EXPLORATIONS: MY ENGLISH JOURNEY
KENNY PABÓN ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM LEVEL 6 YACHAY TECH, ECUADOR
EXPLORATIONS: MY ENGLISH JOURNEY BY KENNY PABÓN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM
YACHAY TECH
LEVEL 6-003 TEACHER: MATTHEW MACKEY
JULY 25, 2015 IMBABURA, ECUADOR
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PORTFOLIO LETTER
RESPONSE ESSAY
EXPLORATION ESSAY
INTERPRETATION ESSAY
ARGUMENTATION ESSAY
FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT ESSAY
Kenny Pabón Cevallos Yachay, Department: I-1-3 Dear Portfolio Reader, I am very grateful you read my portfolio. This is a collection that exposes my advancements as an English language user, it shows my progress during the semester from April to July in Language English program at Yachay Tech University in Ecuador. My portfolio contains four essays, a research project and some thoughts. I like working in level 6 English course and I’m ready to new challenges. Through the semester I did a lot of writing, some essays were written in class and others at home, however I had to work every day in my essays to improve my ideas and structure. It helped me a lot the basic structure given in classes which consist in intro, body and conclusion, each section has its features. However, in my first essay I used two thesis statements, one copied from the original article and the other was the same but with other words. In my second essay I got troubles with the audience because I write about United States’ education and nobody in my class studies there. I always have problems with transitions, I do not use them very often, I only end one paragraph and continue to the next instantly. However, I realized that transitions are very important to have a fluent reading, so now I included transitions more often. The group essay was the most interesting essay that I have ever written, it was the first time that I use a paint to write an essay. We write about a Frida Kahlo’s paint, and each member of my group has a very distinct interpretation of the piece, however I enjoyed talking and writing with my partners, I think this was a very enriching experience, I learned a lot from my colleagues.
It was very challenging to write an essay in class specially one that has different point of views. I had some problems with my argumentation essay because I was not even decided about my topic. I selected my thesis statement that censorship should be practiced, however I wrote a very strong opposing view point that later I could not refute. The final research project was very interesting since the beginning, this project taught me that I have to be organized with my time and have plan in order to complete this assignment, otherwise it would not be completed. Also, I learned how to search for references and use them to support my thesis, as well as to look at opposing viewpoints. In this project I tried to use more transitions that I used to; also I wrote more complex sentences and less simple sentences in order to connect my ideas, something that in past essays were not present. A very important part of my progress is related to the work of my partners. The peer shit reviews in class help me to improve my grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary, without these corrections I could not have realize of my mistakes. Although this is the end of the English Language program, I will never stop learning and practicing English. I want to dominate English in every aspect of communication. I plan to read more and also to watch more educational series in order to improve my vocabulary, grammar and listening. I know that to improve my English I have to be very constant and I will do my best to master this language. Thank you again for reading this piece of mine, my portfolio. I worked hard along the semester to write these essays and also to compile them in this portfolio. I am sure you will agree that I improved along these course and now I am better English language user than months before. Sincerely Kenny Pabรณn
Response Essay
How we understand the world is determined by the language we speak Kenny Pabón Cevallos Universidad de Investigación de Tecnología Experimental Yachay Tech 29-04-2016
How we understand the world is determined by the language we speak
Whether you speak English or one of the 7000 languages existing in the world this determine how you comprehend the world around you and shapes your way of thinking. We live in a world where languages die but also are created and where half of the population speaks more than one language. Language shapes our thinking and how we see the world. This is the main point of Lera Boroditsky’s article: “How does our language shape the way we think?” Language is in everything we do; it is an essential component of the experience of being humans. Language is what keep us interconnected and related. Through the evolution, human beings have developed and perfected a wide variety of skills. In order to survive in the wild nature, human beings have learned how to hunt, fish, collect food, stand up, build tools, and make fire among others. In addition, language was created and developed from a necessity of living in a community. As humans we have developed our intelligence and other mental faculties which defines our nature. Our five senses, rationality, logical and sentimental intelligence, and language form up essential tools to experience the reality of being humans. The importance of language is essential to every aspect and interaction in our lives. Language is a constituent element of civilization. We use language to tell the people around us of what we desire, what we feel, and understand the world around us. Being able to communicate with each other, form bonds, teamwork, and it’s what separates humans from other animal species. Man could not become man except by language. Language is a cognitive faculty that is fundamental to our experience and indispensable part of human beings and would be difficult to visualize a life without it.
