Marcelo Barba Universidad Yachay Tech Imbabura, Ecuador
December 9, 2016
Dear Portfolio Reader:
My name is Marcelo Barba. Thank you very much for reading my English Language Portfolio. It is a compilation of all my works during the English course, and also some reflections. This exemplifies my skills in English Language, and also my development in critical thinking. My portfolio consists of three essays and a research project. In this work, I will present about what I learned in the English class, and a brief description about main aspects of the essays in the portfolio. I want to continue my academic career in English because I am very proud of my progress. As a student, I have learned a lot about English since the beginning of this semester. The first class, I realized that hard work and responsibility would be fundamental to continue with my learning. My biggest growth has been in the development of teamwork because we did many expositions together. The most important skill in the level six for me was speaking. Before this curse, I believed that speaking is more important than writing. Now I know that these two skills must be developed together. Furthermore, the critical reflection and the use of references are both important aspects that always will be included in my works. One can see my growth from the first essay all the way until my last essay. For instance, in the corrections in the first essay in relation with the last essay. Structure of
essays was an important aspect that I have worked during the course. I realized that the main idea of each paragraph must be supported with examples, and also the source from which it was obtained. The first essay I wrote did not have any sequence in the development of the paragraphs because my ideas were not very clear. Furthermore, I have some problems in coordination with thesis statement. The second essay was very interesting because I focused on my verb tenses, but I had problems with the arguments of each paragraph. Also, the information presented was not too relevant. The third one was my favorite essay because it was in group, and the work in group is easier. In this work, we analyzing the short film “The present�. This video represents a relationship between a dog and a boy. The structure of this essay was useful to do the presentation. The skills learned in the curse were fundamental to do all of these essays during the course. Although I finished the Yachay English course, I will continue learning on my own. Ongoing learning is important because it helps to develop the cognitive skills. This is very useful also for entertainment to see films or series without the use of subtitles. Also, to listen songs and translate them easily. In the academic field access to information in another language is fundamental. Thank you again for reading my portfolio. I tried to do my best in the submitted work and I hope you enjoy reading it. I am sure you will agree with the development of my work.
Sincerely,
Marcelo Barba
Do the same thoughts vary in different languages? Marcelo Leonel Barba Carvajal Yachay Tech University September 30, 2016
Do the same thoughts vary in different languages?
Do the different languages modify our though? The answer is not as easy as it seems. In the world, there are thousands of languages and each one of them has a main objective: To keep communicated to the people. As a consequence, it is maybe the most important faculty in the life. In this exiting reading the assistant professor Lera Boroditsky shows an excellent work that deals with the differences among some languages. She found that the details in any language are a fundamental part in the way as people have perception of the environment and it is true because the form of the verbs, the gender and the orientation may vary among those mentioned languages compared. First of all, the grammatical form that deals with the actions is the verb, so it is an indispensable part of this essay. The verbs can be one of the essential part in every language because a sentence is incomplete without a verb and without sentences people could not communicate each other in a good way. This important part exists in every language, but is not used in the same way in all of these languages. Lera found that in other languages like in Russian the form of the verbs depends on the situation and not only on the tense like in English (Borodidtky, 2009). Here, it seems that the Russian language in this case provides more information. For example, if a Russian man read only a part of a book, it can be used a different form of the verb than if he has read the whole book. The Russian speaker can describe better this action. This is a clear example of an important change in the perception of a situation.
