MY ENGLISH JOURNEY Joseph Gonzรกlez Yachay Tech University English Language Program Yachay, Ecuador
My English Journey Joseph Gonzรกlez English Language Program Yachay Tech University Level 6-005 Teacher: Hamilton Quezada January 13, 2017 Imbabura, Ecuador
Contents 1. Portfolio letter 2. Response essay 3. Literary Analysis 4. Interpretation essay 5. Argumentation essay 6. Final research project essay 7. Thank you letter
Joseph Ricardo González Núñez Yachay Tech University San Miguel de Urcuqui Ibarra-Ecuador
January 13,2017
Dear portfolio reader, I have to admit that I spent most of my life believing that learning another language is the most difficult challenge in the world. I felt in this way because there are a lot of words and a lot of grammatical structures to memorize. I was really intimidated because of the large amount of information that is necessary to master in order to speak English fluently. For this reason, when I was in high school, I considered useless to try to learn English. However, my thoughts changed when I traveled to Spain and I met native English speakers. I tried to have a conversation with them, but I could not because my English was not very good. In this occasion, I realized that I had to improve my English. Since that time, I decided to work hard in order to improve my English skills. This year I am in level sixth of English, and it is the last level. During this semester, I have written a lot of essays about different topics. Most essays are related with topics about technology. I like this kind of topics because I like to imagine how the world in the future will be. This e portfolio is a compilation of all my works, and it is useful to show my progress in this level. My works were corrected by my English teacher. At the beginning my essays had a lot of mistakes, but then with a lot of practice, I improved my works. I really hope that the reader forgets my little mistakes. Finally, I hope that the reader enjoys these readings.
Joseph Gonzรกlez
Response Essay
The Ethics Of Human Enhancement Joseph R. Gonzรกlez Yachay University October 5, 2016
The ethics of human enhancement Have you ever wanted to be stronger, more intelligent or more beautiful? All these things could become reality in a few years because of progress in sciences like genetics, robotics, etc. Some scientists are trying to improve human skills using technological enhancements, and this is the topic of the Andy Miah’s article. The ideas of the author are very interesting in special the idea about the issues that will arise by the use of enhancements, nevertheless the article could have had more information about the specific enhancements that are being developed by scientists, also some topics should have a deeper explanation. Andy Miah claims in his article that our world is arriving in an era where humans are trying to improve themselves using technological enhancements. The users of these new technologies will possess developed capacities in many areas like: memory, reasoning, resistance, etc. These improvements will bring many ethical dilemmas, for example using an enhancement is a shortcut to achieve goals, but it reduces the feeling of achievement because there is not effort. Another problem is that this kind of technologies could bring just shortterm benefits, but negative long-term consequences. Finally, the author says that there should be general principles or policies for everyone that govern the use of these enhancements. I fully agree with Andy Miah in three principal ideas. The first idea is about the reason people want to use enhancement. According to Andy Miah, it is because “humans have always sought to improve themselves”. I think that the most precious thing that we have is not money or possession, and actually the most important thing is what we are. Other things like: money, success or sense of accomplishment come to our life depending on our qualities. For these reason we ever want to be better because success depends on what we are. The second Miah’s idea which I share is “enhancements might undermine some essential quality of our human identity that we would rather preserve” (Miah, 2016). This is
one of the most important parts of the essay because if we lived in a world where all people reached their dreams just by using enhancements, nobody would struggle. In this situation effort will be lost. Effort is the quality which ever allows us to reach our goals and to progress. This means that in a society without effort as a result there will not be progress too. The third idea I fully support is this: if people start to use enhancements, there should be general principles that everyone has to follow. These general principles should be laws for all the countries. If these laws did not exist, the gap between rich people and poor people would be bigger, because just wealthy people could pay for enhancements. For this reason, poor people will be more disadvantaged than nowadays. This problem could be solved using a law in which everyone has access to enhancements. In this way, poor people would have the same enhancements than rich people, it means both social classes would have the same advantages. In his article Miah claims that the use of enhancements is related to the use of psychopharmacological substances that are objectionable because they convert a person in somebody different. Based in many articles that I read last year, I realized that scientists still are investigating what defines a person. Some investigations suggest that genetic factors affect the personality and the way of thinking of people, but environmental factors also have an important role. So, scientists do not know what is the level of influence of these two factors in the way of being of people. For this reason, I think that is very rushed to say that enhancement or psychopharmacological substances could transform a person, because it is not sure which is the influence level of environmental and biological factors in personality’s people. In conclusion, I think that the article is very interesting because the author has good ideas about the use of enhancements and the dilemmas that could arise about it. Nevertheless,
some topics are just superficially explained like the topic of fear of biotechnological change, it will be better if these topics had a deep explanation. Also, the article will be better if it has examples about the specific enhancements that are being developed.
