The useful websites that I found

BBC Learning English

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

When I prepared the IELTS this website was very useful because this website presents various listening files and script especially 6minutes English is very helpful to develop my listening skill.

New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/section/opinion

This particular website provides a number of journal articles regarding not only science and also social issues related science. I was happy to read some of articles and definitely it was helpful to develop my reading skill.

University of Toronto

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice

I’ve often visited the site since I’ve studied English in Canada. I’ve been learning writing skills such as a structure, organizing, using sources and so on form this web site.

NAVER – English dictionary

http://endic.naver.com/

This is one of my favorite web sites. This web based dictionary gives how a word actually is used in a newspaper or an article and also I can hear the pronunciation of word that I found. In addition, I can make my own vocabulary book and test if I remember by myself.

Time

http://www.time.com/time/

This website presents current issue, news and so on. I can learn how writers and editors analysis hot issues.

Reflection 3.

Three weeks passed! I only have two weeks left and the last week is actually the final exam week, so I need to finish every assignment given by next week. Fortunately, I finished discussions and goals and strategies and this reflection is my last one. However, I still have a lot of things to do such as the oral presentation, the vocabulary book which is more than half finished and preparing the final exam. I should have managed time properly, so that I can finish every assignment on time. In week 3, I also had the writing test. I had a enough time to read and think the given article and write an essay.  In comparison the IELTS, 90 minutes is enough time to finish one essay because only one hour is given to finish two writings in the IELTS. Even people do not know what sort of topic will be given. I have prepared the IELTS, so thought that this exam would be much easier than the IELTS. However, that was my misunderstanding. I failed to manage the time. I spent nearly one hour on writing the introduction and fist paragraph. Therefore, the rest of them are totally terrible, even I couldn’t finish the conclusion properly. On the other hand, I also think that this writing test is more likely practice and only accounting for 10% of whole marks, so I just learn something such as time management and preparation for writing from this test. I will fix mistakes that I made in the first test and I won’t have the same mistake again in the final exam. I also learnt about new writing task which is comparing and contrasting two articles in this week and it will be my final exam task. It was not too difficult because I already learnt how to think and write critically but the problem is that how I can finish this writing on time. I have the exactly same time that I had in the first exam. I definitely need a lot of practices. I have only two weeks left and I will do all my best during the two weeks in order to complete this course successfully.

Statistics (Discussion 3)

Statistics is obviously useful information and widely used in almost every field. In addition, due to developing technology, statistics becomes more accurate than ever before. However, when you read an article supported by statistics, you need to consider statistics critically because it can be intentionally translated to support the writer’s argument. For example, if writer has negative opinion about “G20 summit”, they might use a number of statistics that focuses on negative effects in order to support their idea. It is true that statistics does not tell a lie but there are a huge number of statistics which can be selected by what an author asserts.

The Impact of English on Economy (Discussion 2)

According to McGurn, English is the key role in the future success in Asian countries. I partially agree with his opinion. I do not know other Asian countries’ situation but the industrial structure of South Korea is highly depend on manufacturing and exporting goods such as vehicles, electronic and heavy industrial products. More importantly, the major buyer of those is the United States. So English is highly important in business area especially trade. It is common that if people want to get a job in Korean major companies such as Samsung, LG or Hyundai, people have to have high English test score like TOEIC. Not only manufacturing companies based on trade and also the financial service sector requires English skills because foreign investment has been dramatically increasing once Korea has fully opened the financial market and the foreign investment has become enormously important to support Korean economy. As you can see, for Korea, participating in globalization and learning English is not matter of choice. It is matter of survival. Every year, therefore, a lot of students go to overseas countries to learn English, which leads to significant deficit in the education trade. English already became an integral role to Korean economy as well as society before we think whether it is good or bad, so unfortunately it becomes a meaningless argument. It is time to find how to learn English without paying a lot of money. 

English and Australian Citizenship (1st Discussion)

I’ve read all the responses regarding the topic “English and Australian Citizenship”. Most of people disagree or partially agree with Azar’s idea but let’s see this way.

                  

Although there is no official language in Australia, English is commonly used. According to 2001 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for around 80% of the population, which means people who want to live Australia permanently need to speak English no matter where they are from, who they are in order to survive in Australia. Someone says Chinese chefs working in a Chinese restaurant don’t really have to learn English because they always use Chinese though they live in Australia. However, they may encounter many difficult situations. They need to contact Telecommunication Company to connect the Internet or home-phone, Australian schools to send their children. If an electric supplier sends an incorrect bill to them, how they are supposed to do that?  Do they call some who can speak both Chinese and English all the time? I know that Chinese community in Australia is huge but what about other language groups?