The gender says who is the actor or actress of a given situation. This grammatical part gives information about the people that is doing the action. To talk without a gender would be unimaginable because there had not any person who play the verb. To represent this fact with a clear example it can be seen in the Spanish language that has articles for feminine (one for Singular and another for plural) and for masculine (one for Singular and another for plural) to name each concrete object. English language does not have articles like those but English only has one grammatical gender “The� for all of those. An amazing example are some Australian Aboriginal languages with sixteen genders says Boroditsky in her work (Borodidtky, 2009). If sixteen genders are used in a language the possibilities or the combinations increase a lot and as a consequence it gives much more information than English and Spanish, just to mention some languages that have less genders. For this reason, if one of those Australian people tells a story it can be imagined with more details than if the story were told by a Spanish or an English speaker. Another important source of information is the location of the objects or the situations. Within this part of the globe (the West) there is not so much differences in the way of being located. Every country in America uses right, left, forward and back to describe the location of something or someone. In the Australian languages, previously mentioned, geographical orientation is the more common way to locate objects. Instead of the western words they use words like north, south, east, and west in their orientation. It means that those people have to stay permanently oriented and it could be an advantage. Furthermore, Lera´s study has demonstrated that the guidance (orientation) for writing influences in the chronological arranging of the stuff. It means that a western habitant will order things from left to right because he writes from left to write. The
same happens with Hebrews who write in the opposite way, they will make arranges from right to left. Fortunately, this does not happen with mathematics, otherwise we could misunderstand each other. There are some details that make important differences that change the perception we have of the world. This perception is so important because it is the image of the nature of the things in the people minds. Here are listed only a few of those differences but of the most important surely. The orientation, gender and the form of the verbs may vary the conception of a specific situation in a daily life. In spite of this study this topic will remain controversial because it is not easy to answer if the variations in the languages shape the way of thinking but were found some grammatical parts that surely change the perception of the world in which we live.
References
Boroditsky, L. (2009). HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? Edge Foundation.
Interpretation of the short film “The Present� Marcelo Barba, Jocelyne Estrella and Luis Puente Yachay University of Experimental Technological Research November 17, 2016
The present Just seeing a pet, he had the capacity of transmit us a lot of emotions and feelings, which could influence in our behavior. All pets live in different circumstances, there are pets with home or there are a great number of pets in streets, with multiple problems, however, all majority of them always are the major example of acceptance and self-love. Humans, on the other hand, have largely lost their humanity. Actually, physical and mental disabilities, gender differences, religious and politician elections, among other; there are just some prejudices in which our society are involved. In the short film “The Present”, Jacob Frey shows how humans should learn from pet’s attitude because, they do not know about prejudices, they do not care about time, and they are a great proof of unconditional love. There is a great difference between a human’s and animal’s attitude, principally in base of prejudices from society. Humans are really complicated, we create barriers with false ideas about differences within society. These prejudices affect to people in different ways, and these can cause us to forget about self-love and acceptance of who are around us. In many cases, people stagnate in fake ideas, and close their minds to a change or maybe to a solution to keep going. It is the circumstance of the kid in the film, who lost one leg. In based of this problem we can see how he has a bad attitude and he is focus just in videogames. However, actually an incapacity is not enough reason to not achieve and meet her goals. There are multiple tools and ways to progress, but the most important is attitude and desire to continue with his life. The child needs to love himself and accept his strengths and weaknesses, to broke the barriers of inequality on society. Moreover, the film shows how his mother love her son and she wants to make the necessary for her child to be happy. She accepts how her son is and try to help him. On the other hand, analyzing the previous works of the author, in other short films,
he was focus in the same way about animals. In base of that, we can see how the author give importance to the animal behavior and how humans could learn a lot of them. The name of the film tells us a lot of things to interpretate. This short film of three minutes was directed and animated by Jacob Frey it took him around a year to finish the video. He used Pixar Renderman a technology that creates stunning visual effects, the video has highest quality illumination, interactive shading, high definition image, also presents very realistic scenes with much details, shapes, volumes, and sound with world-class efficiency. The title of the video “The present” can be referring to time, and the image of the kid locked in their videogames show us as he wastes time because of the lack of his leg. Time is really valuable, and humans most of the time wasted it by stagnating in their problems, without seeking any solution or the way to go forward. We also waste time, which we could spend with our family or friends. Normally, human friends remember some of the times you’ve wronged or have betrayed them, in other words, humans are in certain way rancorous and our love is conditioned to the antecedents and remembrance. In contrast, the love of the pets is unconditional, the well-known phrase “dogs are a man’s best friend” means they love without prior conditions, that is, the human can to hassle them nevertheless, they do not have bad memories and treat human like their best friend, despite of many adversities. The dogs share with people their moods. For example, the puppy from short film “The Present” gives the child happiness and vitality, also shows that any disability is no reason to be depressed
Finally, in the short film “The Present”, Jacob Frey shows how humans should learn from pet’s attitude because, they transmit us a lot of emotions and feelings, and this influences our behavior and feelings. As human beings, we are full of prejudices, and many times we are not accepted within a society, such as when a person suffer some physical and mental disabilities, but certain pets do not know about prejudices, and they are a great proof of unconditional love.
