MY STEPS COLLECTION YACHAY TECH UNIVERSITY ENGLISH
JULY 25, 2016 MARTIN VELEZ YACHAY, ECUADOR
MY STEPS COLLECTION
MARTIN VELEZ
YACHAY TECH UNIVERSITY ENGLISH
LANGUAGE PROGRAM
YACHAY, ECUADOR
MY STEPS COLLECTION
MARTIN VELEZ
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM
YACHAY TECH UNIVERSITY
LEVEL 6-005
TEACHER: HAMILTON QUEZADA
JULY 25, 2016
URCUQUI, ECUADOR
CREDITS Edited and written by Martin Velez, furthermore thank you teacher and classmates for your help, correction, discussion, tricks, knowledge, and a lot of moments that made it possible.
CONTENTS
1. Portfolio letter 2. Response essay 3. Literary Analysis 4. Interpretation essay 5. Argumentation essay 6. Final research project essay 7. Additional materials
1. Portfolio letter Martin Velez Yachay Tech University December 15, 2016 Dear Portafolio Reader: I am Martin Velez, and I give to you the welcome to my English language portfolio about my studies in level six in Yachay English program. I am excited that you are reading this e-portfolio which has every essay that I did on level six. Furthermore, the e-portfolio has this letter which you are reading that will introduce in my process of learning English and the things that I have learned in this process. Maybe, some essays don’t call your attention, but you remember that I was a student who learned from own mistakes. The learned structures were used only for exercises which I made like a machine. For me, those structures were only a subject + verb + complement. Nevertheless, I thought that those structures were some useless things that the teachers were obligated to teach, but I believed that it will never useful in the future. After high school, I came to Yachay, then I started level four, and in the first classes my teacher taught the same thing that high school taught me, so I took it easily. At that point, she taught us how to write an essay, so I began to write my first English essay. I wrote with the grammar structure that I have used in Spanish, but it did not work. My teacher could not explain to me the reason for my mistakes because she has been American, so I approved this level without enough knowledge. The next level was level five, my teacher looked like a person who lived without concerns, but I did not consider that she was strict teacher with the homework. When I understood that, it was too late because my structures
were a disaster. Consequently, I tried to improve my structures, but it was too late. I continue to the next level again, but in this time I knew that I had problems with English. The next level was level six. I was calm on this level because I considered I could learn the grammar structures in classes. When I did the first essay, I made basic mistakes such as I forgot “s� in the third person I wrote confused sentences. Nonetheless, my teacher tried to understand why we made those mistakes, so he recollected all mistakes and I learnt from them. For this reason that, the class could understand how correct them. Furthermore, he gave the motivation to continue the course the best way. Some ideas or videos did not cause an effect on me, but other videos were the best in those moments. In this level, I understood that I should learn from my previous levels and cool phrases such as raise awareness, deadline, currently, and nutshell. Furthermore, I learned how to do a research paper, literary analysis, APA format, and sentence structures. Level six was not funny, but I think that the purpose of the level was complete. To summarize, my process to learn English was complicated, but I could correct my mistakes in level six because my teacher gave the tools for doing that. However, I know that I should improve the order of my ideas. Also I must learn new academy words, and grammatical structures, but with the enough time, then everything is possible. I really appreciate that you are reading that. Sincerely,
Martin.