References A. (2016, September 8). The Ethics of Human Enhancement. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602342/the-ethics-of-human-enhancement/
Literary Analysis
Analysis of “The Story of an Hour” Joseph R. González Yachay University
Analysis of “The Story of an Hour” The story presents a very common problem in our society; it is an unhappy marriage. Although nowadays many couples have an unhappy marriage, it does not mean that all relationships are unhappy. It depends on many factors like culture and personality. It is clear that the story is about an unhappy marriage because the main character got excited when she discovered that her husband had died. The author shows clearly the emotion of the main character in the sentence “There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of victory”[ CITATION Kat84 \l 3082 ]. In the nineteenth century the main reason of an unhappy marriage was chauvinism, nevertheless, nowadays there are a lot of reasons because a marriage could be unhappy. The success or failure of marriages depends on culture. In European countries people get married when they are about 40 years old. It causes that couple may be more responsible and happy. On the other hand, in latin countries people get married very young for this reason latin marriages are usually more irresponsible and unhappy, and they get divorced more often. This is just one example that shows how culture affects relationships nevertheless, there are a lot of more cultural factors that affect marriages. The success of failure of marriages depends on the personality of every person too. There are intelligent people who choose a good life’s partner. It means they consider common goals, skills, personality, and other things, at the moment of choosing a partner. Nevertheless, there are women who accidentally get pregnant and for this reason they have to get married with men that they do not love. It happens specially in latin America. There are a lot of more personality factors that affect marriages too. In conclusion, it is very clear that the story presents and unhappy marriage and it is still happening, but the reasons had changed. In the nineteenth century the reason was chauvinism, but nowadays there are a lot of more factors like cultural and personality.
References Chopin, K. (1984). The story of an hour.
Interpretation Essay
Analysis of the painting of a schizophrenic Joseph R. Gonzรกlez Yachay University November 29, 2016
Analysis of the painting of a schizophrenic
Many times schizophrenic people seem to have deep and interesting thoughts, but it is difficult to interact and understand them. For this reason, this kind of people many times are ignored by the society. Years ago, in a sanatorium was found an interesting painting made by a patient with schizophrenia; and by analyzing it, we can comprehend a little the mind of a schizophrenic. This painting transmits the constant and painful fight inside the mind of a schizophrenic person.The author painted a body with two heads fighting each other, which represents that schizophrenic people have different personalities. Also, the body looks haggard showing that this combat causes serious injuries in these people. According to Mental Health America (2016), “Schizophrenia is a serious disorder which affects how a person thinks, feels and acts�. People with this disease have usually problems to distinguish what is real and what is imaginary, and they cannot develop socially in a normal way. Contrary to common thinking, the majority of people with schizophrenia are not violent. Even the causes of schizophrenia are unclear, three are the most popular
hypothesis that explain the causes of schizophrenia. These are: genetics abnormalities in the brain’s chemistry or structure, possible viral infections and immune disorders, and the environment. Statistics from U.S. found that around the 1% of the population of this country has schizophrenia (NIMH, 2016). The people’s behavior with schizophrenia depends on the level of developing of the mental disorder; for example in some cases they may sit for hours without moving or talking, others can even talk about visions. The most common symptoms behind schizophrenic people are hallucinations , it means that they have sensorial experiences, and it can occur in any of the five senses. Thus, they see people or objects that are not there, smelling odors that no one else detects, and feeling things like invisible fingers touching their bodies when no one is near.
