Surprise, surprise, a new post after a few months. I am writing because I don't want you to say I have quit my blog. I have not quit, it's just that I like to have you longing for my posts ;-)
This time, I'll give you some cultural notes about the UK. Yesterday I was invited to celebrate the Burns Night, that is a celebration of the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
The celebration includes a dinner and dancing. The most traditional dish is "haggis", which is a mix of sheep's heart, liver and kidneys, minced with different spices. Despite the description may sound a bit disgusting, I liked it.
Before eating the haggis, someone says the Robert Burns' poem "Address to a Haggis". After eating, everyone goes for a dance.
By the way, do you remember the song that is usually played at the end of the parties when they want the people to leave? Apparently, the song belongs to a Burns' poem and was also played to mark the end of the party. It seems that we have many more things in common with the Britons than what we thought!!!
Changing the subject, last time I was with you, I don't remember to whom I talk about the stadium that there is close to my place. At that moment I didn't remember whose team it was. Now I do, the team is the Queens Park Rangers and they are near the bottom of the table in the Premier League. Actually, yesterday a group of hooligans marched in front of my flat surrounded by policemen and yelling. I think there was more policemen than supporters.
Well, I'll keep this post short to avoid to overload your minds with too much stuff after all these months in blank. I'll just say, in case anyone is interested, that the past 16th January was the "Blue Monday", supposedly the worst day in the year. Just a bit of superstition.
Bye for now. I'll see you next time, hopefully, sooner than this last time.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Building up a new life
Hi everyone, here we go with a new post.
Two months and a half. This is the time I have been in London until now.
Never had I imagined that studying English would be so stressful! Little by little, I have added new activities to my daily routine. Currently, I am working as volunteer for two charities. The last one I joined develops activities to promote social integration of needed people. In order to get that purpose, they organise games taking the 2012 Olympics as an excuse. They are sponsored by Cadbury (http://www.spotsvstripes.com/default.aspx). What team do you prefer to join: spots or stripes ;-)
I am also teaching Maths to a woman who wants to improve her numeracy. Seemingly, there are many illiterate people in the UK. The woman is from Barbados and her English is a bit odd, but all the same, it is another opportunity to engage in conversation with people and to learn new vocabulary.
Last week, I joined a language club. It is intended to people meet and have language swaps. In my group, there are English people wanting to learn Spanish and Spanish people wanting to learn English. So, when we meet, we speak Spanish for an hour and English for another hour. There are other groups where people exchange English for French, English for German, etc.
People in the English-Spanish group meet on Tuesday and Sunday every two weeks. In addition, every other Tuesday it's a group of only-English where people meet to speak English. Although there are some English people, most of the people that attend the only-English sessions are foreigners, especially Spanish people. In the last meeting, there were about 15 people and more than a half were Spaniards. We are like a plague! Anyway, it is stunning to find so many Spanish people and to listen to their stories. In fact, listening to the other's stories is very instructive. The other day, someone told me about the Callan Method to speak English. According to this method, you can learn English in a quarter of the time. What do you think about it?
Besides, the club organise activities such as excursions which allow people to socialise and know each other. Actually, these activities are very interesting because they are planned by English people who show us different places in London or around. Today we have visited the Horniman Museum (do you remember the tea brand??) Yes, John Horniman was one of the first merchants to have the idea of selling tea in packets.
Fortunately, most people in the excursion was English so I have had the opportunity to speak for a while. The school is as a training, but for me, what really matters are these occasions when you have to use English to communicate with people in real situations.
People in the club are very supportive. We all do the best we can and everyone encourages the others to have a go.
In addition, I try to get involved in other activities as conferences, literary presentations, reading groups, etc. Here, they have a great sense of community and there are also events in which people can participate. I often go to the library to collect information about this sort of activities.
For example, tomorrow I am attending the presentation of a book: "Dark Market: CyberThieves, CyberCops and You". It's free and we'll have refreshments as the author talk about his new book.
This week, every day from Tuesday to Saturday there will be an event with "Live music & English Conversation". The event is hosted by The Church of England.
Although each evening will include a short talk introducing Christianity, it may be interesting to attend at least one meeting. In fact, I don't care if they speak about Christianity or Budism, what it is important for me is to have the chance to listen and speak to real people.
Ah, I've just remembered: tomorrow morning I have an interview to get the National Insurance Number.
By the way, this week we are enjoying a wonderful weather in London. In fact, it looks as if the summer was coming again. We are registering record-breaking temperatures, up to 30 degrees.
