A TRAVEL REQUIRED TO GET NEW ADVENTURES.
DIEGO H. SUNTAXI DOMÍNGUEZ ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM LEVEL 6 YACHAY TECH, ECUADOR
A TRAVEL REQUIRED TO GET NEW ADVENTURES. BY
DIEGO H. SUNTAXI
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM YACHAY TECH LEVEL 6 009 TEACHER: JOSEPHINE JAVENS
JANUARY 10, 2017 IMBABURA, ECUADOR
TABLE OF CONTENTS PORTFOLIO LETTER RESPONSE ESSAY LITERARY ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION ESSAY FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT ESSAY THANK YOU LETTER
PORTFOLIO LETTER
Diego Suntaxi
Universidad Yachay Tech
Imbabura, Ecuador
December 9, 2016
Dear Portfolio Reader:
A winner is the person who grow with every fail. For the person who is reading this portfolio I want to say thank you to take your time and read my work as an English language user. My name is Diego Suntaxi, and I made this portfolio to show you my progress as English language user, how my skills in writing, listening and reading were improving overtime in the current English program level 6 at Yachay Tech. Also I want to show you how I get this abilities during the English class; how these abilities have been useful in my daily life as a Yachay Tech’s student, and how I going to grow as an English language user.
First, During the current English program level 6° at Yachay Tech, I have improved my skills as an English language user. The skills which I have improved more than the other are writing and speaking. In the past, I used to be scared about presentation because I was always nervous about them, and when I started to speak I used to be looking at the teacher, and I was always stand up in the same place. However, I have developed a very good body language in presentations during this curse. Now, I can move around the class and look at the public while I´m presenting. Also, as a writer I have improved my grammar. For example, when I wanted to express
something that is happening now, I used to write “actually” instead of “currently”, or I used to write the verbs in the wrong tense. Right now, I’m good to make presentations and essays.
Second, I want to show you how I get these skills in writing and speaking during the current English curse. When I started this current English level, I have a lot of problems in grammar, but our teacher proposed us the making of presentation about some important grammar structures. These presentations were useful for me because I learnt a lot and remembered some things that I forgot. Also I started to improve these skills with the commends in the revision of every essay that I had to do in this English class. After, every essay we had a presentation, so they were useful to me. I learnt to organized my ideas before I started my presentation, so when I was presenting, I was focused in my body corporal and not in the content.
Finally, I want to express that this English level 6° was really useful for me. I improved my skills as English language user, and I learnt that the practice makes me always better. I want to continue with the practice of these language and many others because after this level, I am capable to access to new books, text, and videos in English. This mean that I can get more knowledge. Then, I am going to be practicing this language using it in my daily life. (YouTube videos, videogames, books, etc.).
Sincerely,
Diego Suntaxi
RESPONSE ESSAY
Which Are the Characteristics That Difference a Common Student from a Successful One? Diego HernĂĄn Suntaxi DomĂnguez University of Experimental Technology Yachay Tech
Which Are the Characteristics That Difference a Common Student from a Successful One? In 1962 a young black guy was arrested; after, he tried to start a revolution against the South Africa’s government. He spends twenty-seven years in the jail, and when he left it he started a new political movement. He became the first black president of South Africa, and his popular phrase was “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” (Sampson, 2012). After, the beginning of the industrial processes the education system has changed in order to give to the industries the best workers. Most of the institutes of education have a system of grades to judge the development of students, and this system just limit them to think that be the best is doing the right things to get the highest score. This traditional method makes a student a good worker, but no a good professional. The speech offered by Till H. Grob shows a way to skip this system, a way to make our process of learning a real tool to be successful in the professional work. However, I believe that his points are incomplete, and his point of view based on his personal experiences shows just one possible solution to skip the responsibility that our education involve. In order to achieve an improvement in the education system we can use the four steps that Till H. Grob used in his speech and mix this items with the real education institutions, providing an integral education in skills and habits and professional experiences for every student in an education institute.
