Live in IB A2 English Class

-What you've learned this semester
What I learned this semester was the variety of dialects of English language that exist all around the world and the importance to use English in a correct way


-Connection of this class with real life
This class have connection with all the aspects of my life because English is everywhere, is the global language!


-How can the content of this class make you more successful
Knowing more about the life in other cultures for improve our knowledge


-What other kind of activities would you like to do?
Use more the blog (:

Comparative Commentary of the poems “The soldier” by Rupert Brooke and “Colonization in Reverse” by Louise Bennett

Poem: is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response.

Poetry has been known to employ meter and rhyme. This comparative commentary talks about the poem “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke and “Colonization in Reverse” by Louise Bennett. The poem of Rupert Brook talks about a soldier of England that is reflecting and he realized that gave his life for England is an honorable way to die. In the poem of Colonization in Reverse the author Louise Bennett talks about how the people of Jamaica started to search for good opportunities of work and the author explain that if this continues, the expansion of Jamaican workers, Jamaica will conquer England. The thematic link is that both poems talk about England but one poem is written by an England citizen and the other by a Jamaican author, but this doesn’t means that one of the poems is better.

The intention of Rupert Brooke is to transmit to the reader the idea of how noble was to give the life for England, in this quote of his poem we can perceive his idea of die for England:

“If I should die, think only this of me: 

That there's some corner of a foreign field 

That is forever England”

Brooke entirely believed that dying for his country was an honourable way of die. However, he never faced the reality of the war because he died before the battle. In contrast with Louise Bennett that lived in the times of the Independence of Jamaica, Bennett gave a more realistic description of the life form in that time as a Jamaican citizen. She explained her idea of expansion in her poem and we can see it in this quote:

“Dem a pour out a Jamaica,

Everybody future plan

Is fe get a big-time job

An settle in de mother lan”

Jamaicans had the intention of conquer England but they didn’t achieve that objective and that effort is represented in the poem of Bennett.

Analyzing the poems with can notice that the structure of the poems is different because the poem of “The soldier” is logical because it is specific with the ideas that the author wants to transmit. The poem of “Colonization in Reverse” is structured in a circular form because it started talking about England and colonization and ended talking about colonization and England.

Contrasting the language used by the authors we can notice that Louise Bennett used a figurative language because she used words in a nonstandard way, words that are common in other type of English, in this case English characterized of Jamaica. As an example of the poem, Bennett used words like: “dem” referring to “them” also she used the word “fe” for the word “few”.  In contrast with the poem of Bennett, Rupert Brooke used a correct use of words and this makes easier to the reader to understand what the author is trying to express.

Another important thing that we can compare and contrast in the two poems are the Stylistic devices that are the elements that the author uses to give character to his /her text. For example in the poem of Colonization in Reverse, Bennett used repetition in some cases for make emphasis in a special part, for example in this case:

“Oonoo see how life is funny,

Oonoo see da turnabout?”

Using repetition as a stylistic device Bennett made that his two sentences distinguish, this quote mean that is funny that Jamaica was conquered by England and now Jamaican citizens are working for conquer England, that is why the poem is called “Colonization in Reverse”.  Rupert Brooke used as stylistic devices punctuation and word choice, for example we can see this quote:

“A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; 

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; 

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, 

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”

As we can see the use of punctuation gave a character of order to the text and this made it easier to read it.

In conclusion we compare and contrast these two poems that both talk about England, after notice the differences of the poems we should be aware that the authors lived in different circumstances, Rupert Brooke was an English writer that never faced the reality of the war because he died before, and Louise Bennett was a Jamaican author that lived the independence of Jamaica so she had a better vision in what she wanted to write. Finally we conclude that both poems talk about the same, the vision of the people and how they feel proud about their country.

Word Count: 790

The History of the English Language using the article of Laura Howard

That you know the beginning and the end of something doesn’t mean that you everything about it…

In this article Laura Howard wrote about the origin of the English language and the categories that divides the history of this language. The English Language is the most used language in the world not only in the normal activities as buy something also is the official language for the Internet. The English Language is the language of the most powerful nations including the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

The history of the English Language is divided in 4 stages:

1. ·         Old English
2. ·         Middle English
3. ·         Early Modern English
4. ·         English Today

The Old English is the origin of the English Language; English was originally spoken by the West Germanic people, who invaded Britain in the 5^th Century AD.  By the 9^th Century the dialect of the Germanic people or best known as the Saxons, appeared predominantly in the literature. In this stage the English vocabulary did not have abundance in the vocabulary.

