PERSPECTIVES: MY ENGLISH JOURNEY
KEVIN LANDÁZURI YACHAY TECH UNIVERSITY ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM YACHAY, ECUADOR
PERSPECTIVES: MY ENGLISH JOURNEY BY KEVIN LANDÁZURI ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM
YACHAY TECH LEVEL 6 - 002 ALYSSA WOLFE JANUARY 10, 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS PORTFOLIO LETTER RESPONSE ESSAY LITERARY ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION ESSAY ARGUMENTATION ESSAY FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT ESSAY ADDITIONAL MATERIALS THANK YOU LETTER
Universidad Yachay Tech January 10, 2017. Imbabura, Ecuador Dear Portfolio Reader,
As a graduated from the English program imparted in the University for Experimentation and Researching Yachay Tech, with the experience of five semesters taking English classes, I felt that my English level has growth exponentially during the last courses where the most important objectives were boosting and improving our English. I realized the pronunciation and thereby speaking was very relevant because the communication is a very essential factor in our environment, then the speaking is the pinnacle of the learning. Another important topic was the capability to write: essays, articles or papers that we have been learning in this course. In addition, it’s a pleasure show you my portfolio which include all the work done in the final course: research papers, articles, literary analysis and so on. Personally, the English program curriculum had issues and benefits, the issues consists of the excessive amount of time that the students spends doing the English's homework, this factor could not be pedagogic because the students acquire a feeling of stress. On the other hand, the benefits are linked with the practice, all the mornings the group started with an answer of a questions in front of the class, this initiative make us loss the nervous, improve our creativity and improvisation. Furthermore, the students felt comfortable with the oral expositions or presentations because the environment was nice and in the majority of the cases, we completed our work with success.
Albeit that the students should study with the hand of the teachers classes, we realized that the grammatical part given in the course is easy to understand in short time, then we complement the teachers class with some quizzes. Additionally, is very important the relationship that exists between students and teachers; in my case I had in my teacher a friend, she was very understood with all the students because she considered case by case how the students are improving or not. Then the interest that the teacher had with us, is a important thing to consider. Finally, we know that this course probably will be the last English course, then we have to think if we achieve our objectives planned when we started the English courses. In my opinion, the students and the teachers achieved the majority of aims because the results day after day are applied in our careers for example. The fifth career students, currently are receiving all the subjects in English language. So the feelings that I have in my career are very positive because the language is not a crucial fact to consider, otherwise the English part could be our best skill in front of the class.
Sincerely,
Kevin Landรกzuri Cortez.
RESPONSE ESSAY
The Importance Of Our Language In Our Behavior. Kevin Landรกzuri. Level 6-002 Yachay University For Experimental Technology And Research September 30, 2016
HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPES THE WAY WE THINK
Humanity has been changing since the first humans, these changes are a consequence of different reactions that all people have with respect to our environment. Is clear that we have different cultures which are the result of the changes on humans, but why there are a lot of cultures around the world? Currently, the languages that people speak have a consequence in our culture and life style. When people born there are some essential steps that have to be reached to be considered part of our society. If you have the capacity to communicate using a specific language, you can have friends, you can get an education, you can hold a job, you can start a family and the “normal human life” is carried out. (Boroditsky , 2009). Our society behave according to stereotypes created by ourselves. Is clear that people have to learn a language to communicate and achieve the normal life. When languages started to be important, humans started to create different ways of thinking because of our habits. One example is the corporal language that is used in Ecuador for trying to explain a phenomena occurred, in Germany people usually try to be simpler to explain things, so we can see a example that shows the differences between the behaviors of people from Ecuador and Germany. There are a lot of possible reasons to try to explain the differences in behaviors and cultures of different people around the world. The information that Boroditsky used in his research was collected from: China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. She concluded that these countries are really different with respect to culture. One example to identify the change in cultures is the way that many countries use the language, in Russia the language is so complicated because they add additional information in the verb; on the other hand in other countries the verb doesn't have tense or genre. This action makes me think about the different expressions that all people have, then the expressions define our culture. There is a social construction that involves the way of learning things, such as: “English speakers were taught to use size metaphors (As in Greek) to describe duration, or vertical metaphors (as in Mandarin) to describe order, […] their cognitive performance began to resemble that of Greek or Mandarin speakers.” (Boroditsky L., 2009).
