My English Journey Pedro Altamirano Yachay Tech University English Language Program Yachay, Ecuador
Credits
My English Journey Pedro Altamirano Yachay Tech University L 6 - 017 Teacher: David Montenegro December 21, 2016
Yachay, Ecuador
Contents 1.
Portfolio letter
2.
Response essay
3.
Literary analysis
4.
Interpretation essay
5.
Research essay
6.
Thank you letter
Portfolio letter
Pedro AndrĂŠs Altamirano LĂłpez
December 4, 2016
Dear Portfolio Reader,
In this semester my partners and I crossed the sixth semester of English language program. This mean we had big time to make essays, presentations, conversations and also a debate. This is my portfolio, this contains my essays of the semester and some importants works too. The main works for this portfolio are the essays because this essays took us many time to think it, writing and editing them. But also this essays demanded our knowledge and abilities learned in this semester. For example, we had to review our grammar, learn new vocabulary, and even improve our listening for watch videos.
For the essays, topic were established by the teacher, but every essay is different from the other students because the we decided what to write. We done four essays, a reflective essay, exploration essay, interpretation essay, and argumentative essay. For my reflective essay I decided to write about the mind influenced by the language. I chose this topic because I think language open our mind to the world, and you can think different. For the exploration essay, that actually was our midterm exam, we read a story. I wrote about the kid, maybe because I found myself in a similar situation, a boy in love making everything to be corresponded. In my interpretation essay, I chose as partners to my friends Diego & Richard. we chose a paint called persistence of memory, we use that one because we wanted to show our classmates the wasting of time. We
are young now, but we are wasting our time in so many unimportant things. Finally in the argumentation essay I chose to talk about kichwa in Ecuador. I chose it because I believe that we are moving into the next generation and we couldn't stayed in the past, but also we can not forgot our roots.
I don't want you to think that this semester was only writing. We also had funny times and some nice activities. We had presentations like a grammar presentation. We seen some videos and talk about them and finally we had a debate. For the grammar presentation we formed groups, this groups had a topic and a date to make the exposition. Well, more specific, each group had to make the class for a day. We had to teach about the topic, make games in the class and a short quiz. During the semester we saw many videos, I remember one specific video, this was about two persons. One of them had just lost his mom, he is angry and sad. The other is a happy lady, she write a word in a post it and she give it to the boy. He is angry and refused it. Then something happened and both start to make post it for everyone. At final of the class we make post it for everyone in the class. Finally the debate, we discussed about if should exist a global language. My group lost because we were against and was very difficult to find opposing arguments.
When I started this semester my writing skill was bad, now I feel that my writing is getting better. Like I said before, while I was making essays I had to learn new vocabulary. Also I had to learn the best form to organized the text in order to have sense and can be easily followed by the reader. Other ability that I improve was the reading. Again while I was making the essays I had to read, I read so many articles, and
even more, for my others subjects I read some others book. Now I actually can read almost without translate any words.
One of my goals before start the semester was to see movies or series totally in English without subtitles. Last night I was watching a serie, I was watching it in Spanish, I remembered my goal so I decided to change the language to English. I also turned on subtitles, but I realized that in many occasion the subtitles are not the same that the actors said. So I tried to watch it without subtitles, I noticed that I actually I can see it without subtitles. There are some phrases that I can not understand because are native phrase, but I can understand the whole episode for myself.
Gratefully,
Pedro Altamirano
Response essay
Does Language Influence Pedro Altamirano Yachay Tech University English Level 6 - 017 September 30, 2016
Does language influence
As a people, our behavior can be shaped by many external factor such as culture, family, and friends. Many scientists have asked if the language has a real role when thoughts are being shaped. According to Ramos, E. (2016), language isn't an impediment at the time of expressing ourselves. Although, language plays an important role in the use of the spoken language. For me, the language is one of the main component at the time to molding the mind. The process of shaping the mind, involves the use of language in most of its stages. Firstly, many people ask themselves if the language shapes the thoughts. The shaping of the thoughts is more than language, the modeling process depends on the environment where you grow up. The way that you speak depends on the culture, traditions, and habits that you have. It also depends in the family and friends circle. In cultures where don't have a specific word for something, they use different words to express what they want. In the world exists many different dialects, every single language has their own way to use it. English is focused in the time of the action, and most important, English treats time as an object. Other specific uses of English are the countable and uncountable nouns. When we begin the states of modeling, all the experiences that we have is nearly related in the way we think. This experiences in general occurred when we are talking. So I believe that shaping the mind involves the use of language because through the use of language we discover our character. At the time when we are expresses ourselves, we discover what we like, dislike and feelings. Although there are some other aspects that are including in the modeling process such as culture, education, parents nurture.