Each language needs different qualities of their speakers, they are not all identical, and grammar is constructed in distinct ways. This means that different language speakers think different from one another because they need to pay attention and encode different aspects of the world to speak their language properly Everyone does not pay attention to the same things, so trying to learn a new language specially one not closely related to those you know is difficult. Learning a new language is about paying attention to the right things in the world to get the necessary information to include in what you say, it is not only about learning new words and basic grammar. (Boroditsky, 2016). Lera Boroditsky in her article presents several examples about different languages and its special features. She introduces the Kuuk Thaayorre aboriginal community that use cardinal direction terms: north, south, east, and west to define space instead of right or left. This has wide implications, for example you cannot even say “Hello� if you are not oriented and that is the reason why they have developed the skill to always be spatially oriented. In addition, they see time in a different way from English or Mandarin speakers who talk about time horizontally or vertically respectively; they look at time depending of their orientation. Language can also influence in basic aspects of visual perception, for example our ability to distinguish colors. Russians for example makes a distinction between like blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy) whereas English speakers do not; and this makes Russian fasters than English in terms of reaction time. We see colors every day at every time, and it is a feature to describe from an object, but what happens when we describe an object and its gender is different depending on the language? Indeed, the description changes in a notably way, for example, when German and Spanish speakers are asked to describe key, a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish; Germans are more
likely to describe with strong words like metal while Spanish use more delicate words like shiny or tiny. Language is in everything we do and is an essential component of the nature of the human beings. Our thinking is in fact shaped by the language we speak. In order to speak properly a language we notice about different things, develop some different abilities and understand the world in a different way. Comprehending what is the role of the language in our daily lives helps us to understand better our nature and opens the door for new wide questions.
REFERENCES Boroditsky, L. (2016). How language shapes the way we think? Edge.
Exploration essay
Unequal Opportunities in U.S. education Kenny Pabón Cevallos Universidad de Investigación de Tecnología Experimental Yachay Tech 20-05-2016
Unequal opportunities in education
Parents use to say “education is the best gift for everyone�. In fact, Education is a right in all democratic countries. Governments have to assure this special service to all the citizens. Education has to be guaranteed if possible until higher education. Although most of these characteristics are achieved in most democracy countries, there are ones like the U.S. that presents a huge gap between education for white people and color people. Inequality in education is affecting the levels of preparation increasing the branch between the different social classes. The United States has one of the best educational systems in the world, but there is a different offer of it depending of the race of the students. In fact, the U.S. educational system is one of the most unequal in the industrialized world. Schools for white people are big, well equipped, and located. These schools have enough prepared professor and there are not too many students in a single classroom. These schools for high social classes receive more resources and are able to offer more educational programs and giving the students more opportunities to enter to college. In the other hand, the minorities with lower incomes are represented in most cases by color people that do not have the same access to education. Most of schools for these people are not good enough like those for white people. These schools have problems with professors and the necessary elements for laboratories. In most cases, they have to cancel some programs because the resources are not enough. Not having books, tables or enough space in a classroom, are problems that make learning and developing skills too difficult as well as having good opportunities to enter to college.
Education in fact brings more labor opportunities and may assure better incomes. If education is segregated it implies that someone may have good opportunities and other may have not. But in this case segregation of education is related with social classes and even more with race. By the restriction of good education to color people, the gap between social classes may increase. Inequality is present in U. S system, and several investigations have confirmed that. This national problem has increased since 1960 where students were chosen to enter a class and also were excluded from many higher education institutions. Better institutions have more qualified professor and this makes a significantly difference in the level of education. Teachers' preparation makes a tremendous difference to children's learning. According to Ronald Ferguson (1991) teachers' expertise, master's degrees, and experience is the single most important determinant of student achievement. Schools are recognized by the work of their professors and in schools for the minority most professor are not good enough to teach. Whereas in white’s schools the classroom are full with qualified professor, others schools have to deal with unexperienced and not good teachers.