That's all for now. As always, I look forward to hearing your commentaries, in English of course.
Two months and a half. This is the time I have been in London until now.
Never had I imagined that studying English would be so stressful! Little by little, I have added new activities to my daily routine. Currently, I am working as volunteer for two charities. The last one I joined develops activities to promote social integration of needed people. In order to get that purpose, they organise games taking the 2012 Olympics as an excuse. They are sponsored by Cadbury (http://www.spotsvstripes.com/default.aspx). What team do you prefer to join: spots or stripes ;-)
I am also teaching Maths to a woman who wants to improve her numeracy. Seemingly, there are many illiterate people in the UK. The woman is from Barbados and her English is a bit odd, but all the same, it is another opportunity to engage in conversation with people and to learn new vocabulary.
Last week, I joined a language club. It is intended to people meet and have language swaps. In my group, there are English people wanting to learn Spanish and Spanish people wanting to learn English. So, when we meet, we speak Spanish for an hour and English for another hour. There are other groups where people exchange English for French, English for German, etc.
People in the English-Spanish group meet on Tuesday and Sunday every two weeks. In addition, every other Tuesday it's a group of only-English where people meet to speak English. Although there are some English people, most of the people that attend the only-English sessions are foreigners, especially Spanish people. In the last meeting, there were about 15 people and more than a half were Spaniards. We are like a plague! Anyway, it is stunning to find so many Spanish people and to listen to their stories. In fact, listening to the other's stories is very instructive. The other day, someone told me about the Callan Method to speak English. According to this method, you can learn English in a quarter of the time. What do you think about it?
Besides, the club organise activities such as excursions which allow people to socialise and know each other. Actually, these activities are very interesting because they are planned by English people who show us different places in London or around. Today we have visited the Horniman Museum (do you remember the tea brand??) Yes, John Horniman was one of the first merchants to have the idea of selling tea in packets.
Fortunately, most people in the excursion was English so I have had the opportunity to speak for a while. The school is as a training, but for me, what really matters are these occasions when you have to use English to communicate with people in real situations.
People in the club are very supportive. We all do the best we can and everyone encourages the others to have a go.
In addition, I try to get involved in other activities as conferences, literary presentations, reading groups, etc. Here, they have a great sense of community and there are also events in which people can participate. I often go to the library to collect information about this sort of activities.
For example, tomorrow I am attending the presentation of a book: "Dark Market: CyberThieves, CyberCops and You". It's free and we'll have refreshments as the author talk about his new book.
This week, every day from Tuesday to Saturday there will be an event with "Live music & English Conversation". The event is hosted by The Church of England.
Although each evening will include a short talk introducing Christianity, it may be interesting to attend at least one meeting. In fact, I don't care if they speak about Christianity or Budism, what it is important for me is to have the chance to listen and speak to real people.
Ah, I've just remembered: tomorrow morning I have an interview to get the National Insurance Number.
By the way, this week we are enjoying a wonderful weather in London. In fact, it looks as if the summer was coming again. We are registering record-breaking temperatures, up to 30 degrees.
That's all for now. As always, I look forward to hearing your commentaries, in English of course.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
I am an immigrant
Howdy,
Daca, bear with me, be patient. I have no time, I'm super busy. Ok, this post is dedicated to you.
Since now I'm an immigrant, I'm going to speak about this topic.
Some days ago, I listened to the radio as they talked about if London is no longer an English city. The question was related to the fact that the number of foreigners keeps increasing continuously. Certainly, London is a very cosmopolitan city.
My English teacher told us that in some areas in London, many people do not speak English and the Londoners feel strange themselves.
I have also been told that Australians and New Zealanders have much success in London. They do not have the language barrier and they work hard.
In fact, most foreigners in London think that English people are lazy. On the other hand, the Britons think that foreign people are getting their jobs as well as they crowd public services and claim for benefits.
Well, that rings a bell! I think this problem is familiar for all of us.
However, it is impossible to restrain the effects of the globalization. This week, at the corner shop, which is run by a guy from the Middle East, I have bought grapes from Valencia, melon from Tomelloso and nectarines and flat peaches from Spain (it was not specified the exactly place). Moreover, there are apples from France, pears from South Africa, papayas from Brazil, cherries from the USA, blueberries from Poland, strawberries and raspberries from England and so on.
By the way, I have especially liked to find yellow dates. I had never seen them before. They are fresh dates, some of them are even green because they are still unripe. When you let them dry, they become in the dates we are used to seeing in Spain.