Secondly, when we use the language, we don't only use words. At the time when we communicate with another person, we can use images. So when we are talking about language, we also are talking about what the other person is thinking. These can be mental images, smells, even feelings. Actually, we don't have a word for every single thing that we have around us. For example the colors. There is an infinite number of colors, we don't have a name for every one of them, so we make groups of colors. When a kid is starting to talk, the first thing that he learns is the big group of every object. For example, the kid learns the word dog, then learns species like san bernardo, and then gives the dog a name. In my opinion, the ability that we have to make groups of similar things is one of the most important skills that we could learn. This ability allows us to think in plural instead of thinking one thing at a time. We could define many objects with the same word, and most important, we can make one big title for a list of topics. As a child it is very important to recognize the main topic that relates to something. For example animals, we know as animal a series of mammals, reptiles, birds, etc‌ So when we are growing up, we learn about ourselves, when we start to forming our character we classified different experiences, emotion, feelings, and this is what we are. Thirdly, a common question is that Eskimo people have a big variety of words for snow. In the first place, the language of Eskimos are derived from the Inuit and Yupik language families. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Eskimos have many words for snow. In English we can make many combinations of word using a simple root. We used snow to make the word snowflakes or snowing. This process to combine words can be applied to the Eskimos, and this could be a second reason for the dozen words for snow. In my experience, when we have the knowledge of language, we start to experiment with them. This is one of the things that I can affirm that happens. When a kid is experimenting, he learns how to make new word and this can upgrade his creativity. This is one form that how the
language influence us. Actually, I believe when we are talking sometimes we're just playing with the words and this make us to think in the best way to use language. Continuously we are developing our mind in benefit of language. We learn new words, new phrases, new languages. In conclusion, the process to shape thoughts is more complicated than the use of language. This process involves many external factors that make us think in one way or another. In the world there are many different languages, each of them has a way to use it. At the time of communicating, not only have words, we have images, smells or feelings to express. Even if you do not have a specific word for everything we have, we can make groups of things. So we have many factors that make us think differently than my parents or my friends, but the language is not one of them.
References
Eduardo,
R.
(2016).
Lenguaje
y
pensamientos.
Retrieved
from:
http://www.psicopedagogia.com/articulos/?articulo=343
Linguistic Society of America. (1999). Does the language I speak influence the way I think?. http://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/Does_Language_Influence.pdf
Literary analysis
Araby, Point of View of the Boy. Pedro Altamirano Yachay Tech University English Level 6 - 017 October 17, 2016
Araby, Point of View of the Boy. Araby is a short story that tells us about a boy, this boy is in love. The story that narrates the journey of this boy to the “Araby bazaar” to get a present for the girl. But it is more deeper than that. The story describes what the boy is thinking in differents moments, and lets us see what he is seeing. Actually it is most interesting because the descriptions are made by the boy. These descriptions let us know about the boy, his deep love, and his self-discovery journey . In the body of the story there are some paragraphs for descriptions. One paragraph is about the house of the boy, the other is about the backyard outside. Even exists a fragment describing the araby bazaar where he went, and the characters. Even it has a paragraph for the old prayer that lived in this house. But I think that most paragraphs of descriptions are focused in the girl that he likes. The descriptions start with her brother, and then he start to describe their house. While he is describing her house he is describing his matutine routine, “Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door…”.(Araby, 2016. pp 1) This is the beginning of the boy love, maybe they are neighbors since children so the daily routine becomes in love. Later in the story, she speaks to the boy and he describe her. “The light from the lamp opposite to our door caught the white curve of her neck, …” this description shows us the way, so detailed, in that the boy look at her.(Araby, 2016. pp 2) These descriptions are important because they let us know the strong love that he felt for her. In my opinion it is beyond of the way in that he describes the scene. I think that the boy described her house so detailed because he is pending of her. He likes to know if she is ok, if she had a good or bad day, even if she has new clothes. Maybe the daily routine is important to him because this is when he saw her for the first time at day. The descriptions are important because they let us know what the boy is minded to do for her.
