Table of Contents
Reflective Letter Response Essay Literary Analysis Interpretation Essay Research Project
Reflective Letter
Jhon Goyes UrcuquĂ
December 14th, 2016 Dear Portfolio Reader, when I approved level 5 I believed that I was ready with all my knowledge in English, but when I stared level 6 I saw too many new things to learn and other things that I need to improve, therefore my first goal was to improve some things that I did not understand very well, then I was ready to learn new things. The first thing that I improved in level 6 was to remember some grammar lessons in the expositions of my classmates. I improved the concept of phrasal verbs, narrative tenses, the use of would express habit in past, modals of deduction, and the wish. All these grammar things improved all my English skills because the grammar is the base of everything in English. I believe that all the exposition of grammar groups were the most important things that I improved; because I did not remember some things that they presented. My writing skills were improved a lot in level 6. The grammar groups helped me, but in writing skills I learned new things, especially, things that helped me with my essays, for example now I know how to write good introductions with all the structure: hooks, background information, and thesis statements, also I learned to use transitions properly because in my first essay “responsive essay�, I did not put any transitions between paragraphs and I believed that id was a problem during the first essays, but thanks to the help of my teacher that he gave me some sources to improve that now I can write very well. I believe that writing was one of my weakness at the star of the semester, but right now it becomes to be one of my strength thanks to all the practice that we did during all the semester.
As my writing skills I developed a lot in my speaking skills because since level 4 to me was hard to speak clearly, and this was a big problem in my presentations, this was present until some of my presentations of this semester, but now I learned to move more my lips when I am speaking. This helped me because now my voice sounds more clearly and I believe that with a bit of more practice I will be near to speak English fluent. One of my major problems that I have now is on reading. In The last semester, we did not practice too much in class reading. In consequence, I did not find this problem until now that we did in class reading and I think that this problem is because I do not read too much, so I believe that to solve this problem I should start to read more articles in English and read it aloud because it could solve my problem and it is going to improve my speech and accent. To end this letter I could say that never is late to have dreams and one of my dreams end with the English program of English. This was not easy because I failed level 4 semesters ago and I know that with effort, sacrifice and studying a lot each day everything could be possible and I could say that we need to let our spirits follow all our dreams because the spirit is the force that makes us do something. Sincerely,
Jhon Goyes
Response Essay
Response to “Why Self-Educated Learners Often Come Up Short” Goyes Jhon Yachay Tech
Response to “Why Self-Educated Learners Often Come Up Short” Do you imagine a world where you do not need go to school to learn? You will not have tests, homework, go to the school every day; it could be cool but, it’ll have some difficulties. In Scott Young’s article “Why Self-Educated Learners Often Come Up Short”, he explains the disadvantages of the self-education. He compares the formal education of the university and the self-education. He says “I have a pet peeve about certain people who attack formal education systems and claim to pursue self-education” (Young, 2010). I agree with several points of the writer, for example, the difference between self-education and schooling, the importance of a curriculum in self-education and the discipline. But, I disagree with other points of the author regarding the importance of the time in self-education. Young thinks that “the typical approach to self-education tends to be lousy” (2010). He gives some examples to support his argument, such as read books of elementary biology. But, you cannot compare your knowledge with one that has an undergraduate degree in biology. I strongly agree with this point because in my experience, if I want to learn about a certain topic, I will not learn all about the topic; I will learn just a little part. Also, the people with an undergraduate degree will have more opportunities than people self-though because they have studied the subject for a couple of years. However, one example is that the companies always will contract people with a university degree; so, you cannot compare a formal education with a self-education. Also, Young tells us about the “T” model of Ben Casnocha that help to acquire new knowledge in a certain subject. He explains the top of the “T” that “there should be a wide range of subjects you have a basic understanding” (Young, 2010). And the bottom of the “T” as “there should also be a select few skills you are an expert” (Young, 2010). So, he believes that self-education do not follow the top of the “T”, I agree with this because as the author