2. Response essay
Five Ways Technology has Changed Teaching and Learning Martin Velez Yachay Tech
Technology is changing worldwide, as a result, the old traditional methods have been forgotten. Education is affected too, in fact, the classrooms are not the same from what they were 20 years ago. The article “Five ways technology has changed teaching and learning� is a brief summary about how technology enhances the old boring classrooms. Rebeca who is the author proposed that Interactive Flat Panel Displays could improve the education. She discussed five forms that technology has changed learning and teaching such as new ways to give lessons and homework, mutual contribution, and comfortable platforms to obtain information. Nevertheless, Rebeca simplified the ways of this changing, but she never explained the contrast side. Education and technology are improving because schools and computers are not what they once were. However, human beings depend on electronic devices, for the reason that those things are making everything easy. Education is being affecting by electronic devices, for the reason that, technological advances have been used for development of education. In the article, the author proposes five ways technology has been changed teaching and learning. The five ways according to Rebeca Paddick are simplifying lesson preparation, aiding assessment, breaking down boundaries, encouraging collaboration, and introducing interactivity. Nevertheless, the five ways could be summarized in three different parts. The first part expressed that tablets, cellphones, and other devices are the perfect tools to teach because some specific applications have been created for education. It gives support material to the teachers which included interactive media such as videos and lessons. Furthermore, the lessons give a measurement about how many students learned. For example, the research paper mentioned an application called ClassFlow. It allows educators to give interactive lessons such as an interactive quiz. The second part is about how technology breaks the limits
to learn, she explained that student’s continued learning at home and they could share the ideas. In other words, she explained that the learning process is not just for schools, but Rebeca expressed that technology will never replace the education in schools. Finally, the article proposed that the Interactive Flat Panel Displays are more comfortable to learners because the majority of children have been growing with this kind of devices, such as children prefer a tablet than a book. So, Rebeca Paddick showed how technology is affecting the way to teach. I disagree with this the major point of the article because in my opinion, the author had forgotten some important aspects. Also, she gave an arbitral opinion about the topic because the author never expressed how technology is perturbing education. To explain it, students have been distracted in classes since they are using their Flat Panel Displays to playing or chatting. Anyway, people use technology such as form to entertainment and it could be used to learn. Another point that I disagree, Rebeca doesn't give strong examples, also she just showed one pay software. Furthermore, the author expressed that technology can’t replace teachers, but I disagree with it because the best tutorials are on the internet. Moreover, the classes are in your control because you control how you want to learn. For example, Coursera is a website for subscribing to online courses, some programs are free, and also other sessions have been paid. The duration of courses is around from four weeks up to one year. It includes some evaluation material, and you can pay for a certification when you finished the course. Nevertheless, there are other pages offer the same service. However, I disagree with some information that the author proposed because I am a student who uses internet to learn.
The article has some good points about how learning and teaching are transforming education. Another interesting point is that the article gives a diverse ways to help teachers in their work. For example, Rebeca expressed that the lesson is online, as result teachers could know how many topics students don’t understand. Furthermore, I like how Rebeca expressed that technology doesn't have limits and how the traditional form of learning has been changing flexible learning. Moreover, the author proposed that the students may give their opinion of class, and they can collaborate on improving the classes. Another interesting point, technology makes learning more comfortable because students can deliver their homework’s on internet and make question for the teachers. In conclusion, education is changing by technology. Students were born in another age with different resources, consequently, the schools have been adapted to new generations of students. So, Rebeca expressed that, five ways that education is adapting for new generations of students. In brief words, the ways are collaboration, flexibility, and facility. In general, the article has a good explication about these five ways are transforming the world. However, the article needs more information to explain how Interactive Flat Panel Displays could affect learning and instruction. Nevertheless, education is more interactive using different electronic devices.
Reference Padrick R. (2016, October 4) Five ways technology has changed teaching and learning. .Education Technology. Retrieved from: http://edtechnology.co.uk/Article/five-waystechnology-has-changed-teaching-and-learning
3. Literary Analysis
Literary Analysis Essay “The Story of an Hour� by Kate Chopin The setting of the story is very limited; it is confined largely to a room, a staircase, and a front door. How does this limitation help to express the themes of the story? The enormous collections of people stories created our history such as story of one hour. This story wrote by Kate Chapin expressed how the different ages have represented different roles for women and men. The story devolvement when a wife who did not like her marriage lost her husband, and the story is not implicit because the author used metaphors. Some of these metaphors was the different spots which represented the unfair women role in the before centaury. The most represented places were in wife house which the story devolvement through metaphors were room, stairs, and the door. The first place to analyses was the room of the wife because it represented a way of flight of wife life. In the history the woman heard her husband had an accident and died, so she went her room and closed its door. She was reflective because she was thinking about her life, but after that, she felt good for the reason that understood that she felt free. The room was the reflection spot when the bad past convert an expected future. The second place was the stairs because the wife after thought in her room, she went down the stairs, and reflected about the husband died. However, she was not unhappy because her husband did not feel good and she hate her life. Thus, the wife thought that in this moment was a good change of her life and everything should be better. The stairs represented the action and its consequence.
