by Renato Puglia 'n Tabata Reis
domingo, 22 de novembro de 2009
quarta-feira, 11 de novembro de 2009
Essay
A Christmas Carol Essay
Charles Dickens' timeless tale of an old miser who never celebrates Christmas called Scrooge, one night the old miser man must face Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come, as they help to bring kindness to his otherwise cold heart. The Ghosts remind him of the man he used to be, the hard truth of what the world is today, and what will happen if he does not strive to be a better man. Set around Christmas, the most joyous day of the year, Scrooge realizes the sharp contrast of his own personality.
Written in 1843 this tale appears in the middle of world which was living the beginning of capitalism, the post industrial revolution. New factories, new products, new transportations, the commerce’s growth made a bigger production of richness, but, at the same time, it made the social inequality get bigger too.
In this world, using the Christmas time as temporal reference, the story told by Dickens starts, confronting values as compassion, mercy and the Christmas’ fraternity against the desire of gain more and more money, the mechanization of the human being which made the men become a machine which just look for money.
Personifying the greed for wealth, the selfishness, the bad temper, the bad manners and the brutality we find the character Ebezer Scrooge, a man who is the owner of a factory and becomes its singles owner after the death of his partner Jacob Marley.
However, the death of Jacob brings something unexpected; during the Christmas time, when Scrooge was lonely in his house, he is visited by the ghost of his old partner, the ghost was arrested in heavy chains, and makes Scrooge remind all the sins he has been committing during his life and the Jacob’s ghosts tells him he will be visited by three ghosts, ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come
When the day comes down the old Scrooge tries to convince himself that everything was a dream, but when the first hour rings the first spirit comes to lead him to the Christmas of his childhood and youth, a time when Scrooge had some feelings like friendship and love and a time that had been erased from his memories and his heart.
On the next day, the second spirit shows him the current Christmas, taking him to the house of his employees and other people he knew where they were celebrating the date and praying for him, a man that used to be disrespectful with those people.
During the third night the last spirit comes with a grave tone in its voice, and he shows him what we would live. The spirit leaded Scrooge to his future, until his death when he could see the negligence and the disapproval people had for him.
After that a transformation happens and Scrooge notice that his life was not good and decide to change himself and becomes a good man who has compassion and kindness for his family and friends.
This simple tale, that talks about the man who cares only for money and became miser, lonely and unhappy, becomes a folktale known all over the world tale that rescue that love, kindness, friendship, and good feelings that this capitalism made people forget.
A Christmas Carol is a fairly straightforward allegory built on an episodic narrative structure in which each of the main passages has a fixed, obvious symbolic meaning. The book is divided into five sections (Dickens labels them Staves in reference to the musical notation staff--a Christmas carol, after all, is a song), with each of the middle three Staves revolving around a visitation by one of the three famous spirits. The three spirit-guides, along with each of their tales, carry out a thematic function--the Ghost of Christmas Past, with his glowing head, represents memory; the Ghost of Christmas Present represents charity, empathy, and the Christmas spirit; and the reaper-like Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come represents the fear of death. Scrooge, with his Bah! Humbug! attitude, embodies all that dampens Christmas spirit--greed, selfishness, indifference, and a lack of consideration for one's fellow man.
With A Christmas Carol, Dickens hopes to illustrate how self-serving, insensitive people can be converted into charitable, caring, and socially conscious members of society through the intercession of moralizing quasi-religious lessons. Warmth, generosity, and overall goodwill, overcome Scrooge's bitter apathy as he encounters and learns from his memory, the ability to empathize, and his fear of death. Memory serves to remind Scrooge of a time when he still felt emotionally connected to other people, before he closed himself off in an austere state of alienation. Empathy enables Scrooge to sympathize with and understand those less fortunate than himself, people like Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit. The fear of death hints at imminent moral reckoning--the promise of punishment and reward.
With each Ghost's tale functioning as a parable, A Christmas Carol advances the Christian moral ideals associated with Christmas--generosity, kindness, and universal love for your community--and of Victorian England in general. The book also offers a distinctly modern view of Christmas, less concerned with solemn religious ceremony and defined by more joyous traditions--the sharing of gifts, festive celebrations, displays of prosperity. The book also contains a political edge, most evident in Dickens' development of the bustling, struggling Cratchit family, who are a compelling, if one-dimensional, representation of the plight of the poor. Dickens, with every intention of tugging on your heartstrings, paints the Cratchits as a destitute family that finds a way to express profound gratitude for its emotional riches. Dickens carries this sentiment even further with the tragic figure of the pure-hearted, crippled Cratchit son, Tiny Tim. Scrooge's emotive connection to Tiny Tim dramatically underscores his revelatory acceptance of the Christmas ideal. Scrooge begins to break through his emotional barricade in Stave Three as he expresses pity for Tiny Tim. The reader, upon hearing the usually uncaring miser inquire into Tim's fate, begins to believe Scrooge has a chance at salvation. Scrooge's path to redemption culminates with his figurative "adoption" of Tiny Tim, acting as "a second father" to the little boy.
