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Daniela Tene Universidad de Investigación de Tecnología Experimental Hda. San José y Proyecto Yachay Imbabura, Ecuador
July 25,2016
Dear Portfolio Reader,
My name is Daniela Tene, I am a student of the English language program level 6 in Yachay Tech. Firstly, thank you for taking your tame and read this portfolio, what you will read below is the collection of all my work (essays) that I have made during the English program. You will realize that is a hard work in which I put a lot effort to give the best of me. Thanks for reading and I hope that you enjoy read it. At the beginning of this course I feel that I don’t fit in that course, maybe because I thought that was to advance for me or because I had gaps and sometimes I didn’t understand. For example, there was a video at the beginning of the course and I could say that as much I understand was the 60%. As you realized this percentage is not enough to answer questions or to discuss about the theme. I hope that this improve with this English program, with the time I accustomed my skill of hearing with more videos, conversation with classmates, and listening the funny and academic speeches of my teacher. All these works taught me something new and helped me to improve skills which were not my strength, likewise, experiences in the classroom and the activities we were doing. Throughout the period of this level of English we focus on 5 essays, which were 5 types of
different essays of which I learned specific things. For example, the first essay was a response essay in which he had to respond to an article. As was the first essay we did, I learned the structure and specific parts that had to have this structure, as in the introduction: the hook, background and most important of the essay the thesis statement, finally I learned that it is a thesis statement thesis and learned how formulate. In the second essay I learned the ability to research, look for good reference sources and strengthened my knowledge of the first essay. The third essay was a group work in which each member was to give his perspective on what was interpreted, here I was working with a more critical thought and was also interesting because I worked with my classmates together and all contributed and helped each other either with the grammar or anything else. The penultimate essay was done in classes, what was more worried in this essay was the grammar and vocabulary, but the teacher's comments in the review of this essay were good, and take into account corrections of grammar and spelling. Classroom activities such as group work or peer review were a new technique in which I had participated. My favorite was peer review, this activity was to correct the work of my classmates, give advice, make them good comments etc. and my classmates did the same things with my work. Each person has a different perspective, and sometimes when you do the job and read several times, thinks that is right and we are not aware of the mistakes we make. It is easier to have someone else to see those mistakes and correct you or for example when I was not sure about my thesis but this activity with your partner he wrote “great thesis statement" or when I think that a paragraph is fine and actually I need to improve it.
I could say that, with all these woks my growth as an English user had develop a lot, the activities, essay, presentations give me the confidence for succeed in the next steps as an English user. Sincerely,
Daniela Tene
Language contains the knowledge of a culture Daniela Tene Yachay Tech April, 29 2016
Language contains the knowledge of a culture
“Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human” (Boroditsky, 2016). I can’t imagine a life without language. In fact, may it be possible to live without language? It is one of the points that shows us the article written by Lera Boroditsky in which mentions that language is so fundamental to our experience and it forms all the part to be humans. The language shapes our thoughts and that is a part of being humans. In which includes the culture, and if the difference cultural is remarkable the language will influence the way we normally think. There are a lot of language in all the world, thousands of thousand, and clearly each language has their own culture, vocabulary and grammatical structure. We cannot think in the same way if we speak German than if we speak Spanish because the culture is different and the way we think is going to change. I am agreeing with this, because when we learn a new language you are not only learning the words, vocabulary, the grammatically structure, also you are learning the way that the speakers from that language think. In the case of Spanish and Germans speakers. The author of the article shows us the difference between the genders and how we can describe a thing depending of the gender of that thing. The gender change in some things if we speak another language. In Spanish, the things that the gender is feminine, we describe like beautiful, pretty, elegant or fragile. For example, if we talk about a key. Describing a key, that is a masculine word in German speakers probably used words like heavy, jagged…
Learn other language makes us think different from our native language depending of the culture. For example, Spanish speakers and English speakers have a similar culture, so when I speak any of both, my way of think does not change much. However, in the article which compares two languages of different cultures, the difference is remarkable. The study made by the author gives us the example of an aboriginal community that talk about the space using cardinal directions terms. Big difference to Spanish or English speakers that normally use words like “left” or “right” instead of “east” and “west”. Domination space and navigation is not a thing that most of the Spanish or English people have, because we normally use our body for location one of the example in the article “Move the cup a little bit to the right”. Surely for Spanish speaker including me sounds rare to hear or difficult to said “Move the cup north northwest” because we are not in special terms cardinally located. An own experience was in classroom we were ask to point to south, and all the students point to different directions because it was not something that we automatically know. It cost us much think about it. If we ask this to the aboriginal community surely most of the people will know where is the south, north, east, and west, because their languages require to be oriented just in order to speak properly. This article shows us that learn other languages can change the way we think. She described how languages shape the way we think about space, color, objects and time. In this essay I just mention two of them It is a good article that have many examples or evidence that make the information more understandable. In my personal experience I can’t say that learn other language make me think different because the cultural difference between English and Spanish is not much. However, learning a language which the culture difference is a big, maybe the way we think going to change a little bit. So finally, I can say
that nobody sees the world as it actually is, on the contrary all see the world from our own perspective under the principles of our culture.
