Monologue: Eating habits of young people.

I've been asked to talk about food habits of young people.

The nutritional habits of younger people are raising the concern due to increasing rates of obesity and the extension  of eating disorders. Besides that, a bad eating has consequences in health, studies and diseases.

As a secondary school teacher I can see in my daily work that young don't eat properly:

-  Most students don't get enough food at breakfast and the rest don't even take breakfast.
- They don't take enough water. In fact in my school we are promoting the increase of water consumption among students.
- They love sweets and bakery. During recess these are the favourite food.
- When they go out with friends they usually go to fast food restaurants. They consider this type of food very tasty and delicious.
- In general, they don't like fruits and vegetables, and for this reason, they only take this food if their parents oblige them.

Fighting against these bad habits is very difficult. Young are very influenced by tv and friends and in many cases their parents don't have good habits regard to food.

Some actions which can be done:

- Banning on tv advertises of fast food, soda drinks and so on.
- Educating parents about the importance of good eating habits for their children.
- Doing workshops at school to promote good eating habits, and doing it on a regular basis each course.
- Providing, where possible, fruits to students during recess.

- Banning on vending machines in schools.

I can think in other possibilities, but it would be very long.

To conclude, it is important to remind young people that healthy food can reduce diseases and it also can provide them better quality of life. If they acquire healthy habits as healthy food and regular exercise they will be better both  physically and mentally.

Monologue: Healthy life

I've been asked to talk about healthy life.

To start with, it is important to define what we understand for healthy life. A healthy life is a way of living which improves your health and so, it can help you to extent your life and also it can improve its quality.

And having good health means being in good physical and mental condition. Therefore if you are leading a healthy life, you will be doing things in order to improve your physical and mental condition.

Some things you can do to lead a healthy life are:

- Reducing or even removing consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. Alcohol and tobacco are the cause of many health problems.
- Choosing a diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits, and grain products. This type of feeding provides needed vitamins, minerals, fiber, and carbohydrates, and it is generally lower in fat to help you maintain a healthy weight.
- Using sugar in moderation, sugar has many calories and few nutrients and it can contribute to tooth decay.
- Using salt in moderation too, this helps lower your risk of high blood pressure.
- Doing exercise on a regular basis. It can help you maintain a healthy weight, and it lowers cholesterol and blood pressure. Also you can include exercises to raise your flexibility, it will give you greater range of motion in your joints and it will reduce your chances of injury.
- Reducing stress. Your body responds to everyday stress with a release of hormones that prepares you to react. If you don't relieve this state through relaxation, the effects build up and they can create muscular pain, headaches, sleep disturbances and other symptoms.
- Sleeping seven to nine hours. The body's self-repair takes place when you are asleep.

In conclusion, healthy living is a combination of many things, including good feeding, regular exercise and a positive attitude. For a longer and more comfortable life, design your plan for a healthy lifestyle and live according to it.

Monologue: Organizing a trip to an english speaking country

I´ve been asked to talk about how organizing a trip to an english-speaking country.

We can travel to an english-speaking country  for different reasons. We could want to visit our family (that is my own case, I travel often to USA to visit my wife's family),  for the pleasure of knowing new countries and new cultures, with the aim to improve skills in a language, a combination of the previous reasons and so on.

In any case we can take advantage to learn or to improve our English. The best way to do that is to travel by ourselves, without a tour guide. This has other advantages, it is usually more fun, you can go wherever you want and you avoid the contact with people of your own country. Moreover, this increases the options to interact with locals.

The steps to organize the trip would be:

- Taking into account your budget and if you have friends there, you should choose which places to visit within the country.
- Planning in which order you will visit the chosen places. In this timetable is important to spare time to rest and to visit new places that we will discover during the trip.
- Thinking where we are going to stay. If we are going to stay in a hotel, then we must make the bookings.
- Buying tickets to travel to the english-speaking country.
- Getting currency of the new country.
- And eventually, you have to include a bilingual dictionary in your luggage.

Also it would be interesting for you to learn something of the customs of the country you are going to visit. Locals will appreciate your attitude, and you will avoid gaffes and awkward situations.

To conclude, my recommendation is that we should consider one trip as a very important opportunity to enjoy our lives.

Monologue: Stereotypes

I've been asked to talk about stereotypes.

Before starting the monologue, I think that it is important to define what we understand for stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalizations or assumptions that people make about the characteristics of a group, based on an image about what people in that group are like. They are often wrong. 

Next I am going to examine different stereotypes assigned to different nationalities:

- Spaniards always take a nap in the afternoon, they wear bullfighter outfit and they are lazy people. As Spaniard who has lived in different cities of Spain, I can assure you that these stereotypes are wrong. 

I've never taken a nap, and neither my family nor friends. Moreover I've seen people dressing bullfighter outfit only on tv and in carnival. And eventually Spanish people can't be considered lazy, in fact Spain is one of the western countries where it is worked more hours annually. In that area it is likely that Spaniards need to be more efficient.