English at early age Marcelo Barba Yachay Tech University November 22, 2016
English at early age Children’s minds are like a sponge. A child can learn whatever he wants and learn a language is one of the best things that he can do. This essay is about the advantages of learning English or to teach English to children at an early age. All children should be taught English at an early age because in childhood is the beginning of emotions, a child can “feel� the language and for a better development of morality. Childhood is the beginning of emotions. It means also that in childhood a child can have his first feelings. If a child learns another language. English in this case, he can show their thoughts in his native language and also in English. For example: a simple joke in the future could remind of a day in his childhood when a friend told him the joke. The boy or girl could remember in English. A child can feel the language. I mean that for him English will not be something strange in the way that he will feel English words like words in his language. In the paper, Julie Sadivy said that when a study was made with people hearing taboo words these people does not feel the same as in other tongue. In this way, if children know English for first years can feel the same. A better morality can be developed. In could be very good because if morality is taught since early years children can learn that in English it works the same. Overall, the good and the bad things are the same. They could learn that being a good citizen of the world is independent of the country where they live or the language that they talk. Some people could say: it is better that children learn English or another language after childhood. Arguing that they could learn something more important or useful. Also, people might say that after all it is only a language. So, it does not change anything.
It is better to learn English at early age because here a child does not have to learn as a punishment, but they just talk. A language is not the most important thing in childhood but it is one of the best things that a child could do. Children can learn every day and it is reflected just with seeing one of them. English or another language should be taught in early age because here they start to live, they could feel English as an own language and they could have a good morality. It is very good that schools and high schools teach these language, not always in a correct way but, it is good. It would be recommendable that it would be taught in home too.
Reference
Sevidy, J. (2016). “How morality change in a foreign language�. Scientific American. USA.
Management of Yachay Tech in the Virtual Environment of Students Marcelo Leonel Barba Carvajal Yachay Tech University English L6-001 Matthew Mackey December 4, 2016
Abstract This research examines the management of Yachay Tech University about the activities made by its students on the internet inside the campus. The aspects considered in this study are the living conditions of the students inside the campus, conditions of use of the internet and the penalties for breaking them. This study was made with the objective of providing information to the reader about the not ethical management of Yachay Tech over its virtual environment. For academic purposes, the methodology used was only a bibliographic review into some articles published in prestigious websites or magazines given by the instructor or approved by him. Some of the most common internet activities are covered with the purpose of giving a better understanding of the supporting points. Also, some controversial points are discussed like privacy or entertainment. Keywords: virtual environment, students, Yachay Tech, privacy, internet, campus, conditions of use, ethical.
Management of Yachay Tech in the virtual environment of students Does Yachay Tech have a friendly virtual environment for students? In a society so related with computers and technology it is needed to know how to use properly these kind of machines. Computer security is just as important as security in physical terms. It means that taking care of the personal computer has the same importance than security in the streets. Currently there are a lot of ways to harm other people without their permission and It can be seen in the cases of hacking who could be prevented. “The majority of the cases of hacking are produced by the poor handling or use of internet networks� (Bynum, 2016). This research is about the security of the virtual environment inside the campus of the university Yachay Tech. Considering that this university aspires to be a technological benchmark of the region it is indispensable that Yachay provide a proper management of its resources on the web. This study is important for students who have the right of having their information protected and who have the obligation to make correct use of the mentioned resources. Actually, the university is not giving the best of the treatments to the privacy of the students. The way which Yachay Tech manages its virtual environment is not ethical because this university has complete control over shared files, restricts access to certain web activities, and enforces strict penalties for breaking these rules. Yachay Tech has excessive control over the activities of the students. Every file that is sent or shared with someone else using the university networks can be controlled because these files are transferred within internet provided by Yachay and it lets to have registers of the student activities like pages visited, shared files and online preferences. This kind of control is not ethical because students in this university live in the campus, so not only academic activities are done. It means that students do not only share
academic files in the web, also they share other things like entertainment, relationships, private conversations and planes. Floridi (2010) think that every people has the right of having a space private in the internet to connect to the world. The point is that Yachay does not have access only to those files academic but to all the files and there is nothing that ensures that the files shared by the university community in its free time will remain private. When a student tries to access to “YACHAYTECH” network in the first page of the browser appears a document with the responsibilities, conditions, prohibitions, etc. In the whole document does no say anything about protect the student information. Inside the campus “YACHAY” is another network that provides internet but it is not in all the places, so the main network became “YACHAYTECH”. Restricted access to certain web activities is unnecessary. This part does not affect only to the activities that students do in their free time but the academic activities. In an interview made to Edison Casanova, member of the IT department, was proportionated a document called “INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE CORPORATE SERVICES INTERNET NETWORK OF YACHAY TECH UNIVERSITY” which mention in the fifth article a series of prohibitions that include downloads, network games, political and religious activities. For instance, Yachay Tech (2016) says: “5.4. It is strictly forbidden to use the University corporate services to collect, exchange, market or modify any content (in any type or format) that is subject to copyright or proprietary rights of third parties, without proper legal authorization.”
