SESSION 16: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK
2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION:
2.1 EXCUSES: What do you think of these excuses for not taking holiday? Would you ever use any of these excuses? Why/why not?
a) What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘vacation’?
b) What do you think about what you read?
c) Would / do you ever not take all your vacation?
d) Are you surprised U.S. workers don’t take all their vacation?
e)Should workers get the money for untaken holidays?
f) Is ‘not being able to afford a holiday’ a good reason not to take the days off?
g) What did you do on your last vacation?
h) What do you think of the statement, “work is my life”?
i) Should all workers get the same number of days holiday?
j) Should we all give up holidays in this poor economy, when times are hard?
k) Should Japanese workers get more holiday?
l) How important are holidays in our life and for our health?
m) How much do you look forward to vacations?
n) Are vacations for traveling?
o) Should every day be like a vacation?
p) Where is the world’s best vacation destination?
THIS MUST BE DONE IN TWO DIRECTIONS:
Write a composition and leave it in the blog as a comment to Session 16, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions:
- Can´t afford it
- Forgot
- Lack of planning
- Keep the boss happy
- Work is my life
- Co-workers would think bad of me.
- Sit on a beach
- Stay at home and relax
- Voluntary work
- Go to another country
- Read
- Study
- Watch movies/TV
- Catch up with friends and family
2.4 DISCUSSION: Here are some questions you can try asking yourself before you come to our discussion on Wednesday:
a) What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘vacation’?
b) What do you think about what you read?
c) Would / do you ever not take all your vacation?
d) Are you surprised U.S. workers don’t take all their vacation?
e)Should workers get the money for untaken holidays?
f) Is ‘not being able to afford a holiday’ a good reason not to take the days off?
g) What did you do on your last vacation?
h) What do you think of the statement, “work is my life”?
i) Should all workers get the same number of days holiday?
j) Should we all give up holidays in this poor economy, when times are hard?
k) Should Japanese workers get more holiday?
l) How important are holidays in our life and for our health?
m) How much do you look forward to vacations?
n) Are vacations for traveling?
o) Should every day be like a vacation?
p) Where is the world’s best vacation destination?
PREPARING A DISCUSSION IS FUNDAMENTAL:
THIS MUST BE DONE IN TWO DIRECTIONS:
FIRST, YOU NEED TO LEARN NEW VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO USE FOR THE DISCUSSION.
SECONDLY, YOU HAVE TO PREPARE THE TOPIC BY LOOKING UP INFORMATION IN THE INTERNET, BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS.
THIS WAY YOU WILL FEEL MUCH MORE CONFIDENT AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO TALK ABOUT IN THE ORAL SESSION.
FINAL TASK:
HERE IS ONE FINAL TASK THAT YOU MAY DO IN ORDER TO COVER THE FOUR SKILLS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON WHEN LEARNING A LANGUAGE: LISTENING, READING, SPEAKING AND WRITING.
Write a composition and leave it in the blog as a comment to Session 16, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions:
- My best holiday ever was...
- Holidays are necessary for our life and health. Express your opinion.
There is no arguing that a break in your normal everyday routine has great advantages to a person’s health and well-being. However, vacation does not have the same meaning for the whole world in the sense that whereas for many people having package tours is the best way of relaxing, other prefer resting at home to flee from overcrowded places and tourism. But, how long does a vacation effect last after coming back at work?
ReplyDeleteAll in all, stress affects a worker’s physical and psychological health, so the benefits perceived by people who take a break and disconnect from routine chores in the form of a vacation are remarkable since they enhance their mood, tension, energy level and even reconnect with loved ones.
Strange as it may seem, the topic of ‘getting away helps us recharge our batteries’ is not always true. In fact, there is no need to have a trip planned to enjoy the relaxation of vacation, for instance, you can pace yourself gardening, reading, listening to your favorite music or doing exercise, in a nutshell, doing whatever you like without timetable in order to obtain positive emotions like joy, contentment and love so as to enrich and strengthen social bond with friends and family and to prolong the positive effects realized by taking a vacation as long as possible.
In short, though the effects of taking a vacation from work are short-lived and by the fourth week or so the relaxation and benefits perceived by the individual may quickly vanish falling back into a routine of being stressed and overtired, there is no doubt that the worker’s level of fatigue is reduced as they come back at work feeling refreshed and prepared to tackle the problems again.
As a wise quotation says ‘a vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in’.
My best holiday ever was… when I travelled to Africa. It was in 2004. My father had always dreamt to go to Africa. Fortunately, he made his dream come true. But he didn´t go alone. He invited us, the whole family to go, my mother, brothers and even my husband.
