END-OF-TERM SELF-ASSESSMENT

The learning of ESP has come to an end. This term was the last one for me and, I think, the best. Three terms of learning ESP gave a lot of knowledge and experience and I‘m very happy to evaluate my performance for the last time.

• Writing (a summary)
This task is the hardest for me. I do not feel very self-confident about it and it will be the most terrifying part of the exam for me. I think it is because we weren‘t writing this term a lot of summaries and I even forgot some things. However, I think that I won‘t perform very badly during the exam if I‘ll revise before it.

• Performance in ESP vocabulary tests
At the beginning of the first term I was afraid of this task. I couldn‘t understand how it is possible to memorize all definitions from the module. However, during the second term I already understood the system and it became easier for me. This term ESP vocabulary tests were absolutely easy for me also because of the new concept – they included not only definitions but also tasks of multiple choices and open-ended questions.

• Performance in class dictations
I think that class dictations are very beneficial for students because in this way they can improve not only their listening but the writing as well. I really enjoyed this task especially for the better and better results each time :)

• Listening to peer‘s Power Point presentations
I think that this term I was paying the greatest attention to peers‘ presentations because I was interested not only in the presentation but in the information in it as well. I was trying to memorize the main points of the topic because you may never know what topic you should be talking on in the future.

• Making Power Point presentation
This term a worked really hard on my Power Point presentation. I wanted to do the best presentation of all my presentations and I think I succeeded. I was always interested in the depression thus I chosen the topic about it, found a lot of information and presented it to my class friends. I also think that this presentation was the most serious because it was concentrated only on the important information without popular myths or nice pictures.

• Short talks on ESP themes in class
During the first term I was really afraid of speaking in front of the class or without preparation. This term I was absolutely relaxed, sometimes I didn‘t even need special preparation or long-lasting learning of the text. I think I finally realized that no one is perfect and it is O.K. to make some mistakes while talking. In this way I lost all my fears and now I can speak paying all my attention to the topic not to the words.

To sum up, ESP course was really beneficial to me and I do feel my improvement. These studies helped me to understand that English language is not only grammar or speaking and there‘s always something you can make better.

Your True Colours

Summary

The influence of color affects people very strongly. Persons who work in marketing range realize this fact and try to use it as much as possible to influence other people.

The preference of color often depends on the cultural custom. People in different countries may not think about the same color as attractive. British prefer green apples, Americans like red. French eat grey tined peas and beans, British do not. However, the psychology of colors is not only what people like or dislike.
The researcher John Ott has discovered that colors affect human nervous system. Experiments have shown that blood pressure may be affected by the color of surroundings. Red color increase energy and hunger, raise the blood pressure. Blue color decrease blood pressure, evokes tranquility and relaxation.
Food companies such as McDonald’s use psychology of colors by creating an atmosphere in which the appetite grows and people feel being in a hurry. Other companies select specific packets for products to make people think the product is more powerful or better.

In conclusion, the psychology of colors is one of the most popular ways to attract and influence other people to do or to buy something. Many companies use it and it is easy to notice this fact in everyday life.




Pictures have been taken from:
www.hometips.com/home_decorating_furnishings.html
http://www.masterstrokecanada.com/dressmakerdetails/weblog/2008_07_01_archive.html

SELF-ASSESSMENT ON PODCASTING SKILLS

Listening task is one of compulsory in our English exam. Therefore, it is very important to improve it during our learning years as good as we can.
This time we had an opportunity to improve our listening by hearing to podcasts at http://martinmcmorrow.podomatic.com
I selected recordings called „Measuring sleep“ and „Depression and features“

THE RATE OF SPEAKING

The rate of speaking in recordings was average. It easy quite easy to understand speakers, despite the fact, that they are from Australia and have some kind of accent.

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU LISTENED TO SELECTED PODCASTS?

I‘ve listened both podcasts only once because recordings were long, quite easy and there weren‘t correct answers after exercises. However, I think that in listening task it‘s good to listen twice or three times because at first you have to understand recording in general, then you search for correct answers and finally you must check them.

WHICH EXERCISES ARE USEFUL FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS?
I think that all exercises are very useful, including open-ended questions, multiple choice, and True/False. The easiest, in my opinion, is True/False, but the most interesting for me is open-ended questions because in this task you can improve your sense of language as well as listening skills.

HOW DO YOU EVALUATE YOUR ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND AUTHENTIC SPEECH?