says, you can read a lot of book on different topics, but you cannot be an expert. So, in few words, self-education cannot make you an expert in a subject. Another point that I agree with the Young’s article is the importance of a curriculum. Young says that the curriculum has an important role in any education because it is useful to understand any subject. It helps you to focus more in a unit of the subject. Also, he thinks that any self-education needs to find a curriculum to be better. I agree because when I am trying to apply self-education in something. I do not know how start and the sequence to learn something are not easy to understand, so it makes self-education harder than a formal education. The next point of the author is the discipline. He explains that if you want to follow a self-education, you need to have a lot of discipline, more that in a formal education. So, I agree with this because the discipline is important anywhere. In a formal education, you need to study, do tasks, and it requires discipline. But, in self-education, you need more discipline, because you need to study more, organize your time to study, and be careful with the time to study. The author think that you could leave your self-education easier than formal education, but I think that if you want to follow a self-education, you need to be sure on what you want; you need to be focused on learning and try to do not give up. The last point that I will analyze of Young’s article is related to time. He thinks that “people in life aren’t the busiest people or the most relaxed people” (Young, 2010). So, it means that people need to have a lot of time to do self-education, but I disagree with that because if you are interested in learning something, it is in your mind to make it possible. For example, I want to learn another language. I am interested in learning that, so, first I need to know the time that I have to learn. To have a good self-education you need to have a good organization of your time and like the last paragraph you need to have the discipline to do that.
In conclusion, self-education is a good tool for the people who is trying to learn something. According to Young’s article, self-education is harder to do, and I agree with that. He showed some examples of his own life, so he know his position, but in some points, I cannot agree with his ideas because I think that self. Education is good just when you know what you are doing. So, to me, self-education is great for the people who is good doing something and not for people who leaves the things just when they are starting. The Young’s article is good but he does not make a good emphasis on the importance and the benefits of self-education.
Reference Young, S. (2010, February). Why self-educated learners often come up short. Retrieved from: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2010/02/24/self-education-failings/
Literary Analysis
Interpretation Essay
Interpretation essay Group members: Carlos Lopez Enrique Arrobba John Goyes Marlon Puma
Yachay Tech
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 bestselling 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. After May's solo, the song becomes a piece of opera, which is quite unexpected in a 70's rock song. 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 de April de 2012). Guitar Player . Obtenido de http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/1139/brian-may-still-reigns-as-the-kingof-tone/21990
Research Project
The Relationship Between the Problems Caused By Ethics Issues and the Importance of Teaching Ethics In Schools Goyes John Yachay Tech University
Abstract This essay is going to explain some of the most common ethical problems caused by the lack of ethics in the people. Some of these are present in our daily life, and we can see it on the streets when someone do not respect to the other people and it create chaos in the streets and the society. Also, these kinds of problems are present in our schools because some studies shows that the students are cheating a lot. So, to avoid this kinds of problems the solution is to apply a class of ethics in the primary and high schools because I think that this is the root of the problem.