As a consequence of the behavior described in the last paragraph, the painting looks like a human being without ears, then we can deduce that the author of the painting maybe can’t hear to his hallucination. In contrast and according to the sensations produced by mental disorder, the author incorporated three main senses on the painting: touch, taste and sight. Two heads and arms around his body, the tongue in the right head and the exorbitant eyes suggest some of his hallucinations. The injuries of the picture represent the damage that schizophrenia causes on people. It is very clear that the picture shows an injured body because one hand is pulling part of skin from the other head. Additionally, the other hand is strangling the neck. It is a clear representation of the painful problems that are caused by the mental disorders of schizophrenia. Mostly, these issues are social or psychological. The strange behavior of some kind of schizophrenics is negative for social relations, because it causes that friends and relatives get away from the schizophrenic. It means that people with schizophrenia suffer a
serious problem that is isolation. Another problem of schizophrenics is that they usually cannot differentiate real things from unreal things. They lose this capacity because of constant hallucinations. It is very dangerous because it can drive somebody to madness. These are just few problems that people with schizophrenia to face. This situation is very painful. It is the grief that this painting is showing. In conclusion, every element of the painting represents a part of the world of schizophrenics. The author painted: skin, eyes and a tongue that are related with senses. It shows the many hallucinations that schizophrenics suffer. These different hallucinations cause different personalities. Another important element of the painting is the fight and the injuries. These elements represent the painful problems that schizophrenics have in their lives. References Mental Health America. What is Schizophrenia? Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/schizophrenia
National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH). Schizophrenia. Retrieved November 15, from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/schizophrenia.shtml
Argumentation Essay
Benefits of the use of a global language Joseph R. Gonzรกlez Yachay University November 23, 2016
Benefits of the use of a global language Have you ever imagined a world where you can talk to anybody regardless where they come from? Nowadays, there are a lot of languages around the world, however the world is better connected than before because of technology. It is possible to talk to somebody who is in the other side of the planet using a cellphone. The only problem that we have to overcome is language. I think that there should be one global language because of two main reasons. Using a global language will not cause the disappearance of other languages, and it can bring a lot of profits. Many people believe that using one global language will cause the disappearance of other ones. It is not true, children can learn the language of their country from their parents. Then they can learn the global the global language in their schools from teachers, in the same way that we do with English, nowadays. A global language would be used just for relations with people from other countries, and the native language would be used to talk with people of the same country. Both languages will be necessary in different situations. Then none of them have to disappear. Another reason to support this idea is that a native language is part of the culture of one country and people usually do not want to give up to his culture even if they talk a global language. The use of a global language will bring a lot of advantages for humankind. There will not be language barriers. For example, we will be able to make friends form any part of the world and we will be able to make business in all the world. Culture will be enrich because of interactions with people from other places. It will be easier to spread science around the world using a global language. These are just few advantages that could be possible by using a global language, however there are a lot of more advantages and that is why there should be a global language
In conclusion, there should be a global language because it would bring a lot of advantages. Also it will not cause a loss of culture because other languages will not disappear.
Final Research Project Essay
Technologies That Will Change The Educational Experience Joseph Gonzรกlez Yachay Tech December 15,2016
Abstract The present text is about new technologies that will be applied on education in order to improve it. Scientists are developing new technological tools that will be used to reform the educational experience. This paper will mention two main technologies that are augmented reality and artificial intelligence. These technologies could solve specific problems that are different learning speed on students and interactivity in classrooms. The main advantage that future education will have over current education is that students will be able to master difficult topics and learn faster. Future students will have a better education but the success of every student will depend on their responsibility. Keywords: Augmented reality, Artificial intelligence, Learning speed, Interactivity
Technologies That Will Change The Educational Experience Education is the way in which knowledge is passed from one generation to the next one. For this reason, it is very important to improve education in order to keep and increase knowledge. Scientists are creating new educational tools that will be used to improve education system. The article “8 Technologies That Will Shape Future Classrooms� shows us some new technologies that are being developed (Poh, n.d.). These new technologies will cause a revolution in educative experience. Future students will have a better education than current ones. The use of new technologies as learning tools will open new possibilities for students. The principal technologies that will be mentioned in this paper are: augmented reality and artificial intelligence. As a consequence of the use of these new technologies, students will be able to understand difficult concepts and they will learn quickly, however the success of these future students will depend on their responsibility too. The first technology that could improve education is augmented reality. It is a new technology that combines virtual 3D objects with real environment in a way that unreal objects seem to coexist with elements in the real world (Azuma, et al., 2001). By using augmented reality, we can create virtual copies of real objects. But augmented reality goes beyond it, because we can create non-existent virtual objects got totally from our imagination. In the process of education, the interaction between the students and the topic of what they are studying is so important. For this reason, augmented reality will be so important in the future of education. Augmented reality may give us better interactive educational tools than modern ones. In current schools, mockups are used to enhance the interaction between students and topics they are studying. However, augmented reality is a better option than mockups. The main advantage of using augmented reality over traditional mockups is that we can handle virtual
