During our previous class we brainstormed what we know about Argentina for some 5 or 10 minutes and came up with the following:
Argentina's capital is Buenos Aires. The country is located in the South America, Spanish language is spoken there. People do tango and are fond of fireworks. Football is Argentinian national sport, one of the world's most famous football legends - Maradona comes from there.
Argentinian people eat huge steaks, lots of cattle is bred for meat. Argentinian beef is exported all over the world and served in many restaurants even in our part of the world. Argentina is also one of the world's biggest honey producers (also in Slovenia beekeeping is a firmly rooted tradition).
It is not uncommon for a Slovene to have relatives in Argentina or to know somebody who has - many Slovenes emigrated to Argentina before and soon after WW2. Even one of our ex prime ministers, Andrej Bajuk, is an Argentinian Slovene (has retired recently).
Evita Peron was a very popular Argentinian First Lady - the queen of people's hearts. Argentina hosted this year's rally and used to host F1 races too in Buenos Aires. There is a beautiful national park called Patagonia.
We then had a look at graffiti uploaded to the Wallstalking.org website and Flickr group:
the graffiti there are humorous, vivacious and colorful, - Caminito tango dancers, Plaza de Mayo street bustle, young Valu enjoying blissful afterlife, 'Hello Kitty' turned into 'Hello Kirchner', a complaint about not too good-looking women from somebody's neighbourhood,... Some graffiti there are also more serious, e.g. reminding people of a dark period from their past, protesting against capitalism,..
People seem to be proud of their culture, roots and heroes. (Hm, can we say the same for us, Slovenes?)
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Hi Sasa's students!
Wow, you did a great job brainstorming all this. I live in a Brazil, a neighboring country to Argentina, and thus believe to know a lot about Argentina, but I think I myself wouldn't have been able to come up with such a thorough brainstorming.
Congrats!
Last January I was in Argentina and had a great time there. Buenos Aires is a great place to have fun!
Kindest regards from Brazil!
Ronaldo
Dear students,
I work with Ronaldo, and have been in touch with Argentinians for some time now as I have dear friends there, including Rita and Jen who have shared wonderful graffiti of their country. I can see that you are a group of people who value and cherish other cultures. Though Slovenia is so far from Argentina, you know a lot about the Argentinian culture.
Question for you guys: if you had the chance, where in Argentina would you like to go? What kind of food would you like to try? Who would you like to meet there?
I'd love to hear from you!
cheers from sunny Brasilia,
Carla
You did a great job indeed! Most of the facts are right!
As an Argentinian, I would like to point out two things:
The national sport is "pato", a sport played on horses, much like polo, where the ball is made of leather and has handles for the players to be able to grab it from the floor by leaning sideways and down to reach it with their own hands. Then they have to score by throwing the ball into a kind of basket. See http://www.pato.org.ar/
But... football is the TRUE national PASSION.
As for Patagonia, it is region in the south of the country and there are many national parks there, though it is not in itself a national park.
Best wishes from Buenos Aires, Argentina!
Hi Ronaldo, Carla and Vicky! Thank you very much for stopping here :-).
To answer your question, Carla, I'd first go to Rosario to meet Rita and her class and I'd try to explore the vegetarian side of the country's cuisine along the way. I found some supposedly typical meaty and non-meaty recipes here http://www.foodbycountry.com/Algeria-to-France/Argentina.html , will try one or two myself.
Dear Vicky,
thank you for your expert view. :-) Pato looks like a sport for tough guys. Didn't know about this before. And Patagonia looks like a must to explore if one ends up in those parts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagonia
Warm regards to all from the other side of the world
Wow, people! You do know a lot about us!!!!
Great job! I'm not sure if most people are fond of fireworks, at least not more than in other parts of the world... I once had a Slovene student, but that's the only one I've ever met!... Evita Peron has been much loved as hated (and Madonna made a movie on her)... and that's all I can add to Vicky's post!
I'll invite my students to read this and help you... But then you must promise to teach us a bit about your own country, OK?