Intertextuality
Christmas like it was stated previously has been well known as time for love, compassion, humility and generosity. Because of this strong symbolism that it holds, Charles Dickens has many other pieces on it, such as What Christmas is as we grow older, A Christmas tree, Christmas at Fezziwig’s warehouse. But he was not the only writer who was interested on it, famous writers as Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde and Dr. Seuss also have taken advantage of the atmosphere that the 25th brings.
The last author on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, published in 1957, tells the story of a Grinch who was a catlike creature with a heart “two sizes too small”. This creature lived on a snowy
Although, at first apprehensive, the Grinch appears to be getting into the Christmas spirit, until the Mayor proposes to Martha May-Who, and offers her a car. The ostentatious gift rouses the ire of the Grinch, and he then begins to wreck the celebration, causing mayhem and burning down the Christmas tree. Then he returns to
Christmas from coming, by dressing as Santa, and stealing it. He took everything that reminded Christmas from Whoville to the top of
Back in Whoville, everyone was sad and distraught, with the Mayor blaming the whole thing on Cindy for inviting the Grinch. Cindy's father proclaimed that he actually is proud of his daughter, because he's seen that Christmas is not about presents and decorations, but about being together. Soon a number of other Who's join in and begin singing.
This sound makes the Grinch wonders how they can be so cheerful after everything that happened and as he watches, the emotion gets to him, and his once shrivelled heart grows 3 sizes. The Grinch then returns the presents to Whoville, and apologizes for his misdeed. At the same time, Margaret May-Who tells the Mayor she is rejecting his marriage proposal, and that her heart belongs to the Grinch.
The story above clearly bears some resemblance to A Christmas Carol. Grinch and Scrooge who were misanthropes after learn to love Christmas and humanity, once they were able to see that is not money what it matters most. But differently from Scrooge who thought about the relations economically, Grinch was the one who did not accept the relations as business so he hid himself.
Both stories use Christmas to show the goodness on people and kids are the ones who try to show it to them, Tiny Tim and Cindy Lou Who. As it is known, children symbolize the innocence and no pre judgments.
On A Christmas Carol the spirits show Scrooge’s life and they represent the Christmas spirit itself. On How The Grinch Stole Christmas Cindy interviews the people and finds out how Grinch life was and more than that she is the reminder of what Christmas is about, so she is the Christmas spirit on this particular story.
Charles Dickens and Dr. Seuss’ stories are universal and eternal once they show the conflict of living in society and having a capitalist system ruling it, which turn the human beings into competitors and selfish people as well as the (un)balance between emotional and rational.
References:
http://www.stormfax.com/dickens.htm
http://www.allthingschristmas.com/stories.html
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dKbrown/christmas.html
http://www.knoxvilletennessee.com/christmas/stories/
http://www.seussville.com/grinch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas!
Incoming Events
BJOOX Congresso Internacional da ABECAN
The ABECAN AND THE EMBASSY OF CANADA IN BRAZIL LAUNCH THE CONTEST OF THEORIES, DISSERTATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS ZILÁ BERND
The contest will treat the relations between Brazil and Canada, from the subject: Americas and dialog.
Place: Centro de Cultura e Eventos of federal University from Goiás
Date: November 17, 18, 19 and 20.
Information:http://www.abecan.org.br
3°SIAC
Event organized by the participants, students and researchers of the Research Group on Language Activities in the School Context (LACE) that integrates the topics Language, Collaboration and Criticality (LCC), under the leadership of Professor. Dr. Maria Cecilia Magalhaes, and Language, Creativity and Multiplicity (LCM), under the leadership of Professor. Dr. Fernanda Liberali also responsible for the Extension Program Citizen Action (PAC) Programa de Extensão Ação Cidadã
Date: november 14-15, 2009
Place: Colégio Albert Sabin
Information: siac.pac@gmail.com
Discussion about Prejudice
In this Tuesday (11/10), the DCE “ Junior Francisco Alves Capucho ” will promote a discussion about ethnic al and racial prejudice.
The discussion is opened for everyone and it will be at Salão Vermelho – Uniso Trujillo, with the participation of Douglas Belchior, from Ong Uniafro -
Date: November 10th
Place: Uniso – Trujilo (Salão Vermelho)
Information: 2101-2000
“Curiosities about our Library”
Dates:
Cidade Universitária: untill November 13rd
Trujilo: November 16th to 23rd
Seminário: November 25th to December 2nd
Place: Aluísio de Almeida Library
By Sabrina Acquaviva ‘n Audir Barros
Just read it
JUST READ IT!