The speech of Till H. Grob talks about the reality in the universities, when students are focused in the grade. He talks about how this kind of system affects our society and more important how this one affects us. He SHOWED about the things that you cannot get from the university like professional experiences, and he provided a list of thing that we can develop by ourselves. In order to change our social reality, he proposed that everybody take their education with responsibility and don´t expect that the universities
do all the work. His last point “Hustle comes first” showed to everybody that the beginning is always rude, and in order to be successful in our life we have to accept the failure; we have to accept work for free sometimes, but we have to start because the study in the highway to the knowledge that we need to achieve our dreams. (Tedx Talks, 2014)
However, the actual education system is not focused in the developing of skills and habits that can make a student a successful professional. If the traditional system were focused in an integral education, we would have professional that work to create or improve certain areas instead of professionals that just think in money and time to go back at home. The most terrible think in this system is the grades. This way to judge the work of someone rewards the success (do the rights things) and judge the failure, but the failure is the thing that improves a process. Also, the arts, the music, whatever other subject that is not logical is considered like a failure; if someone chooses one of these subjects it will have to get over the critiques of this kind of system.
The speech presented by Till H. Grob is a solution of this system, but he thinks that his solution has to be out to the system. The four points that he mentioned in his speech could be placed in the actual education system if we create a progressive plan. But, he said in 2014 “I just completed the university because a degree is necessary to perform phycology” (Tedx Talks). So, he considered that the actual system cannot be fixed, and it is not true. Yachay Tech is a new University placed in Ecuador, but it is a new concept of education institute. This university try to get mentors instead of teachers like Grob proposed in his speech, and it maybe has some fails. However, we know that the failure is the highway to the success, so if this university can add one point of the four steps given by Till Grob The system education can be modified in order to create new
places when the learning and the sharing of knowledge will be more important than the grade.
After that, I can say that the speech offered by Till H. Grob was clear and useful. If we talk about the content it shows really good points and example taking his experiences like one of them. Also his way to presents this information was really good. For example, the slides that he used to show the information was simples and clear. Then, hi body language was exact; he used visual contact with the audience all the time, and his movements showed security in the thing that he was presented. Therefore, I can say that the presentation was good getting its purpose that was to tell people that education is a powerful tool to achieve our dreams and is our responsibility improve our process of learning.
Therefore, the actual education systems are focused in skills that help the industries not our dreams. Till H. Grob has showed us a way to skip this problem, but his method is not complete. However, his method could be mixed with the education program of every university in the world providing tools that can make a successful student in professional experiences, skills and habits. This improvement just can be achieved if people stop to think about education as a way to make money.
References
Sampson, A. (2012). Mandela: The authorized biography. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
TEDx Talks. (2014, October 20). Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUnpSYMNEhY
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LITERARY ANALYSIS
“The Story of an Hour” Diego Suntaxi Yachay Tech
Nothing is true. That phrase can summarize the reading of “The story of an hour” where we can find a lot of literary devices that show us many feelings of the characters. In this reading written by Kate Chopin (1894), the author talks about marriage vs the freedom to be single, and the author put this conflict in the case of Mrs. Mallard. People can identify the support ideas for marriage and freedom in the actions of the story. Also there are literary devices that give us a better perspective of them. Then the author shows us the common meaning of marriage using some imageries of a wife who cannot live without her husband. These imageries happened in the fourth paragraph “There stood, facing the open window a comfortable, roomy and chair. Into this she snaky pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (Chopin, 1894, p.1). This imagery gives us a picture of a wife completely destroyed by the bad news about her love. After that, there is a transition part where Chopin uses the mood to describe the situation of Mrs. Mallard. In the tenth paragraph there is an example of it: “Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize……... She said it over and over under the breath: “free, free, free¡” …... Her pulses beat fast …” (Chopin, 1894). Also in the paragraph there was a simile to refer to her desperation “as powerless as her white slender hands would have been” (Chopin, 1894, p.1). These literary devices help us to understand the transition of Mrs. Mallard from sadness to happiness. Finally, the author tells us that she loved her husband, but she does not love him all the time. Therefore, when she noticed that she was free to live her life, she was very happy. She had a new beginning. (Chopin, 1894). In order to transmit the same feeling of Mrs. Mallard, Chopin uses some metaphors like “she was drinking in a very elixir of life” (1894, p. 2). Also, she uses “spring days and summer days” (1894, p. 2). They are symbols to refer to the happiness for being single again.