Language has been controversial because of it wrong use, in some countries could be less respectfull to native speakers. So there is a consequence of using wrong the language, while in others countries doesn't matter, in Spain for example is very important follow the rules of the RAE.We usually consider as a literate people when these people use very well the language and the way to share their ideas, but in the other hand, people that have inconvenient with their language are considered like ignorant. In the past, the communities used to communicate with others communities without any kind of language, but they wanted to share their ideas in whatever ways. So they developed a way to show their territory, their food, their clothes, among others, with the objective to worry or inform their culture. It was difficult for them to share their ideas, but when the history started, where language was the principal factor, the way to share ideas and cultures will be more effective than in the past. So we can infer that the use of language helped to people to share their ideas and behaviors. Furthermore, when the communities implemented the use of a language their culture changed, one example is the way to prepare food, when a community learned to talk or share ideas, they started to prepare food in more ways and today we have a lot of recipes to prepare our food, this kind of evolution involves the use of language. Finally, the humans have different cultures but all people probably don't know the origin of these cultures and the possible changes on Art in the future. One part of the origin of the diversity of cultures is the use of language, this kind of communication is an important fact with respect to the way that we think. The way that all people think is involved in their culture, so there are a lot of countries in the world and each country probably have a different language. Also, is familiar for us, that we communicate all the days with any person that is living around us, but probably we don't know that our society need this activity, it means that we are designed to communicate with any person using a different language, it has a lot of consequences that could be a problem or a advantage depending of the region. So I agree that the language really shapes the way we think.
REFERENCES. Boroditsky, L. (2009, May 6). How does our language shape the way we think? Retrieved from: https://www.edge.org/conversation/how-does-our-language-shape-the-way-we-think.
LITERARY ANALYSYS
LITERARY ANALYSIS
Have you ever felt in love with a neighbor or someone that lives near you? Basically this is the point of the story read in class. The narrator, which his name is unknown started a good relationship with Mangan's sister, we also don't know her name, and the passed some good moments. The point of view probably will be the fact that in their relationship the religious aspects are present, the innocence is very important. But at the end, the results weren't perfect. The narrator talks with Mangan's sister and he feels confusion. Mangan's sister asked him: "Are you going to Araby"? She said that she would love to go. At this point, the importance of Araby comes to the narrator, because he believed in the chance to go to Araby and buy a gift her. Araby is a bazar, probably made by a church, and we can infer that Mangan's sister could be a religious woman. The narrator shows that he thinks about Mangan's sister all the day. Little by little, the love in the narrator is growing. If we can connect the love with a religious life style we can predict that there is a great link that allow these guys to fall in love. When we talk about innocence, we talk about kids or teenagers, this story give us the idea of an innocent teenager just thinking in Mangan's sister. So, where does the innocence appear? Well, we know that he promised her to bring something from Araby, next he knew that Mangan's sister couldn't go. So he spend hours and hours thinking about a beautiful gift for her. The narrator feels happiness and also he is worried because of the permission to go to Araby, the perfect control about the situations went wrong when he couldn't buy something for her. The narrator went to the bazaar, and the first impression was that the events weren't finished and some stores were closed. He entered a little bit more and he could see some porcelain vases and flowered tea-sets. These objects weren't the perfect gift for Mangan's sister. A young lady asked him what he wants but he answered: Nothing, thank you. At the end of the day he felt his eyes burned with feelings of anguish and anger. Then, why is this so important? In my experience I would say that the narrator tried to do all the things correct but he couldn't get the final result: Mangan's sister love. I know this because a good starting point in their relationship will be a gift from Araby, but the
narrator couldn't but nothing. He feels angry and disappointed of himself, then the result with Mangan's sister wasn't exactly like he wanted. I Obtained from this story that we can do the things very good but sometimes we couldn't have the perfect result for us.
References: Joyce, James (2009). Dubliners. London:Araby. Joyve, James (2009). Dubliners. London: Grant Richards.