In addition, not only main applicants who applied the Australian permanent resident visa and also dependants are required the English test score such as the IELTS. If dependants cannot achieve the English score the government sets, they have to pay more than $4,000 for studying English while refuges are not require anything about the English test. This is also unfair. The more serious problem is the Australian government pays substantial amount money on teaching English to refugees. If the Australian government had selected some refugees who speaks basic English to communicate Australians, the government would have saved huge amount money.

Moreover, people who want to immigrate Australia need to understand and respect the culture, history and politics not only take economic benefits from the country. Becoming a citizen is becoming a member of Australian society, which means immigrants need to take a responsibility and duty for Australia such as the federal election. If people do not have any English skills, how people can select the right person. Therefore, I believe that people who intend to immigrate Australia need appropriate English skills.

Reflection 2.

This week is very hard for me because I had to work five days as well as do a lot of homework. I was so exhausted. Fortunately, however, I could finish all the homework that I had to finish. Another good thing is my presentation topic is approved, so I can research references and data sources. I already found some of articles regarding my topic, yet still have long way to go. Moreover, my topic is basically talking about the Korean situation, so it may be difficult to find data sources. Perhaps I need to translate some articles to English version if teachers allowed doing so. When I took the EAP course in Canada, I had a same problem but fortunately a teacher allowed translating Korean article to English version. I don’t know this time. I should ask Carla and Sara. It probably takes for a while to prepare the presentation, so I need to manage the time so that I won’t be in trouble. Unfortunately, I have not started making my own vocabulary book but I’ve already found very useful words that I’ve never known and added my web-based vocabulary book. I should start making the vocabulary note next week. The discussion is also one of tasks I did not start. There are a lot of things I have to finish, so I think the time management is the most important in E7. I will encounter this kind of situations in the University, so this course makes me organize time and tasks properly as well as English skills.

This week, I spent so much time on writing and reading based on critical thinking. I was confused about the difference between tone and language but now I fully understand the differences and how to read journals or articles based on critical thinking. I am going to have reading and writing exam next Wednesday, so hopefully my understanding will work well in the exam.

Reflection 1.

I’ve finished first week of E7. Before I took this course, I wondered what I can get here because I already successfully completed my diploma course in Australia and EAP course in Canada. So when the RMIT requires completing this course I was feeling bad. In fact, I could go some of universities such as Deakin or La Trobe without any English requirements but there is not the course I am willing to go. However, I found this course very useful before I go to the main stream. The reason behind is that the way of teaching English is different than I’ve had. When I studied English I usually focus on improving comprehension and understanding skills. In the reading, for example, comprehension was the most important than others. It didn’t really matter the article is biased, logical, reasonable, reliable or not. As long as I understand what the writer says, then that’s enough. Although I’ve finished my diploma course I also didn’t really had a chance to write critically because my course was the Engineering and Technology, so calculations, numerical things, understanding principles are much more important than a piece of writing. Probably the level of university requires more logical and academic writing even if the course is belong to engineering, science or medical field. So this is very good opportunity to guide my English into to more academic way.

It is always pleased to make new friends from other countries and culture. This is because that I can learn many things from different point view, so I can be more balanced and objective person or learner. For instant, I could learn about Islamic culture such as the Ramadan, Hallegh, and so on from my class mate, so I got some ideas about Muslims. Before I met him, I thought they are too different people from me and Islamic countries are dangerous but it is not. They are same like me just they have different religion and culture and even their country is great. Saudi Arabia government pays the tuition fee for student wherever they study. So I become more balanced.

The last thing I want to say is fortunately I have two wonderful teachers although they are pretty different in many ways. Carla is calm and caring and Sara is very energetic but both of them are keen to teach English to the students.

I really want to complete this course successfully as well as achieve many things that I set up.

What I'll do is .... part.4

Ok. I’ve set up goals to improve my English Skills. Then, how am I supposed to do to achieve my goals?
The following strategies should be answers.

1. Speaking

My goals are reducing grammatical errors, speaking more clearly and logically, improving my pronunciation and presentation skills.

Strategy 1)

I make more grammatical mistakes when I speak. It sometimes makes people confused. So I will try not to make grammar errors and

-  review my grammar book again.

