Global Language Contest: The Essays
Jul 08 2016
Intro
Last week, you met the winners of the 2016 Many Languages, One World (MLOW) essay contest. These incredible students want to empower others through language. They each studied the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and wrote an essay about cultural awareness. In late July, ELSEducational Services will fly them to New York. There, they will attend the Global Youth Forum at Hofstra University. Then, they will share their ideas with the United Nations General Assembly.
Each winner had a different main argument in their essay. However, all of these students want to unite the world. They believe that learning language is good forpersonal growth. In their essays, they gave their owntestimony about how language changed their lives and the lives of their families and friends. Together, they want to foster understanding and respect for all cultures.
Hear the winners share ideas from these incredible essays in today’s English lesson.
Dialogue
Rind So, why did I write my essay? Because language is all around me.
Amani In my college, I’m surrounded by people from all of Africa and the world at large. So, writing about multilingualism and cultural awareness is something which very much touched my life.
Maria Jose I could see how much I gained here in Edinburgh, with all of my friends from Lebanon, from China, from Russia, from Greece.
Shazana Being exposed to different cultures is very important for your personal growth and the better understanding of this world.
Tom dos Santos The main argument of my essay is that languages can empower people.
Jorge The idea that I tried to bring up with my essay is that we should think of every language as a key. A key will most likely grant us access to a room, and that, of course, is a metaphor for different cultures.
Matthew I can tell you that, in my case, I have been exposed to a whole new world of books, of films, of people that I wouldn’t have otherwise been in contact with.
Tom dos Santos It allows people to understand that what is not known doesn’t have to be feared.
Federico For me, this is a really relevant issue, and I feel really connected to it because, in my family, my great grandparents escaped persecution in Europe in the 30s and came to Uruguay. So for me, this is a really relevant issue.
Tom dos Santos I think language has the power to uniteus.
Matthew It really does foster cultural understanding.
Amani I hope that my ideas will impact the people, will spark the initiative to feel the belonging in the larger community.
Rind To sum up, I’m here to share a small testimonyabout a country that’s used multilingualism to its benefit and encourage others to follow the same path.
Tom dos Santos And that’s why I wrote the essay, and that is what I believe in.
Discussion
The winners of the 2016 Many Languages, One World (MLOW) contest are happy to share their ideas. Amani and Maria Jose both go to universities where they have friends from many countries. Learning about different cultures has helped their personal growth. Shazana thinks that learning about cultures creates understanding. And Tom dos Santos believes that learning languages can give people the power to make changes.
Each MLOW winner has different experiences. Federico’s family moved many years ago in order to escape persecution. Matthew uses languages to study many different stories in books and on TV. Jorge thinks that each language is like a key. These keys can open many new rooms that have wonderful things in them. Rind shares her testimony about her country, where many different people live happily together. At the end of the month, these winners will use these ideas to make action plans. Then, they will present these plans to the United Nations.
How does learning language make you more culturally aware? What would you write about in an MLOW essay?
Grammar Point
Each winner had a different main argument in their essay. However, all of these students want to unite the world. They believe that learning language is good forpersonal growth. In their essays, they gave their owntestimony about how language changed their lives and the lives of their families and friends. Together, they want to foster understanding and respect for all cultures.
Hear the winners share ideas from these incredible essays in today’s English lesson.
Amani In my college, I’m surrounded by people from all of Africa and the world at large. So, writing about multilingualism and cultural awareness is something which very much touched my life.
Maria Jose I could see how much I gained here in Edinburgh, with all of my friends from Lebanon, from China, from Russia, from Greece.
Shazana Being exposed to different cultures is very important for your personal growth and the better understanding of this world.
Tom dos Santos The main argument of my essay is that languages can empower people.
Jorge The idea that I tried to bring up with my essay is that we should think of every language as a key. A key will most likely grant us access to a room, and that, of course, is a metaphor for different cultures.
Matthew I can tell you that, in my case, I have been exposed to a whole new world of books, of films, of people that I wouldn’t have otherwise been in contact with.
Tom dos Santos It allows people to understand that what is not known doesn’t have to be feared.
Federico For me, this is a really relevant issue, and I feel really connected to it because, in my family, my great grandparents escaped persecution in Europe in the 30s and came to Uruguay. So for me, this is a really relevant issue.
Tom dos Santos I think language has the power to uniteus.
Matthew It really does foster cultural understanding.
Amani I hope that my ideas will impact the people, will spark the initiative to feel the belonging in the larger community.
Rind To sum up, I’m here to share a small testimonyabout a country that’s used multilingualism to its benefit and encourage others to follow the same path.
Tom dos Santos And that’s why I wrote the essay, and that is what I believe in.
Each MLOW winner has different experiences. Federico’s family moved many years ago in order to escape persecution. Matthew uses languages to study many different stories in books and on TV. Jorge thinks that each language is like a key. These keys can open many new rooms that have wonderful things in them. Rind shares her testimony about her country, where many different people live happily together. At the end of the month, these winners will use these ideas to make action plans. Then, they will present these plans to the United Nations.
How does learning language make you more culturally aware? What would you write about in an MLOW essay?
Grammar point
Simple Past Tense
Federico explains, “My great grandparents escapedpersecution in Europe in the 30s and came to Uruguay.” He uses the simple past tense.
The simple past tense is used to talk about a completed action or state that was in the past. For regular verbs, we make this tense by adding -ed to the end of the verb. For example, the past tense of “to walk” is walked. Use the simple past whenever you say that something happened in the past. For example, “I talked to her yesterday.”
There are also many irregular verbs in the simple past tense. For example, the past tense of “to have” is had. The past tense of “to do” is did. “To be” is extra difficult because we say I/he/she/it was and you/we/they were.
To make the negative in the simple past tense, we putdid not before the base form of the main verb, as in, “I did not see a movie last night.” We usually speak the contraction didn’t instead of did not. With the verb “to be,” we use was not or wasn’t, as in, “I wasn’t happy with the film.”
Which is correct, “We goed to the park yesterday,” or, “We went to the park yesterday”?
Federico explains, “My great grandparents escapedpersecution in Europe in the 30s and came to Uruguay.” He uses the simple past tense.
The simple past tense is used to talk about a completed action or state that was in the past. For regular verbs, we make this tense by adding -ed to the end of the verb. For example, the past tense of “to walk” is walked. Use the simple past whenever you say that something happened in the past. For example, “I talked to her yesterday.”
There are also many irregular verbs in the simple past tense. For example, the past tense of “to have” is had. The past tense of “to do” is did. “To be” is extra difficult because we say I/he/she/it was and you/we/they were.
To make the negative in the simple past tense, we putdid not before the base form of the main verb, as in, “I did not see a movie last night.” We usually speak the contraction didn’t instead of did not. With the verb “to be,” we use was not or wasn’t, as in, “I wasn’t happy with the film.”
Which is correct, “We goed to the park yesterday,” or, “We went to the park yesterday”?
Quiz
No comments:
Post a Comment