On the other hand Spanish people are accused of speaking loud and being impolite. That is probably true.  

- English people are hooligans and they drink a lot. In my opinion we have this image of english people due to english football fans and english tourists. 

When football fans come to Spain, they are always in the news, because they are used to making vandalism when the football game is over. On the other hand, when english young tourists visit Spain, they drink a lot. In Spain we are used to seeing on tv drunken english tourists.

In both cases, I think english people come to Spain and they do things they wouldn't do in UK. They are aware they are in a foreign country out of sight of their parents, neighbors and so on.  For this reason, they take advantage.   

- French people are said to be arrogant and chauvinist. I don't know many french people, but they aren't arrogant nor chauvinist, on the contrary, they are very friendly and gentle people. 

However, like a country is likely they are arrogant and chauvinist. For instance I can remember when they celebrated their national holiday last year, an important French actress was dressed with French flag and she was singing the marseillaise in champs elysses in Paris.    

Another example, when their politicians make a speech, they are always remembering they are the best country in the world, they have contributed to the social and moral progress of humanity, and so on.

I could continue with other european countries, but it would be very boring.

To conclude with the monologue, stereotypes can be true or false, but they are important because they help define your group identity against other groups.

Monologue: Diet.

I've been asked to talk about Diets.

The word diet can mean two different things:

- The first one. In this case diet is when someone eats a small or limited quantity of food in order to become thinner. This can be combined with miracle products whose goal is to help reduce the weight.

Fortunately I've never been on a diet. I consider this type of diet is very dangerous for your health. If you go on a diet, you have to seek the advice of a specialized doctor. The problem in our society is that many people are on a diet that they have heard on tv or they have seen in a gossip magazine.  

- The second one. In this case diet is the food that a person usually eats. From this point of view, everybody follows a diet, the ingredients of this depend on your living style and your culture.

The diet has consequences in your life. For instance, the diet combined with a specific lifestyle is causing obesity in developed countries, even children are becoming obese.

Accordingly, the right issue should be healthy diets. What we understand for healthy diets is one which helps maintain or improve health.

Medical institutions consider that a health diet must include all type of food. Also, It has to be based in fruit, vegetables and legumes. On the contrary, it has to reduce salt and sugar consumption and it has to limit the calories intake from saturate fat.

On the other hand, the diet has to be combined with:

- Achieving an energy balance and a healthy weight.
- Physical activity.
- Breakfast properly.
- Resting 8 or 9 hours a day.

To conclude, every culture has its own diet. For instance we have Mediterranean diet, Americans have fast food, and so on. So we are lucky people, Mediterranean feeding is considered to be one of the best diets in the world.

Monologue: How to choose a roommate.

I've been asked to talk about choosing a good flatmate.

I have some experience in this issue and I can assure that it is a really complex problem. I used to live with roommates when I studied in university and when I worked in big cities. It is impossible to know someone until she or he is sharing a flat with you.

Before choosing a roommate, you have to contact with potential candidates. Nowadays there are three different ways:

- Announcing that you are looking for flatmate in specialized websites, newspapers, bulletin board and so on. Then, candidates get in touch with you and you show them the spare room.

-  Speed flatmating. It is very similar to speed dating. In this case you have to attend to a meeting where there are people who have a spare room and other people who are looking for accommodation. If you select someone, you can make an interview before showing your spare room.

- Using your personal network of contacts. This is likely the best way to find a roommate. Your family, friends, or work's contacts will feel responsible if they are recommending someone.

In any case, after a brief meeting, you have to decide which the best candidate is. Therefore it is important to decide in advance what kind of person you are looking for. And to do that, you have to analyze which are your personal needs and then, you will be able to prepare a good interview.

There can be many different situations: you can be a people person or on the contrary you keeps yourself to yourself, you may be a computer geek, you can be very particular about order, you like to study at nights, you get into talking about politics, you are not at your best early in the day, you are vegetarian and so on.

Regardless of the chosen person, there will always be an adjusting process. You may find that the other person is very different in character. Anyway you have to be positive, and you have to try to adapt. Sharing can be a good chance to learn new interest or to explore new activities.

In conclusion, trying to find a good roommate is something you have to do, but you will never know the result until the lodger lives with you.

Monologue: Past and present of leisure, transport, education

I've been asked to compare the past and the present of the transport, leisure and education.

- Transport. It is likely that if our grandparents could see the current transport means, they would be amazed. In the past, transportation was tough. It was either train or walking because only rich people owned cars. Besides that, infrastructures were very poor and transportation was very slow, for instance, it could take several days crossing Spain.

Today the situation has changed a lot. The infrastructures have improved much with the construction of highways and better roads, and not only that, everyone has a car and the cars are better. Moreover it has been built an amazing network of high speed trains. For instance you can travel by train from Madrid to Sevilla in less than three hours.

In addition to this, a new mean of transport has appeared: the airplane. In the beginning it only was accessible for rich people, but now everybody can travel by plane. It is likely the fastest way to travel.