Reference Boroditsky, L. (2 de April de 2016). Edge. Obtenido de Edge: https://www.edge.org/conversation/how-does-our-language-shape-the-way-wethink
Can we change the current educational system? Daniela Tene Yachay Tech May, 20 2016
Can we change the current educational system? Nowadays the educational system has a lot of disadvantages. That is because governments have failed to correctly manage schools, universities and institutes. The educational system is unequal although the last governments have improved this in a minimal scale, but it still persists in some educational institutions. Inequality is the main problem that students with not enough resources have. Education should be a right not a luxury that only rich people have. However, there are also others problems that all the students have, for example, education begins to standardize. Education becomes a tool for earn money, that lowers the quality of learning. Every person that wants to study should have the opportunity that allows him/her to access an education considered the best for her/him. Inequality is a problem because while a minority of people have access to high quality education, a great majority have low quality education or none at all. Even if this seems “equal�, it is not, since not everybody can access to it, and if they do, sometimes they are taught to be like the rest. Great ideas that could change the world may be hidden in the minds of people who don`t have the opportunity to receive formal education and are forced to work to live and support their families. The problem of inequality in education became worse when it started to be standardized. All people should learn the same and on the same way. Educator does not realize that each person has their own way to learn, and because of that learning becomes easier. It could say that this is one thing that educators do not realize. Some of the educators
just work for a salary and not because they like it. They don’t have the vocation to teach, then a topic that is interesting, they taught in a boring way. (DarlingHammond, 1998) However, there are new ideas and methods to solve this issue. One example of this are the ideas of sir Ken Robinson, English author, speaker and international advisor on education. He argues that the educational system is not perfect and it can be developed. Actual education kills creativity and focuses on things like Math or Physics instead of personal development and makes people think that the only possible way to reach success is through formal education. (Robinson, 2010) Another good example is intercultural education. It is a kind of education that combines indigenous knowledge and actual science to reach development through unity. It solves the problem of inequality because more people can access this kind of education and also creates friendship bonds between people of different cultures. It promotes equality and human rights and challenges unfair discrimination. (Leeman, 2005) A new method to solve the problem of inequality in education could be the investment of more money on creating schools where more people can have access to. Also, scholarships should be given on time to students already receiving superior education, and new ones should be offered. New areas of study need to be explored and developed, and resources on already existing institutions need to be improved. In conclusion, inequality is a major problem in education, because only a few people have access to it, while the majority don`t. It began when education became standardized. However, people like sir Ken Robinson are trying to solve this problem, and new kinds of education are being developed. Finally, money should be invested more on
education, so it can be developed. When true equality on education is reached, the society will know a new era of investigation.
References DarlingHammond, L. (1998). Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education. Brookings Institution, 7. Robinson, K. (14 de October de 2010). Changing Paradigms. Obtenido de https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Leeman, Y., & Ledoux, G. (2005). Teachers on intercultural education. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 11(6), 575-589.
