Final Portfolio Carlos Lรณpez Yachay Tech University English Language Program Yachay, Ecuador
Credits Final Portfolio Carlos Lopez English Language Program Yachay Tech University Level 6-004 Teacher: Daniel Beall January 09, 2017 Urcuqui, Ecuador
Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Portfolio letter Response essay Interpretation essay Argumentation essay Final research project essay Additional materials (pictures/videos/other works) Thank you letter
Portfolio Letter January 09, 2017 Dear Portfolio Reader, I am Carlos López from L6 - 004. My professor during the semester was Daniel Beall and my class was known as the men class (Figure 1 - 2). Thank you for reading my English Portfolio. This is a compilation of my work in level 6 where you can find some of my best work because the hard part we done in class. I hope that this Portfolio demonstrates my ability as a language learner at my university, Yachay Tech. So you can ask you what is this work that I am talking about. This Portfolio is composed by three essays and my final research project. This is not all the work that we had done, this is only four examples of our hard work in level 6. I am proud of my own work and for the things that are coming. At the beginning of this semester I came to level 6 with a lot of expectatives. I had heard that people work a lot in this level. They said that they have some essays to do and some hard work to do. I decide that this level have to be the best and I have to learn the most as I can. In level 6 I learn about essays structure and debate and presentation skills. One of the phrases that impacted me the most is “Hustle come first” from “Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education”. And this is what we do in all the semester by working a lot in developing skills. During this semester I learn more about these three topics: essay structure, debate and presentation skills because it could be my biggest strengths. But english class have to help us to develop the skills in which we are not the best. I think that I work a lot in the different tenses at the moment of write and I am still working in this. Tenses are one of my weaknesses as in follow instructions at the moment of do homework. Another weakness that I have is in do my work on time. This is a summary of what I learn and what are my weaknesses and strengths. Now I am ready to go to the next step in the English Language Program, in this case to topics. My plan since now is learning a little bit more by myself and with more technical vocabulary and in the topics that my career demand. This by reading articles, papers, look at videos and also listen to music. Thank you for the take the time to read my Portfolio and I hope that you enjoy it. Sincerely,
Carlos Lopez
Response Essay Response to “Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education” In 2014 the desertion index in Ecuador was above 26% and the total of students who entered at the university were more than 400 thousands according to SENESCYT statistics. Based in this problem I had heard about self-education and how to develop our own education system. One of the proposers of this idea is Till H. Groß who is a psychologist, coach and founder of Comfort Zone Crusher. He has developed his own methodology of self-education based on four ideas that were shown in a TEDx Talk called “Forget University? 4 Steps to Design your Own Education”. These are: “develop skills”, “learn from the best”, believe that “learning is more important than earning money” and knowing that “hustle comes first”. I agree with most of the points of Groß’ speech like developing skills and learning from the best, but also I think that there are points to discuss a little bit more about self-education. The most important point that Groß works on is showing how important is to do the best effort in all the things that people propose. His introduction is more about his life and how he began to interested in certain topics than others. For example, because his father paid him to record books about psychology, he began to learn more about authors and schools of thought. The part that can be considered as effort is the way that he looked to know more about certain authors and his attempts to interview with them. On the other hand it can be considered as an opportunity for him, because it is not common in the world that people to interview with their favorites authors because of their occupations. Another part of the speech is how to develop skills and preferences also and the practice that a person have to have to develop certain areas. His example was about the help that he had received from his father who also was a psychologist and gave feedback to the therapist that Groß’ made. But
how many people have the chance to receive feedback from close family? that the only thing that look for is that you can be better than they and their promise was teach you the most they can. Then he talk about learning from the best in the topics that that person is interested in. Groß decided to contact the authors of the books that he had read. Because of their approach to certain authors and coaches some of them let him to learn about their presentations and let him to open their presentations also. This results in the third point of the speech, “learning is more important than make money”. The point refers to the idea that first you have to learn the more that you can instead of looking for take advantage of certain position. And this also result in the fourth point: “hustle come first”. Sometimes people should said “if you are good for something you never have to make if for free”, so maybe Groß don’t need to work for money or learn to work but the student desire is graduate to can have a job and begin to earn money to continue studying, so it is not completely correct that learning is more important than money if you don’t have the resources to live. The problem in universities sometimes is that education is focused on grades and rote education instead of the skills of people and what they learn and what they have to improve. In other cases, the classes that a person receives to graduate have nothing to do in the schedule or expertise. That is why the index of dropout is big in Ecuador, bound to economy problems that people could have. According to Joseph Novak (2010) there are “five elements elements that comprise any educational event” and can “reconstruct the meaning of experience” (Novak, Learning, Creating and Using Knowledge, pg: 15). These five elements are “learner, teacher, knowledge, evaluation, and context.”