Differences between Quebec and Catalonia

There are many differences between a country and another one. Of course have positives things and negatives, when we are travelling we, most of time, see only the negatives. But I am not this kind of person and it is why I did this trip.

The first thing that surprised me here is the schedule of a day. It is very different! The school starts at 8:45 am and finish at a hour different depending of the day of the week. The classes are of one hour and there isn't breaks enter. We have a lunch at 2 or 3 o'clock and we have a supper at 9 or 10 o'clock! It is a big difference because in my home we have a dinner at 12 and we have supper at 5 or 6 pm. At 10 o'clock we are in the bed.

The second thing that impresses me is that the people are warmer here. In Quebec, a kiss girl to girl or men to men to tell hello it is impossible. The person will check you like if you are absolutely crazy. But, it is amazing to see how the teachers and students are close. How they talk together, how they laugh together, etc... In my school, the teachers are the teachers and you don't talk with them about what you did last weekend, you ask your question and that is all.

Another thing that is very different from my house, is that here the people do a lot of activities next the school. In Quebec most of the residents do one class in all the week or two. It is many differences between the Spanish day and the Canadian day. The first one is longer than the other one and the people do all the things faster.

During this journey have done many things and have seen a lot of places. Three months it is a lot at the beginning, but finally it isn't. I am happy to do this exchange and I am enjoying continuing it with three other months in Quebec with Irene.

                                                                                                                                     Élizabeth Asselin

Digital Poster

Some students in 1 ESO have done a digital poster this first term. It is a poster about personal information.
This one has been selected from all of them. The author is Rita Piñol from 1 ESO B.

Quim Costa in the USA

How Could I start? Well, my name is Quim Costa Farré, I’m coursing 1st of Batx at Ins Manuel de Pedrolo, and I went on an Exchange program to America and took there my sophomore year of high school (4t ESO).

First of all, let me say that it was one of the best experiences of my life (if not the best one) and that I would recommend to the students reading this to take the opportunity to go study there if they get the chance to.

Living in the U.S was like dreaming awake, it was like being inside of a movie. I mean of course it wasn’t exactly like in the movies and either easy the whole time, but it was still so worth it.

The thing is that there are so many things I could talk about, but what I decided to focus on, is how much they loved their high school teams and the great hooligans they were since it’s something that completely amazed me. Every single high school in the U.S.A has his own sport teams (which of football, soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball…) composed by its high school students, and what those teams do is “represent” their school and town in the competitions they’re in. Maybe what’s already been said sounds already pretty cool, but the sweet thing is that when the team plays, what happens (at least at the state I lived) is that pretty much everybody  goes to watch the game.

A lot of students go watch the game and they occasionally get dressed up too for the occasion, for example: it’s black out day, so every body goes to the game going all dressed with black clothes, or it’s nerd day, so everybody goes dressed to school and to the game as a nerd. My personal experience with this, it’s not only the fact that I got dressed up too during football season, it’s also that I played basketball and ran track for my high school, and something that hit me hard was that I was used to play basketball here in Tàrrega with 40 people watching my team and I play as the most, and when I got there in U.S.A I ended up playing basketball games in front of about 300 people sometimes. And same with football, even though I didn’t play I went to my high school football games, and in those games there were more that 500 people watching.

Well, I think I’ve wrote enough, but with this actual month being November I’ve decided to do a kind of trend they did in Ohio called No-shave November which consists in not shaving during the whole month.

Quim Costa Farré

EATING OUT

The students from 3ESO performed a role play on  'Eating out'.

ORAL PRESENTATION ON HALLOWEEN / CASTANYADA

The students from 3 ESO gave an oral presentation to celebrate Halloween.

Halloween at Pedrolo

On the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st of October, INS Manuel de Pedrolo 3ESOA and 3ESOB students presented the project Castanyada Food and Halloween Food orally in front of the class. They could use posters or Power Point Presentations to illustrate their projects. We used some of their posters  and the 1ESO and 3ESOC decorations to produce the exhibition below.

Final Project: Castanyada Food and Halloween Food.

1ESOD making decorations, decorating their classroom
 and helping with the project.

3ESOC making decorations, decorating their classroom
 and helping with the project.

1ESOD making decorations, decorating their classroom, making 
spooky spider coockies and helping with the project.

Putting up and toghether the students' works.

The European Day of Languages / La Journée européene des langues

ENGLISH

The European Day of Languages is 26 September, as proclaimed by the Council of Europe on 6 December 2001, at the end of the European Year of Languages (2001), which had been jointly organised by the Council of Europe and the European Union. Its aim is to encourage language learning across Europe.

The general objectives of the European Day of Languages are to:

• alert the public to the importance of language learning and diversify the range of languages learned in order to increase plurilingualism and intercultural understanding;
• promote the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe;
• encourage lifelong language learning in and out of school.

At our high school we have also celebrated this day by means of an exhibition in the school hall. Students have also done several activities in the classroom.