Interpretation Essay The Scream by Edvard Munch Jordan Montenegro, Ray Romero y Daniela Tene Level 6 - 004 June,17 2016
The Scream By Edvard Munch
"Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul. "
The Scream is a work painted by Edvard Munch (1863-1944), it is a work that originated through the traumas remain in the author's head for all the misfortunes that had to suffer. After having created the best work of his career, he Munches himself said "Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and followed me throughout my life." The Scream is a painting which reflects the feelings of the author; this painting involve us in a distressing, despair and sadness environment such as the moment experienced by the author. To get a better understanding of this painting, we will divide it in two parts: the path with the vallas and the lake with the land and the red sky. In the first part, there is an almost human been in a path, with fence; in the background of the path there are two silhouettes which are walking go away from the person which is screaming. The person screaming with his hands supporting his heads, represents the moment
in which the author felt anguish and despair and caused by that moment and the memory of the sadness life that he had. The two silhouettes which are in the background are they friends. They were walking on the path, when Edvard Munch stopped to appreciate the landscape, especially intense and red sky. Suddenly, he felt despair, anguish and sadness. After that, he wanted to express that feeling but without use words, so he decides to make this famous painting (Sooke,2016).
"I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature." (Edward Munch, 1893) Edward Munch was so inspirited by this scene that want to reflect those feelings on a canvas. The scene of The Scream was based on a real, actual place located in Norway. In
the background of the painting we can see the landscape where the scene of the scream unfolded. A fund that contains the landscape of Oslo at that time, where it is possible to distinguish: the sky, the lake and the mountains.
The colors used in the background of the painting are a combination of warm and cool colors. A soft touches of colors: orange, red and yellow to portray the sky and lake. These colors were used to show the sunset that the author of the painting witnessed at that time. These colors can have different perspectives, in the painting the color red can be interpreted as “blood”, which could mean “the blood of the nature”. The author wanted to painted with this colors to represent the anguish and despair that he felt upon hearing the infinite scream of nature. The cool colors were used to represent the frivolity and the enormous void that can exist in the author's soul for a memory of the sadness life that he had. In the background of the panting are a minimum and simple forms in order to represent the maximums expressiveness. In conclusion, “the scream” is one of the most important artistic works of all human history. This work changed the perception of painting and opened a new path to later painters
of his time. Before coming to light this work of Edvard Munch, listen to a painting seemed only a fairy tale, but his work changed all standards embodied in painting art. This mix of colors and shapes mean a breakthrough in seeking artistic works evoke feelings in the depths of the soul of his audience and awakens a range of fantastic feelings that only a work of this kind can awaken in humans.
References Edvard Munch.org. (2011). Edvard Munch. Retrieved from Edvard Munch, paintings, biography and quotes: http://www.edvardmunch.org/link.jsp Sooke, A. (2016). What is the meaning of the scream. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160303-what-is-the-meaning-of-thescream.[17,06,2016]
Should censorship be practiced in schools? Daniela Tene Yachay Tech June, 23 2016
Should censorship be practiced in schools? Have you ever imagined that your children, learn or see content that is not correct for their age, or can you imagine that teachers taught an inappropriate content in a class? Censorship is defined as the blocking, forbidding or limiting access to information for whatever reason (Petress). This reason can be age, content, images, video, words that are inappropriate to teach in class, decisions of the parents and the community and many others reasons. A school is a place where kids learn and practice values. Values that maybe were taught in home, and in the majority of the cases are good values. Without censorship a lot of inappropriate information would be exposed to the students and maybe their values will be corrupted, and therefore, censorship should be practiced in schools. Censorship helps the schools to protect students. In many schools the blocking access to information protect the students to learn false information or to look inappropriate information for whatever situation. This information could be harmful for a student. Many examples of this is content that is related with drugs or alcohol. Some information incites to the students to tried this. Other examples could be the images that are not allow for their frightening or inciting content. Also censorship protect the students of offensive content, to the students who read or see and to their classmates or people around the person who saw the content. A specific example of this is when a student read information about racism, an information written by a racist person. What do we hope that the student learns? Probably he will learn to be a racist person, and maybe the treat with their classmates will not be the same. Censorship help to the parents and schools’ members to protect the most important part in the education, students.