INTERPRETATION ESSAY
Interpretation of O Fortuna. Alex Jammett Danny Jerez Kevin Landรกzuri Yachay Tech November 16, 2016
Interpretation of O Fortuna Music is the universal language of the countries. The most important part of music are the feelings that this art transmits, O Fortuna is a song, which is part of collection called “CarminaBurana”. “CarminaBurana”is a collection of Latin profane poems creates at ends of the 13thcentury. The most important of those songs are blasphemous, and sometimes they are obscene. This collection was written in several languages such as Medieval Latin, antique German, French and English. The collection was commissioned by a bishop or by a rich person. It was composed in a monastery in Benediktbeuern where it remained until its discovery in 1803 and published in 1847 with the name of “CarminaBurana”. In the case of O Fortuna was written in Medieval Latin by unknown artists. In 1937, a German musician, Carl Orff, recreated the original manuscript, among them the song O Fortuna. O Fortuna is a song inspired on tradition and costumes of the 13th century. Orff’s rearrangement was presented with soloists, choir and orchestra. This song is dedicated to Fortune, who is a Roman goddess of luck. Carl Orff's verions opens with a strong sound of drums and trumpets, then the choir drops quickly into a whisper, also it is building slowly with drums while choir begin to sing. This song was writing a lot time ago, and is referring to the fortune, making some comparison with life, and complains about the author life. As the poem was dedicated to the fortune and how it works on life, the song is called O Fortuna. The song has a lot of different sounds. It is intense, trying to catch the attention in the first second. It starts with a lot of percussion instrument. Those instruments and their sounds give the impact that the music need. The poem was written in signal of call the attention to the people and this is why the music has to produce the same impact. The song is played in an Orchestra, because it cannot be expressed by a single person. All the artists of the Orchestra are important because those variations in tone are the
key to this art. Other instruments used were violin, some flutes, etc. harmonic instruments in general. Those instrument were used to make the listener enter on a relaxing mode, it means, to let flow the music, and focus on the letter.After the song finish with the harmonic part that is the stanza, it came again with strong to the chorus. The impact of this art is only achieved when they do in the way that they are doing, it means in the orchestra way. The song sound like a horror song and it is not too far to reality. According to the poem was dedicated to how the fortune manages author’s life, it involves to the people who listen in the same situation, making them to remember all the things that happened in their life, which according to the letter, they are not the happiest one. The song is played like this because they try to represent the time in which the song was written. It is sung in Latin to preserve the originality meaning of the poem and to make sure that there is no mistake on translation. With respect to the interpretation, we have wondered of what is the message that the creator tried to transmit; to consider this question we need to return to the past, specifically at 13thcentury when the wars took place. Is necessary to consider the lyrics of the poem and next the sounds that accompany the poem. Concerning to the lyrics, the poem express a frustration with life, because there was not stability in the world, the days were gray and the feelings make people behave different. “Hateful Life” says the author to express his feelings and criterion about the things happened at this time; there isn’t a certain explanation for this words, one reason is because we don’t know nothing about the author, another reason is because the origin of the poem could be different because of the group of poems called “CarminaBurana”. In spite of we don’t know with precision the correct events, we can assume some topics that probably the author could represent through the poem. The innumerable amount of wars, the injustice
imparted by politicians, religion versus science, and so on. These points could be an incentive to write a poem that shows a frustration with life. Finally, in 1936 the poem joined with very good sounds and this new classical music started to be one of the most important symphonies around the world, when we hear this music we can feel the perfection link between the lyrics and sound. O Fortuna, is today used in horror movies or clips where the effects show tension and desperation feelings.