I can understand authentic speech quite good, however, I would like to improve it better because sometimes, when the speech is very specific or the speaker has strong accent or speaks very fast i cannot understand everything and have to listen one more time.

DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO PASS A LISTENING EXAM PAPER IF YOU HAD TO TAKE AN EXAM TODAY?

In my opinion, I had quite enough practice in listening during all years I‘ve been learning English and I would be able to pass a listening exam paper. However, I don‘t think my results would be very good, therefore, i would like to have more listening practice and get the highest evaluation from this task.

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE YOUR LISTENING SKILLS?

There are many ways to improve listening skills. The best, in my opinion, are to talk to native speakers and watch English films on TV. Recently I‘ve been watching English TV series, films and shows every day and I realise that I can understand everything better and better every day.

To sum up, If we want to reach great results in listening task during our English exam, we have to put a lot of efforts, because only practice makes perfect.

http://conorbyrne.wordpress.com/2009/02/

Phobias

Phobia is a persistent irrational fear of an object, situation, or activity that the person feels compelled to avoid. There are many different phobias, such as claustrophobia, scotophobia, dentophobia and others. People who suffer from phobias feel panic, horror, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling and can take extreme measures to avoid the feared situation or an object.

Coulrophobia (Fear of clowns)

Despite the fact, that clowns are believed to be the reason of laughter, sometimes they might be very frightening, especially for those who have coulrophobia. Symptoms can range from high anxiety to outright panic attacks around people in clown outfits. The cause of this fear is usually psychological – it can be a traumatic event I the childhood, a very scary movie about clowns, etc. It is known that a movie star, actor Johnny Depp has this fear of clowns – coulrophobia.

Siderodromophobia (Fear of trains, railroads or train travel)

People who have this fear may feel panic only if they think about traveling by train or just imagine it in their minds. The view of the coming train may raise their blood pressure, make heart beat faster and cause other symptoms of the real fear. Austrian Physician Sigmund Freud had siderodromophobia, despite the fact that he had been traveling by train very often.

Why?

The first reason, why people have phobias, is traumatic events. It is obvious that negative experiences can influence the latest fear.
The second reason may be cultural influence. F. ex, there is a kind phobia called taijin kyofusho, which occurs only in Japan. It is the fear of offending other persons by an excess of modesty or showing respect.
Many psychologists believe the cause lies in a combination of genetic predisposition mixed with environmental and social causes. It has been demonstrated that identical twins may develop the same type of phobia, even when they were reared separately soon after birth, and educated in different places.

Treatment

One of the most successful treatments is behavior therapy. In this therapy, a person who suffers a phobia meets with a trained therapist, confronts the feared object or situation in a carefully planned way, and learns to control physical reactions of fear.
Hypnosis can also set a person free of phobias. Posthypnotic suggestions can help him control his reaction – breathing, slow his heart rate, and achieve a relaxed state of mind.
Medications may also be used to control the panic. Drugs such as Xanax, Valium, Prozac or Zoloft may be prescribed for people who suffer agoraphobia or other social phobias. However, it helps to control only physical aspects but do not remove the fear.






http://www.way2hope.org/Illnesses/coulrophobia-fear-clowns.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/siderodromophobia-1
http://allpsych.com/journal/phobias.html
http://www.leinsterhypnotherapyclinic.ie/phobias-anxiety.html
http://www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/phobias.htm
http://www.nvdaily.com/lifestyle/2009/03/overcoming-fear.html

END-OF-TERM SELF-ASSESSMENT

Learning is a process that never stops. It is easier to notice your progress when you separate your learning time into some parts. I’ve already written about my self-assessment some time earlier where I was talking about my progress during the first term. Now, when the second term is already finished, I’m going to write about my progress during it.


• Writing (a summary)

In this term, we didn’t write as many summaries as in the first one. More than that, this term we have been writing the other type of summary, called restatement summary. At first, I found it difficult to write because I was got used to analytical summaries. Nevertheless, after getting some practice now I don’t have any problems in writing both types of summary.

• Performance in ESP vocabulary tests

In the previous term, this aspect was the least pleasant for me. I understood that I have to change my learning strategy and I did it. I was trying to rewrite definitions just right after reading the module. It helped me to think about the most important words and learn using them during my English-classes. Therefore, now I find ESP vocabulary tests easier than before.