In the story, she asked him to take a gift from the araby bazaar. He is in love, so he is liable to go. When he arrives to the bazaar, he found nothing opened. Walking for the hall he found a store, but the worker is not interested on him. He describes the uninterest deal from the employee. Later he finished the story describing a creature full of anger. The creature was him, he is shirty because he cant bought a gift for her. Concluding, all the descriptions in the story show us, part by part, the personality of the boy, his feelings, and his environment. The description also present us a background of information to have a better understanding of the story. In my opinion, if the story were related by a third person and not from the boy, maybe this story wouldn't finish like it does.
REFERENCES Joyce, J. (1935). ​Araby. Trieste: Triestina Carlo Moscheni.
Interpretation Essay
Persistence of Memory Pedro Altamirano Richard Bastidas Diego Chavez Yachay University for Experimental Technology and Research November 16th, 2016
Persistence of memory According to Robert Kiyosaki time is the most valuable source; it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, nor your race nor your skin color. Everyone lives under the laws of time. The painting “Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali is one of the famous painting of all times, and still being one of the best due to its many interpretations. The painting represents how time is wasted in the world. It expresses a dry landscape behind the watches, and this shows how the souls of people who waste time are. It has a leafless tree that represents how time pass in life. There is also an empty canteen that portrays an empty life. We consider this because time it is the most precious source that every human has. In the first place, as reported by Steve Jobs, Abraham Lincoln and Robert Kiyosaki time is limited and you have the control of yours. The painting represents the waste of time in the world and this is evident due to the melted clocks painted. The clocks are dropped in many places meaning each one a different perspective. For example, the one on the wood is almost in the floor, so this time is wasted but not at all. The second clock is above a blanket that is on the floor, this time is completely wasted sadly. And the last clock is in a tree’s stick meaning that one person wastes its time but is not too late. An interesting detail is the fly posed on the first watch. We believe that the clock represents the time of a random person whose waste of time will cost her/him life. How can this happen? It could be a person with obesity who refuses to exercise or do something instead of lay in a sofa. Something curious about these melted clocks is that the time set in each of the three clocks is different. This might be related to the relativity law that says time is not the same depending on what situation you are living in. This caught our attention because it is true, it is not the same one minute of playing soccer than one minute of writing an essay. We associate these three
different times with how time really passes. For example: time might pass faster for me and slower for you, so we believe that we are in different times. The title of the painting “The Persistence of Memory� gave us one clue related to relativity. This is the time that a good memory lives in us, but the time varies depending on the person. Next, there is an empty canteen that symbolizes a life with no direction; in other words an empty life. This canteen is next to the second watch, the one that has the fly on. This is related in how the life of a random person who wastes time is empty. So, the canteen is a symbol that helps the viewer understands how the waste of time is directly related with an empty life. The canteen has also many bugs on it. These ants are gathered in the center of the object; is like the bug has taken the canteen. Now, ants might represent the bad habits; how one bad habit attracts others until these take your entire life. To end, the combination of these two objects (canteen and melted clock) shows the consequences of not approaching time. In this piece of art the author used many different aspects to show how time passes as is the case of the leafless tree. This is a strong way to represent how time pass to create a strong impact in the viewers of this piece of art. This is why the author put a clock on one of it is branches, it creates a closer relationship between the state of the three and how time passes. There are many different interpretations for using a tree in a piece of art, but in most of the cases artists use a tree to represents life. If we analyze the cycle of a tree is similar to human´s cycle, and the basic elements that a tree needs to grows as water, land, air, and sun are the same to the ones that humans need to grow. Based on this information, we can create a direct relation between a tree and a human, so the author tried to represent a human that lost its time and its opportunities.
Then, in this piece of art we have a direct relation between all of the aspects with the personification that we made in the previous paragraph. As we can see in the paintings we have a
brown land that represents an arid ground, the water is away from the tree, and the tree is far from the ground. The situation that the tree is far from the ground represents that the tree cannot acquire the nutrients to grow or to be alive again. This is the same for a person, a person needs those nutrients and opportunities to grow, but in some cases people lost their opportunities and they cannot reach those nutrients to grow. In the painting we can see a stage where the tree is far from the ground and at the same time it is an arid ground, and the tree is away from the water. So, with all of those aspects we can deduce what the author wants to express or represent. The author tries to show us how in some cases people waste their time in the world. It represents a situation when people lost their opportunities, and the experiences that will be only in their memories.