Call for paper works
JUST READ IT! has the satisfaction to invite you to send academic articles to us.
Just read it! is an electronic publication of College Undergraduation program of
Articles proposal: a detailed proposal (500 – 1,000 words), you have to put the bibliography and send it by e-mail. The e-mail is magazine.justreadit@gmail.com . In the e-mail, you put your full name, e-mail, telephone, the title of the article, the academic position, the institution’s name and the entire article. All proposals will be selected according to the magazine politics. The final period to send the proposals is November, 30th.
The final period to send the proposal is December, 7th. All selected articles will be published in the magazine’s blog.
By Jéssica Tosi, Letícia Rocha, Letícia Mara ‘n Jucy
Interviews
Interview with Denise Prestes Fernandes,
Interviewers: Daniele Guedes and Sara Carriel from the
Abstract:
As an American international school in
Introduction
This interview was conducted in
At the moment, Denise is teaching at Monica’s school thus, in the interview she deals with the questions on this school system.
We hope you enjoy reading the interview as much as we enjoyed talking to her.
The interview
TA- The international schools and bilingual schools offer an environment of language acquisition. As an English teacher in a bilingual school could you tell us what is the student’s profile?
Denise: Most of my students are foreigners and they come from all around the world (Sweden; Porto Rico; Spain; China; Argentina; Chile; United States; Portugal; England; etc); only 40% of them were born in Brazil. In general, those students’ parents work for multinational companies so they move to different countries from time to time taking (of course) their children with them. In order to keep them in regular schools (instead of home schooling), they have to enroll their children in monolingual International Schools. I also have Brazilian students whose parents have chosen an international school instead of a national one because they plan to have their children studying abroad when they go to college.
TA- In your opinion, what are the positive and negative points of international schools?
Denise: I think that an
The only negative point I see in studying at an
TA- How do you motivate students?
Denise: Children are easy to be motivated. I believe that children’s motivation is strictly connected to the way things are presented to them. If not even the teacher is interested in what they are trying to present, the child will probably notice and it will seem boring to them too. It’s all about the way you look at your work object and your enthusiasm to present new things to your students. I always try to put myself in their shoes and ask how I would like that thing to be introduced to me for the first time. My answer to that question is always the key to start my classes.
TA- In your view, an
Denise: Not really. I do think that being part of an environment where you can be in touch with people from different cultures can actually help you become more conscious of your own identity and reduce or eliminate the prejudice against different cultures.
TA- How long have you been an International English teacher?
Denise: For less than 6 months.
TA- You have taught in regular national schools before, right? Are there any differences between international and national schools in terms of language teaching method? What’s the method used at Monica’s school?
Denise: Unfortunately, the base for English teaching in regular schools in
TA- Is there a right age to start learning a second language?
Denise: I wouldn’t say that there is a right age to start learning a second language, but there is no doubt that learning languages is much easier for pre-scholar children because at this age they are building their connections between the real world and the language that represents it. That’s why doesn’t matter how many languages they are exposed to, they will link all of them to the real world.
TA- Do kids get the languages mixed up when they are outside the school? Do you think this is normal or it can interfere on the literacy in both languages?
Denise: They not only mix the languages outside the school, but also inside. Because we have kids who speak different languages, many of them end up speaking not only English plus their mother language but also Portuguese and other languages. One of my students, Hugo, came from Sweden two years ago (he is 3 years-old now) and despite the fact his parents talk to him in Swedish only, he speaks English and Portuguese too. He is not being taught Portuguese, but he has learned it just by interacting with his Brazilian friends. Differently from what happens to adults and teenagers, language learning is a natural process to pre-scholar kids and mixing up two or more languages is more than natural, it is essential. Mixing up languages means that they are learning to link the world around them to the many languages that represent it. At the end of the process they learn which language they should use in which environment. One of my students, Tommy, speaks only Spanish with his parents (who are from
By Sara Carriel ‘n Daniele Guedes
terça-feira, 10 de novembro de 2009
Teaching Tips
Here are 2 tips:
Did you know?
Monitoring gives you the opportunity to hear how the students are coping with the activity and to make notes about pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar points that are causing difficulty.
it’s a good idea to indicate that you’re actually listening to the students.
But how can you do it effectively?
While the students are doing an activity you walk slowly round the classroom and listen to their conversations.
You can sit down too, if there are enough chairs, but try to sit in the background a bit or the students will direct their conversation to you.