Way to go!
Gladys
Thought everybody only had Maradona as an Argentinian icon! Now I know you know much more than most of us do!! Congratulations! Argentina has beautiful landscapes. The North as well as the south deserve being visited.
As regards the south, a tailored trip (in 2 weeks)would be:
National Park Tierra del Fuego, El Calafate,
Los Glaciares National Park, Torres de Paine National Park, El Chaltén.
If you have other two weeks, you should visit Puerto Madryn (whale watching); Bariloche; Lake District National Parks of Nahuel Huapi and Lanin, Lago Puelo National Park and Los Alerces National Park.
Hope you can visit us soon! AND comment back! You won't be disappointed!
Hi Gladys and Veronica,
thanks for more expert comments. :-) I hope some of us will end up in your part of the world one day and have the opportunity to explore some of these great places you suggest. We'll be happy to teach your students a bit about Slovenia.
Hi everybody who has helped produce such a wonderful work about Argentina. You have really showed you know a lot about us by just brainstorming so much by reading our talking walls. Thanks for your interest. I hope you'll share some work with my students soon. Big hugs from Argentina.
Hi guys,
Do you have talking walls too in Slovenia? It would be great to see your own kind of graffiti and compare them with the talking walls of Argentina!
Hi Cristina and Aiden,
thanks for leaving your kind comments here. We have been watching our walls too and sharing them at wallstalking.org We will also gather together our ramblings on Slovenia in one of the future posts here, similarly as we did for Argenitna. This project is an open one - anyone interested in exploring their walls is warmly welcome to chime in and share finds - see here : http://wallstalking.org/Home.mvc/About
Warm regards from Slovenia
Dear Sasa`s students,
You have done a wonderful job!!! A big cyber clap for you!!!
I would like to add something about Argentine traditional food.
Most of cities, excluding Buenos Aires, close for lunch time. People go home to enjoy a great meal.
Most of the popular food has European roots. We eat lots of meats, pastas and breads.
We eat empanadas and milanesas. They are really delicous. Have you ever heard about them?
What is your traditional food?
Regards
Jennifer
Dear All,
I would like to share with you some great slides and Power Point Presentations my students created on Argentina.
I hope this helps to learn more about my country
http://classroomwithoutwalls.pbwiki.com/
Warm regards
Jennifer
www.jenverschoor.wordpress.com
Hey Jen,
I've never heard of the dishes you mentioned before, but I googled them up and was surprised to see that empanadas is what me make here too - I'm not much of a cook but I think we'd call them 'mesni žepki' or something like that (i.e. 'meat pockets') while the milanesas are our 'dunajski zrezki' (Wiener Schnitzel). It's a small world, isn't it? :-)
Our traditional foods are potica, štruklji, gibanica, jota, kranjska klobasa (sausage), pršut, teran (type of wine)... am I forgetting something important here?
As I said, I'm not much of a cook... ;-) Also I think our cuisine differs very much from region to region...
Thanks for the link to your wiki - love your studens' ppts! A picture is worth a 1000 words they say - it's true, isn't it? You guys did a wonderful job! Thanks.
Hi guys!! It´s good that you show your interest in these topics. Would be good to know other talking walls to learn about traditions and cultures. regards from argentina.
Dear Sasa's students. Congrats on your work about Argentina, my country. I am the ICT coordinator of a school of languages where I develop blogs. I have mentioned this post in one of them: http://adults5.motime.com and given students tasks such as to visit your blog and leave comments adding more info about ARgentina or links showing how beautiful our country is,and to search for information about Slovenia.
We will be very glad if you visit our blog and leave a comment. Perhaps we can do some project together.
Hugs from La Plata!
Thanks, dear Nelba, for your kind comnment - so nice to meet you here. :-) We are enjoying May holidays here at the moment - the weather is not too perfect unfortunately, but it's nevertheless nice to have a break from school. I've had a peek at your classblog too and dropped a comment there. Our course here is unfortunately winding up but I nevertheless look forward to learning a bit with and from your group. :-)
Hugs from Slovenia,
Saša
hello to everyone
my name is maria and I'm 15 years old
ammm...
my teacher is cristina and I'm a student of imagine centre...