. So, based in these elements the construction of the meaning of the experience could be empowering with meaningful learning or disempowering with rote education. With Groß’ ideas the elements teacher and evaluation
can be eliminated and the equation to a successful education is smaller than the first. Now the construction of one’s own education depends on the learner, the knowledge that he can achieve and the context of opportunities that he can have. Till H. Groß proposed one form of study to students, he doesn't propose a new form of education or how to teach in other ways. This video is for people that want to become the best in their field by their own. As Neil deGrasse Tyson (2009) says: “The inspired student is that who still learning on their own. That's what separates the real winners from those who only advance finishing tasks” (deGrasse Tyson, Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger). Far from the experience that Groß shows, these steps are a logical process of self-taught. Maybe people can’t be agreeing with all or some of the points but one thing that people should recognize is that this steps make sense and can change for different cases. The main point of discuss is how effort is important in this process of became autodidact. It is not the same to follow the class and homework than study to debate in classes and look for other topics of interest. References DeGrasse, N. (2009, May 21). Global ideas from Pluto’s Challenger. Retrieved from http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2009/05/21/global-ideas-from-plutos-c hallenger Novak, J. (2010). Learning, Creating and Using Knowledge. Second Edition. Retrieved from http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9781135184476_sample_861544.pdf Till H. Groß. [TEDx Talks]. (2014, October, 20). Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=TUnpSYMNEhY
Interpretation essay Bohemian Rhapsody “Rhapsody is one of those songs that has a fantasy feel about it. I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then decide for themselves what it means to them” said Freddie Mercury about his creation, one of the best songs in the history of modern music. Being a combination of several musical styles, “Bohemian Rhapsody” marked a clear differentiation between the songs of the time and it placed in the top of the UK Singles Chart for nine weeks. After the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991, the song returned to the first place in the UK Singles Chart, with a total of 2 176 000 copies and becoming the third best-selling single of all time. This epic song was written entirely by Freddie Mercury in 1975 in the album A Night at the Opera. According to the guitarist Brian May, much of Queen's material was written in the studio, but this song "was all in Freddie's mind" before they started. The lyrics of this song are shrouded in mystery, since Mercury refused to explain its composition, saying only that it dealt with relationships. Although the lyrics of this song are very ambiguous and in general this song is complex and confused, we could see that Bohemian Rhapsody represents an irreverence for following the rules of a typical song with a single rhythm, breaking the schemas of the musical tradition of the time. The song consists of six sections: introduction to acapella, ballad, guitar solo, opera, rock and coda or final. This format, with abrupt changes of style, tone and tempo is unusual in rock music. The introduction is a superposition of four tapes with the voice of Freddie Mercury. Then the piano starts the ballad section in Bb major tone with the powerful voice of the vocalist. According to Rolling Stone magazine, the guitar solo of Bohemian Rhapsody has been considered one of the best in the history of the rock, due to creativity and energy of Brian May. For the final part, the rock style starts and the electric guitar begins to carry the
baton of the musical piece. In this way the beautiful bohemian rhapsody is composed, which marked a point of inflection in the music of the seventies. When Freddie Mercury released his song, he never gave declarations about the meaning or symbolism of the song, however we can see some of them. In the final part of the opera section, the vocalist says: “Mama mia let me go”, which is a symbolism of a call for freedom towards his couple Marie; so in this line Mercury is saying something like “Marie let me go” Hence, let's consider first the opinion of some fans that describe the song as the symbol of his bisexuality but other says that the song symbolizes his childhood frustrations. Also, we can not forget about the lyrics because the lyrics is another controversy of this song because sometimes it does not follow the same meaning throughout the song or sometimes it is not obvious for the people but obviously the author want to symbolize something that could be freedom, madness or repulsion by the rules; nobody knows because he never talks about this. Hence, the meaning and symbolism of this song could be interpreted in many ways by people but always the lyrics and the mix of some rhythms in this song will be a good combination no matter what it may represent. However, this song is a little bit hard to understand what it is trying to say specifically, because the song contains a mix of rhythms as we mentioned but also the lyrics could be hard to interpret too. Therefore, I will put to the reader some points for which the song is hard to understand. Firstly, at the beginning of the song if we advance for the first lines to give a meaning to the whole song, we could say that the song relates the regrets of a son before a crime that he did; in this way, during the song he is telling about the crime to her mom and also he gave a farewell to his friends but this happen only in 2:07 min after that the song takes other way. In the next minutes we can hear opera in which we could interpret that in the lyrics he still keeping the guilt but at this time he is expressing his guilt to a group of