Education in the schools will be better if we practice censorship. In the class, many teachers use like a tool, books, web pages, magazines, articles, etc. But what will happen if all the content in those tools is a bad content. Students in classrooms depends of the teacher, they learn from his teacher. However, if the teacher uses inappropriate content to teach his class, students probably will learn bad things and those things will be reflected in their behavior. If this inappropriate information is allowed in the schools, the education will be affected in many ways. The content that students learn have to be a specific and selected content in order to improve the education. Teaches have to review before class, what he will show to the students, and look for information that will be necessary to learn. However, some people argue that censorship could destroy the curiosity on the students. Curiosity is important in the process of learning because it allows students to be more critical, to think more and to prepare reasoned arguments for a topic. In education, curiosity is essential because the skills of investigation, develop with this. Students develop the creativity and other skills if they have the facility to look for information. Curiosity is important in the education, but in the process of investigation they could find inappropriate information, maybe they could find harmful information that could corrupt their values. Maybe in this process of investigation the ability of curiosity is develop but with a wrong or false information. Young students maybe can find images or content that is prohibit for their ages. Censorship does not destroy the curiosity in the students, it promotes the curiosity but with the correct and appropriate information, also there are many types of censorship that, for example, only limit information that is harmful, that limit content that is prohibit to students in a specific age. etc.
In conclusion, censorship helps parents and school’s members to protect students of many kinds of bad information and the danger that this information brings if student read or see. Preserve the good values that students have, and protect the process of investigation of the students. Schools should practice censorship in the schools, but could be better if they practice a specific censorship adapted to their situations.
Reference Petress, K. (s.f.). The Role of Censorship in School. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 248-253.
What the best educational systems are doing right? Daniela Tene Yachay Tech July 08, 2016
What the best educational systems are doing right? Nowadays, education is an aspect that concerns many countries because it is supposed that in the future education can be fruitful and with the education we can be successful in the life. This assumption has become very important to the governments so much so that some countries had decided to change their educational system, having success and with very good results. However, there are countries that cannot change their educational system either because some governments have failed to correctly manage their system, or because they don’t know how to change and make their educational system better. One example of this is Ecuadorian´s education system where the government had put a lot of emphasis on education but remains be one of the lowest education system on the rankings. So, to change a bad educational system, we can join some good characteristics that the best education systems are doing to implement, this can be reflected like the imitation of other good educational systems around the world, will help to improve the bad educational systems. Education it is not good in all the world. There are around 194 countries and each country has their own education system we are talking about 194 different education system and almost the 5% of this countries are considered to have the best education system or and education system that works (CIEB, 2015). But why the majority of the countries have a bad educational system? There are a lot of factors that make an education system become bad. One of this is that governments have failed to correctly manage education. Governments administrate the economy of a country and they are responsible on the investment that have more importance in a country as is it the education. Some things that
have in common bad education systems are: parents are not involve enough, classrooms are overcrowded, bad teachers, there is not innovation and creativity. The opposite of these characteristics are essential things that can build a good educational system. For example, actual education kills creativity and focuses on things like Math or Physics instead of personal development and makes people think that the only possible way to reach success is through formal education. (Robinson, 2010). Sir Ken Robinson, English author, speaker and international advisor on education argues that the creativity is so fundamental in the process of student´s education because it helps students to have a critical thinking and an open mind. Education become standardized. There is a test of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) where many countries participate. This test evaluated the students, professor and therefore the educational system in order to know which country have the best educational system. This test evaluates three main areas: mathematics, science and reading. (PISA, 2012) The majority of the countries focus on the areas evaluate in this test to change the education system, improving these three main areas and sometimes forgetting some others areas. Here is where the education become standardize and sometime to be similar. Science, mathematics and reading are important areas that a student must improve and in which a student must develop. However, there are other skills that many of the countries that have poor education systems have not realized, and the countries with the best education systems have been able to see and use it to take advantage of it. There are good education systems that can be a model for others. A way to improve and change an education system is to fallow the steps that the best education systems had