Therefore, when Mrs. Mallard saw her husband alive. She does not know where her happiness went, and the author used irony to tell us that she really wanted to be free again. Chopin wrote “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease of the joy that kills” (1894, p. 2). For all these literary devices that the author used, and the transition in feelings and point of views that put in the characters. This reading shows to people a good conflict between the dilemma of being married or being single. Which one is better? Chopin believes that being single wins.
References 1. Kate Chopin. 1894. “The Story of an Hour”. Retrieved from: http://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/
INTERPRETATION ESSAY
“The course of Time” Andrea Tonato and Diego Suntaxi Yachay Tech
Art is our soul’s expression, and it could help us to communicate our ideas with other people. “The course of time” is a painting draw in 2015 by Erick Heredia. He is an Ecuadorian painter who is 20. He studied visual arts at Superior Institute of Art in Cuba. After he came back to Ecuador he started to think in a painting that can represent his perspective about life. This painting was exposed in an exhibition at Nacional House of Culture in Ecuador in September 2015. This painting has different meaning for every person because everybody can see their own life on it. Therefore, the picture “The pass of the time” represents for us the course of the time in our life, and how each person is the owner of his/ her time.
One interpretation for this picture is that it represents the curse of the life. The clock and the chains represent a relationship within the life of a person and time. Nobody can stop or come back the time. Also the sun and the moon represent the good and the bad days in daily life. There are going to be dark and light moments in our life because they are part of it. The two phoenix represent two different lives. It means that you can only live twice. One life that when you live in autopilot, and the second one when you take responsibility of your decisions. The leaves are the representation of hope. Because they are placed after the moon, so it means that in our dark days we have to find the hope to fight and achieve our dreams. The last thing to notice is the word “Kaizen”. It is the principle of constant improving, and it is placed below the clock. It means that every second you can improve something in your life in order to be the person that you dream to be. In addition, another interpretation of the picture is that “a person is the owner of his time”. It is a work of art with many and different figures that could be interpreted of
different manners. some of those figures are the phoenix. The phoenix can represent determination and force because the phoenix was a mythological animal that revived from its own ashes. Another thing that people can see in the picture is an old clock that obviously, it represents time. Material things could be repaired or kept untouchable, but not the time. It runs forward, and it never comes back. And the last representative thing in the picture is the little word “Kaizen”, It is a Chinese word that means “change to be better”. If all of these objects are mixed we could see that a person is the owner of his time, because if someone is determined in doing or changing something, that person is the only one who can manage his time in order to improve or not. In conclusion the art is a good way to express ideas, and emotions. And this is the way that Erick Heredia has decided to follow, and he has drawn a good visual art called “The course of the time”. This painting in general means “Time” but it depends on who is admiring it. It could have many different meanings, two of those are: “The course of life” and “a person is the owner of his time”. People interpret these meanings making analysis of all the figures that the painting has, and also seeing colors. Whatever the interpretation, the art is something where people could have their own interpretation of anything. Art makes people are more open minded.
FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT ESSAY
The Next Step to Evolve as a Society is The Artificial Intelligence
Final Research Project
Diego HernĂĄn Suntaxi DomĂnguez
Yachay Tech University
Author Note
This paper was prepared for English class L6-009 taught by Professor Javens
The Next Step to Evolve as a Society is The Artificial Intelligence
Have you ever asked yourself how much artificial intelligence do we use every day? The beginning of the twenty first century marked a pike to technology. Many scientists started to specialized in computer sciences, and they started to create programs that incorporate human skills. We have programs that select music according to our likes, control the security of our home, and we use personal assistants in our smartphones.
