Mind’s power

High self-esteem achieves aims

Do you feel confident about your capabilities to achieve aims? If so, how often: almost whole the time, you usually have high expectations about your future performance; in certain situations such as being at school or home; or just in specific tasks like reading, writing, drawing and so on?

If you answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, you probably have a high self-esteem. People who have a high self-esteem make positive assessments of their worth(1). High or low self-esteem depends on your relationship with the world that surrounds you . Having a high self-esteem is utterly essential to achieve aims in life because people who have a high self-esteem tend to have an optimistic predisposition, which is useful to learn and face challenges. So, high self-esteem is related to success. For example, if you have a high self-esteem, you could learn more and better. To illustrate, during my work experience at “Colegio Polivalente de la Pintana” I met a boy called Miguel, who has a high self-esteem. He believes he can do whatever he wants because he has been successful in sports and school’s subjects, for example. Also, all his classmates and teachers think he is going to be someone remarkable in the future and I agree with them. Miguel is a very sociable boy who participates in any social activity. However, people with a high self-esteem are not necessarily extroverted or outgoing. Usually, people who have a high self-esteem are not looking for others’ approbation because they feel satisfied and confident with the way they are. Miguel’s self-esteem is as higher that he does not care about others’ negative opinions. Do people have a high self-esteem all the time?

As you have noticed at the introduction, there three kinds of self-esteem : 1) General or Global, 2) Situational or Specific, and 3) Task self-esteem(2). The first one is the self-appraisal that people have, which is resistant to change. It is made over time and across experiences. From this point of view, Miguel has a high General Self-esteem due to the fact that he has had successful experiences about his capabilities in the past. Thus, he generally has a good predisposition to do things and try new ones. The Situational Self-esteem is the self-appraisal that people have in specific situations or contexts. For instance, Miguel feels more comfortable in the mathematics class instead of the art class. The third one, Task Self-esteem, is the self-appraisal that people have in front of a specific task. For example, Miguel is a good student but he thinks he can do a better performance talking than writing, because it is more difficult to him to organise information on paragraphs within a text than speaking naturally. In conclusion, Miguel has a High Global Self-esteem, but a lower one in front of certain situations and tasks. So, it is possible to say that self-esteem is situational dependent. For this reason, students should try to have a positive predisposition to make their learning more comfortable in order to improve their self-esteem to learn more and better.


What can you do if you think you may have a low self-esteem? First, to increase your self-esteem you have to identify what kind of self-esteem you have (Global, Situational, or Task). Then, you should make the effort of developing it. To start this process, a positive and optimistic attitude makes the difference. You have to think you are capable. Third, if you are not sure about your capabilities, it would be a good idea to ask people what positive characteristics they think you have. Finally, remember: “power is in your mind”. If you trust in yourself, you could do whatever you want!

1 Brown, H. D. (2000). “Principles of language learning and teaching” (4th edition). 2000. NY: Longman.
2 Brown, H. D. (2000). “Principles of language learning and teaching” (4th edition). 2000. NY: Longman.



By Katherine Silva Monrroi

I am writting to express my admiration for teachers work. I mean, I have been working with a great teacher called Mrs. Johnson, who has show me how hard is being a teacher. She has to take care of a lot of informarion like students' selt-esteem and problems. For example, she realized that a student needs physical contact. Last week, she took a class of students, wich was full of teenagers who had not been at school before and most of them do not understand English. For all this reasons, she had to try many different kinds of methods to teach them. As you have seen, it is really difficult to deal with educating teenagers from differnt places. I want to say:

Mrs Johnson, I admire you.
katherine Silva

Teenage violence is increasing A mother was threatened with death by her son.

A mother was threatened with death by her son

Studies made by Cambridge University have showed that teenage violence is increasing without control. The teacher Matthew Levis, leader of these investigations, said that is a characteristic of the modern life style.

“Everyday it is more common to see angry people on the streets. People tend to be more aggressive than ten years ago, because of stress and the incapability to solve their problems without violence”.

According with Mr. Levis there are a lot of reason for this kind of violence but the most common one is the lack of attention from parents.

“Adolescents throw tantrums to get their parents attention but, unfortunately, they cannot express their feelings, so they lose the control of the situation”.

The Advani family experience is a perfect example of this issue. Last Friday night, Junior Advani threatened his mother with death with a knife. It was a shocking experience for Mr. Advani who had to take away his son to teach him respect.

In the world there are a lot of families which suffer from teenager violence. The teacher Matthew Levis says:

“It is so important to contact a specialist to solve this problem”.

By Katherine Silva M.

this is just a game

kisses and dishes
it's always the same
he flashes his wishes
how can I explane?

in the quay
he is waiting
I can see he has a key
that's twinkling
just for me

I cann't see neither eat
he is in the dark warehouse
where I saw him the first date
where we kissed each other
again again and again

My favourite piece of art

It is "The kiss" by Auguste Rodin.
It is a marble sculpture which represents lovers.

The original title of this sculpture was Francesca da Rimini, who was a character of Dante's Inferno. According with the book, she was married but unfortunately Francesca fell in love with her husband younger brother.
This sculpture represents the moment when they were discovered and the killed by her husband. For this reason, their lips do not touch each other to suggest that they were interrupted.

Personally, I like this sculpture because it was perfectly worked -each detail is exact and beautiful. Also, It remembers me when I used to draw humans bodies at high school- I was really good doing it. Besides, I like it due to the fact that the kiss is the most common show of affection and it represents love. Usually, when we walk on the stress whatever we look at it is possible to see a couple kissing each other, maybe some of them are more passionate than other ones but the interaction between men and women is just the same, love.

If I were a sculptor I would like to represent the pregnancy too because after the kiss it is the second most beautiful interaction between people.

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

My name is Katherine Silva. I was born on April 24th, 1988. I grew up in a beautiful town in the seventh region of Chile called Parral. There, Pablo Neruda was born too. I am an artistic person, who has a vivid imagination. I like to spend time participating in folkloric and theater groups.

When I was at elementary school I was part of a folkloric group. I was dancer and singer. We recorded a CD about Pablo Neruda’s life. Unfortunately, we were swindled by the manager.

Then, at high school, I was an actress and director of a theater group. We participated in an important contest, for which we have been rehearsing for four months. Finally, we won the first prize.

Currently, I am studying English Pedagogy. At the moment, I am not participating in any artistic group. Due to the fact that I prefer to take care of my education to become a good professional. Besides, I have great plans in the future because I want to have a Group of theater and folklore with my future students. I hope to give them the fantastic experience that I had.

new people

THIS SEMESTER MY CLASS IS FULL OF NEW FACES, I MEAN, I HAVE SEEN THEM BEFORE BUT I HAVEN'T SPENT TIME WITH THEM. BY THE WAY, I AM SO GLAD. YOU KNOW, WE ALWAYS CAN LEARN NEW THINGS OVERALL FROM NEW SITUATION AND PEOPLE.