The relationship between the problems caused by ethics issues and the importance of teaching ethics in schools
When I was a child, I never took any course of ethics at my school., in the first instance, it was not a problem, but when I started the university I found the world that was regulated by ethical rules and it was a problem to join in this group of rules, for example the APA rules were a big problem when I started the university. I think that it was not only my problem because the other children were in the same course, and the same school and maybe in other schools the class of ethics were not present. Ethics are defined as “a system of moral principles. They affect how people make decisions and lead their lives” (BBC, 2016). Also, the ethics have several uses., Laurie Futterman says that “This could include medical ethics, journalism and advertising ethics and educational ethics. So ethics or intent, tends to be viewed as something upheld and adopted internally, such as professionalism, while morals are ideals we impose on others”(2015). But, what happens when we do not know the meaning of ethics? I believe that the most of the ethical issues in our days are related with the relevance of ethics in the life of the people, so it is important to teach ethics in primary schools to avoid future societal problems. The lack of ethics in the people is creating problems and issues in the society of nowadays. In the article of Peter Tait; he says “Daily, we read of actions and behaviors that show an absence of self-regulation and a lack of integrity, morality or any sense of social responsibility” (Tait, 2015). Also, according to by one survey realized a few years ago in the United States showed that “Americans named ethics, or rather a decline in ethics, as one of the most important problems facing the United States” (Shanks, 2015). Some examples of the issues caused by lack of ethics are discrimination, trying to bribe authorities, not respecting the places of disabled people, negligence, etc. So, if we saw just for a moment in the streets, we will see this kind of problems frequently; but, try to imagine the world where everyone
follows the ethical rules. This is like a utopia and us as a society need to be near to that utopia to make a better world. As the ethics problems are present in the streets, they are present in secondary education, and the evidence of that is expansive. The most repetitive ethical problem present in schools is that the students cheat in exams, copy their homework from the internet or her classmates, steal something of their classmates, create an environment of violence in school, etc. A study realized by Steve Johnson about the level of ethics in 20.000 students of high education in the United States shows that “almost half the young people reported stealing something from a store in the previous 12 months. In the same period, seven out of 10 cheated on an exam” (Johnson, 2015). So, it shows that young people do not care about ethical rules and they do not choose the correct decision in a certain situations; for example: “they save themselves pain by lying and they could not see a connection between their lying and the abstract ideas they have learned” (Johnson, 2015). And this kinds of problems are caused because children do no has an education of ethics in school. In my personal experience, problems in Ecuadorian secondary schools (and postsecondary schools) are similar to those in the USA. Because statistics about this are hard to find, a survey was conducted to understand and record this lack of ethics. This survey was made in my university and there was three questions. and two of the question where the same of the Santa Clara University, the results were similar, it showed that 80% of the surveyed say that cheated at least once in exams and just 10% said that have steeled in supermarkets; this shows that the situation in ecuador is like the situation of United States, therefore, we could say that in Ecuador the most of the students have been cheated and the reason is showed in (the) other question of the survey that showed the nearly 15% knew the meaning of ethics in secondary school. In consequence, the students have the habit of copying in exams.
We need to search information about ethics in the subjects in Ecuador. According to the curriculum subjects, present in the page of the “Ministerio de Educación”, there are not any classes of ethics in any year and the most near to ethics is a topic of ethics in a subject called “Estudios Sociales”. The students will forget the definition of ethics in few years or months because it is not a deeper class of ethics. If the society wants to avoid this kind of issues and have a utopic life of peace, we need to implement an ethics class in each primary school. Peter Tait in the article “We Should Be Teaching Morals And Ethics In Our Schools ” explains that “If we expect our children to grow up with a respect for the rule of law, then we need to teach them about making moral choices and having a value system as a basis for their decision-making” (2015). So, the importance of having an ethic subject in the curriculum of the schools is that the children will have a deeper knowledge of respect to the laws and have the conscience of making good and bad decisions in several moments that requires an ethic responsibility. Also, this article could help to avoid problems caused by the advances of the technology. Also, he gives us an example of how the lack of ethics in people with a university degree could cause a big problem, the example says: “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad” (Tait, 2015). So, this example mean that a person who has a high education have more sources and facilities to make any crime and be hidden in the shadows, a big example are the politicians. I think that the children need to learn about ethics and how to apply it their daily life, but in high levels the form to manage the ethics change and the schools needs to teach other kinds of problems caused by the lack of ethics. As the ethics need to be taught in basic schools, the ethics can be applied in a lot of areas; the professional ethics is one of that and I believe that needs to be taught when they are near to the end of their high school. Now the question is: why do we need professional