References
"O Fortuna". En.wikipedia.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Nov. 2016. "ÂżQue Significa Esta CanciĂłn? Carmina Burana". Gatotirabarra.blogspot.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
ARGUMENTATION ESSAY
ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
There was a point in the human life called history, this point started when the first humans could save evidence or some events writing. Currently we count with more than one hundred of languages with different kind of writing. In the other hand, people have culture a the culture doesn't have a point to say here the culture started because people had culture even when they couldn't write. We know the influence that language has on a culture and also we know the different behaviors that people show. Then, who says that these behaviors are correct or not? Here appears the ethics and morality. Culture is an independent behavior and this characteristic probably shows the biggest effect that culture has with respect to ethics and morality. Julie Sedivy says "I often have the sense that I'm a slightly different person in each of my languages" and in my opinion this is correct because our brain behaves according the situations where we are. The culture, in the other hand, doesn't change with situations it changes with places where culture is established. The morality also will change according to places. In order to show evidence, we will consider the next situation: Imagine that you are a person who travels around the world, you must need to talk at least three languages to be comfortable in a place. Now, think that you stole a piece of breath in the United States and another one in Israel because your brother is hungry. What will happen? In United States you could talk with the store's owners and probably he will understand your situation, but in Israel you could go jail because in this religious country they can't accept your action under conditions. Then, was language important? No really, because the culture is more important. We considered the ethics from people living in different countries; now we consider the morality of those people. Morality has a lot of definitions created by famous thinkers, one definition says that morality involves all the actions that people do, and how these actions affects to society. According to Sedivy, the moral judgments made in foreign language could be less important against the emotions in a childhood. (Sedivy,2016) . She is right but again, the emotions are results of the life style that a person had, and this life style is guided by the culture. Taking again the breath stolen case, if the person that stole the breath was formed in EE UU, probably his emotions aren't so bad because a piece of breath in EE UU isn´t so expensive, but If this person would be formed in Iran or Iraq, the
emotions are so bad because he could die just to stole the breath. Here again, the culture is more important than language. In conclusion, ethics and morality are changing as people behave and the different reasons of this, are language, culture, technology and so on. Day after day the culture means an important value that people needs to respect and consider important in order to act. The culture is an important point to analyze the ethics and morality; all people have culture and all people have an intern morality. Finally, the culture has a greater effect on ethics than language because never will change in different parts of the world.
REFERENCES
Sedivy, J. (2016, September). How morality changes in a Foreign Language. Scientific American.
FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT ESSAY
Self-education: An alternative way to study considering own objectives. Kevin R. Landázuri “Yachay Tech University” English Level 6 - 002 January 10, 2017
Abstract: Since the old times, people wanted to study using their own methods and materials, currently this way of study acquires a formal degree and preparation like the conventional method. Self-education is the way to study by own methods, this mean that any person could study without restrictions, day after day this method is underpinned by a lot of institutions and probably this study could get a cost, but the own preparation is free and you could find the content that you want in free books, INTERNET, encyclopedia and so on to support your information. Furthermore self-education focus on the personal objectives and this method has advantages or disadvantages depending on the final aim.
Self-education: An alternative way to study considering own objectives. Great scientists and innovators of the world didn’t need a formal education to achieve their objectives, because there is an alternative way to study and this could be better or worst depending of people and their aims. Probably when the reader is reading this article, you could have opened a Facebook page and we can see that the Facebook’s business is one of the best systems around the world and this idea comes from a student that didn’t complete his studies in a university. Zuckemberg is the man who created Facebook, we can take him perspective because our society has the stereotype to be a professional you need to have a formal university degree, if not you aren’t considered part of the active society. Then, using self-education we can learn better or worse than in a university, learning by own methods could give us the possibility to feel freedom at the moment to study, and you could create a innovative way to get better our world. Self-education provides students to be comfortable with what they are studying, the cost is less expensive and you really focus on the things that you are going to need once you achieve a degree. We can’t be sure that if you choose study by self-education you could have the same or more knowledge than studying formal education, because it depends on people and how they behave in front of the subjects that they are receiving. Sometimes self-education needs formal education such as a complement to get better knowledge and experience in any field.
Based on Groß (2014) in his study, it is easy to understand that in many cases there are different point of view according the subject or some process that the students are learning. The main idea is to design our own education following the principles of Till, the aim of this study is that people look for their own benefit, to understand this expression better we could consider a professional from Ecuador which is working in a factory but he wanted to work in other field like education in university. The education that our professional received is very formal to just be used in one field like company, in other cases like in Mexico we could observe that the professionals are studying at the same time many
languages and subjects in order to create a new vision of the world.Till believes that there are four ways to design our education, things that in Ecuador don’t happen.