States of U.S. are paying incentives to guarantee well-prepared teachers in shortage fields. The National Commission on Teaching is working on the issue and the goal is to ensure a "caring, competent, and qualified teacher for every child" as well as schools organized to support student’s success. Schools districts are adjusting the budget to support better educated teachers (Darling , 2016).Focusing in what really matters could help to improve education and offer better opportunities for more students
Education is a right for all citizens and discrimination has not to be allowed in any system. Good education bring us more opportunities and the governments must guarantee equality for all the social classes. A key feature for a good education is a good teacher and all schools must have the necessary resources to have enough of them and assure better education. Segregate education increases the gap between moneyed and pours, and for that it has to be eliminated.
REFERENCES Darling , L. (2016). Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education. Brookings.
Ferguson, R.F. (1991, Summer). Paying for public education: New evidence on how and why money matters. Harvard Journal on Legislation, 28(2), 465-498.
Interpretation essay
Interpretation Essay: Frida Kahlo’s Art María Fernanda Molina Ron Kenny Jossué Pabón Cevallos Erick Steven Patiño Alonzo Yachay University for Experimental Technology and Research May 20, 2016
Frida Kahlo’s Art
How would you feel if your life is involved in a lot of bad experiences and suffering? Surely you would need someone to support you, but sometimes it is not enough. There are other alternatives and Frida Kahlo chose art as a way to express her feelings. Her paintings are not based in dreams or nightmares but in her own experiences. Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacan, Mexico in 1909, and her parents had European descent. She grew up during the Mexican Revolution, a fact that influenced her thought. In order to express her deeper feelings which were often masked, Frida developed her own system of pictorial language. In her twenties, her art began to lose its European and Italian renaissance influence and start reflecting greatly a Mexican folk art. Frida Kahlo got married with Diego Rivera in 1929 (“Frida Kahlo's Erotic Imagery”, n.d.). He was an important part of Frida’s life and art like the painting “The love embrace of the universe, the Earth, Myself, Diego and Senor Xolotl” which for us means the dependence inside the universe and the duality of love.
First, the title of the painting would make the audience think that it may be really colorful, lovely and maybe will show the beauty of love and universe, but instead of that you see a sad painting. It can be seen that the painting in general does not have bright colors. We see black on one half and white on the other half, this can be interpreted as the happy and painful episodes of life. Also there is a wound on earth’s chest from which one drop of milk appears. Despite this, she continues holding Frida in her arms. This can be interpret as a message from the Mother Nature which is that she is being hurt by humans. Lastly, there is a bleeding wound on Frida’s chest and a tear on her face while she is holding up a little Diego. This could be the suffering that she lived in her marriage because
Diego cheated on her and also because she wasn’t able to give him any child. So, she is carrying maybe what it could have been their “little Diego�. Because all of these it shows the harmful side of love. Secondly, the position of the elements in the pictures exhibits a structure of hierarchy in which each level needs the support of each other. The picture project five characters; four of them have long arms which are hugging each other. The paint shows a pyramidal structure in which is distinguishable the mother universe, the Mother Nature, Frida, little Diego and Xolotl the dog. Universe is above all and its large arms are embracing everything below it, then nature comes to hug Frida, who is cuddling her husband represented as a baby. Over the larger arms there are plants and Xolotl. This pyramidal structure in the paint shows that elements in the universe and nature are interconnected and are dependent. No baby could grow up without a mother and no mother could live if there is no nature to live in, and also nature could not exist if there is no universe, because all would be empty. And looking backwards, without a baby a women is not mother and nature needs care of humans to not be destroyed. Regardless where we are we depend on someone or something else to keep existing. Finally, the complementarity found between some elements depicted in the painting represents the different choices we are able to make. Even when is not easy figured it out there exists a relationship between duality and dependence. The existence of one of the elements in duality implies the existence of the other. As we can see there is a big difference between the left and the right. Despite both are well defined with black and white color respectively, the gap that separates them is not a straight line. It means that is not really easy to distinguish between the good and the bad. The white and resplendent moon on the left dark side let us know that there exists the possibility of reach the good if we start from the bad. And the sun on the right and clearer side, that represents
blood and anger for Frida, could mean that is possible to become bad even if we are good persons. Analyzing how distant sun and moon are and the ideas presented before, is interpreted that we tend to be closer to the bad things than the right ones. For example, is easier to tell a lie than to be responsible of the acts we make. To support this idea we could focus on the center of the painting, if we pay attention to Diego´s hands we will find Frida's heart. It is well known that Frida suffered a lot during her marriage and he was cognizant of this so she put her heart in flames on his hands as a sign of the power and influence he had over her life (Famofauxwrites, 2014).