people that probably are judging him; accordingly, we can hear in the song “no,we will not let you go” and others saying “ let him go” for this we can interpret that he is looking to be forgiven. Since the minute 3:12 we can hear that the song takes an unbridled and erratic rhythm in which anyone can feel an electricity around the body caused by the guitar solo which is consider as the 20th best of all time (Blackett, 2012); hence, in the lyrics a man opposes a certain humiliation on the part of a woman and asks euphorically for freedom from this. Moreover, in the last minutes the song takes a rhombus with rhythm of ballad in its letter describes the total relevance of the situations of the life and in his last phrase "anyway the wind blows" we interpret that it means that in any way the course of life continues, it does not matter what you do. Hence, if we analyze this song very carefully we can have a lot of interpretations because I think that's the work of the song. In conclusion, for sure Bohemian Rhapsody represents an irreverent song because Freddie Mercury with this rhythm broke the schemas of the music at there time. In only one song we can find a few different type of music as rock or ballad without forget the opera that appears there. The interpretations that people can bring to this song are a lot and everyone could be right but the only certainty thing is that this song was created at all in the head of Mercury by his imagination. So too, there are many symbolism in the meaning of phrases or the story that the song told to us. These symbolisms can represents freedom, madness or repulsion depending from who is listen to the song. But because of Mercury never explain the song we never going to know what is the really intention of the author. However and finally no doubt that this song marked a point in musical history because this song breaks all the music schemas known at these time. References Blackett, M. (16, April, 2012). Guitar Player . Retrieved from: http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/1139/brian-may-still-reigns-as-the-king-o
Argumentative Essay “Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use” Richard Nixon. Nixon was the first president that began and opened war to drugs. All this information is in the article “Legalize it all” written by Dan Baum. In this article he exposed many examples of drugs legalization around the world. At the first part he explain about history of this fight against war and he is trying to persuade that these war is lost by the countries. Then he expose examples about this “development” on laws. However, I believe that in some places this is not recommended because of the environment that people have. For this point I want to avoid all the story presented at the beginning of the article. These because is more an introduction to the biggest problem that represents legalize drugs. And there are many other points to argue with. Baum put a lot of examples to justify his point of view. Also he put examples of posibles places that are trying to legalize drugs as Mexico and Brazil. But the discussion has to advance more than only follow examples or a new idea to be popular. In Latin America we have an open discussion of this topic but it does not mean that it is going to be legalized in some years. Baum said “lots of American drink, but relatively few become alcoholics”. Latin America is recognized by their alcohol consumption. The example of countries of the first world can’t be consider an example of countries in development. And because here, drugs are considered a taboo the consumption of drugs is not appeared in real statistics. The author is trying to minimize the problem but here the big problem is that the consumption began in the early ages of twelve here in Ecuador. We are not fighting against the legalization, we are fighting against the consumption of our kids. One of the things that people that want to legalize drugs always say is that the
government can control it and earn a lot of money. Also that the distribution of illegal drugs is going to decrease. But in how many years could it happen? Ecuador is a country between the two biggest producer of drugs. And Ecuador is consider a country of transition, so if we legalize the private consumption of drugs we also have to fight with the smugglers that pass drugs to the other countries. It is not meaningful to do this in our country. Also because Ecuador is not a biggest consumer of drugs like USA or Europe. Although we are against these policies we always are studying the success cases where this had good results and maybe it could work in our countries in the future. But at now these ideas are only in an idealistic society where people are conscious of his acts. We believe in people and we want to promote free education in drugs in order to one day maybe we could legalize it. But at this moment, we have to fight against it and protect our children from the consumption of drugs in early ages. Now it can not be recommendable to our environment.
