Archive for May, 2008

See you around!

Well, that was it! The year flew by, literally, and here are the summer holidays again… I must be getting on, or perhaps it’s just that I’m really lucky to have such nice students, or both, but truth be told I feel a tiny bit sad that the course is over and we all go our separate ways…

I do hope the course has been useful, I know the effort most of you have had to make to attend the lessons, and I really hope it was worth your while. I hope you’ve learnt something, but above all, I’d like to think you’ve understood that this is not the end of the journey, that you never finish learning a language because a language is something alive, that goes on growing, developing … and you have to keep on reading, listening, writing, speaking English…

So I won’t say goodbye, because I really hope to see you around, in the school library borrowing books and films and here in the blog, where you will always be welcome.

Enjoy your well deserved holidays!

The mass media


Photo by onthetrain


Nowadays, it is known that the media is developing more and more, and people can use all kind of methods to get information. This report shows how we use the mass media and our opinion about it. The information was obtained through a survey done among a group of 12 English students (8 female and 4 male), aged 18 – 40.

Nearly all the people who answered the questions said they follow the news regularly, in several different ways. Everyone watches TV, 75% also read newspapers and 60% listen to the radio, but only half of them read the news on the Internet. Almost everyone thinks that what we see on TV is not neutral, because it is influenced by politics or the opinion of the people who write the news or work there.

When they are asked about advertisements, everyone answered that ads try to sell some products in a deceptive way; one person pointed out that they create in us new needs and often they don’t satisfy our present needs. In fact, this is the first purpose of publicity. Besides, all the people asked answered that so many news about celebrities aren’t necessary at all, and there should be less gossip programs.
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Violent games


Photo by jontintinjordan

I think that violent games can influence our children in a negative way, of course.

This kind of games is recommended for adults, but I think that they shouldn’t exist at all.

Sometimes we can hear some news on TV about parents that have been murdered by their children, because they are probably thinking they are playing a role game.

Nowadays parents are very permissive with their children. They buy them all kind of games without checking if the game is adequate to their age.
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Ghosts and spirits


Photo by Philippe Sokazo

The purpose of this report is to show the conclusions of a survey into ghosts and spirits. Do people believe in them? Have people ever had a paranormal experience? The information was gathered from a group of 12 students of English in the EOI of Mieres (8 female and 4 male) aged 18-39. The survey was carried out using the Internet: both the questions and the answers to the survey were published in the Blog of the EOI of Mieres. No differences between were found between people of different ages or gender, so this data is omitted from the conclusions of this report.

Finding out the attitude towards fear was the first aim of the survey. Two questions were used for collecting this information: the first one was about whether they considered themselves easy to scare and the second was about whether they found it difficult to get asleep after watching a terror film. Over 50% do consider themselves easy to scare and almost the same percentage has sleeping difficulties after watching a terror film. The main part of the survey dealt with the belief in ghosts and spirits. The majority of the students (66,67%) deny their existence; the rest of the percentage is divided equally between the believers and the undecided people.
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Violence is not a Game


Photo by CharlieStyr

Everybody knows that the Three Wise Men carried presents from their far rich countries to a baby that had been born in a manger. 2000 years afterwards I am wondering if among those presents there would have been any video games… Recent surveys connect violent video games with violent acts carried out by video game addicts. The Question is: Can Videogames train people to kill? The answer is yes, and if you asked me, can a knife kill a person? The answer would be yes again, but normally we use to peel potatoes. This is a good way of illustrating that things cannot kill, the secret is how we use them. So education plays an important role.

New technologies have opened a generation gap and sometimes people dread the unknown. Nowadays the youth are socializing in a very different way; they spend a big part of their free time playing video games. Unfortunately, in most cases their parents don’t check if the games are appropriate for them and what kind of message they are receiving. From my point of view this is the main problem. It is easier to complain when the damage is done than being responsible and educate their children every day.
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Obesity


Photo by aJ GAZMEN - GucciBeaR

Obesity is one of the most real and serious problems in our society. It is caused by the ingestion of junk food but also by sedentarism and lack of activity and exercise.

In foreign countries this is a big problem because people are used to eat fast food (some people work all day outside and they have to eat in a short period of time) and they don’t do any sport, they lead a sedentary life.

Nowadays this problem also affects Spain. Every day we can watch on TV people that are always at home because they can’t go out and they need help for moving.
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Children and television


Photo by hoyasmeg

The purpose of this report is to present the findings of a survey about children and television. The information was gathered with the help of a group of 11 students (8 female and 3 male) aged 18-37 at the EOI of Mieres. Interviews were conducted by a questionnaire in the EOI’s blog and answers analysed for significant similarities and differences.

When the data were analysed, it was found that in the first part of the survey 100% of those interviewed agreed that television has turned into one of the most important hobbies and with more influence on the life of children, what takes up a lot of time from other activities like reading, studying, homework, playing, interaction with their family, social development and so on, and all of them also thought that in many homes the television is like a babysitter, parents use it as the only way of entertainment and amusement so that children leave them alone.
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Are you afraid to fly?


Photo by • 7


While many people are afraid to fly, the statistics show that airplanes are the safest means of transportation. The purpose of this report is to present the findings of a survey about the fear of flying. The information was gathered from a group of students of English of different ages and gender. Interviews were conducted using a poll.

The first part of the survey finds that one in four passengers is afraid to fly and starts to feel anxious some days before taking a plane. The fear of flying can be considered an irrational fear because it is safer to ride in a commercial aircraft than taking a bath. However, in the airplane people feel vulnerable, because they feel that they do not have any control over the situation. When we asked about the safest means of transportation, 60% of the interviewees consider airplanes as the safest and cars as the most dangerous. So people are contradicting themselves when they consider flying safer but at the same time they are more afraid. The truth is that the chances of being involved in an aircraft accident are about 1 in 11million, and the chances of being killed in a car accident are 1 n 5000. That is a huge difference.
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TV and foreing languages

Photo by maracuja

According to European studies, Spanish people are not well prepared or interested enough in the use of a foreign language. That means that Spaniards don’t have the same opportunities when applying for a job as other European citizens.
This is the main idea I wanted to underline with this report when presenting the findings of a survey into male/female preferences in TV and foreign languages. The information was gathered from a group of 11 students ( 4 male- 7 female) aged 18 to 37 using a questionnaire on the internet.
The first part of the survey dealt with Spanish people attitudes during the time they spend in front of the TV screen. The majority usually watches TV between 6 and 10 hours a week, while 4 of them between 4 and 6. Only two of them watch TV more than 10 hours per week.
The majority agrees with the idea that TV can be used not only for entertainment but also to access information or educative programmes.
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About jobs

Photo by wageslaves

The purpose of this report is to reveal the results of a little survey into people’s preferences in reference to their job. We have obtained the information from a group of seven people, six female and one male. Their ages are between 23 and 39 years old. They were given six questions about their jobs.

In the first part of the survey, people were asked about their current job and about the correspondence between their studies and their present job. Almost 60 % think that they are working in their best possible job, and only the male says that his job is not according to his studies. Four out of seven explain that they could be better paid.

In contrast, only 25 per cent want to change jobs in the near future. Rather surprisingly, there is a female that only wants to change her place of work, not her job. Only a very insignificant number said that they would like to have studied something else. Seemingly, the vast majority of interviewees are happy with their jobs, they like their jobs.
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