- Education. This is a very sensitive issue for me, I am secondary school teacher. In this area the situation has changed widely. In the past, people couldn't afford to attend to school, they had to help their family. As a result, many people couldn't neither read nor write. Education was only for rich people.

Fortunately,  nowadays everybody (at least in Spain) must attend to the school until they are 16 years old. After that, there are high school and university with scholarship  what means that everyone can continue studying, even being a member of a family without financial resources.

From my point of view, this has allowed to build a fairer society.

- Leisure.  There are two main differences nowadays respect to the past. First, today workers have four paid vacation weeks. That is a great advance. And second, tv has changed the way of enjoying free time. Even though I am not sure if tv has meant progress for our society.

In conclusion, it is not true that past is better than the future.

Monologue: How do you think the life will be in the future?

I've been asked to talk about how I think life will be in 25 years.

The first thing I have to say is that it's very difficult for me to answer this question. I am not a fortune teller and I am not sure about what will happen next year, therefore much less how it will be in 25 years. 

Moreover, the world is very complex, and for this reason I'll focus on exploring  trends in only a few aspects:

- Energy: Life in current world is based in oil consumption. Transport, food and everything in we can think in our advanced civilization depends on the use we make of oil. This situation will have to change because oil reserves are running low. One chance is to try to replace energy obtained from oil by alternative energies such as wind power or solar power. As an engineer I can see a problem, what we get from alternative energies is electricity and I am not sure it can replace all uses we give to oil.

- Transport. Current means of transport besides relying on oil are very polluting. It is likely in the next years the current car will be replaced by electric car. The Electric car doesn't pollute if electric energy derives from alternative energies. The main problem we have to solve is how we can store electricity in large quantities. On the other hand there is no solution for air transport.  

- Technology. From my point of view trends is this area are two: smaller devices and concentrated functionality in a single device. The best example of these trends are mobile phones, today they are smaller and smaller and they can be used for more things like Internet, GPS, and so on.

- Population. We are suffering a overpopulation today, and this problem will be worst in the future. There are more people every day to share finite resource like water, materials and so on. This situation can generate stress between countries. 


To conclude, I have to say that I am optimistic about our future. Despite challenges humanity has always managed to make progress. 

Monologue: My life within 25 years.

I've been asked to talk about how I think my life will be within 25 years.

The first thing I have to say is that it's very difficult for me to answer this question. I am not a fortune teller and I am not sure about what will happen next year, therefore much less how it will be in 25 years. The key is that it is likely I will express below how I want my life to be. 

The only thing I am sure about is if I am alive I will be older.

As for my personal life, I hope I will continue married with my lovely wife. My two children will be in the university, but I am not sure about they will be doing. But before that, it is important to make sure I spend enough time with them, because they will be child only once.

I would like my children to be bilingual. In order to get this in the next years I would like to spend two or three academic courses in the USA. I am a secondary school teacher and there is a program, in which I want to take part, between Spain and USA to exchange teachers. The best way to learn english is to live in an english-speaking country. 

Also I want to keep my current friends. For this reason I have to remember to keep in touch with them, so as to have people around me who know what I am like, and it doesn't matter.

Only one more thing in this aspect, I wish I could travel around the world.

With respect to work, I am now a teacher and it is likely I'll be a teacher in the future. Also I will continue helping to my brother Luis who is an architect. My desire is to have always work and enough incomes to support my family. Moreover, I hope to enjoy  the work as I do now and I don't want to work all hours of the day in order to make money. 

And finally, I hope the world will be more respectful with the environment and there won't be people without food. 

Monologue: sport pictures.

I've been asked to talk about three different sport pictures.

In the first picture we can see a man who is practising skiing. In the second one there is a group of people making preparations to jump, the sport's name is bungee jumping. In the third one there are two people playing paddle.

I have to confess that I am not practising any sport at this moment. I have two little children and I dedicate to them all my free time. On the other hand I have never done sports which appear in pictures.

There are different reasons:

-Paddle is a nice sport but it needs specific facilities which have never existed until few years ago in my town. Besides that, it is a team sport, you need to join with other people if you want to play and it is always not possible.

- Skiing is not easy to practice in El Ejido, I can´t remember now when was the last time it  snowed here. People from El Ejido who loves this sport, can go to Sierra Nevada which has a ski resort. This place is two hours driving distance from El Ejido.

-Eventually, even though bungee jumping is a fashion sport, I consider that it is very dangerous. You have to trust your life to a rope. Moreover I consider that bungee jumping is not a sport, it is something you do for pleasure, such as taking a beer. You don't train any muscle.

On the other hand my favourite sports are cycling and basketball. When I was younger I used to spend weekends and spare time practicing these sports. Usually I played basketball in winter and I took the bike in summer.

From my point of view it is very important doing sport. When you practice sports your health improves a lot, and what is more important, you'll enjoy better quality of life in the future. Also, doing sports is a good chance of improving your relationships with friends.

In conclusion, I hope to have more time in the future for sports. Furthermore I want to teach my children that doing sports is very important and fun.