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Giving a Talk on Ladybugs...In English! Diana Travecedo from Colombia Photos:
Sandy Peters The ladybug is one of the most beautiful insects I have ever seen. I remember when I was a child, I used to look at them in my aunt's garden. Sometimes I tried to catch them because they were so cute. Before coming to the United States, I didn't know the insect's name in English. In Spanish, they are called mariquitas. Last week, my teacher Mona Grant asked me to prepare an oral report about any insect or animal that I wanted to. However, I didn't want to talk about any common insect. Therefore, I thought of making my presentation about mariquitas. First of all, I had to look for the English translation of this insect. After asking some people if they knew the name of it, I found out what it was called. It was ladybug. My presentation had to be about ladybug behavior, and I learned a lot. For instance, I discovered that when ladybugs are born, they come out of the pups and their shells are orange, soft, and damp. I also found out that they have two sets of wings. When the wings dry off, they can fly. Another interesting thing I learned is that when the baby ladybugs hatch, they eat 30 aphids (a kind of insect) per day. In the United States there are 17 species of ladybugs. They spend the winter months in a cluster. In spring, they move outside to locate their prey. All this information is really interesting for me because I had never really thought about it before. I spent a lot of time preparing for my presentation because I had to talk 7 to 10 minutes in front of my classmates. In addition, I was going to be graded by my teacher. As everybody knows, it is not very easy to give an oral report, especially in another language that you are just learning. I really wanted to make a great presentation, so I made a model of a ladybug to show the class. I used paper, glue and markers in order to make a beautiful ladybug. Because I had to explain the meaning of the new vocabulary, and I wanted to catch the attention of my audience; I made some posters with the new words that I wanted to teach the students. I spent three days developing my presentation. As a result, it was really great. My teacher told me it was a good idea to use flash cards and visual aids. She also told me to be careful with my pronunciation of some words, but overall I think the presentation went well. I think making these kinds of presentations really helps to improve my English.
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