 FRANÇAIS

La Journée européenne des langues est célébrée le 26 septembre. C'est une initiative du Conseil de l'Europe. Elle vise

• à célébrer la diversité culturelle et linguistique,
• à favoriser la plurilinguisme,
• à permettre l'apprentissage des langues tout au long de la vie.

Dans notre lycée nous avons aussi célébré ce jour à travers d’une exposition dans le hall d’entrée. Les élèves ont fait aussi des activités dans la classe.

Differences between the Education System in the USA and Catalonia by David Rodríguez

David Rodríguez, a student from Pensilvania, has studied 2nd Batx at our Highschool. In the second term, he gave a speech to all students in Batxillerat about  the education differences between the USA and Catalonia. Below, you can see a video of his speech. 

Dialogues on the use of New Technologies...(Batxillerat)

This year, the students from Batxillerat had to perfom a dialogue on a topic chosen by them. Here you have an example of these dialogues.

Sant Jordi Literary Competition / Prix Sant Jordi 2013

General view of the audience /

2nd Prize: ' Young Love' by Núria Rodriguez (4A)

1st Prize: 'Learn about Life' by Gemma Alfonso (4A)

 :

All the winners

Claudia Serrano in the USA

- Can you remember how your first experience on American English was once you were in the USA?

Before leaving, they told me it wouldn’t be easy to understand the language, but I thought they were just trying to scare me. Well, they weren’t. During the first days, I felt like I didn’t even know what language they were speaking. Here’s an example: it was the first class of my first day of high school and I was very nervous. The girl next to me said: Hi, my name is Kya. I don’t know why, I didn’t understand her the first time, so I asked: sorry? She repeated it again and again and again. It took me four times to understand her, and that was only a very short sentence, so imagine when I tried to understand my America Studies teacher talking about how Colon discovered America, it was almost impossible. After a couple weeks, I started getting used to it and after I couple months it wasn’t a problem to understand them.

Winter Carnival

- What do you do every day and how is a normal day in an American family?

On a school day, I used to get up at 7am, get ready, have breakfast and drive to school with my sister. School started at 8 and it was over at 14:45. After that, I usually had practice. Then I used to go home, do my homework, have dinner, watch TV or do something with the family and go to bed.

Weekends were completely different; we used to have a big breakfast and then do lots of different stuff like shopping, hiking, hanging out with some friends, going to the movies, etc. It is also very common to have sleepovers very often.

- How is your life at the High School?

High School in America is completely different from Spanish schools. In my case, I had 4 classes every day, which were called periods or blocks, an each period lasted for one hour and a half. We had a 10min break after first block and we had a 22min break at around 12 to have lunch. After school, many people played sports. Most popular sports are football, baseball and basketball. Each school has its own teams, so you play for your school, not for a private club. High school is more than just classes; there are clubs like the drama club or the math club. They also celebrate two dances at the high school, homecoming at the beginning of the school year and prom at the end of it.

In general, school is easier in America than in Spain; you don’t need to do much homework because you work a lot in class and exams don’t have as much importance as here. A part from that, you can choose your classes, so you can make your own schedule and take the classes that you like the most. There are also some fun classes like foods (cooking), music, art, drama, etc.

My Experience in Ireland

Having been in Ireland was one of the best things I have ever done. Actually, I went there to learn English but also to know their culture, meet new people, be independent…There’s a lot to see around the world and all are adventures.

I was surprised about how is life there: the food, the customs, the timetable, the people’s manners… and I could see that it’s very different than here but I like it. Perhaps the first month I had difficulties to understand, particularly the children, but I wasn’t afraid to ask, talk; and I was so lucky with the family and classmates.

I’m so pleased with the experience. It had been gorgeous. I’m looking forward to come back soon.

Laura Garcia

Concours de traduction

Les élèves de 3ème et 4ème d'ESO sont allés au Concours de traduction organisé par l'Universitat Pompeu Fabra et l'EOI.

John Carlin at Manuel de Pedrolo

Here you have a link about the last meeting John Carlin had with Nelson Mandela:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/nelson-mandela-dies-he-smiled-and-i-knew-i-would-never-see-him-again-8987639.html

John Carlin delivering his speech

John Carlin, the British writer and journalist, was invited by the English Department to give a speech to the students in Batxillerat. He talked about three main topics: Nelson Mandela, who is a friend of Carlin, Oscar Pistorius and Rafael Nadal. John Carlin has known the politics in South Africa because he lived there for six years while being the director of the newspaper 'The Independent'. It's then when he met Nelson Mandela and when he got inspired to write his book 'Playing the Game', which was later adapted into the cinema in the form of  a film called 'Invictus'. He claimed that the South African society is still quite violent although the Apartheid having disappeared for some years now. It's within this framework where Oscar Pistorius lives and where he has killed his girlfriend. He, then, talked about Rafael Nadal as he has written a book about him. He referred to Nadal as a very respectful sportsman towards every single person who comes across with him.  The students, finally, had the chance to ask him some questions.

John Carlin speaking to some students

The English Department considers John Carlin's visit to the high school as a very rewarding experience for the students. 

Some students listening to John Carlin