In conclusion, this famous painting can has many different interpretations because; it has a lot of details that we need to consider when we analyze it. When we interpreted this painting we considered fundamental details as the landscape in general, the ground, the water, the tree, and the watches. Those fundamental details when we related them, we conclude that all of them represent how time is wasted in the world. The leafless tree with all of the aspects around it, represents how time pass in life, especially in human life. How the canteen represents or shows us an empty life. This painting has a strong impact in humans because, it shows us how time is wasted in our world and in our life. When time is wasted we lose opportunities and experiences that will be only in our memories. This is why time is the most important source for humans.
References:
Dali, S. (1970). The Persistence of Memory, 1931 - Salvador Dali. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from ​https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/the-persistence-of-memory-1931
Final Research Project
Do Yachay students participate in politics Pedro Altamirano Yachay Tech University English Level 6 - 017 December 02, 2016
Do Yachay students participate in politics?
Abstract In university, life start to changing, a person has more responsibilities to attend. Because of this responsibility is important to know the order of importance in your daily activities. For a student, their studies, friends, sports, or hobbies are most important than anything, including politics. Although Ecuadorian government has made important changes in the political participation for people, young adults are not interested in being part of this political participation. FEUE is a students group that tries to make consensus about political participation in Ecuador, and has made some marchs for change the politics in Ecuador.
As a child, we always wants to grow up. We want to be in university as our big brother. But when we start university, you note that your life will be different forever. Firstable, you noticed that homeworks take you so much time. Second, you take all the remaining time and try to make friends. At last, in vacations you spend time with family. When you start university, you aren't really interested in other thing out of studies. Politics is one of them, even in election time. We are not interested in being part of a political party, or the candidates for the next elections. Yachay is a new university created by the government. So it is important to know some about politics. But Yachay students are more interested in their studies, hobbies or extracurricular than in politics because of over-information.
In university you start a new life with more responsibilities and less time to spent. When someone enter to university, he/she has to study very hard, even more if he/she has a scholarship
and has to maintain it. In university, the students are focused in their academics activities. They are looking for activities that improve their grades. Homeworks turns larger and more difficult. Sometimes they have semester projects or investigations, this take time and effort. And of course, exams. For exams the majority of students turn totally into their studies to pass the semester. Of course, classes are not everything in their lives, in free time students develop their friendship with other students. occasionally go to lunch with their friends and return home to do homework. In some cases, this communion is made in study time when they get together to study a theme or make a project.
When holidays arrives, student go home and stay with family. In summer vacations students take this time to relax, see friends, go to shopping or just stay in home being lazy. In holidays and vacations students don't want to study or do whatever related with collage. Although there are few students that realized summer courses or work during summer. Summarizing in university, student are full of work, which means they have less time for hobbies or fun. Even more if it is a something that they are not interested like politics.
In a survey realized in Buenos Aires, reveal that less of 50% of all student are in politics. Only the 5% of the stunts are actively in politics, and more important, this students are divided in ecologism, socialism, sports, and others. So it is clear that students in Ecuador are not interested in politics. Maybe the big participation in the old universities is due to a cultural environment. Or maybe is because in this universities subjects like politics or philosophical think is thought.
Since 2008 the political participation has been arising, in relation from years before. With the new president people can introduce themselves in politics. The government has been creating many institutions for the participation of public. When the laws were reformed, the government
makes a referendum, then people decided about the laws that will been or not included in the new constitution. In the past few years Ecuador has been improving the participation of ancestral folks, teenagers, and general population.
In Ecuador exist a community of universitary students, Federaciรณn de Estudiantes Universitarios del Ecuador, FEUE. This organisation has more than 70 years, and has been part of several marches in Ecuador. Every university has the right and duty to have their own committee of representatives. But students still disinterested in politics even if the political decisions affects them. Universitary students are not interested in politics because they said that politics are just trick and inquities.
