My research project

PRESENTATION
For my presentation I used a powerpoint which helped me a lot to focus on the main ideas. There were some photos which were useful for the audience to understand what I was saying. The timing was ok because I finished just in 7 minutes.

BODY LANGUAGE AND EYE CONTACT
I think I looked to the audience most of the time, although I looked to the powerpoint ocasionally. In order to make the presentation closer to the audience, I didn’t bring any paper, so instead of reading a resume I just read some sentences on the powerpoint.
I did some gestures to hold the attention of the audience.

Anyway, part of the class agreed I was reading too much on the powerpoint and not looking at the audience at all. I don’t think so. I believe that if we prepare a powerpoint we don’t need a paper which says all we have to say. I find is better to read on the powerpoint because the audience can follow you easily.

STRUCTURE
I organized each part in order of importance and I used many makers, too.
This part was easy because we all used the same structure we used in our project presentation.

CONTENT
How the topic was our research project, all the information I gave was new for the audience. I think all was clear with some good examples and, of course I looked up information in books, Internet, archives etc.

LANGUAGE
First of all I’ve to correct a very big mistake I did. I wrote throw instead of through in the title of my project.
Maybe I should improve using more vocabulary, phrasal verbs or expressions, but I used some topic-related vocabulary like the word estate. My “favourite” pause fillers are WELL and AND because I only use these. This time I used many sentence linkers.

PRONUNCIATION & INTONATION
I think I’ve improved in this part because I spoke fluid and I tried to not use a monotone all the time. About the pronunciation, I check the pronunciation of some words with an internet programme.

SELF-EVALUATION
I think this oral presentation is the best one in two years. But, of course, I have to improve, specially, in my pronunciation.

Here there is what I had prepared to say.

Hi everybody!
I’m Gisela and I’m going to present my research project: FORTIANELL: A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY.
Fortianell is a big estate near Fortià, which is 10 minutes away from here.
The owners are the Rahola-Estrada family.
It’s also the place where I live.

1. Why did I choose this subject?
There are many reasons:
- One is because I have been living here for a long time, since I was 3.
- Another one is because when some friends came to visit me, they used to ask themselves: What’s that? or is that a convent? And I just could say that it was an agricultural college and that it had a lot of history.

That’s why I thought it was a good idea to study the history of the house.

2. What were my objectives?
There were two objectives:
- One was to put together the different events that have happened since 1849 to the present day.
- The other was to focus on the periods with very little or without published information.

Having stated [steitEt] my objectives…

3. How did I carry out the task?
I started my research by interviewing the owner of the house, who is an agriculture engineer and who provided me with general information about every important event in the house’s history: books, photographs, etc.

After those interviews, reading that information and discussing the subject with my tutor, I planned the bases of the project.

Then, my teacher and I, went to the archives [arkaivs] in Figueres, because we had to find some important information about Fortianell there.

Later, we had a meeting with the owners of the house in Fortianell. That allowed us to redirect [redairect] the project and situate the teacher in the scene of the events.

Following this, I interviewed some other people who gave me important information to complete my data.

(I’m going to talk about them in the next page, with the structure of my project.)

4. Structure and content
This is the result of my research, a project in four chapters:

Chapter one goes from 1849 to 1904, the second one goes from 1904 to 1936, the third one goes from 1936 to 1942 and chapter four goes from 1942 to the present day.

Chapter one is divided in two periods:
- The first one goes from 1849 to 1876. It starts with the transfer of the estate by the Estrada family and the opening of the first Agriculture college subsidized by “la Diputació de Girona”. It finishes with the moving of the college from Fortianell to Figueres.
- The second one goes from 1876 to 1904. It’s a dark period without any relevant information. Fortianell became deteriorated and there were tenants in the house.


 Chapter two includes two periods:
- The first one goes from 1904 to 1919. It starts with the arrival of an agricultural college from Limoux (France) which rented the estate to the Estrada family. That agriculture college was religious because it was from the “Germans de la Doctrina Cristiana de la Salle”.
o In that period I got information by interviewing Sr. Llovet, whose father was a pupil of that college.
- The other period goes from 1919 to 1936. In that part the agricultural college went to France, and Fortianell became a novitiate of La Salle.

 Chapter three goes from the beginning of the Civil War to 1942. In this part there are many important events like the expropriation of the house, the stay of Internacional Brigades and the using of the house as an arsenal for weapons.
- For that period I got much information by interviewing Hermano Guillermo, who was in the novitiate and who lived the tragic events before the Civil War in Fortianell. He also gave me information of the operation of the novitiate.

 Chapter four goes from 1942, when the Franco Regiment returns the estate to Estrada Family, to the present day.
Nowadays the estate is run by Sr. Josep Rahola Estrada and his two sisters. They have a company: Fortianell S.A.
- In that part I interviewed Sra. Emilia, who was a tenant of Fortianell.

5. Conclusions
I’ve divided the conclusions in two parts: the ones relating to the objectives and the others relating to my personal experience.

- Relating to the objectives: I actually found answers about social and educational role, both in the agriculture college as the novitiate. The agricultural college was leader in the level of Europe. Fortianell was also the scene of important history events I’ve had the opportunity to check it by my own.
- Relating to my personal experience: I want to highlight the learning staff referred to knowledge that I learned:
o The way to research/ the way of the research. How to omit information.
o That’s a different way to study.
o I’ve seen that I could follow looking for information.


To finish I want to say that I’ve enjoyed a lot doing that project and that I’m very happy with the result of working hard.