Look at one pair whilst actually listening to a different pair nearby. Correct the pair nearby just to keep everyone on their toes - they never know when you’re listening to them so they can’t ever switch off or revert to their mother-tongue.
Be ready to massage any flagging conversations back into life, to stop students monopolizing conversations, to stop students falling out with each other and to offer encouragement and praise where appropriate. Listen and supervise.
Take a piece of paper and a pen with you on your travels round the classroom so that you can jot down any howlers.
Have you heard of CCQ’s?
Concept Check Questions, to know if the sts really understand what you want to teach them. But how can you do it?
Ask the students a question closely related to the target concept. For example:
If you are working on a third conditional sentence like this: ‘I would have done my homework if I had had enough time’, your concept checking questions could be these: Did you do your homework? Did you have enough time? If you’re checking the understanding of instructions which say ‘Guess your partner’s answers to the true or false questions below’ you could ask ‘Do you
need to speak to your partner at this stage?’
The main reason to do so: Because it’s another way of checking understanding.
By Rafael Ferreira and Sergio Hideki Kanie
domingo, 8 de novembro de 2009
Tips of English learning
1. Start your own English language blog. Even for people who don't have to write in English, writing can be a great way of properly learning the kind of vocabulary you need to describe your own life and interests, and of thinking about how to stop making grammar mistakes. The problem most people have is that they don't know what to write about. One traditional way to make sure you write every day in English is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date way of doing this is to write a blog. Popular topics include your language learning experience, your experience studying abroad, your local area, your language, or translations of your local news into English.
2. Write a news diary. Another daily writing task that can work for people who would be bored by writing about their own routines in a diary is to write about the news that you read and listen to everyday. If you include your predictions for how you think the story will develop (e.g. "I think Hillary will become president"), this can give you a good reason to read old entries another time, at which time you can also correct and mistakes you have made and generally improve what you have written.
3. Sign up for a regular English tip. Some websites offer a weekly or even daily short English lesson sent to your email account. If your mobile phone has an e-mail address, it is also possible to have the tips sent to your phone to read on the way to work or school. Please note, however, that such services are not usually graded very well to the levels of different students, and they should be used as a little added extra or revision in your English studies rather than as a replacement for something you or your teacher have chosen more carefully as what you need to learn.
4. Listen to MP3s. Although buying music on the internet is becoming more popular in many countries, not so many people know that you can download speech radio such as audio books (an actor reading out a novel) and speech radio. Not only is this better practice for your English than listening to English music, from sources like Scientific American, BBC and Australia's ABC Radio it is also free.
5. Listen to English music. Even listening to music while doing something else can help a little for things like getting used to the natural rhythm and tone of English speech, although the more time and attention you give to a song the more you will learn from listening to it again in the future.
6. Read the lyrics to a song. Although just listening to a song in English can be a good way of really learning the words of the chorus in an easily memorable way, if you want to really get something out of listening to English music you will need to take some time to read the lyrics of the song with a dictionary. If the lyrics are not given in the CD booklet, you may be able to find them on the internet, but please note that some lyrics sites deliberately put a few errors into their lyrics for copyright reasons. Once you have read and understood the lyrics, if you then listen and read at the same time, this can be a good way of understanding how sounds change in fast, natural, informal speech.
7. Sing karaoke in English. The next stage after understanding and memorising a song is obviously to sing it. Although some words have their pronunciation changed completely to fit in with a song, most of the words have the same sounds and stressed syllables as in normal speech. Remembering which words rhyme at the end of each line can also be a good way of starting to learn English pronunciation.
8. Write a film, music, hotel or book review. Another motivating and easy way to make yourself write in English is to write a review for a site such as Amazon or Internet Movie Database. Many non-native speakers write reviews on sites like this, and if you have some special understanding of the book, music or film due to your first language or knowing the artist personally, that would be very interesting for the English speakers who read and write reviews on the site.
9. Only search in English. Switching your search engine to the English language version of msn, yahoo, Google etc. can not only be a good way of practising fast reading for specific information in English, but could also give you a wider choice of sites to choose from and give you an idea of what foreigners are writing about your country and area.
10. Read a book you've already read or seen the movie of in your own language. Although most language learners under Advanced level would probably learn more from reading a graded reader or something from the internet than they would from reading an original book written for English speakers, for some people reading something like Harry Potter in the original can be a great motivator to improve their English. To make this easier for you and make sure that it motivates you rather than just making your tired, try reading a book that you already know the story of. This not only makes it easier to understand and guess vocabulary, but you are also more likely to remember the language in it. If you have not read the book before, reading a plot summary from the internet can also help in the same way.
by Garotynho 'n Anderson Maia
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