In conclusion, Frida’s painting style is based on her life experiences which were influenced by the Mexican Revolution, her infertility and Diego, her husband. The most noteworthy features seen on the painting are: the contrast between the title and the paint itself that shows the both sides of love, the position of the elements in the picture that illustrates a structure of hierarchy in which each level is sustained by each other meaning dependence and finally the complementary elements suggest us the different possible choices that we are able to take. Therefore, Frida’s painting means that love has a good and a bad side, and each element in the universe needs another to assure its existence.
References Famofauxwrites. (2014). The Love Embrace of the Universe, Earth (Mexico), and Senor Xolotl. Retrieved from https://famofauxwrites.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/fridakahlos-the-love-embrace-of-the-universe-earth-mexico-and-senor-xolotl/ “Frida Kahlo's Erotic Imagery� (n.d.). Masterpiece Paintings Gallery. Retrieved from http://www.masterpiece-paintings-gallery.com/about-kahlo-parrots.htm
Argumentation Essay
Should censorship be practiced in schools? Kenny Pabón Cevallos Universidad de Investigación de Tecnología Experimental Yachay Tech 30-06-2016
Nowadays information of every kind is surrounding us, and it is very easy to have access to it. Information may be found in books, magazines, internet, television and other social media. This seems to be very helpful for companies, but even more for schools. However, not all the information out there is appropriated, there are several resources which may affect the normal development of people in schools. Therefore, some actions needs to be considered to avoid problems, one of them is censorship. Censorship should be practiced in schools as a way to prevent bad deals inside the academic community. People has to take consideration about information because may not be always appropriate. The internet is full advertisements that could lead to inappropriate content, many books are written only for adults, and TV shows many times are very disrespectful. Let’s consider some cases: “Cats, cradle”, “God bless you”, “Rosewater”, and “Catch22” were not approved in 1972 by a suit challenging of the Strongsville Board of education, and the reason was that these books were adult oriented and less suitable for use as curriculum text (Petress, 2005).Censorship in this case works as a barrier to learning about drugs and sexual activities, and this is right for very young people, who are not ready to learn about those things yet. Censorship is a safe way to keep frightening information out of reach of students. Students at young age do not know the power information, and they might contradict the principles of the school. Let’s consider a project in the Boulder Valley school district named “Does skin color make a difference?” Although the author properly used the scientific method and the project was accepted by the teacher, the school authorities declined to allow the project to be presented in a fair. Letting to author present these types of projects will certainly create problems among school communities. This is an implicit way to create a gap between races and social classes.
Some parents claim that censorship affects students’ rights and also there is no constitutional acceptable since many schools officials do not have the power to take such as decisions. Censorship is a not a remedy to deal with problems. When schools censor ideas, the students became more interested in such thing, and always find a way to those things. It is most dangerous to do not have censorship that control kids. Kids can be controlled and problems with the access to bad information would not be present. Without censorship not only one student may be affected, but the whole community and that is worst. Censorship is not unconstitutional since it has to be an evaluation process from schools districts to courts. In conclusion censorship is a constitutional and safe way to prevent the access to inappropriate information, therefore, avoid problems inside the academic community. With censorship students’ rights are protected, rather than affected. Censorship follows a process to be implemented, therefore it fulfills judicial requirements. With censorship in schools each member will stay safer.
