ENGLISH, A GLOBAL LANGUAGE

The English language is everywhere. The language of most of the Internet sites around the world is English. We are using this language to write our articles on this site, even though I am positive that English is not the first language of everybody using this website. It is not my first language, I come from Finland. I learned English at school. It is the most widely studied language in the world.

It is the language of media, medicine and business. Computing uses English as does the international airtraffic control. But is the spread of this language a good thing or a bad one, is the spread of one such a powerful language a disadvantage or an advantage?

This is a difficult question to answer. Academics in the field of linguistics have tried to find the best solution for this puzzle for decades now. One disadvantage which is often mentioned in this context is the fact that many languages have died because of the spread of English. Many still have lost a large number of speakers and are bound to be doomed in the near future. These are the disadvantages, and while they certainly seem gloomy, there are many advantages of having a global language.

Doctors, for instance, from around the world can communicate with each other while using one language. As a consequence of numerous people knowing this language there are less misunderstandings which of course in medicine could be fatal. People from all corners of the world can communicate easier because they share a common language. Media can more easily tell us the most recent news from all over the world. People can use the Internet as a tool for research, which means more people are being educated about different issues. 

I am happy that my son will speak this wonderful language as his first language, I am sure that I will learn a lot from him when he enters school in the UK. However, I wish that my son would also be able to speak Finnish as this is my mother tongue. It is important for a person's identity to remember their roots, and language is a very integral part of one's identity. Are people whose languages are being lost because of the dominance of the English language losing their identities then? As you can see, the question is a difficult one to answer, and in my opinion there is no right or wrong answer.

Font hellium

"WHAT CAUSES A TSUNAMI?" - Text

A tsunami can be generated by any disturbance that displaces a large mass of water, such as an earthquake, landslide or meteor impact.

Tsunamis can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a particular kind of earthquake that are associated with the earth's crust deformation; when these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the water above the deformed area is displaced from its equilibrium position. 

Waves are formed as the displaced water mass moves under the influence of gravity to regain its equilibrium. When large areas of the sea floor elevate or subside, a tsunami can be created. Large vertical movements of the earth's crust can occur at plate boundaries. Plates interact along these boundaries called "faults". Around the margins of the Pacific Ocean, for example, denser oceanic plates slip under continental plates in a process known as subduction. Subduction earthquakes are particularly effective in generating tsunamis.

Submarine landslides, which often accompany large earthquakes, as well as collapses of volcanic edifices, can also disturb the overlying water column as sediment and rock slump downslope and are redistributed across the sea floor. Similarly, a violent submarine volcanic eruption can uplift a water column and generate a tsunami.

Large landslides and cosmic-body impacts can disturb the water from above, as momentum from falling debris is transferred to the water into which the debris falls. Generally speaking, tsunamis generated from these mechanisms, unlike the Pacific-wide tsunamis caused by some earthquakes, dissipate quickly and rarely affect coastlines distant from the source area. However if the landslide or cosmic body is large enough, it will create a megatsunami. A megatsunami is a tsunami, usually caused by a collapsing island, asteroid impact, or huge chunks of ice falling into a large body of water, and is hundreds of meters high.font: iem/seed/pr

OS INDICADOS AO MELHOR VÍDEO DO ANO DO CEPJO

Ao longo do mês de outubro, os alunos do 1o ano do turno matutino participaram do projeto CLEE - Cepjo Language Event 2016. O CLEE PROJECT  chega a sua sétima edição como um resultado melhor desde o lançamento. 

Este ano, contamos com um número maior de projetos e a participação maior do público masculino. Tanto que dos seis finalistas, quatro são encabeçados por eles. A luta para escolher os melhores do ano foi difícil pois outros projetos fcaram de fora justamente por não cumpriram uma regra básica anunciada em sala de aula: o aluno/cantor deveria obviamente aparecer no vídeo fazendo a dublagem. Um dos exemplos foi o vídeo do grupo do 1o ano A intitulado PARADISE, da banda Coldplay.

Desde a criação em 2010, passaram inúmeros trabalhos bem elaborados e produção visual que nos encheram de orgulho. Todas as turmas cumpriram com cada etapa do projeto e superaram as expectativas quanto à apresentação do projeto em sala de aula apesar de que três grupos desistirem já no momento final.

O Glee Project tem como objetivo unir duas ferramentas importantes: a tecnologia e a aprendizagem gramatical. Como os jovens estão mais ligados à internet e ao mundo da música nada mais gratificante do que estudar, aprender cantando e se divertindo. Metodologia: Escolher uma música; estudar a letra para identificar que conteúdo da gramática inglesa poderia ser ensinado aos colegas da turma; analisar qual mensagem a canção traz imbutida (seria uma crítica à sociedade; mensagem de amor, um diálogo, uma poesia etc); produzir uma apresentação por meio de slodeshow, Powerpoint ou Prezi e gravar o videoclip, além de postá-lo com a #cepjo no You Tube.

Confira os indicados ao MELHOR VÍDEO DO ANO:

1. MISS MOVIN ON (1oC)

2. HAPPY (1o A)

3. SHOWER (1o B)

4. RUDE (1o A)

5. HAIR (1o A)

6. UPTOWN FUNK (1o A)