I love english and animes (cartoons fron japan)
also music...
well...
I must go...
so...
I will write soon...
bye bye
Hi Mary, nice to meet you here. I've just had a peek at your blog - lots of lovely anime there. Blogging is a great way to practice English and meet new friends along the way. Way to go!
hello sasa!!!!
my name´s Carolina, I´m from Argentina and I study English in Language´s School, in La Plata. I know Melba Quintana. I´m not her student but we´re at the same place.
well, about Argentina I must say that it is a wonderful country which has a lot of beautiful places such as mountains, beaches,glaciars, etc.I recomend you to visit Cordoba city. There you can find beutiful landscapes.
the typical drink is "mate". It is usually drunk in afternoons.
Finally here I give you a website with more information about Argentina.
good bye!! I look forward to your opinions about my comment.
www.turismo.gov.ar
Thanks for dropping by Carolina and adding more info and the link. I see mate is kind of herb tea. We drink herb tea here too - but mostly in winter and especially if we get sick... hot herb tea with honey and lemon. Hm, I'm not sure what would our national drink be. Funny.
Wow!!!!! You guys Rock!! Congratulations to you all. This is excellent. Now, That I am reading about Argentina and Slovenia.. I am curious about Brazil... and We'll definitely have to tell you about Venezuela. I have enjoyed reading all your posts and learned a lot.. you will certainly be an excellent model for my students in my university.
About Argentina, I have good friends there: Melba, Jen, Gladys, Rita, Susan... they all are excellent educators and that's what I think is the best of a country .. its people.. so Argentina must be an excellent country as well as Slovenia.. Sasha is also an excellent educator. I am thankful for this wonderful project that will help people from different countries understand each other better and get everybody close to what we really are one humanity.
Keep on shining Love and Peace!
Doris3m
Dear Sasa and students:
Hi! My name is Ana. I'm 35 and live in La Plata (Argentina). I'm an English student, just like you. Carolina is one of my partners. There are 14 people in our class and our teacher's name is Silvia. Nelba is another teacher in our school. She introduced us your blog.
... anyway. I've been having a look on your job about our country and I think it's great. I've seen pictures of your country and let me tell you: you have amazing landscapes too. So, if you have the chance of visiting Argentina sometime and you want to see something different, go to our Iguazú Falls, you won't be disappointed. They're on the north-east, just on the border to Brazil and Paraguay, and the weather is warm all over the year.
Ok, that's all for now.
Regards.
Ana
P.S.: sorry for the mistakes.
Hi Ana,
thanks for your kind comment. I checked the Iguazu Falls - a truly majestic sight, wow! Short listed for New 7 Wonders of Nature I've read in Wikipedia - well deserved too! Have you been there already? In our country our highest mountain, Triglav, has such symbolic role - people say every true Slovene must reach its top at least once in their lives. I haven't done it yet (blushing).
Doris dear, great to hear from you! :-) I just joined your Walls Talking EFL University Ning group. There's always so much going on in your part of the world - you guys are amazing. Thanks for your kind comment here.
Hi!
I´m Camila I´m studying at the School of Languages from the UNLP.I have an intermediate level of English.
Argentina is a beautiful country there are a lot of interesting and amuzing places for visitting. I give some web sites with information about my country. http://www.turismo.gov.ar/
http://www.argentinaturismo.com.ar/
http://en.wikipedia.org/
Regards from La Plata.
Hi!!