It is said that the curry is the most popular flavour in London. They want to mean that the Indian population is very large and so is their influence. This reminds me that my landlady would cook spicy food. She said that her meals were mild but my face sometimes got reddish.
I'll see you next time.
Daca, bear with me, be patient. I have no time, I'm super busy. Ok, this post is dedicated to you.
Since now I'm an immigrant, I'm going to speak about this topic.
Some days ago, I listened to the radio as they talked about if London is no longer an English city. The question was related to the fact that the number of foreigners keeps increasing continuously. Certainly, London is a very cosmopolitan city.
My English teacher told us that in some areas in London, many people do not speak English and the Londoners feel strange themselves.
I have also been told that Australians and New Zealanders have much success in London. They do not have the language barrier and they work hard.
In fact, most foreigners in London think that English people are lazy. On the other hand, the Britons think that foreign people are getting their jobs as well as they crowd public services and claim for benefits.
Well, that rings a bell! I think this problem is familiar for all of us.
However, it is impossible to restrain the effects of the globalization. This week, at the corner shop, which is run by a guy from the Middle East, I have bought grapes from Valencia, melon from Tomelloso and nectarines and flat peaches from Spain (it was not specified the exactly place). Moreover, there are apples from France, pears from South Africa, papayas from Brazil, cherries from the USA, blueberries from Poland, strawberries and raspberries from England and so on.
By the way, I have especially liked to find yellow dates. I had never seen them before. They are fresh dates, some of them are even green because they are still unripe. When you let them dry, they become in the dates we are used to seeing in Spain.
It is said that the curry is the most popular flavour in London. They want to mean that the Indian population is very large and so is their influence. This reminds me that my landlady would cook spicy food. She said that her meals were mild but my face sometimes got reddish.
I'll see you next time.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Getting started
Welcome everyone to my London diary. Here, you will find my comments about my experiences in London. I have thought of writing this diary in order to have a reminder of these months in Britain.
Today, it has exactly been seven weeks since I arrived in London. During the first six weeks, I have stayed with an English family, in a Victorian house located in the heart of Fulham (close to Fulham Broadway), within walking distance to my English school. This zone is quite rich: my landlady told me that her house is worth 1,500,000 pounds. It is a house with three floors, a garden and enormous rooms. During the time I have spent there, I have had the chance of learning about English traditions and customs in an authentic English family. However, the rent was too expensive and Ivete and I were missing our intimacy, so we decided to move to another place. It is a pity because my landlady enjoyed talking to me and I could practise my English with her.
Just a week ago, we have moved to a flat: it is a studio with separate kitchen and bathroom. It just has a wardrobe and a bed. It is located at Shepherd's Bush, on Uxbridge Road, in the west of London.
It has taken us three weeks to find a suitable place. As we visited different places, we were getting more and more desperate because of the difficulties we found. I have learned that when they say "cosy" room, they actually mean a tiny hole. When they say rooms available from 180 pw, they only have rooms from 250 pw. There are landlords willing to rent you a mediocre flat and, in change, they request all kinds of guarantees: work references, previous landlord references, bank statements, information about taxes paid during last year, someone responsible of paying the rent in case you do not pay it, etc. In other cases, there are flats with up to eight flatmates. Although we wanted to find some place near the school, in Fulham Broadway, at last we decided to widen our quest to the areas around, as West Brompton, Hammersmith, Putney and Shepherd's Bush.
In order to furnish our studio, we have used storage boxes as drawers, our suitcases as bedside tables and we have bought the most vital things such as kitchenware, toiletries and sheets.
It may sound odd, but I have seen foxes on the street. As I was told then, foxes are attracted by the rubbish in the street. The point is that rubbish bags are left on the street instead of being put in containers. I would have never imagined this image of London. In fact, I still feel reluctant to leave the rubbish in the middle of the street, but I have no choice.
Another achievement during this time has been to open a bank account. Most banks are very reluctant to open an account for unemployed foreigners so it has been difficult to find one willing to. Eventually, we have opened an account in Barclays (after providing a letter from the school to confirm our status as students).
On the course of these weeks, I have applied for several positions as volunteer in charities. However, most people were on vacation during August, so it has been difficult to get any responses. Finally, last week I had an interview with people from one charity looking for someone to improve its website. The interview went well, although I did not know WordPress, the tool they used to manage the website. The only problem was that they asked me for providing references from two different people. At first, I thought I could not cope with this since I did not know anyone willing to back me. However, I managed to get references from my previous landlady and from one of my teachers.