In the Middle English is when English and the French became the dominant language with the English and this happened as result of the invasion of the Normans in 1066. They introduced the French that was spoken in the Royal courts. In the 14^th Century the English Language became the dominant language once again, but with lots of French words added to it. At the end of the period in 1204 the King John lost the province of Normandy, this meant that the English Nobles lost touch with the French, and began speaking English as their language once again.

The Third stage is the Early Modern English, in this stage many Greek and Latin words were brought from the Renaissance (1500-1800). Also Shakespeare created many new idioms such as "vanish into thin air", "flesh and blood" and "one fell swoop".

And finally the last stage, English Today. This is the stage that we are now living. Now a days there are lots of new words that specifically came from the advance of the science.

The rise of the British Empire has brought the English Language to the world, and even after the fall of the Empire, the English language still remains a dominant force, spoken for 1000 million or more of persons.

In my opinion I think that Laura Howard made an excellent job and she used in a really good way the sources that she found for this article.

The History of the English Language using the article of Tabitha Hergest

History is everything… tomorrow this day will be history…

In the article of English History of Tabitha Hergest, the main topics that are explained are the origin of the English Language, hoe the art and the religion had influence in the spread of English and how the English came from the Germanic languages.

England is a derivate of Angle, who are the race of people from what is now Germany. The roots of the English language spoken by these people - especially given that the Angles were a very elitist people who would not mix with the indigenous Celts.

 An important part of the history of the English Language is that the Church also played part on the spread of English. The Church used its Latin antecedent as a legacy of its establishment at the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in 315ce. In that time the official language was the Latin, and this facilitate the spread and use of the English Language.

Another important fact was the last conquest of England that was at the hands of the French Vikings, the Normans. The Normans changed the official language of state from Latin into French, but later the Plantaganets desired to integrate the English Language, that was the local language. . Naturally, all this had its effect on the language, although the influence of French is not as keenly felt as that of Latin.

Not only the religion and the wars played an important role in this history, also the art was an important tool that helped to spread the language. In the Renaissance the literature had a great increase of the spread of the languages in this case English. One of the most important writers of that movement was Shakespeare. He gave to the English lots of idioms that made the English vocabulary more complete.

No a day’s an important fact that is causing that the English Language have different variations are the abbreviations used from English Native speakers, like ya get me dou? This is making more difficult for some people to learn a correct way of talk in English.

I think that articles had good content but my opinion is that she described everything using his point of view and in this case an objective point of view is better for the article. I also think that the author need to show the sources that she used unless that she based her article in her live experience and if this is the case, does she have the title of this subject? But in general this was a good article.

The History of the English Language using the article of Sammy Stein

All great creations began as an idea…

In this article the author, Sammy Stain; explain how the English language has spread all over the world since old ages and how its vocabulary is growing. The English is the second more spoken language behind of Mandarin, but that doesn’t mean that the English language has less importance in the world, is considerate the universal language and 1000 millions of people in the world speak English.

The English language has its origins in the island of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom was invaded by the Vikings. They brought words from their language and with this the English vocabulary started to grow. The English language has a lot of words that came from other languages like Spanish or Latin. One important factor that helped the English Language for grow were the Empires, in the age of the Imperialism Great Britain controlled a lot of countries that had different language; when the British took control of a country they forced the habitants of that country to learn the English Language, but not only the habitants learned something, also the English Native speakers learned new words that took for expand the English vocabulary.

English have become the official second language of many countries as India and Canada, and this confirm that the English Language is the best language for business not only between companies also business like small stores or between 2 persons.

The article of Sammy Stain was written with the purpose to inform the people the origins of the English Language and how it has acquired a lot of words from many other languages. I agree that the English Language is combination of words that came for different languages but the most influential language was the Latin. Not only because English has a lot of Latin words, also because English is based in Latin, like other languages as Spanish.

Sammy Stain wrote and excellent article but I think that he forgot to add some important information about the number of speakers that right know use English as their first language and also as their second language (I add some of that information in this article) Another good information that could help this article for explain the expansion and the origin of the English Language could be time lines and dates for explain where the English started its develop and how it has expanded all over the world.

What should we learn, English as a lingua franca or "formal" English?

I think that we should learn the formal English because is the one that is more common in the native speakers of English. If we learn the formal English we can have the knowledge of all the rules of the English language. If we only learn the English as a lingua franca we’ll be able to communicate with other speakers of many languages, but for that we only need to know a little bit of English or the essential for make business and make agreements but that doesn’t mean that we have a perfect control on the English language.