It is something very controversial because many of the activities restricted by the university are related with the economic situation. In the academic field, sometimes
students need books or papers that are protected by copyright or that are paid and if these documents are download with download managers, penalties became reality by the university. Also, students have the right to show their ideas and thoughts regardless of whether these ideas are religious or political, but the rules do not let them do it and that is absolutely not ethical. The administrators of the networks have to take in count that students are young people and the most common at this age is doing activities like those. The consequences of prohibiting all of these things and more are decreasing in the academic performance and students with a bad mood. The penalties for breaking the rules are unfair to the university community. The penalties can by applied by the university or by the laws of the Ecuadorian state however, this work treats only those given by the university. Yachay Tech (2016) says: “In the case of violation of the terms of this document (rules), the University reserves the right to suspend the service�. This is totally not ethical because with this exclusion the university is removing the most important resource for a student. Currently internet is need for every homework or research and without internet any of those things could be possible of being done. Short time ago was proposed a project in Yachay that consisted in giving a count for every student but fortunately this could not be done. If that project is proposed again the university will control in a more aggressive way to students. Some people can think that Yachay has the right to control the activities that students do in the internet provided by the university campus. One of the arguments to think this way is that Yachay is an educational institution and for this reason only academic activities should be done in its virtual environment. Another fact could be that
it lets Yachay to have a better control of the plagiarism and cheating between students. Even it can be thought that if the university take control of the networks illegal activities like sale of drugs can be detected. It is reasonable to think that readers can be against this research but this is a particular case in education. It is particular because Yachay Tech is not a common university like the others in the country. Yachay is the first university that has to the majority of its students living inside the campus and for this reason the treatment given to their students should be different. The consequences of living all the time inside an university implies that all the things are doing inside like do homework, watch movies, take a shower etc. On internet, it is the same, students will not do only academic things but they also will do all the activities of their interest. If Yachay controls all the actions that students do on the web their privacy is being vulnerated. This research does not try to suspend all the University’s control over the internet but try to regulate the files that can be controlled or that the rules include the protection the information of the university community. In order to control bad habits like cheating and plagiarism there is specialized software that could be better than look the files of every computer. Illegal activities like sale of drugs is a reality in a lot of universities and it is extremely difficult to eliminate that, but it can be counteracted doing periodical revisions in the departments. It is not necessary to go into the information virtual of a person. This study was centered in the management of the online resources inside the university Yachay Tech. After examining the rules, different points of view and the possible consequences it is clear that there is not an appropriate and ethical management of the networks with students. This university has an excessive control over the activities that
students do, over their files and the penalties for breaking the rules are exaggerated and unfair for the young Yachay students. There should be rules in which the students have obligations but also the right to maintain its information protected.
References
Bynum, T. (2016). “Computer and Information Ethics”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from: http://plato.stanford.edu/cgibin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=ethics-computer Floridi, L. (2010). “Information and computer ethics”. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com.ec/books?hl=es&lr=&id=iK3UjU9yfiEC&oi=fnd&pg =PR5&dq=Computer+and+Information+Ethics&ots=1bd6JF4FIl&sig=idqitTv9 sg2Yv8qZeS-tCRxZWW8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false Yachay Tech. (2016). “INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE CORPORATE SERVICES INTERNET NETWORK OF YACHAY TECH UNIVERSITY”. Yachay IT Department. Retrieved from: http://172.23.224.1:8002/index.php?zone=portal_internet_libre&redirurl=http% 3A%2F%2Fgo.microsoft.com%2Ffwlink%2F%3FLinkID%3D219472