Conoce España 1

Historia de España, el Castillo de Loarre.

Artículo (Misterios en el castillo de Loarre) de Mónica Arrizabalaga  en el periódico ABC  acerca de la publicación del libro «El Castillo» de Luis Zueco.


Fotografía de Fabián Simón, en ABC.

Aquí os dejo unos fragmentos del artículo:

«Loarre es el prototipo de los castillos de España», explica este novelista e historiador, vicepresidente de la Asociación de Amigos de los Castillos de Aragón. «Aquí no tenemos los castillos del Loira o el Rhin, más palaciegos. Los nuestros son castillos militares, que es para lo que realmente servía un castillo, y si se piensa en un castillo militar, Loarre cumple con todos los requisitos de lo que es un castillo español», añade el escritor que explica cuáles son estas características. La primera, «una ubicación que al verlo dices: ¡madre de Dios, cómo lo pudieron construir allí!», la cumple Loarre con creces. A mil metros, en la montaña pirenaica, es un nido de águilas, un lugar estratégico que podría defenderse hasta sin castillo como de hecho ocurre en la novela.

Los muros, pasadizos y salas de este castillo, donde se rodó parte de la película de «El reino de los cielos» de Ridley Scott, se mantienen hoy tal y como estaban en el siglo XI,sin luz eléctrica ni paneles informativos. Un lugar donde resulta fácil imaginar a Eneca, Fortún y la multitud de personajes de esta novela histórica de Zueco, que abarca el periodo en que se levantó la fortaleza, entre el año 1027 y el 1082.


Cerca del Castillo de Loarre, Murillo de Gállego:

 

Desde el Castillo de Loarre, a 1 hora y 10 minutos en coche encontramos Alquézar:

  

Dual-Language Programs Are on the Rise, Even for Native English Speakers

Dual Language Programs becoming more popular in the U.S. Read this article by Elizabeth A. Harris published in The New York Times online edition.

Here you have some extracts from the article: 

“I want two things,” said Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, a Democrat. “I want students from Delaware to be able to go anywhere and do any kind of work they want to do, and I also want to attract businesses from around the world, to say, ‘You want to be in Delaware because, amongst other things, we’ve got a bilingual work force.’ ”

"For native English speakers, there is relatively little research on how dual-language programs affect their performance on standard metrics like state tests.

But Jennifer Steele, an associate professor at American University’s School of Education who is finishing research on Portland’s dual-language programs, said her work had found performance increases for both native English speakers and English-language learners in some grades and certain subjects once they reached late elementary school."

«[...] “If you set the tone from the beginning, then they kind of know, ‘Hey, I’m going to get it in just a second, let me see what she’s doing,’ ” Ms. Menendez said. “They are sponges. They start attuning.”

To help them along, language at Dos Puentes is color-coded, especially in the lower grades. In one classroom, a label near a jar of pencils read “sharpener” in royal blue and “sacapunta” in fire engine red. On a poster, the words “read quietly” had a blue border and “leo en voz baja” a red one. As a kindergarten teacher sang in Spanish with her students, she made sure to use a red marker as she wrote on a dry erase board.»

«Sean Reardon, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education who has researched dual-language programs, said there might also be a difference depending on what two languages are being taught. While Spanish and English are phonologically similar, sharing an alphabet and many sounds, character-based languages like Chinese are quite different, he said, and that might make it more difficult for students to follow along.»