ReplyDeleteAll places are different, you always find something to remember, but Africa is really special. There is something enchanting and magical in Africa, you can breath it…
The first place we visited was the Samburu reservation, in Kenia. We stayed in a lodge with confortable installations and close to the Mara River. We went this day to our first photo safari. We saw the savanna for the first time. It was wonderful, so wild, so isolated. Our guide told us that animals were free, so you have to be patient and lucky if you want to see them. Definitely, we were lucky and we saw giraffes, antelope, ostrich, wild boars and finally elephants. Our encounter with elephants was amazing, we stopped our jeep and our guide said, don´t move an inch! The silence was breath taking; we only listened to the footsteps of a huge herd of elephants approaching. We were standing up in the convertible Jeep. watching, astonished. Martin, our guide told us that it was dangerous to move or make any noise because if the adults felt the danger they could charge against our jeep and you can imagine the disaster!
We experiment a lot of more wonderful moments… we stayed one night watching the animal´s nightlife, we saw many other landscapes, lakes, and wild animals like rhinos or cheetahs. We also stayed two days in a tent close to the Mara River full of hippopotamus. Another adventures to remember were our morning with the Masai tribe and the balloon trip we gave to my father for his birthday. I can not describe the feeling of flying slowly over the savannah in the sunrise, so many colours, animals running, the feeling of freedom everywhere…
It was a 20 days-trip and we spent the last four days in Zanzibar. We rest in a beautiful white sand beach and we went scuba diving. It was a perfect life experience and an unforgettable trip. What I am sure is that I have to come back to Africa with my children. Africa changes you forever.
After reading the text uploaded this week talking about holidays for workers, we must distinguish between holidays as a period of time when you do not work and you relax or do things for pleasure while your company keep paying your salary, and holidays as the fact of travelling for pleasure.
ReplyDeleteThe first concept of holidays is supposed to be a right of every worker, so for example, Spanish law says they are compulsory and workers can not refuse it. But not all the countries are the same and employees sometimes prefer not taking these vacation days for different reasons in many of them, the most usual one because they think it is not well seen.
In second place, talking about holidays as a pleasure trip, sometimes many of them have not enough money to travel but this fact would not have to imply to keep working instead of having some relaxing days.
In general, holidays is a social right, good for health and good for global economy which is demonstrated observing the growing of tourism as one of the most import resources for many countries, Spain is a good example of this. I would add that they are culturally positive because give people the possibility to know other places, monuments, races, etc.
Now that we are suffering a hard crisis and many social rights are being restricted, I think it is important to fight to keep this one, holidays, as one of the basic one.
Nowadays many people expend almost two weeks on holidays every year, some of them use this period of time to visit their families, go abroad or just stay at home and rest.
ReplyDeleteBeing on holidays is necessary for our lifes, does not matter if we spend a short,such as bank holiday, or a long time, the most important thing is the rest of our body and our mind.
The holidays are pretty healthy because help us to disconnect and leave aside the problems, this period is the best way to renew energy, in addition to that when people travel, they open their minds and get a different perspective of the world in general, owe to the fact of knowing and learning about another cultures or even about their own too.
To sum up, in my opinion everybody should spend at least 2 weeks out of their rutine, thereby they will have a healty life.
As we have seen in the text after reading it, there are lots of different ways of enjoy holidays, from working the whole time to trying to be the maximum time on vacation, so it seems difficult to decide what the best option for us is and what is really necessary for our life and health.
ReplyDeleteFrom a healthy lifestyle point of view, a neuroscientific called Paco Mora says that we should follow twelve advices, if we want to avoid some mental diseases as Alzheimer, Parkinson or senile dementia. Among them, he recommends us to learn a new language because it gives us pleasure and it causes admiration to others. He also advices that travelling is very a good thing because it requires learning and memorizing, acquire new memories and perceptions. Travelling produces a load of feelings and it move our nerve cells, routine is harmful even our brain. In addition to that, another advice is that we need to reduce chronic stress because it has a negative influence on our brain.
From my own experience, enjoy the holidays has always been very beneficial for me, after that, I have been able to work and perform projects with strength, motivation and joy-filled.
So, to sum up, in my opinion holidays is necessary for our life and health, overall if we travel abroad, following Paco Mora’s advices, because we will keep our minds open and alive.
HOLIDAYS ARE NECESSARY FOR OUR LIFE AND HEALTH
ReplyDeleteNowadays, everybody spend a lot of hours working. A large amount of work chase us wherever we go and we have few time to stay at home and relax. So, we always feel exhausted. I believe that holidays are suitable to break our stressful lives.
Firstly, taking vacations is absolutely necessary because you sometimes need to leave your mind empty of problems. As a result, after vacations you will come back to work refreshed and you may be more efficient than before.
Secondly, cycling, reading, relaxing, sitting on a beach, going to another country...you have plenty of time to practise your favourite hobbies on holidays. I love visiting other countries to know different cultures and people. Obviously, if I only had 5 days a year of vacations like Japanese workers I would never be able to plan a trip.
Finally, I have never understood the statement “work is my life”. Working is important for everybody, in order to improve your standard of living and feel necessary for the society. However, is a huge error put your work on the top of important things.
To sum up, holidays are necessary for our life and health. In addition, if you want to be more productive at work you must stop working during a period of time. Your attitude and health will feel the difference and people around you like friends and family will be grateful to you.
ANGEL MOLINA MARTINEZ