• Performance in class dictations

This task was new for me. After the first dictation I was little bit confused because my results were awful. I made many grammar and punctuation mistakes. However, the second dictation was easier because I’ve already knew what to expect and what kind of mistakes I should avoid. More than tat, the first dictation was about the law, thus specific words were unknown for me. The second one was about suicides, this topic is more familiar to my specialty. The results had shown that the second performance was really better.

• Listening practice in class

In the first term, I felt lack of this task. In this term was enough listening practice. However, I still make mistakes. Nevertheless, now I know when and how I should pay attention while listening. I believe, that during the third term I’ll reach results that I want to.

• Listening to peers’ Power Point presentations

Watch and listen to Power Point presentations that are made by others is important because then we get a lot of new information, improve our knowledge and may help presenter by giving some comments after his presentation. However, this task isn’t very interesting for me, thus I have to try very hard not to pay my attention to other things.


• Making Power Point presentation

This task is still the best for me. It is the most creative and sometimes I think I would rather do presentations every week than writing summaries. Of course, it depends on the topic. This term the topic of my Power Point presentation was very interesting for me and I enjoyed preparing for it.

• Short talks on ESP themes in class

This task became so easy for me that I even do not notice it as real task. I think I’ve already remove my fear to talk in foreign language and this is the reason why it is easier for me now.


To sum up, this term was easier for me than the previous one because I’ve finally understood the system of this subject, my mistakes and gain more confidence.




http://www.sterling.edu/content/library-studying-the-stacks
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008_09_21_archive.html

Professor Richard Wiseman and his researches

Richard Wiseman is a professor of the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. He had made many researches in different psychology areas, such as humour, luck, deception and paranormal. Professor Wiseman is well known all over the world for his researches and popular book called “The Luck Factor”.

Despite the fact, that usually people talk about Professor Wiseman while speaking about luck or minds of human kind, the most interesting topic for me is paranormal. I know many psychology students who believe in magic, ghosts and things like that, thus it was very interesting for me to explore what do professionals think about that.

Professor Richard Wiseman investigated many people who had claimed they could do magic things, f.ex, materialize objects in their bare hands. The experiment had shown that no one could do some kind of magical trick under controlled conditions.

Professor Wiseman has examined why do people feel strange feelings in places where ghosts are believed to appear. The professor with his team visited places such as Hampton Court Palace and the Edinburgh Vaults. Some people claim they have experienced apparitions, unusual odours, sudden changes in temperature and a sense of presence there. After the research, Professor Wiseman came to conclusion that people may feel strange in places like these because of magnetic fields, infrasound, and various psychological factors such as prior knowing that you may feel presence and becoming anxious when entering these areas.

In conclusion, it is very good that people from the ‘world of science’, like Professor Wiseman, still care about unusual situations in people lives and try to find answers to questions that interest many of us. This is why we should always try to examine what do professionals say about things we are interested in before making our own decisions.

References: http://www.richardwiseman.com/index.html

Learning Languages

There are from 3,000 to 8,000 different languages all over the world. Some of them are more common, some are less. The popularity depends on how many speakers do they have and how often they are being used in business, cultural work and how easy they are to learn for non-native speakers. However, learning foreign languages have the same strategies. In includes speaking, listening, reading and writing.

The most important aspects, in my opinion, are speaking and listening. Even native speakers start learning their own language not from grammar but from listening, learning how to pronounce different sounds, how to say most common words and then join them into sentences. The same strategies should be used learning foreign language. It is important to find differences in pronunciation of letters and words. F.ex., if someone wants to learn Finnish language, he has to know that unusual sound may the ‘y’, which is a 'front-u', the same as 'u' in French, etc. It is easier to understand language better when you are using it. All people who go abroad and live there for a while can understand language better because they always hear it and have to talk with natives in their language. If there is no opportunity to go into the country where people talk in language you want to learn other possibility is listening to the music with words of that language or find a friend from there you can sometimes talk to even using phone, Skype, MSG and so on.

Reading is other very important aspect of learning language. In this way, you can learn many new words and have their visual images in your mind. It can also help you when you go abroad and have to find streets or buildings, filling some document, etc. Usually reading is being associated with writing. However, it is possible to communicate with people from other countries in their languages even when you do not know the grammar of them.

I always remember one common proverb my first English teacher said to me long time ago - practice makes perfect. No matter how many books do you have or how long you have been dreaming about some language. The most important thing is use it in your life as frequent as possible.



References: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/finnish.html
http://www.ling.gu.se/projekt/sprakfrageladan/english/sprakfakta/eng-sprak-i-varlden.html