I disagree with Till’s explanation, because I think that his article is oriented in just his experience, so how we can say that we will have a good education? if we aren’t familiar with the subjects that Till received? A good point could be the fact that the Till’s education could have a relationship with our current careers, but there isn’t a direct comparison with the education of each of you. Another thing that needs to be considered is the possibility to choose our own career, actually our educational system, talking in Ecuadorian terms, doesn’t give us the chance to choose our career because of the limitations in universities. So how can we be free to choose our ideals if we don’t have any additional career or any support to change our mind? And How can we design our own education if our educational system doesn’t give us the possibility to study the things that we want? In Ecuador there is a national test for the access to the university, so if we want to study Medicine for example, we need to have the best grades of the Ecuador’s test, because there are just two public universities that offer the medicine career, but if we can’t achieve the best grades or we don’t have a big amount of money to pay a private university unfortunately we need to study other career. At this point, the self-education takes place because is less expensive than the formal education and you can choose whatever career that you want. Following the principle to design our education, Young (2010) give us a support to this article’s objectives, he explain Ben Cansnocha’s “T” model for learning new things as: “The idea is that, ideally, there should be a wide range of subjects you have a basic understanding of (the broad top of the T). But, in addition, there should also be a select few skills you are an expert in (the narrow stem of the T).” furthermore in order to define which
subjects or content should be on the top or narrow stem of the T model, we need to define what are our priorities, at this point Scott believes that in order to select the subjects of the top, we don’t have to be expert on our topic, is enough with a common and superficial information. However, in the bottom of the T (narrow stem) is necessary to have a deeper self-education, that means that the student should work hard. The priorities in a student are very important, and these priorities are more important when the student are learning by self-education because the organization of his schedules are a consequence of the importance of subjects, then the “T� model could support our point of view, which says we are studying focus on our final objectives or in this case focus on the subjects that we want to learn. It Is important to consider the disadvantages that self-education has, in order to explain this point, I need you think about the next situation: Imagine that you are studying a French course just to learn the language on books, and you are going to study this language by self-education, then how could you ensure you are articulating and pronouncing the words correctly? And also, how could you practice this language if you have no one to practice it on? I believe that a lot of these questions depends on how you learn things and is important to consider the affect that the student has with the subject. People usually thinks that by finishing a career, they probably could find a job and the rest of their lives are destined to work in a specific place, but there exists a versatility to work in any field whenever you have your objectives very good traced. Then, how to choose or plan objectives? Well, first of all people might to have a clear idea about their future, next these people should start to look for a university or institute that provides education on their liked field, finally people should be happy with their career, the last point usually needs a help and here appear the self-education, at this point is easy to take a little amount of time an cogitate about the things that you are doing, if we think in terms of formal education you
just are going to be finishing homework and studying for test, but in the other hand the selfeducation gave you the option to choose what homework do you want to do, and the same with exams, then you are free to follow the direction that you want. A study made by Gadamer (2001), give us a different perspective of the education and self-education practice terms: "But if I were obliged to select a title, I would propose the following: Education is to educate oneself; cultivation, or formation, is self-education". Based on Gadamer's argument I have to say that really education implies to be a selfinstructing person because the majority of homework or content of class need to be complemented, for instance: in the majority of universities, students need to go home and study the content that they received and start to prepare himself for a exam. On the other hand, the cultivation or formation depends mainly in the teacher's example or any familiar experiences because the student are forced to follow a professional model, we know that the formation also implies values that are different by each student, but the tutor's motivation or example are very important for the student's growth. Finally, both options of study are correct whenever the student has plans in a future, this means that in order to obtain a degree, one student has to have the mentality that he will be a professional and his occupational field are going to be related to work for our society. Formal education requires a formal study stile that need to be followed to the letter. Whereas self-education,giveus a possibility to define our objectives and study by our own methods without other details that usually aren't necessary; furthermore, there isn't just one option, because formal education and self-education can work together in order to have better results, usually the students need to complement their concepts or the subject's content, and the best advice is that they could go to library, internet or any article to study whatever he wants, because the aim is obtaining the most possible amount of knowledge and then applies it to build a better world.
REFERENCES:
-Gadamer, H. G. (2001). Education is self‐education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 35(4), 529-538.
-Groß, H. (2014, October). H. Groß: Forget university? 4 stepts to design your own education
[Video
file].
Retrieved
from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUnpSYMNEhY.
-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/
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