ethics? The answer is given by James Fisher in an article that he wrote, he explains some reason about that the first is: “most professionals have an informational advantage over those they serve” (Fisher, 2014). This mean that people with professional ethics will understand more what they are doing, for example, if a young person, after ending his high school studies, he works in a supermarket he will understand to the clients and he will comply his responsibilities on the work. Another example showed by Fisher is: “most professional are, at some point, young and inexperienced professionals” (2014). This means that a new professional that has a minimum of basis in professional ethics will be considered more because some business is searching for people with this kind of ethic. So, the professional ethics needs to be taught in the last years of the high schools because some of them are near to join at the university that is a place where this kind of ethic is applied in almost everything and other guys will start to work and it is important to have this kind of knowledge. Although, some people think different and think that the current system of education do not to be changed and they believe that teaching ethics is not important, for example, Salil Dudani says “that ethics classes cannot be expected to make students more ethical”(2014). So, now I wonder, can ethics be taught? In the article “You Cannot Teach Ethics. The Impact Of Relativism On Moral Education”, Khaldoun Sweis is questioned about the importance of teaching ethics. He brings us some examples where the students have ethics classes and they are still cheating, also he made an exercise of ethics in a class; the students need to answer what is right and is not right, they need to bring their criteria. He believes that the students will answer with a fallacy “I call the fallacy of choice–where a person devolves into thinking that because he has a choice, any choice he makes is right or above critique merely because it is his choice” (Sweis, 2015). So, he concludes his article saying that ethics need to be practiced in life every time and they do not need to be practiced only in a class.
In my opinion I think that Sweis have a good position according to with ethics cannot be taught in classes because he believes that “For a full change of the heart, people need a new heart”, but I thinks that if you do not the meaning of ethics, you will not understand how to change your mind and how to apply it in your personal life; in my experience as I said at the start of this essay I did not know the meaning of ethics until I take my first course of ethics on high school. So, he is not using a good context to make clear his ideas, also he is using the slippery slope fallacy when he says that in one class of ethics the students are cheating, in all the classes they will be cheating and it will become a big problem if the schools do not anything. To me everyone needs to have a little base of ethics, to avoid this problem of cheating. I think that this problem is a consequence of the life context of the students, and the ethics class will help them to change their minds about cheating. To sum up, we need to know that the most of problems that our society have an origin and this origin is that people had missed the real meaning of ethics and they do not understand how to apply it in their daily life, these problems are presents in the streets and we see it at any time; also they are presents in our schools because our students are cheating too much and they do not know that cheat is an ethical problem. So, the society and especially the school needs to teach ethics in primary schools to avoid this problem that is a problem. If now a child is cheating on an exam because he does not like to study; tomorrow, he will be stealing the money of people because he never studied ethics in school. Finally, I would like to put a sentence of the Pope Paul that says: “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought”.
References Bbc.co.uk. (2016). BBC - Ethics - Introduction to ethics: Ethics: a general introduction. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/intro_1.shtml. Dudani, S. (2016). Stanford panel debates: Does teaching ethics do any good?. Stanford University. Available at: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/may/ethics-in-society051314.html. Fisher, J. (2014). Why are professional ethics important? - Quora. Quora.com. Available at: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-professional-ethics-important. Futterman, L. (2016). Beyond the Classroom: The importance of ethics in education. Available at: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miamidade/community-voices/article17030966.html. Johnson, S. (2015). An Education in Ethics - Resources - Character Education - Santa Clara University. Scu.edu. Available at:
https://www.scu.edu/character/resources/an-
education-in-ethics/. Shanks, T. (2016). Everyday Ethics - Ethical Decision Making - Ethics Resources Markkula Center for Applied Ethics - Santa Clara University. Scu.edu. Available at: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/everydayethics/. Tait, P. (2015). Why are professional ethics important? Quora.com. Available at: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-professional-ethics-important.
Appendix Survey: 1. Do you knew the meaning of ethics in secondary schools? Yes/No 2. Have you cheated in any exam by once? Yes/No 3. Have you steeled anything from the supermarket? Yes/No Results: Yes
No
Total
Question 1
6
19
25
Question 2
21
4
25
Question 3
3
22
25
Table 1: Results of the survey
Graph 1: Survey results.
Thank you for help with my english learning. I enjoyed this course. See you soon guys!!!