It’s time to reflect upon her story and relate it to the principles that guide you.
In the “Comment Box”, first, write about the listening strategies you used to understand this amazing Latin novelist’s anecdote. Then, tell us more about your own beliefs in your daily life.
- What are your beliefs?
- Why are they important?
- Where do those principles come from? Family history? A lesson you learned?
Her English is not difficult to understand. Probably because English insn’t her native language.
Yes Edson, she is from Chile and her English is very clear to understand. What do you think about the principle that guides her life? How about you? What are the principles you really stick to?
Hope to learn more about all of you!
Erika
Listening to Isabel’s story brings the idea that a lot of people have been living a life without many principles or values…I gotta confess that sometimes I’m included in this amount of people, specially when I waste so many hours in my job just trying to make money and leaving behind some things that can be much more important and interesting (like spend some time with people I like)….but, that’s the way life is…at least what we call “modern” life.
Hello Rodrigo, your words make me feel guilty too! I am a workaholic and I am not very good with time management, so sometimes my family is a little bit neglected and they are always seeking for my attention. In my heart they come first. Everything I do is to make them happy and to help them have a better and easier life, but maybe all they need is a little bit more of my time.
Erika Cruvinel
Well,I always tought that my family should be first,but in other hand,I think that we should have a balance.Not only work and not only love the family all the time, or we will sufocate the members.Life is something temporary
and the most important thing is give quality to the moments that we have together.I think that Isabel knew how to deal with this reality in a difficult situation.
I forgot to say that the strategies I’ve used to understand the listening were:
1- I’ve closed my eyes so my hearing was better activated and I didn’t have anything to call my atention.The focus was just the listening.
2- I’ve tried to pay attention to the key words and catch the context.
Well,
I had no dificultys to anderstend what she was saying because her English is very simple.
Some times It’s important stop to think about our beliefs,our principles to avoid cituations like isabel had passed that just discovered how important was the lesson that her daughter was teaching her – giving her one’s life for the charity and having nothing in exchange- on her death-bed .
Dear Maria Angélica, closing our eyes is a good strategy to focus on the task. It’s funny that everytime I listen to a song that I like and I want to learn its lyrics, I close my eyes to understand every word; every detail!
Athamy, it is true that we have to think about our beilefs; sometimes we only pay attention to them when we are in big trouble!
What a wonderful “text”!
It made me cry; however it didn’t upset me.(it’s good, isn’t it?)
I’m very sensitive and for me, we need to think carefully about ours beliefs. Unfortunatly, as Erika has already said, lots of people only reflect about it when they have problems.
Personally, I believe in the true love, in those have a good heart – and I trust them – ( sometimes I think I’m naive, but even so, I Keep believe it…). I believe we can learn with our wrongs, and that our positive thoughs and actitudes, besides bring us many good things, can give to people surround us the idea of a easier life ( although we have some bad moments ), which nowadays is extremelly important to avoid stress.
About my listening, It was easy to underestand Isabel, but I had difficulties to underestand everything of the introduction and the end, when that man was talking.
In order to listen to further details, I simply closed my bedroom door, so the outside noise would not influence my listening.
It’s pretty difficult to talk about our beliefs because as far as I’m concerned, they tend to change all the time. My beilefs are totally different from the ones I had when I was younger. I have to believe in people, even though some make us not to believe in them. In fact, I don’t know what I believe in.
Listening to Isabel’s story helps us to rethink deeply about us, about our lives, beliefs, people who surround us. In sum, we have to give more importance to things that we usually do not.
I closed my eyes and listened. after that I read the text, checked vocabulary and listened again. her english was not so dificult. I enjouy it
Rodrigo,
Sometimes “modern” life plays trick on us, then we have to take care about it and always look for a way to do things that are considered valuable for us.
Maria Angélica,
In fact, the balance among our choices is extremelly important for our lives.
Diego, my beliefs were very different when I was young too. I always told myself I would raise my children in a totally different way as my parents raised me. I thought my children would have more freedom than I did. But now I see myself doing exactly the same things my parents did to me. And guess what? I had much more freedom than my son has nowadays. I think the world has become a more dangerous place, so I will never let my son do many of things I used to do, like staying out until very late at night; or going out without telling me who he is hanging out with… Well I might be wrong, but I tend to be overprotective. And yes, these principles might change as time goes by.
I have no difficult to undertand Isabel , but some to understand the introduction.He speaks fast and I make effort to listen well.
Her history is impressionant.It make me sad, because I remember my mother who is dead. Her messages for us were similar. I try to pay attention.
It was a great story. Nietzsche said “What doesn’t kill us make us stronger”. And change us deeply!
My strategy to figure out the story was close my eyes and repeat it twice. After with my eyes opened I listened it twice.
I believe in:
1- We need to respect the individualities.
2- We need to pay attention if what we make to someone we like someone makes to us.
3- The challenges we face today make us stronger to face harder ones in the future.
Dalmo
It is true that our problems make us stronger and that is exactly what happend to Isabel Allende. It is also important that we look at other people’s problems because only then we realize our problems are not that big. We tend to think people have better and easier lives than we do, don’t we?
Erika
I’ve listened to the text once and I could understand almost it all. My strategy to achieve a better understanding is to listen more and more times as I did with this. And after I read the text, I listen to the audio again.Besides this I try to eliminate outer sounds e noises.In addition, I like to take notes of the key words.
I don’t have strong beliefs and beliefs are subject to change during lifelong based on knowlegde, revelations and discussions.My beliefs have been modified with age but some essentials are relatively the same. I think about what things made difference in my life. I realized that some words did. They helped me to have a positive attitude towards life and focus on the good. They affected my life and helped me not to get easily discouraged.I believe in healing power of the word messages. There are people whom we never thanked or told them they may have helped us. There are people whose words of wisdom inspired us so strongly and with whom we had a brief meeting that made us eventually find ourselves again.
Thanks Diva for YOUR words of wisdom. Some people really make a difference in our lives and we rarely thank them for being so special and helpful. Thanks for reminding us all about that.
It’s a wonderful report. I didn’t have any problems in understanding it, but I listened to it many, many times. It’s such a touching report! I sent the link to my friends and co-workers. I intend to translate it into Portuguese for use with my students.