objects, and these objects will react in the same way that real objects. To put it in other words, augmented reality gives us the opportunity to interact with objects which we cannot interact in the real word. For this reason,by using augmented reality we would be able to create simulations of laboratories, prototypes, experiments, 3D representations. The use of augmented reality would be cheaper than making the experiment in real laboratories or creating real prototypes. In the future, students will be able to interact with all types of virtual objects created by augmented reality. Medicine students will be able to watch and interact with all the parts of a human body, like: bones, organs, cells, etc. Chemistry students will be able to represent the structure of molecules and atoms. Engineers will be able to create virtual prototypes that are cheaper than real prototypes. In this way education, will be better thanks to augmented reality. The second technology that could improve education is artificial intelligence because we can use it to create a more personalized education system. The objective of artificial intelligence is to imitate the abilities of human minds. A human mind is able to learn new things; it is self-learning. For this reason, scientists are trying to create machines with reasoning and learning capacities. Artificial intelligence may solve one of the main problems of current educational system; it is differences in the learning speed of students. In a normal class there is just one teacher who has to teach to all students. The number of students varies widely from class with two or three students, to class with forty or fifty students. It is a major disadvantage because it is impossible that one teacher pays attention to all the needs of all their students. Additionally, every student has its own strengths and weaknesses on different topics, and for this reason they advance according to his own speed in every subject. As a consequence of these two facts, many students master the studied topic,
but others are not. This is the problem with our current education system. A good answer to this problem is the use of artificial intelligence to create a more personalized education system. The article “10 roles for artificial intelligence in education� explores the possibility of the use of artificial intelligence to personalize the educative experience (TeachThought staff, 2016). An artificial intelligence is able to fit the needs of every student in the same way that search engines like google or amazon adapt to the preferences of users. It means that an artificial intelligence can recognize the weaknesses of every student and gives more attention to these topics. In the future students might use an intelligent program that helps them to work more in topics that they have not mastered yet. In this way every student could study at their own pace. Future students will have better learning tools than current ones, for this reason they should develop better learning skills, but the success of students depends not only on technological tools but also on their responsibility. Future students will just have more opportunities than current ones, but the success of these students will depend on themselves. It means that responsible students will take advantage of available technological tools and they will be excellent students, and irresponsible students will not be good students. The use of these new technologies will make it possible that students develop better learning skills than current ones. Current responsible students spend a lot of time trying to understand some topics in which they are not good, however in the future some topics will be easier to understand because there will be more available technological tools. These technological tools will improve the interaction between the students and the topic they are studying. In the future technological tools will approach students to science because they will make possible that
students watch, listen and touch science. So, students will be able to approach to science using all their senses and for this reason some topics will be easier to understand. Another consequence of that technology is that students will learn faster than current ones. Some people believe that the use of technology in education could worsen it. According to Julia Klaus, the educational systems that use technology are effective, nevertheless technology could have negative effects if it is used improperly. Klaus claims that the negative effects of technology applied on education are: taking away learning time, overuse and game mentality. The first point is that technology takes away learning time. It means that sometimes students or teachers do not have enough preparation to use computers, and for this reason valuable class time is wasted. The second negative effect that Klaus mentions is overuse. The excessive use of technology impairs students who learn better by interacting physically in class. The third point of Klaus is game mentality. Many students associate technology just with games. It is true that not knowing how to use a computer causes loss of time, but overusing and gaming mentality can be used as advantages if they are used properly. Klaus claims that the overuse of technology could be dangerous for students because it does not allow students to have enough physical contact with the studied topic. Nevertheless, there are a lot of new technologies that offer users a better experience than real life. One of these new technologies is augmented reality. It offers users the opportunity to interact with objects that are difficult to see in real life and even unreal objects. For example, a medical student could study organs and bones using these technologies. Another idea of Klaus is game mentality, Klaus thinks that students use technologies just to play, it is true, but it can be used as an advantage. There are a lot of games about science. If these games are successful catching the interest of students, these students will learn a lot about the subject
while they are playing. In conclusion, new technologies offer new possibilities to students. The education system will be more interactive and more efficient in the future. In conclusion, scientists are developing many new technologies that will change education forever. These technologies include but are not limited to: augmented reality and artificial intelligence. These educational tools will improve education because they will make possible that future students will have a better interaction with science. Despite the fact that education will be better, the success of future students will depend on a key factor and it is the responsibility of every scholar.
References Azuma, R., Baillot, Y., Behringer, R., Feiner, S., Julier, S., & MacIntyre, B. (2001, november). Recent Advances in Augmented Reality. Poh, M. (n.d.). HONGKIAT. Retrieved from http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/future-classroomtechnologies/ TeachThought staff. (2016, march 14). 10 Roles For Artificial Intelligence In Education.
Dear reader, I really hope you enjoyed my writings