LISTENING & WATCHING

Last Tuesday we did our first activity of this kind. 

Both the teacher and us were excited about doing it. We thought it was going to be very hard, but when we finished we realized it was not so. What is more, the teacher told us it was a great success. She had also thought we were going to have some problems.

The major task was listening to the video and watching it at the same time while we wrote down the main ideas in a more or less organised way.

This is the video the teacher used. It deals with immigration in the United States.

And here is the outline I made in class: 

The USA has always received immigrants from other countries to settle there. They are people who leave their country to establish in a new one. 

The first arrival was in 1815, after several wars in Europe. They came from Germany, Great Britain and Ireland. 

Another arrival took place in the late 1840s, when Irish Famine occurred. It was a disease in the countryside. A lot of people died from starvation. 

Later, more people from Norway and Sweeden arrived in the United States. Around 1880, Chinese inmigrants arrived at America. This was the second main influx, with people from Eastern and Southern Europe. 

Between 1880 and 1920 there was religious freedom and Jewish population occupied New York city in communities. On the other hand, Irish people were catholic and only 2 per cent of them were allowed to stay. They were a particular group in the USA. 

There was special discrimination against Chinese people, because they were thought to be illegal. Consequently, a lot of them were expelled. Moreover, those who stayed worked in hard and dangerous conditions in factories, even children. They were also kidnapped and poverty was the common state. 

However, people continue arriving every day in the USA and not all of them under bad conditions. On the contrary, they have successful lives.

And that's all. We learnt how to face up to one of the activities we are going to do most this year. Obviously, we did not do it perfectly, but it was the first one.

Have a nice long weekend and late Happy Halloween!