Finally, I should speak about my English classes. My first surprise was to find that most of the teachers are foreign people, they are not native speakers. Besides, I expected the classes were more focused on developing fluency skills instead on grammar.
The first day in the school, I took a short test to evaluate my level. After that, they decided that my level would be upper-intermediate. Every month, we have to seat an exam to measure our progress. Last week, I took my progress exam and, as a result, I have been promoted to the next level (pre-advanced).
After one week in this new level, I have noticed that it will be more challenging.
After these weeks, I think I do not speak far better than when I arrived, but I largely improved my ability to understand, my ability to write, my vocabulary and, above all, my confidence.
I still struggle to express myself because my thoughts run ahead of my language. Another problem is my pronunciation: in the beginning, I was unaware of my accent, but now I am trying to improve it (it is very frustrating to repeat three times a sentence to get be understood).
Finally, I just wanted to say that, yes, it is raining in London right now.
That's all by now.
I'll see you the next time.
Bye, bye.
Today, it has exactly been seven weeks since I arrived in London. During the first six weeks, I have stayed with an English family, in a Victorian house located in the heart of Fulham (close to Fulham Broadway), within walking distance to my English school. This zone is quite rich: my landlady told me that her house is worth 1,500,000 pounds. It is a house with three floors, a garden and enormous rooms. During the time I have spent there, I have had the chance of learning about English traditions and customs in an authentic English family. However, the rent was too expensive and Ivete and I were missing our intimacy, so we decided to move to another place. It is a pity because my landlady enjoyed talking to me and I could practise my English with her.
Just a week ago, we have moved to a flat: it is a studio with separate kitchen and bathroom. It just has a wardrobe and a bed. It is located at Shepherd's Bush, on Uxbridge Road, in the west of London.
It has taken us three weeks to find a suitable place. As we visited different places, we were getting more and more desperate because of the difficulties we found. I have learned that when they say "cosy" room, they actually mean a tiny hole. When they say rooms available from 180 pw, they only have rooms from 250 pw. There are landlords willing to rent you a mediocre flat and, in change, they request all kinds of guarantees: work references, previous landlord references, bank statements, information about taxes paid during last year, someone responsible of paying the rent in case you do not pay it, etc. In other cases, there are flats with up to eight flatmates. Although we wanted to find some place near the school, in Fulham Broadway, at last we decided to widen our quest to the areas around, as West Brompton, Hammersmith, Putney and Shepherd's Bush.
In order to furnish our studio, we have used storage boxes as drawers, our suitcases as bedside tables and we have bought the most vital things such as kitchenware, toiletries and sheets.
It may sound odd, but I have seen foxes on the street. As I was told then, foxes are attracted by the rubbish in the street. The point is that rubbish bags are left on the street instead of being put in containers. I would have never imagined this image of London. In fact, I still feel reluctant to leave the rubbish in the middle of the street, but I have no choice.
Another achievement during this time has been to open a bank account. Most banks are very reluctant to open an account for unemployed foreigners so it has been difficult to find one willing to. Eventually, we have opened an account in Barclays (after providing a letter from the school to confirm our status as students).
On the course of these weeks, I have applied for several positions as volunteer in charities. However, most people were on vacation during August, so it has been difficult to get any responses. Finally, last week I had an interview with people from one charity looking for someone to improve its website. The interview went well, although I did not know WordPress, the tool they used to manage the website. The only problem was that they asked me for providing references from two different people. At first, I thought I could not cope with this since I did not know anyone willing to back me. However, I managed to get references from my previous landlady and from one of my teachers.
Finally, I should speak about my English classes. My first surprise was to find that most of the teachers are foreign people, they are not native speakers. Besides, I expected the classes were more focused on developing fluency skills instead on grammar.
The first day in the school, I took a short test to evaluate my level. After that, they decided that my level would be upper-intermediate. Every month, we have to seat an exam to measure our progress. Last week, I took my progress exam and, as a result, I have been promoted to the next level (pre-advanced).
After one week in this new level, I have noticed that it will be more challenging.
After these weeks, I think I do not speak far better than when I arrived, but I largely improved my ability to understand, my ability to write, my vocabulary and, above all, my confidence.
I still struggle to express myself because my thoughts run ahead of my language. Another problem is my pronunciation: in the beginning, I was unaware of my accent, but now I am trying to improve it (it is very frustrating to repeat three times a sentence to get be understood).
Finally, I just wanted to say that, yes, it is raining in London right now.
That's all by now.
I'll see you the next time.
Bye, bye.
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