santiago, named ’La Moneda’, with its giant flag, created specially for the Bicentennial. Below that, the ’Esmeralda’, the naval training ship which travels around the world every year. Below ,President Sebastián Piñera greeting the crowds at the annual parade in Santiago on the 18th of September, our national Independence Day, and further down a picture of the fireworks show on the 18th in the bay of Valparaíso, next to Viña del Mar, where I live.

 

 

http://www.emol.com/MundoGrafico/index.asp?G_ID=15877#

We have just finished celebrating our bicentennial, and the above link takes you to images of the sea and air parade which took place today. It was a wonderful experience and thousands of people turned out to watch the show! My country is the best there is. An awesome place to live and work! Come and visit us! We are friendly and welcoming, form the north to the south.