REFERENCES Petress, K. (2005). The role of censorship in school.Journal of Instructional Psychology.
Final Research Project
Does social media kill languages? Kenny Pabรณn Cevallos Yachay Tech University July 7th, 2016
Does social media kill languages? Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out which they grow.” In fact, there are about 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, most languages are linked to each other by shared words or sounds or grammatical constructions. The theory is that there is one ancestral common language, however there is no concrete evidence of a single mother tongue spoken by ancient humans. Although there are hundreds of languages spoken nowadays, linguist agree on one thing: “There are fewer languages today than yesterday.” (Cancio, 2012) We will, one day, end up with only one common language, since globalization is making communication possible at any point. Social media is a very important tool in a globalized world; however, its continuous practice is affecting the usage of less dominant languages, causing some languages to change and adapt while others are disappearing. Globalization leads to homogenization which affects politics, economics and every aspect in culture including language. Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations. Globalization expands and accelerates the exchange of ideas and commodities over vast distances (LevinInstitute, 2015). In a globalized society those ideas that have more political and economic value are preserved, while less influential ideas became forgotten, thus encouraging homogenization. Although homogenization is less about the spread of a single culture as about the mixture of different cultures, globalization is leading to the use of just particular features of culture, including language. The phenomena globalization requires an efficient way of communication around the world. The United Nations organization at an assembly held in 1983 recognized English, among others, as the working languages (Correa, 2015).This decision has broad
implications, nowadays English has become in one of the most spoken languages in the world. Mastering English is today a basic necessity for any professional or student in any major area. The internationalization of the human resources made nations adopt English as the official language of the world. Globalization also involves a quickly spread of information and social media works pretty well on that. Social media keeps us informed and it has become a very important part of our globalized world. In twenty-first century the era of technological advancements and of the constant addition to the technological resources, the current focus of globalization is the connections created by social media. Spread of technology makes social media more abundant and its availability creates global connections. Social media tools have been one of the most effective mechanism to direct social changes, these tools includes modern telecommunications implements, internet and cell phones, that enable people from almost all around the world to share ideas and information more easily compared to traditional media tools like newspaper. One of the aims of social media is to rapidly spread information to a broad audience. The impact of internet on communication has been extensive, since more people start to use this technology in pursuing their longings. The internet is an important tool that people use to express themselves and share ideas and is present in almost every country in the world. Nowadays, every kind of information is online, and is very accessible, this information is shared at even the farthest region in the world, therefore, the internet has a lot power to make ideas keep alive. Dominant languages controls the information on the internet. Today only a fraction of all the languages spoken in the world are in the internet and the predominant language in the web is English followed by Russian and German. A significant number
of national languages such as Hindi and Swahili are used by less than 0.1% of these websites (Bauer, 2015). Despite the growth of users that do not speak English, this language is predominant around the websites, since most important information is written in dominant languages like English, people are encouraged to learn such as languages. In 1996, when the Internet was just getting started in the public domain, more than 80% of Internet consumers were native English speakers, however, by 2010, that percentage dropped to 27.3%.Though, the number of internet users that speaks English has increased since 2000, just considered these examples: twelve times as many people in China use the Internet now as in 1996, and growth is even more dramatic in the Arabicspeaking world, where twenty-five times as many people are online now as in 1996. This demonstrates that English language dominate online content even when statistics show much faster growth in countries where English is not the dominant language. (Bauer, 2015) Dominant languages are killing other languages, well, sometimes. According to a June 14th paper by researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, if the languages are sufficiently grammatically similar to one another and both are perceived as economically or socially valuable, then they can survive together in the same place for an indefinite amount of time. Since less dominant languages do not have the same influence in economics, politics or communication as dominant languages do, they will disappear, leading to a particular global language. Perhaps “killing� is a strong word, however the wide variety of social media modifies in fact the correct use of the languages. It's natural for languages to evolve. But what should really concern us is the way computers and mobile phones are changing our attitudes toward language. Languages are constantly evolving, new worlds appears and