The third and finally spot was the front door because the history devolvement was here. The door brought the good and bad news such as the husband friend told she that her husband died or the husband came to house. It was messenger in the history which brought the actions in the history. To close this essay, the history has three important spots. They were used to express how the wife was affected by the events. Furthermore, the events of history showed how a women of the before centaury felt and what represented for her the divorce or in this case the death of her husband.
Reference “Analytical Essay Sample Assignment for The Lottery”: http://cfsd.chipfalls.k12.wi.us/faculty/drydykkr/cms_files/event_attach/285857/Analytical %20Ess ay%20Sample%20Assignment%20for%20The%20Lottery.docx “Reading and Discussion Questions on Kate Chopin's ‘The Story of an Hour’” Washington State University https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/storyhour.htm
4. Interpretation essay
HUMAN BEINGS AND NATURE The dangerous relationship between a man and nature
Isaac Iglesias P. Martín Vélez F. Nicole Espinosa H.
Yachay Tech University
Currently, one of the best ways to catch society’s attention in order to transmit a message is by making something entertaining and easy to understand. Frequently, this communication system is used to let people know what is happening in the world. With this in mind, there are some problems that all human beings must need to be noticed about it in order to be awareness of it. An example of the main global issues is the devastating impact in the environment which is caused by human beings. With the aim of searching a solution for this, that required that all people know about it, and then they should become aware of it. For this, Steve Cutts uses a short animation story called “Man�, in which he tries to show how each action made by human beings cause a huge devastation in the environment. To begin, it is important to know that in order to present the impact of human being in nature, there are many ways to illustrate different aspects of it. For example: pictures, books, documentaries, and short animations. Consequently, to portray some circumstances Cutts choses a short animation. In this gadget, the author exposes how human beings have been destroying their environment with the selfish aim of gaining their own comfort. To rephrase it, along the video people can see how the humanity destroys the nature because it brings to human raw material from which they can create stuff for its personal use. To understand this better, the short animation requires to be analyzed both in content and author. It is substantial to get to know Steve Cutts the author. He is a contemporaneous artist and a specialist with animation and cartoons which analyze and critique the modern human beings lifestyle. To do this, the author does constantly research and keeps himself informed. Due to this, he knows the different problems that are in the world such as: the pollution by human contamination, and the unnecessary exploitation of natural resources which include animals and plants. It is important to notice that the author defends animals, because the
majority of his video shows how human convert animals in food or objects. To exemplify it, along the video Steve exhibits the way animals are used as tasting make-up experiments, raw material for clothes, musical instruments, food and even toys. Indeed, the author makes a huge emphasis on the brutality that the industries use in order to accomplish all the stated before. In the same way, the cruelty with which animals are exploited is one of the main reasons which motivated Steve in order to create a video in which the principal target is showing humans how they harm the environment, and with it raise awareness. This can be possible because as Dr Wayne Dyer said: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change�. It is true, that Cutts uses the video due to the fact that he wants to alertness the society about the damage that is caused by human beings so, once this goal could be achieved Steve expects a social change. According to the video, a regular man walks around the nature, and every animal which comes close to him is converted into an object which makes him feel good. Then, the man keeps on taking advantage of animals to have more pleasure, and yet the nature is devastated- this fact does not matter to that human-. This part of the video exposes how the humanity misspends the natural recourse. This is the result of human being consumption, which allows the nature pollution. To clarify it based on the video, when the man leaves the forest and comes into the urbanistic city. It is easy to see the nature's destruction. Granted, all this merciless carry the city to a collapse. By all means, the city becomes full of garbage´s mountains. In order to criticize it, the author makes a complaint.