However, programmers are not satisfied with this advances, and they try to go farther and make a machine that can think as a human. A lot of people thinks that it is dangerous, and other people believes they are the prove to our evolution. Our intelligence is limited, but we can create another one which is unlimited. The fact of being humans does not mean that we cannot reach more knowledge than it we have. Artificial intelligence gives us the opportunity to explore new things that are not possible to understand with our intelligence. Therefore, Artificial intelligence can evolve our society by helping us to get access to new knowledge and giving us an unlimited intelligence to reach bigger things.
First, there is artificial intelligence that we use in our lives and give us the opportunity to advance in our knowledge. Currently, we use a lot of artificial intelligence in our daily lives to do many things. We had artificial intelligence since our smartphones to the new self-driven cars. Thanks to this new technology our lives have changed a lot, and we could learn to do new things easier. For example, according to Dann Albright in an article of Beebom, the use of artificial intelligence is implanted in our activities, and we have developed a dependency on it. Many years ago we learnt a lot of skills to performance a determinate work or activity, but now we can develop these skills in less time and, less difficulty with the help of artificial intelligence (2016, p. 1). Then, we saved time and money, and we got a new knowledge at the same time.
Then, Artificial intelligence could be used by us as a tool for unlimited intelligence. One of the bigger step for artificial intelligence(AI) was the internet and the cloud. With these two things we can store information and access to them every time we need. AI use these two powerful tools to store processes of learning in the cloud, and then we can learn a specific skill just when we need it. Then, we can forget this skill and learn a new one. Our knowledge just will be limited by the universe existing to storage. One
example of this is the appstore in android and IOS. In these two stores, you can download an app to learn something then you can erase it on your phone, and get another one.
After that, the idea of a machine that can think like us is not far. The truth is that we have reach our pike of intelligence, and thanks to our conditions, we are not able to evolve. However, we can evolve the artificial intelligence and make machines that can think faster and better than us. There is a video published by Wall Street Journal in 2016 about a robot called Sophia. She was developed by Hanson-Robotics in Hong Kong. She is the most advanced model of robotics and AI. She is able to dream, hold a conversation, make facial expressions, and memorize new things. Her system of thinking was made by the most advanced processor, and this allows her to learn and hold one hundred times the information that a normal person can. She is a sample of what a machine can performance, and if we think in a near future we can see that there are a lot of things that we cannot do as humans, many knowledge too far of our mind, but with the develop of AI these things seem closer. Therefore, instead of think that we are limited by our conditions, we can think in machines with AI as our tool to reach new frontiers.
Also, we know that machines are capable to do things that humans cannot. For example, they don´t need oxygen to stay in other planets, they can travel to the space, they can survive at very high and very low temperatures. But, the major of these machines are just that machines. They are not capable to know what they are doing, we are the ones who drive them, and this could produce errors in the researches that we made with machines. But, if they could think and performance by themselves, they could give us better results in experiments and researches. Because they won’t depend on us, they can avoid a lot of humans mistakes and limitations.
Then, the biggest goal to artificial intelligence is the combination with a human mind. This mean that programmers thinks that in a far future humans mind could be placed in the cloud. Then all the advantages that we have talked above could be used by a human, it could be useful to persuade those people who cares about their humanity. In other words, as human we are unable to evolve, but if we used this artificial intelligence to research a method to combine our mind with a machine we will have evolve as a society, as a specie. This goal could solve the problem of overpopulation because we can storage the mind of every human in a compressed space if we got the correct technologies. It also gives us immortality, because we are going to depend in where we had storage our mind and not in the mortality of our body.
After that, the most important point to get a combination between machines and human minds is the fact of a better society. In our society exists a lot of problems that are derived by our differences of thoughts, and these problems are expressed in wars, racism, bullying and other things. But, it could change if the mind of every person could be combine in a machine and with the help of an artificial intelligence could create its own world. This idea could be very utopic, but it is not too far. One of the current problems is the devices of storage that we got right now. However, there is an exponential grow of technology in our days, and this problem will be solved very fast. The unique question is if we are preparing to evolve and accept that we need help of machine to do it.