others disappears. The use of social media like internet and texting have changed some words. When texting most users do not use apostrophes or reduce words and letters to communicate btw (by the way). Rules are also changing constantly so you can say the same things with different words that years before were not right (Baron, 2009). Languages do not last forever for the reasons explained, so we are headed toward a word that will one day end up only with one language. According to The New York Times, (2013), we will begin communicating via images only, without including text. This is already happening to a large extent, based on the popularity of Vine, Tumblr, Instagram and other image-heavy social channels. Images shortly deliver a message or express the person’s mood and situation. This will continue to propagate with the adoption of Google Glass and development of other technologies. Therefore, it is not necessary to develop languages based on words to communicate, there are other means that fulfill the same purpose. A common world language will hasten the loss of language and cultural diversity. The lack of a great diversity of language will produce cultural impoverishment, social problems, lack of thinking, decrease approaches in science. Language is more than a tool for communication, is piece of the complex puzzle that is humanity, learning them develops mental faculties and brings more approaches to new ideas. Social media is not just changing and eliminating words, the issue goes deeper since language is an essential part of being human, therefore “killing� it, means killing our identity. In contrast, some people state that social media encourages the widespread of information and languages. Some people agree that the wide variety of technological tools that we have today helps people to learn new things. There are perfect designed tools to learn whatever language we want; therefore social media does not kill languages, instead
it supports the learning of new idioms. Web pages that are broadly distributed around the world like Facebook or YouTube, do not have only language for users, instead these sites tries to add as much as languages as they can to keep adding users to theirs platforms. In the other hand, is true that languages do not kill other languages, speakers do. Languages die when their speakers give them up. Speakers are forced to learn a new language to get better jobs, so then they forget their ancestral language because it does not bring facilities to their life. Social media is one not the only fact to learn a new language, other facts like getting better opportunities or access to higher levels education requires to learn predominant languages. English as a predominant language is part of globalization, so nowadays to take active part in this society we need to learn English or other predominant language. In our globalized world a global language is important to improve the communications. English has become in one of the most spoken language in the world, because is easy to learn and it brings lot of educational and job opportunities. Social media is full of English speakers; internet, TV shows, magazines, publicity, radios are most transmitted in the Franca and dominant language English. While English usage is increasing around the world, the ancestral languages are putted away, because they are losing relevance in economics, politics and accessibility to new opportunities. This research has demonstrated that today we have lees languages than yesterday, and following this process we will end up with only one global language, maybe not English, but other language that has the power to make globalization even easier and quickly.
References
Baron, N. (Marzo de 2009). Are Digital Media Changing Language? Retrieved from Educational Leadership: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/mar09/vol66/num06/Are-Digital-Media-ChangingLanguage%C2%A2.aspx Bauer, R. (30 de October de 2015). Is the Internet killing off the world’s languages? Retrieved from World economic forum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/is-the-internet-killing-off-the-worldslanguages/ Cancio, C. (28 de February de 2012). What if everyone on Earth spoke the same language? Retrieved from Sciecne: http://science.howstuffworks.com/sciencevs-myth/what-if/what-if-everyone-spoke-one-language.htm Correa, D. (2015). The English Language and the Globalization. Retrieved from Arcos: http://www.arcos.org.br/artigos/the-english-language-and-theglobalization/#topo LevinInstitute. (2015). What Is Globalization? Retrieved from Globalization 101: http://www.globalization101.org/what-is-globalization/ TheNewYorkTimes. (30 de June de 2013). Bits. Retrieved from Disruptions: Social Media Images Form a New Language Online: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/disruptions-social-media-images-forma-new-languageonline/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=3
REFLECTIONS Some photos from classes…
I APRRECIATE YOU READ MY PORTFOLIO. IT HAS BEEN A FANTASTIC EXPERIENCE TO STUDY ENGLISH AT YACHAY. I HOPE YOU LIKED READING MY PORTFOLIO AS MUCH AS I LIKED WORKING ON IT.
SINCERELY,
KENNY PABÓN CEVALLOS