In addition, the human who appears on the video is ruthless and only thinks on the thing which contributes to his own happiness; this is a selfish but realistic feature of every human being. This aspect calls the idea of consumerism which produce a lot of unnecessary materials which will be trash. To explain it, the principal cause could be the urbanism, which one carries the population growth and the increase of food and other sources demand. As a result, human beings must destroy natural habitats in order to create skyscrapers which means deserving animals, living wild animals without homes and more pollution in the environment by the machines that they used to build the cities and the factories which are working there. Accordingly, Steve maybe makes a possible prediction of planet´s future. That is to say, that he shows through a multimedia gadget the big impact that human beings produce on each simple, but very dangerous step that Steve makes around the environment. Consequently, every spectator can catch the video massage which is represented in a comic and very realistic way. Without doubt, the most important part of the video is at the end, specifically when the man arrives at the garbage mountain peak and looks very proud invert his destruction. To conclude, Steve Cutts wants to share his ideas about the misusing use of the natural resources in which animals and every living thing is considered such as raw materials. Although, the video is a cartoon and people in some cases do not take it serious, it contains a serious massage which can impact every spectator. Steve has the reason about it. People can realize that humans have the incorrect behavior against nature due to the human being has been consuming for his own purpose. In consequence, the negative effects are very remarkable and the planet is being damaged day per day by the pollution and the society does not become awareness of it yet. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that the destruction is
already done, so now the human being duty is to try to apologize the disturbance by making a correct and conscientious use of the different materials that the nature provides free to the humanity.
References Cutts,
S.
(2012,
December
21).
Man.
Retrieved
from
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU hamohd70. (2008, April 19). Wayne Dyer - When you change the way you look at things. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urQPraeeY0w
5. Argumentive essay Why is Better Learn English than Kichwa? How many countries have MAC Donald’s? Currently, all world exists MAC Donalds except three or four countries, but no just this American emprise is around the world, since, other American emprise exists around world. The most important is internet who is an American creation and our lives depends of it. On the other hand, how many Kichwa enterprise exist? Maybe, two or three, so really do you think that Kichwa is better than English. In the world English is Ecuadorians do not need to learn Kichwa because Kichwa is a language that has a few speakers. Ecuadorians don’t need to learn Kichwa because Kichwa is a language that has a few speakers, business, and importance cultural around the world than English. Kichwa is a language which is spoken by few people in a few countries, this countries in its majority are Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Furthermore, there are a few cultures that exist who speak Kichwa, also a little speaker just speak Kichwa. Nevertheless, the world is speaking English, for different reason. One reason is Americans who are native English speaker brought stores around the world, also computer are American and they language is English. Currently, the world is learning English and it should be a global language in a near future. In the world English is the most spoken language, since the expansion of capitalism. For the reason that, a lot of countries learn English because United States is the domain country. It has consequences such as every countries has business with USA or the worst the case used American electronic devices. For this reason, the majority of the countries learn
English, but replace English with Kichwa will be a delay in the progress economic of the country. Just the Catholic Church speak Latin because Latin is a language death, but the church conserved this language. Before, Latin was a European language which did art, history, and religion; but now is just memory of Spanish, French, and other language. Kichwa is like Latin because is not the original language of the currently territories where it exists, and it is part about some cultural aspects. However, it will death language because the world did not use this language in the future. Furthermore, cultures are changing and adapting their idioms. For the reason that, the domain culture always impose their costume and the other cultures need of them to survive. On the other hand, some people believe that English is not part of our culture, and Ecuadorian will need learn Kichwa to keep our culture. That is their opinion, but I thought the past is to learn the mistakes an achievement of the cultures. So, we need to see the future and adapted to it, also we did not do the past mistakes. Conclusion, the language is an aspect of the culture, but we cannot be disadvantage with other countries. If the majority the countries speak English, deal in English, and write in English; then Ecuadorian need to learn English. Ecuadorians need more English, than Kichwa because English has a lot the speakers, business, and importance in a contemporary culture.