Now a day we are living in the time of over information. This mean that we are overstimulated with information. In a current day we can start the day reading the daily news, hear them in the way to work or class, lunch watching the news, and of course read more news in social medias. I believe that because over information, we don't have a real opinion, we just read the notice and repeat it everywhere. This became worst, because of social we are less interested in the important topics. Now we are more interested in know what happened to whatsapp than see the candidates for the next elections.
Yachay is a university made by the government as a project of four new universities. This universities were created not only for transmitting the knowledge, this four universities were created as a political project that will helps Ecuador in the future. Students in Yachay are not interested in politics. They has some several things to carry out during the day, these cause that they are disinterested in politic. In a normal day students have to go to classes, do his homework, even go to extra classes or extracurricular at night. Other students practice sports, stay in home in
their hobbies, or just go out with friends. Students believe that they can found every relevant notice in social media, and they don't care if it is true or not.
According to Marcus, university student are involved in politics. Marcus writes that students movements are responsables for some several changes, or constructions, or politics in their own universities. Actually a survey made in UK reveals that university is the best place to initiate the political life. In fact, the old universities, like Oxford and Harvard, has more students involved in politics than any other university. In Ecuador, exist a movement of university students.This association is a union of representants from all the universities in Ecuador.
The FEUE has made some several changes in the Ecuadorian politics. Starting so many year ago, the FEUE has made march against that thing is affecting their universitary studies. Some of this marcha attract others parts of the population like the farmer group or the ancestral group. Thanks to the FEUE so many laws in Ecuador has been changed. Others achievements are the nationalization of the petroleum. This show us that a universitary movement can make the difference in the politics of the country.
Yachay students are not interested in politics, the disinterest can be for some of the reasons declared before. But it is important that Yachay students start to being interested in politics, not only because Yachay is a political institution, also because of themselves. As university Yachay has a representant, this representant was not elected by the students at all, maybe in the future Yachay will have a proper elections. When This elections took place students were not really interested, but in the future we will need a real representant for something important and we will don't have it. Yachay as university is consider as an international university, Yachay has many
agreements with other institutions, but if the students don't take place as a political member of the university, this agreements will not be a benefit entirely for the students.
The first step to have students interested in politics is that the university promote the political participation on their students. This foment can be introduce making the elections of the university. Second step could be the creation of a political club. This club could make conscience in the Yachay students and they will introduce their friend to being informed about the politics of Ecuador. For third step make a conference about the rights and duties, of the students. This conference can be part of an introduction about the laws in the constitution of 2008.
In my opinion, every person has to know their rights and duties. I think that nationalism is a part of politics, have the knowledge of the constitution is almost a civic duty. For a young adult that is forming his mind, know the laws is important because it could save him from a misunderstood or an unjustified punish. In my opinion the very first step to introduce population to politics is teaching the constitution. When we start to know our rights and duties we start to being more interested in the country politics. When we know what is happened to the country politics, it begins to interest us.
Resources
Delfino, G; Zubieta, E. (2011). Interés por la política y preferencias políticas en estudiantes universitarios de
la
ciudad
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https://www.academia.edu/13228286/Interés_por_la_política_y_preferencias_políticas_en_estudiantes_u niversitarios_de_la_ciudad_de_Buenos_Aires
Escandón F. (2011). LA FEUE: 69 años de historia, 69 años de lucha. Retrieved from: http://www.ecuadorlibrered.tk/movimientos-sociales/5939-la-feue-69-anos-de-historia-69-anos-de-lucha
Min, M (2016). UM students, want to get involved in politics? The time is ... (n.d.). Retrieved November 16,
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Ministerio de inclusion economica y social. (2016). Jóvenes cuencanos conocen sobre herramientas de participación
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http://www.inclusion.gob.ec/jovenes-cuencanos-conocen-sobre-herramientas-de-participacion-ciudadana
Morales L. (2012). La unidad y movilización fortalece nuestra organización. Retrieved from: http://feuenacional.blogspot.com/|
Rossi, F. M. (2009). La participación de las juventudes hoy: La condición juvenil y la redefinición del involucramiento político y social. Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros.
Sandoval, M. (2000). La relación entre los cambios culturales de fines de siglo y la participación social y política de los jóvenes. BALARDINI, S.(Comp.). La participación social y política de los jóvenes en el horizonte del nuevo siglo. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 147-164.
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Thank you for take the time to read this portfolio. I hope this essay will help you in your daily life.
Sincerely, Pedro Altamirano