-  do some oral practices.

Strategy 2)

Sometimes people couldn’t understand what I said because of my pronunciation or clarity. It is probably difficult to change my pronunciation in a short period but I believe if I practice a lot then my pronunciation will be better. I’ve heard that there is free pronunciation, so I’ll join the class if I can.

Strategy 3)

When I speak in English I sometime lose my pace and logics because I just focus on speaking English rather than story. I think the best way to improve this problem is speak in English as much as possible. Fortunately, most of my colleagues are Australian and Kiwi, so I’ll talk with them as much as I can.

Strategy 4)

I think logical thinking is one of the most important ways to improve my speaking. To improve my logical thinking, I’ll read a number of journals or articles and find out the logical flows.

Strategy 5)

Presentation skill becomes more and more important. Steve Jobs, CEO of apple became a very famous because of his well presentation and speech. However, good presentation needs a lot of efforts, so, first of all, I will listen lectures, speeches or presentations via the Internet or TV as much as I can then analyze how they speak or present in efficient way.

Strategy 6)

One of my problems in presentation was “eye-contact”. This was because I was too nervous and my preparation wasn’t good enough. I will have a presentation in the E7. This time, I will try to eye-contact all my classmates with a lot of practice and preparation. I will probably present in front of my family before I have actual presentation.

What I'll do is .... part.3

Ok. I’ve set up goals to improve my English Skills. Then, how am I supposed to do to achieve my goals?
The following strategies should be answers.

1. Listening
My goals are reducing grammatical errors, managing the time and increasing variety of expressions in academic writing.

Strategy 1) 
It is easy to make grammatical mistakes when I write, especially the article and preposition and tense are my weak point of grammar. So as I said before I will review my excellent grammar book again with focusing on my weak point.

Strategy 2)
I think this strategy is another good way of reducing grammatical mistakes. What that is once I finish my writing whatever it is, check all verb tenses, punctuations, articles and prepositions thoroughly. It will definitely reduce my grammatical errors.

Strategy 3)
Whenever I took the IELTS (I took IELTS 4times including general module) I was always having difficulty finishing writing on time. As a result, writing was always my lowest score in the IELTS. So what I’ll do is I’ll do the self test with a number of different topics.

Strategy 4)
Once I set writing plan such as strong argument, supporting ideas, backgrounds, and excreta, found that my writing became much better as well as reducing time spent. In other words, the brain storming is very import to write essay. So how can I develop that? Obviously, I need more general ideas and knowledge. It can be achieved by reading books, newspaper and watching documentaries, news and discussion with someone who has different ideas. Therefore, I will attempt to read and listen useful information as well as discuss with REW students through the discussion board.

Strategy 5)
It is important to use various structures and vocabularies in the academic writing. As you probably notice, my one of the worst habit in English is repetition because of lack of vocabularies and expressions. So I will try to avoid repetition and find out many synonyms, antonyms and different expression when I write.  

Strategy 6)
I think that paraphrasing practice is good to improve my vocabularies and expressions and more importantly, paraphrase is essential in the academic writing so I’ll try to do some paraphrasing practices by myself.

What I'll do is .... part.2

Ok. I’ve set up goals to improve my English Skills. Then, how am I supposed to do to achieve my goals?
The following strategies should be answers.

1. Listening
My goals are improvement of understanding of formal language and getting familiar with native speaker’s accent including British and American accents.
Getting familiar with various expressions from native speakers is also one of my listening goals.

Strategy 1) 
I found the website “BBC Learning English” when I studied IELTS by myself. Presenting various information, actual news and mp3 recordings, it helped me listening formal English. However, once I’ve done the IELTS, I’ve never visited the website again. So I will visit the website again, listen the news or the “6minutes English” and make some notes.

Strategy 2)
It is important to make a structure as I listen lecture style speaking or recordings because it can help me fully understand main ideas and key points in the lecture. I haven’t done a lot, so I will practice making a structure.

Strategy 3)
When I listened news in the BBC Learning English I was wondering how English speaking people can understand such a difficult and a complicated sentence. Even I couldn’t understand the script. I listened again and again then I got the answer. The answer was the intonation, the accent and the pause. They perform very important role to make people understand complicated sentences. So I’ll focus on these important things when I listen complicated and academic speeches or lectures.

Strategy 4)
When I talked with native English speakers I sometimes got confused or misunderstand what they were talking about because of the lenition. In particularly, when they speak faster the lenition become stronger. However, I found there are some kinds of rules of the lenition so I will have a look and practice about that.