Reference Colleen Cancio "What if everyone on Earth spoke the same language?" 28 February 2012. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-ifeveryone-spoke-one-language.htm>
6. Final research project essay
The Change in the Ecuadorian Education Caused by the BGU How Students who Finished High School are Affected by Unified General Baccalaureate MartĂn VĂŠlez F. Yachay Tech University December 2016
Abstract: This paper will specify how the unified general baccalaureate (BGU) affects the education of Ecuadorian students. Moreover, this research will explain why a general baccalaureate is a bad option for Ecuador. For the reason that previous baccalaureate (science baccalaureate) gave more chance for students to choose a career, also this baccalaureate trained students for their career. Furthermore, Ecuador cannot performs some objectives of BGU. On the other hand, the research explains the good things of current baccalaureate, following a counterargument.
Key words: BGU (Unified General Baccalaureate), Science baccalaureate (the previous baccalaureate, education, career.
Don Bosco is the name of a high school which has a technical education. A student named Bryan who studied electronic there was affected by the currently changes in the educational system. For this reason, the high school was forced to leave technical subjects because the new ministry of education law requested that students will study unified general baccalaureate (BGU). Nevertheless, Don Bosco achieved to keep its technical baccalaureate, but one condition was that the high school must add hours of general education. As a result, the students had an overload their schedule, also teachers send more homework, and students were preparing to take a university test. If it was a consequence of the implementation of general baccalaureate, how will general baccalaureate affect the other students around the country? Governments make mistakes, and everybody knows this. They did actions which affected everyone. This research paper is about one change on education in high school through a new system of education called unified general baccalaureate (BGU). This system is a new way to teach, and it replaces the older baccalaureate called science baccalaureate. The difference between the new baccalaureate and the previous baccalaureate is that unified general baccalaureate has some objectives such as: giving an equal chance basses for students, promoting the inflow of students to the university, and update the science baccalaureate, (Ministerio de EducaciĂłn, 2016). On the other hand, the science baccalaureate was usually divided into three sections. They included: Physics and Mathematics Baccalaureate, Social and History Baccalaureate, and Chemistry and Biology Baccalaureate. For this reason, the unified general baccalaureate affects students in different ways, yet it does not give the chance to improve studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability on their preference subjects. Also students do not have the enough knowledge to go to the university. Furthermore, some objectives of BGU cannot perform in Ecuador. However, the unified general baccalaureate
has ideas which improve the country, but these benefits are very complicated to implement in the country.
