* THE NEW ENGLISH STAR *

A review by Daniel Villena Lillo The life and adventures of Lazarillo de Tormes was written in 1554. It is a very famous anonymous Spanish picaresque novel. The plot talks about the life of a child called Lázaro de Tormes, and the many owners he had. This book criticizes the religious society of the time it was written, like priests, squires and noblemen, I think this was the reason why the Spanish Inquisition forbade it. The book is presented as seven letters to an unknown person, in each letter it explains how he lived with each owner. The author expresses all of his misfortunes with humoristic mood, this made me laugh a lot during the reading, it is a bit sad at the start but with the time his luck gets better. I find it very interesting that we are not sure about the author of such an important book like this one. There are some theories but there is nothing confirmed. I enjoyed it, it is not only a novel of the classic Spanish literature, it is a novel of classic universal literat...

An article by Lucía González [Nursery teacher at MITVAL]  . Nowadays, children are being educated in so many different ways, and our questions don’t stop going on around our head...How do children learn? How could we increase their curiosity? How can we help them to remember, understand or increase their knowledge? what can we do to guide their communicative English skills? what should we teach first?  But if you take on board a few essentials, there's a good chance you'll end up cherishing the experience. Here are five tips that helped me when I started out. 1. Build your understanding of how young children learn It is vital to get the approach right for children of this age. You soon realise that children learn and develop at different rates and in different ways. If we don’t understand the age group, we can end up doing more damage than good. You need to understand what to expect from the children and make sure that what you do in class or home reflects where they are in th...

An article by Carmen Alías López . The first International Women's Day celebration was held on the 19th of March in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland because of the fight for equality between men and women.  8th March  was institutionalized in 1975 by the United Nations. It has been a very important issue during the 20th century to bring to light the existing differences between both sexes such as salary, male power in the marriage, etc. There have been a lot of strikes and we have achieved prominent changes in politics and laws: in the 80s, the law in which women were free to choose to break away the marriage was approved and not a long time ago, women were free to open an account in the bank. Nowadays, feminism is a basic concept, but there are a lot of countries where women are killed for not obeying their husbands, where only boys have the right of education while girls take care of the children and the house... In these countries, women are not allowed to claim fo...

  An article by Isabella Rodríguez. Margarita is one of my favorite places, it´s a beautiful island located southeast of the Caribbean Sea, northeast of Venezuela, north of the Araya peninsula of Sucre state, with a population close to 98.000 people. This island is surrounded by beaches; these beaches are characterized by their great beauty and quality, both sand and water. Among the beaches to visit on Isla Margarita there are all kinds of beaches, with waves and without waves, with cold and more temperate water, where you can do water sports such as surfing, scuba diving, windsurfing and kite surfing. But there are also monuments such as the Church of the Valley, the Castle of the Assumption or the fort of Juangriego. There are also parks like Parque el Agua, Laberinto tropical, Diverland. You can take a tour of the mountains, a horseback excursion in Cabatucan on the Macanao Peninsula, or visit the national park of La Restinga, where you can take a boat ride through the mangrove...

    A review by Elisabeth Mellinas. Directed by : Tony Kaye  Starring : Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D’Angelo...  Script : David McKenna  Edited by : Jerry Greenberg & Alan Heim  Running time : 118 minutes  Country : USA  Year : 1998  Genre : Drama  Synopsis :  Danny Vinyard is a problematic teenager with an older neo-Nazi brother called Derek who is sent to prison for killing black people. When Derek leaves prison he has got a different view of the world and now he tries to change Danny’s thoughts because he is also turning into a neo-Nazi person following what he had done before.  This film deals with a topic like racism nowadays. I think that is something that is disappearing but there are still a lot of things to do about it. In my opinion you don’t have to treat someone in a different way because of their skin colour. This is a great film even though sometimes is a bit hard and disgusting because of the viole...

A review by Eve Chancosa & Andy Bordón. Have you already seen The Martian? It has become one of my favourite films (and not because I am quite friki or a geek). I love this type of films because they show in an easy way, difficult ideas about technology or how the NASA works... Everybody can understand what is happening, and these films make children ask after new things. You do not need to be a NASA expert to enjoy the film. I would like to explain you how I felt while I was watching the film, but I do not know how to do it. It is just that when I am watching it, I can't stop enjoying every second, and I find very interesting the way they try to survive in Mars, in a very difficult situation, the chemical reactions that they make. To sum up, how they use all their knowledge. I found it difficult, I mean, I find difficult to survive alone in Mars, another planet where no one has lived before and where things are very different: there is no oxygen, no water..., you can't hav...

Written by Dolly Murdoch.   1. You’ve got to have watched a lot of coming-of-age films What’s incredible about films is their power to reflect and change systems and traditions. Films illustrating youth have conditioned teenage world since the start of pop culture, and  this  is my personal list of films that reflect the best our community as adolescents (suggestions are welcome). You surely can learn something from each one of them.  2. Accomplish a little dream (or whim) you had  It could be skipping school/home for a day, travelling to some place you fancied a lot, going to your favourite band’s concert, getting to talk to someone really important... Mine, as an example, was travelling to Liverpool when I was a 13 y.o., and doing the Magical Mystery Tour. It meant the world to me.  This will make a mark on you forever, trust me.  3. Listen to your father/mother’s old records   You can’t even imagine how much you don’t know about your parents. Y...