Strategy 5)
The other reason why I got confused when I talked with English native speakers is they use various expressions. There are so many way to express same meaning in English. If I do not know various expressions, it is difficult to catch. Thus, whenever I add new words in my vocabulary book, I’ll also write synonyms, expressions and examples.

Strategy 6)
When I watch movies or news that are spoken in British or America accents I found it more difficult to follow them. English is global language so I’d like to understand no matter what kind of accent it is. Now, it is easy to access BBC CNN, Hollywood or British movies. So I will try to watch either CNN or BBC news couple of times a week.

What I'll do is.... part.1

Ok. I’ve set up goals to improve my English Skills. Then, how am I supposed to do to achieve my goals?
The following strategies should be answers.

1. Reading

  My goals are finding out key point or main idea in academic journals or articles quickly and to be more familiar with various issues.

Strategy 1)
 I will review my grammar book because grammar is very important to read articles or journals written in academic writing. When I read some academic journals I found it very difficult to understand even though I know all the words in a sentence. The reason behind that is I couldn’t perfectly understand grammatical structure in the sentence. So I looked through my grammar book and it was helpful to understand the sentence. Obviously it improved my reading skill more efficiently and accurately.

Strategy 2)
Although I surely understand what I read, I still need to catch an author’s main and supporting ideas. I also need to figure out whether it is useful information that I need or not more efficiently. So scanning and skimming is very important skills to improve my reading skill in terms of efficiency. So what I will do is borrow a number of journals from my local library then read quickly (15mins/journal but depends on how many words on it) and summarize main idea and supporting ideas.

Strategy 3)
When I read some journal articles, I found that if some topics such as smoking related to health or air pollution in developing countries are familiar and I already have information and knowledge about that then it is easy to follow the journals. However, some topics totally unfamiliar make me very difficult to understand what writer says about. So what I ‘m going to do is read various kinds of journals (There are heaps of journals out there) as much as I can and pick some words or terms frequently used in a certain field then I’ll write words on my vocabulary note.

Strategy 4)
In order to remember words or terms that I’ll find in journal articles, the best way is using them as much as possible. So I’ll try to use them when I write and speak.

Strategy 5)

An article I found from the Internet said Korean need to spend on studying English at least three hours everyday for 15years to reach the level of native English speaking people. It tells me that I need to study English more steadily. Thus I will attempt to read newspaper or news articles from the web everyday, which definitely helps my reading skills.

Strategy 6)

Now I am reading a novel which is titled “Code Zero”. When I read the novel I found so many useful words and expressions though they are not really academic. Therefore, I will finish reading the novel then try another one which is different genre so that I will get familiar with various topics.

What I want to achieve is ….

I’d like to improve my English skills, in particularly academic English so that I won’t be in a trouble regarding English in the University next year. Probably this 5weeks course shouldn’t be long enough to increase my academic English dramatically, so I need to study and practice as much as I can before go to the University. Therefore, I’ve set up goals to enhance my English skills.

Reading

-         find out key point or main idea in academic journals or articles quickly

(efficient reader)

-         to be more familiar with various issues (eg. economy, science, environment, politics. etc)

Listening

-         improve understanding of formal language

-         get familiar with native speaker’s accent including British and American accents
-         get familiar with various expression from native speakers

Writing

-         reduce grammatical errors as much as I can

-         manage the time when I write

-         increase a number of different way of expression in academic writing

Speaking

-         reduce grammatical errors as much as I can

-         speak more clearly,logically and accurately

-         improve my pronunciation

-         improve presentation skills

What kind of learner am I ?

Visual learners

Visual learners attend to information most effectively when they see something, for example, pictures, diagrams, films and videos or demonstrations. Check to see if some of the following characteristics may apply to you.

Behaviours/ characteristics of visual learners:

• Remember what they see rather than what they hear
• Remember diagrams and pictures
• Prefer to read and write rather than listen
• Have trouble remembering verbal instructions
• Need an overall view and purpose before beginning a project
• Like art more than music
• Sometimes tune out when trying to pay attention

Study hints for visual learners:

• Take written notes in lectures & class
• Use colours to highlight important points
• Pay attention to diagrams, charts and pictures in text books
• Use mindmaps ( with colours & diagrams) to organise information for an assignment or for revision for an exam.
• Put summaries and mindmaps on the walls in your study area
• Use a wall planner.