The BGU cannot satisfy the expectations that the government has about it because the education ministry expresses that the BGU has a principal reason to exist. This reason is that the BGU is the only way to ensure equality for all students also students will have the same knowledge after finishing high school (Ministerio de Educaciรณn, 2016). To understand why that does not work, the introduction mentions the high school named Don Bosco left technical education to adopt the BGU, but the government changed its mind. As a result, this high school returned to the technical education, but the government established one important condition. The condition was high school must add general subjects of BGU. The government considered that technical high school must have a different baccalaureate and implemented technical baccalaureate. Furthermore, the government considered other special high schools and created other special baccalaureates such as science baccalaureate, international baccalaureate, and complementary baccalaureate. These existences of these new baccalaureates show that the equality in Ecuadorian education for high schools cannot happen because some high schools have different baccalaureate with more or fewer subjects. The newly implemented education laws permit to know that the BGU has mistaken, and the government is making changes that affect in different ways to students. Before the BGU existed, the science baccalaureate taught more knowledge that students will use in University than BGU. The students were prepared for college because they had a science baccalaureate which began when the students finished their ten years of basic education. Normally, Ecuadorian schools have seven years of basic education in primary school, and the three years remaining are the elementary education in the high
school. After that, they had learned enough to choose one of the three baccalaureates (chemistry, social, and physics). Then students will receive a complete basic education about the subjects that they choose in their baccalaureate. For example, before the BGU existed, a student who loved mathematics, he should study mathematic- physic baccalaureate. Another aspect, the first three years of high school prepared them to have security about their career, then the high schools take an ability exam to know their skills, and the baccalaureate which they should study. Currently, the BGU does not permit that students choose their career because they are not preparing to choose their career (Ministerio de Educación, 2016). It results in a problem because students cannot study the career that they want to learn in high school, and their schedule is about a lot of subjects that they do not like. Furthermore, BGU does not permit students to know which area will study on their career when they will go to university. The science baccalaureate was not perfect, but it prepares students to choose a specialty that permitted students to know their preference and knowing if they were on the correct career, or they must change their career. The curriculum of BGU does not give the chance to know what the career represents. Furthermore, the BGU does not complete the expected knowledge. For the reason that, the students will make a course before starting the first semester. This course is called “nivelacion general”, and it strengthens the knowledge that students learn in high school. However, in 2015 the number of students who approved the course was thirty-three percent (Arriaga, 2016). This course does not give subjects about the career because it reinforces the knowledge learning of high schools. The number of students who disapproved the “nivelacion general” could infer the effective of BGU. Furthermore, BGU does not catch the attention of the students because it is too general. That
is the reason why the BGU is not working, but the government believes in some good aspects about BGU. The government applied the general baccalaureate with propose to improve the education system in Ecuador. According to the ministry of education, the general baccalaureate perform a progress in three areas, they are the participation in the society, new entrepreneurship, and it gives an opportunity to continue with their studies (Ministerio de Educaciรณn, 2016). These objectives should permit students can work or study whatever subject. Consequently, the general baccalaureate is currently a barrier for students who want to find their vocation. The general baccalaureate has some facts that the government does not consider that people have a vocation for learning a specific subject. Before the BGU, they can learn about their career in science baccalaureate and they were prepared for college. However, currently in the country, BGU add three years for study general subjects which the students never will study in the future. Furthermore, these issues overload their schedules and are a waste of time for some students. For this reason, a big percentage of students disagree with general baccalaureate because the previous baccalaureate permits students to specialize in their vocation in an efficient way. To summarize, the government believe that BGU will be an egalitarian system of the education Ecuador, but that is impossible because some high schools have a special baccalaureate. Another aspect is that, if the BGU is compared with science baccalaureate, the BGU is worse than science baccalaureate because the students learned enough to study their career such as they should learn in the science baccalaureate. Moreover, students will not ensure the knowledge of their career, if they studied BGU in high school. However, the BGU represents a problem because the government has some ideas that are impossible to perform
in the country. The students education are too general and they do not learn enough about their specialty to go to a university. Another reason is that, students do not have enough knowledge to go to university because the schedule does not have enough hours of class about their specialty. Furthermore, they cannot improve their specialty skills in high school.
References Ministerio de Educación. (2016, Noviembre 13). “Bachillerato General Unificado”. Retrieved from MInisterio de educacion: https://educacion.gob.ec/bachillerato-general-unificado/ Arriaga, J. (2016, Noviembre 13). “Cifras sobre deserción no convencen a universitarios”.Retrieved from La hora: https://educacion.gob.ec/bachillerato-general-unificado/ Admisión,
S.
(2016,
10
December). “Sistema
Nacional
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Nivelación
Admisión”. Retrieved, from: Sistema Nacional de Nivelación y Admisión: http://www.snna.gob.ec/wp-content/themes/institucion/comunicamos_noticias52.php
y
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Thank you for reading my portfolio letter. Maybe, it not was the best interesting thing that you read, but I really appreciate you read it. Sincerely,
Martin Velez