I´m Verónica from La Plata Buenos Aires Argentina. I´m Camila, Carolina and Ana´s classmate.We are in intermedia english level. My friends recomended you visit Iguazú (north east´s Argentinian near Brazil), Córdoba and Patagonia (south). Buenos Aires also. I think you would like to know north west (near Bolivia). There you can see about Pre-Columbian culture in Argentina.It´s very different that Slovenia. Look for:
http://www.quebradadehumahuaca.com/
Other web page I like is about the conection between Argentina and Slovenia. I found a web page about the slovenian inmigration in Argentina. I recomend you!:(it´s in slovenian´s lenguaje)
http://www.markosj.net/indexsp.htm
I think people in Argentina are interesting to know about Slovenia, for example last year a teacher called Jesenovec Mojca, taught slovenian lenguaje and literature in La Plata University.
Kisses!!
Verónica A.
sorry! lenguaje=language
lenguaje is spanish!
see you
Verónica A.
Hi Sasa! I'm Claudia. I live in La Plata but I'm from Comodoro Rivadavia which is a place in the southeastern in central Patagonia,Argentina. I study English in the school of Languages and i'm in intermediate level. I give you a link where you can find information about my place that is beautiful so I recomend you to visit it. http://www.welcomeargentina.com/comodororivadavia/index_i.html
Kisses!
See you!
Dear Camila, Veronica and Claudia, thanks for your suggestions and recommendations. Veronica, I found your links very interesting - I was surprised to hear about Slovene language and literature being taught at your place - cool to have the option to learn a language from such a small country so far away. :-) Only 2 million people on the other side of the world speak it. I wonder what sort of students sign up for this class - I guess mostly children of Slovene immigrants.
Warmly, Saša
Hi Sasa! I'm Luciano, writing from Argentina. I don't know Nelba but she teaches at School of Languages in La Plata, where I also study.
Some particular thing about my country is wheather; you can discover from the coldest to the hottests places just in one country, and be delightned by landscapes. Patagonia is a great place for hitchhicking and practising extreme sports.
Best wishes from La Plata, Buenos Aires!
hello, my name is Juan Badini. I´m a student of Adults D at La Plata School of Languajes. I found the conversation very intresting, and the conection between people of Brazil and Eslovenia was amazing from me. I´m glad you know such interesting things about argentina, I think it´s a very interesting country, all of you are invited! About Eslovenia I know something about the most important events in the 90´s, but that´s all.
Regards form argentina.
Dear Nicholas, Luciano and Juan,
thanks for chiming in. In one of our later posts here we talk about Slovenia http://rostilj.blogspot.com/2009/05/slovenias-talking-walls.html
Adrenaline sports are popular here too - see http://www.slovenia-tourist-guide.com/adrenaline-sports-slovenia.html
And thanks, Juan, for your kind invite - I do hope that one day we'll all be able to explore, feel, hear and taste a little bit of what we've been sharing here virtually also in person. :-)
hi! I´m romina and I´m an imagine center student. I read your text and I want to tell you about our tipical food, "empanadas", in my blog:
http://romiyanarello.blogspot.com
What is your tipical food?
I´m waiting your answer
romy
Hi Romina,
http://rostilj.blogspot.com/2009/05/slovenias-talking-walls.html I wrote a little bit about us here. Thanks for sharing your post with us - I enjoyed reading about empanadas.
Warm regards, s
hi it's romina again and yes, we make empanadas at home there ar delicious. I'm going to write about mate, a typical argentinian drink I hope you like it.
best wishes
romy
Great, Romina. Looking forward to learning more about it. Keep in touch. :-)
hello I`m carla I came from argentina.. I live in benfield and I`ve been stuind english for 4 years. in my opinion you have included all things that we are able to know. Hear in argentina people who make this graffity use it to hurt somebody`s feeling as you said before, but this is not always the case . In cases cases people make it to say what they think about a topic and to reflect their qualities.
In fact, you did a very interesting work. and I think that it is great that you put all these pictures (grafiti) because you are showing us which is the rigt way to express our fellings.
I will want for another topic.
bye byee..
Hi Carla,
thanks for dropping by. I'm glad you enjoyed the images - many kind people from different places contributed them. Everyone is welcome to join. :-)
sasa:
if you want read, i wrote a coment about the mate, in my blog
I hope you like.
bye bye
romina
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