Final Research Project Essay Abstract A big problem in careers as engineering or sciences are the dropout rate. This is caused by many factors as economic economic sustainability, familiar crisis, change of career and others. But one of the most important is about rote education. This is because it create students unable to think critically to solve problems causing that some students fail their subjects and choose other careers. In this essay we are going to explore some of these ideas and think about what we can make better from the teachers, from the students and from the scholar guidance. By using technology, classes could be carried in a better way and by designing a plan of self-education, students are going to develop skills to think more critically. How Could Change Rote Learning for Critical and Logical Thinking In 2014 the desertion index (rate of school dropouts) in Ecuador was above 26%, however, the total of students who entered at the university were more than 400 thousands according to SENESCYT statistics informed by the newspaper “El Comercio�. The importance of this rate is that many of these dropouts could be avoided by applying another study method and this would also enhance the other students. The problem of rote education is more common than people can imagine, and is a problem that bigger universities have as well as smaller or local universities. the desertion index is also high in well-known universities in some careers. So how important is to create new forms of study methods in order to create more capable students and to avoid those dropout rates. Education hasn’t developed any other form of study in fifteen years. Technology, books, mentalities and also people have evolved in these fifteen years but the way of teaching something is the same. Rote education is well known as the most common form of study across the world. And not
for the student’s benefits, it is more by the habit of learning something by repetition. It doesn’t allow critical thinking. Students need other methods to learn and professors need other forms to teach in hard science to create people capable of solve the new problems of society. To understand the problem we have to understand that rote education is a system that causes students to be unable to think critically because of the repetition of something and no for the ability to think and solve problems. Other point to study in this essay is that the opportunity to enhance education by the hand of teachers is using technology and devices to show more explicit the different content and improve the understanding. As well as part of the education and the develop of critical thinking is how professors teach also the other part is how the student prepares himself to become better and solve problems, this is called self-education. To understand more this process of learning we going to study about Joseph Novak and his concept of schools. Therefore, professors should look for other forms to teach some lessons, using especially technological devices, programs or videos in order to promote the critical thinking in the students and avoid rote education. If the schools and professors are not willing to make this change, it is up to the student to self-educate. The real issue with Rote education is a problem that causes students to be unable to think critically. The most important skill that a student have to develop is their capacity of solve problems by logic and critical procedures. Because some careers have this method of acquire knowledge this is one of points of desertion in hard sciences. Some students need to learn by thinking about what has happened, not by repetition or by memorization. This could confuse some students about their career because they can be good at the study field but not at the form of study. So the students may think that the degree is not for them. For example, one student in the biology field that is learning about biological processes may not memorize
some parts of a process but could be good at ecology because it is more logical to think about the food chain. Why the biological processes can’t be teaching with one method as logical as food chains? Maybe in this way the students might develop their own skills and understand better. This example also can be applied for maths were a student could be good at calculus but not to better at algorithms because in algorithms he have to memorize some codes while in calculus the work is more logical and the demonstrations follows that logical procedure. In real life some mathematicians don’t like biology because there is too much to memorize. This is not only in one field, it could happen between other sciences. Maybe if all parts of sciences followed critical and logical procedures to teach they can be joined in a better way and then we could have interdisciplinary professionals. In this point is the importance to create students that think critically because they can understand the world in a better way. In base of this, students that learn by critical thinking have more opportunities to develop other studies in scientific fields because their capacity of understand critically all the methods and procedures. Likewise, rote education has to change to allow students to be able to think critically. In this idea of looking for other methods and procedures to understand some topics in a better way technology is involved. Opportunities can often be found in the world of technology. Current technology and devices could help to understand better some topics. Sometimes students need to see how things are done, how a theorem is proved or what happen if anybody applied a torque. For these things there are many devices, programs or technology that simulates the result. For example, it is hard to imagine how the citric acid cycle is carried out, but with videos that show the process explicitly the students can understand well and formulate other questions than: can you repeat the cycle? Another example could be explained with mathematics. For some students, mathematics are that