However, there are many people who thinks that artificial intelligence is not a good tool for our society. One of these people is Stephen Hawking who in 2016 told in an interview to Mirror newspaper that “artificial intelligence could destroy our society by taking over humans� (p. 1). He based his pint of view in the fact that artificial intelligence is made by humans to model humans, so AI can be an overrepresentation of our problems
as society. He explained about self-driving cars and how their systems work to save lives in an accident. He exposed the idea that even if this kind of intelligence could reach new levels of intelligence, machine with AI are going to replace humans because we are going to be useless. If the machines create a perfect world, why are they going to need us? His perception about artificial intelligence appeals to our humanity.
In contrast, I think that Stephen Hawking like many scientist sees the artificial intelligence other human, so they develop his arguments about it based in their feelings to be overcome by a machine. The feeling of be useless is one of the bases of many scientists to argue the stopping of artificial intelligence. However, I think that we have to see the artificial intelligence as a tool for us. We have developed an history of achieves, but we have to go faster because the time is one of our biggest opponent in the race of our surviving, so we need tool to think faster. I think that Stephen didn´t think in the applications that are useful for us right now and how these applications can increase over time to produced bigger changes in our lives. Stephen and many scientist don´t have to be scared to be useless because the major goal of artificial intelligence is the combination between machine and human mind, and that includes our own evolution.
Summarizing, in our world there are a lot of problems which are been solved by scientist right now. However, researches are affected by time and limited by our intelligence. We got many current problems like overpopulation, the lake of water, wars, global wandering, climate changes, etc., and these problems are faster than our capacity to find a solution. Also, we have been in the same state as specie for long years, and our bodies and minds are unevolved for the times that we are living. Also, we are living an exponential growing in technology, and the investment in the developing of these new technologies are high. We got from smartphone to robots, and we started to put human
skills into machines, one example of this are the self-driving car which are legal in some streets of USA. But the really achieve of these century is the artificial intelligence which allows us make personal assistants, home secure devices, artificial customers, and robots. After the apparition of AI many scientists started to believe in a new world, in a new society. This idea was based in the theory that we can get an unlimited intelligence thanks to artificial intelligence. However, many scientists like Stephen Hawking don´t believe that this theory is possible because the programs of artificial intelligence are made by humans, and we have a lot of mistakes that can be bigger if we introduce them in the program of a machine.
However, the reality is other we have right now proves that artificial intelligence makes us more efficient in our process of learning because it reduces the time that we spend learning some skills. Also, the goal of have a combination between a human mid and a machine is not really far. In our days we have robots with very developed processes of learning. One of them is Sophia who is a robot that can think, hold a conversation, and dream. If we got enough technology, we are going to be capable to make a machine that does not have a dependency on us. These machines can learn faster and better than us the necessary processes to get a combination between a machine and a human mind in order to evolve as society. Therefore, artificial intelligence is an incredible tool that we have to improve our processes of learning and increase our knowledge, so it could provide us an unlimited intelligence making us smarter to achieve an evolution as human species.
References Albright, D. (September 26, 2016). 10 Examples of Artificial Intelligence You’re Using in Daily Life. Beebom. Retrieved from
http://beebom.com/examples-of-artificial-intelligence/
Borkhataria, C. & Care, A. & Snead, F. (October 20°, 2016). Stephen Hawking says artificial intelligence could destroy society by taking over humans. Mirror Online. Retrieved from
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stephen-hawking-says-artificialintelligence-9086652
Fowler, G. & Stern, J. (March 6°, 2016). How Sophia the Robot Mimics Human Expressions. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from
http://www.wsj.com/video/how-sophia-the-robot-mimics-humanexpressions/711FE5C6-BC68-412C-974B-27A87FC6FAF3.html
THANK YOU FOR READING MY PORTFOLIO. I HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED AS MUCH AS ME. I REMEMBER YOU THAT IT IS JUST A FEW WORK OF EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE DEVELOPED DURING THIS SEMESTER.
SINCERELY, DIEGO H. SUNTAXI