already done which have led them to have good results. But what exactly these good education systems are doing right? There are some characteristic that the governments to the best education system had change in order to improve their system. These governments have put much emphasis on the education of their countries with investments and, with radical changes in its education system. A good educational system based on a few things, for example: the student must learn to develop their thinking either a logical or critical thinking, using the skills or tools that best suit, teachers more than anything, have to be mentors, the teacher guides the students in the process of education however the student is to be educated by himself. There are a lot of characteristics that good education systems have. The top ten of the best educational system: Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Shanghai-China, Singapore and Taiwan. (CIEB, 2015). These countries have a lot of similarities in their education system, but many difference too, for example Finland and South Korea. The top ten of countries with the best education systems have become the best with particulars changes that have improve their system significantly with these ten countries we have ten different models of education system. Finland shows that it is possible a radical change in the educational system. These two countries have changed their education system from the lowest to the top of the best educational systems. In the case of Finland, after Second World War Finland was a country where the agriculture predominates and where it was most of the economy. While Finland was forced to completely re-think its economic strategy and the education becomes the solution. The education system underwent to news reforms of learning and teaching. Reforms like the creation of a unified comprehensive education structure, professionals had long been trained, improve the quality of the Finnish teaching force. Mathematics, science
and technology all took on greater importance in Finnish and also the order thinking skills like problem-solving, teamwork, creativity and interdisciplinary studies. (CIEB, 2015) Finland´s educational system is a different model. The resounding success over the last decade in its application, has placed from 2000 to 2009 in first place in the PISA Report. And he has deserved become the object of study by educational leaders from many countries, in addition to reap numerous awards globally. (The Finland Phenomenon). Not all the countries have enough money or the required economic position to change the current educational system that they have. As well as education is different in each country, the economy certainly is too. This separates the large industrial countries with a very high economy and the Third World countries with very low economy. The economic difference between some countries is very large. Noting a difference in the educational system through economic investments that governments of rich countries have done and investments that cannot do those countries that do not have sufficient economic resources. Change the educational system of a country, it does not implied money. It is true that a few educational systems use the key of technology to improve their educational system, or change the infrastructure of the classrooms, but technology or better classrooms means good education? Or money always mean good education? We have many examples of good educational systems which we can imitate to improve ours. One of them it is Finland´s educational system which it based in put a lot effort on the primary levels, on the methods of the teachers, etc. This educational system does not invest a lot of money to change. It is start with a little changes and then begin to
improve in a notable way. The results of these changes take time, but then were reflected in a fruitful way. With the resources achieved in the first years of the changes, they could improve tools for a better learning. (The Finland Phenomenon) But money not mean good education. There are countries with enough money to change the educational system in order to be better. But they think that the key of a good change in the education it is the money. These countries implement a lot of money in tools, for students, big classrooms, etc. But the really thing it is that they don’t know how to use it, and they don’t realize that money does not make good education, as Malcom X said “And just because you have colleges and universities doesn’t mean you have education” (MalcomX, 1965) In conclusion, there are bad educational systems in countries either because of mismanagement of governments in the aspect of education or the fact that there are third world countries with insufficient economic resources, or simply because governments not see education as something important or fruitful to invest in it or maybe like in many cases an education system with a failed intent to change or to improve, only because they do not find a way to make it better. But the reality is that nowadays we have examples of good education system that are been successful and fruitful one of this is the education system of Finland that many years ago implied and change new things in the education system and currently make a one of the best education system in the world. The imitation of good educational system will help to improve some bad education systems. There are a lot of things that countries are doing right with their educational system and if we take those
things and implied to a bad education system, this education system will be a new and better education system and maybe become one of the best.
References CIEB. (2015). The Center on International Education Benchmarking. Retrieved from The Center on International Education Benchmarking: http://www.ncee.org/programsaffiliates/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/comparative-data-fortop-performing-countries/ MalcomX. (1965). AutobiografĂa de Malcolm X. PISA. (2012). OECD. Retrieved from OECD: https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa2012-results-overview.pdf Robinson, K. (2010, October 14). Changing Paradigms. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U The Finland Phenomenon. (n.d.).