monster that don’t let them become engineers or scientists. This is because of the demonstrations that they have to do or the application of some mathematical artifacts. But why schools don’t look at programs that can do this demonstrations and show us step by step the process to understand. An example for this is the online website and application Wolfram-Alpha. This is a “computational knowledge engine” as they say in their website. There people can find some facts about astronomy, economics, history or chemistry. But the most common use is to solve math problems. In this navigator, people enter the formula and then they can see the result and how step by step it is solving. This is a good application for a biology student that doesn’t need to demonstrate a theorem but need to know how to solve an exercise. Also devices in medicine that can be use to see how the body works and don’t need dead people for that but have the same and more educational purpose. In science, people say that books have a delay of 5 years because day to day scientist overthrow myths. So, books are a good guidance but not the best at this point of technology advances. They were shown many possible ways to learn and change rote education. But without these changes in the educational system, the entire education of a person can depend on herself. Part of have a logical and critical though is self-preparation and assimilation of knowledge. In this way, self-education is another way to develop critical thinking. In his speech called “Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education” , Till H. Groß talk about some ways to develop skills. These skills are those who stimulate critical thinking. Groß talk about some steps that are: “develop skills”, “learn from the best”, believe that “learning is more important than earning money” and knowing that “hustle comes first” (Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education, october 2014). In a response essay to these video the author talk about the pros and cons this idea of forget university and self-education. To develop skills it is necessary to practice a lot. And to practice a lot it is
necessary to understand the topic. Also to understand certain topics it is necessary to learn from the best or from those who can explain in the better way the different subjects. The third point is more about the objective of self-education and finally the fourth point and not less important is about the effort that a student have to make to become the best in certain areas. With this reasons it is logical to think that self-education make people more curious about certain topics. This is the most important part that a student have to have and a professor have to inspire, the curiosity in everything. If a person is questioned about the things that is learning he or she can develop good skills in critical thinking. And if she or he look for information and in base of that draws its own conclusions now the person have a logical though to solve problems. To have people more curious about their topics and develop critical and logical thinking is necessary to develop a part of self-education. At this part people have to think about what make educations good. What kind of tools education have to have to be better and what involved students. That is why Joseph Novak in their book titled “Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge” teach about some points that involves education. According to Joseph Novak (2010) there are “five elements elements that comprise any educational event” and can “reconstruct the meaning of experience” (Novak, Learning, Creating and Using Knowledge, pg: 15). These five elements are “learner, teacher, knowledge, evaluation, and context.”. Based in these elements the construction of the meaning of the experience could be empowering with meaningful learning or disempowering with rote education. As Novak shows, these tools in education have to be empowering to develop a better education. At now there exist other forms to teach and always they are in evolution. Also rote education is a good and well form to teach and necessary to certain sciences.There exist a lot of forms to study and teach and is valid say that for some people memorize is a way to learn.
But despite of these forms of study the principal and what is used in all universities is rote education. And for some people it works but think critically in science is one thing necessary to develop. To create students that think critically and in a logical way is necessary to understand that rote education is a system that have to enhance in certain areas, so too, at know it exist many programs and devices that help students to understand more certain topics. Furthermore to students is necessary that they develop self-education to be more curious. This is supported by the ideas of Novak and their study management. In that way this can decrease the dropout index in universities because students going to learn the things that they need and want in a better way. This is a work for students but teachers also have to be the ones who enhance their classes by look for different ways to teach and let themselves be helped by technology. References Novak, J. (2010). Learning, creating and using knowledge. Second Edition. Retrieved from http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9781135184476_sample_861544.pdf Till H. Groß. [TEDx Talks]. (2014, October, 20). Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=TUnpSYMNEhY
EL COMERCIO. (2016, May, 14). El 26% de los universitarios se retiró en los primeros años. Retrieved from: http://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/ecuador-universitariosdesercion-educacion-jovenes.html.
Additional materials
Figure 1. Halloween’s class
Figure 2. Exposition day
Thank you for reading my Portfolio. I hope that you enjoy it as I did.