Before you write your reflective journal, please see the assignment description on Moodle.
In brief, this is a very informal writing assignment the purpose of which is to reflect on your work and progress. I would like you to choose one are in which you are having difficulties and one area in which you have experienced success. Discuss both areas in detail. Your post should be approximately two pages long. Remember that this is not the place for praising your teacher but it is the place to do some actual thinking.
You will need to bring a print out of this blog to class on Wednesday.
In brief, this is a very informal writing assignment the purpose of which is to reflect on your work and progress. I would like you to choose one are in which you are having difficulties and one area in which you have experienced success. Discuss both areas in detail. Your post should be approximately two pages long. Remember that this is not the place for praising your teacher but it is the place to do some actual thinking.
You will need to bring a print out of this blog to class on Wednesday.
Being French educated, I came in to this course a bit nervous because I thought that English at university level was going to be very difficult for me. When I first came into class I was confused about the course, I didn’t know what we were going to study or how much work we had to do. But this course didn’t turn out to be as tough as I thought. Sure we had a lot of assignments from the beginning of the semester and our program was very loaded, but these assignments have helped me improve my English skills. When the first essay was assigned I was a bit scared to be honest because I wasn’t really used to writing long and formal essays in English. So the first couple of essays were a bit like hell to me, but with time I got better at writing essays and I became more confident about my work. Until now I have written multiple blog entries, two reading responses and a five page essay. Before this class I had very limited knowledge about critical reading and writing, but due to this course my critical reading and writing skills have improved, and I think that I have become good at it. To be honest I also found it a bit fun to find out about and discuss other people’s opinions and points of view concerning social problems. I have also become better at planning my essays and making them more organized. So I start every paragraph with a new topic sentence and I don’t talk about many ideas in the same paragraph. I also noticed that I am applying what we learn in class well in my essays: I’m stating my sources well and I’m finding it easy to discuss the topics that are assigned. Moreover this course gave me the opportunity to review and criticize other students’ work, this helped me to enrich my analytical skills and to compare my work to theirs and to learn from them. In addition this course pushed me into doing research instead of only using my own knowledge of things.
ReplyDeleteBut I’m still finding some difficulties in how to use what the authors say to support my point of view. In all my essays you told me that I shouldn’t state what the authors say or what they think, instead I should use their ideas to support my essay. But I still haven’t found out how to do so. Another problem that I’m facing with this course is that the essays are taking a lot of my time because I am still a slow writer. So I hope that in the end of this semester I would become a faster writer and that I would be able to write more comfortably.
The area in which I experienced difficulties involves the lack of time, the overwhelming amount of homework and deadlines. I like to think of myself as a highly organized person, in fact, I always prioritize my work and even develop a written schedule that enables me to manage my time effectively. I have a clear idea on what I’m supposed to do and when. This course however is a bit different in that area. Indeed, I feel like we don’t have enough time to do everything you ask us to. Maybe a reason for that issue is that I was confused with Moodle and I was rarely aware of our homework’s deadlines. I used to start doing my homework a day before the deadline because I didn’t know that we had any earlier (I even missed the first deadline). Since we discussed that issue in class and you started sending us Imails and mentioning homework during the period, it became easier. The assignment that was really challenging for me was the essay. This is not due to the fact that it is hard but simply because I couldn’t find time to write. Indeed, writing is not like any other homework. We do not know how much time it is going to take and there are some days where we just can’t write (lack of inspiration I guess). Moreover, an essay, specially this one is not a kind of essay that we can write in one writing session (as you said, the best way to write is to leave our work and come back to it, let it ferment) and this constituted another conflict for me. Also, I think that the timing of the deadline of essay 1 is not very judicious. Indeed, it is in the same period of all of the quizzes 1. I for example am registered in 4 other courses that follow the quiz 1, quiz 2, final examination. Therefore, I felt like the amount of work that was expected from me highly exceeded the number of free hours that I had available to study. I’m not saying this out of laziness, indeed is used every second available to work and it’s been tiring. Some may say that it is part of the college experience, and I’m not complaining, but you asked us to give you feedback on aspects of the course that have been hard on us so here they are.
ReplyDeleteHi
DeleteOn the other hand, there are a lot of areas in which I experienced success. These areas mainly involve class work and reading assignments. I personally found this class interesting; it is the only class where I can express myself. It differs from the other courses I take basically because there is an interaction between students and the teacher. I feel like each one of us has an opinion that is valued. Moreover, we talked about some very up to date and sensitive subjects since the beginning of the semester. The discussions concerning those subjects were intriguing because we don’t usually get the chance to talk about those subjects openly. Usually, in English classes we talk about some boring topics that don’t really concern us. I felt like most of the texts we read are directly linked to us, to our direct environment and even to our everyday life. This made the topics much more interesting and appealing. We also discovered the different perspectives on certain aspects, which weren’t obvious to us. For example, I am surrounded by people who think and share the same values as me. In this class, I discussed my point of view with people from different background with different values. This is very enriching, because as I said before the topic we discussed aren't topics we can openly talk about (most of them are taboo in our society). My favorite part in this course is the class discussion and the motivation and participation of others students made them worthwhile. These debates were taken further with the reading assignments; an area in which I think I succeeded. The reading assignments (being less formal than the essay) were not that much of time consumers. In fact, we could write it in an hour and still be satisfied with our work. Also, the overall energy of the class and the teacher is motivational. I would like to point out that there was a bit of repetition that made the assignments sometimes redundant. Indeed, we would discuss first a certain aspect in class, then, we would discuss it again on the blog and again in reading responses and even sometimes mention them once more in our essays. Although it is certainly a way to build our way up to writing the essay, at some point talking about the same issues became a bit boring.
ReplyDeleteOverall, this course has been satisfying so far, although there are certain aspects that make it challenging sometimes. :):):)
English 203 teaches us how to Paraphrase, Annotate and Summarize texts that we read in class. These are skills I have learnt earlier but never really had a chance to put into practice. When I was given reading responses and an exploratory synthesis to do, they required all of these three skills, meaning I was able to practice them and extend my ability to do them. From writing workshops and a one on one conference with my teacher I was successfully able to understand how to use ideas and quotes from writers by paraphrasing, annotating or summarizing them. I improved the way in which I integrated quotes successfully and smoothly into my work, minimizing free standing quotes from appearing in my writing pieces. This greatly improved the flow of my writing and made my writing much easier to read and understand.
ReplyDeleteFrom this course I have learnt many new skills that I had not used into my writing previously. I learnt the art of critical thinking, looking beyond what the author is telling me and understanding the true meaning of the text. I learnt to ask questions about everything I read and to not always agree but to form my own opinion. I am now able to easily form my own opinion when reading texts and naturally be critical about what I read due to the great amount of practice I have done throughout this course, reading the various articles. Another new thing I have learnt is how to correctly give credit to the authors whose work I am referring to in my writing pieces. I learnt the proper APA in text citation style, a reference style I had never used previously in high school. These new skills I have learnt have enriched my writing and have made me proud of my work.
Throughout this course I have paid close attention to my grammatical errors particularly run-ons and fragments, although, my grammar is still not perfect. These errors have weakened my writing and have drawn away attention from my content. I need to pay close attention in the future to these reoccurring mistakes. I have also learnt in this course that long paragraphs concerning one topic should be reviewed, and I should create a backwards outline so that I am able to break them down into several smaller paragraphs with different focal points. I have learnt how important grammar and organization is in my work and that I should not only pay attention to the content, which I have done previously. Grammar can change the whole meaning and understanding of a piece of writing, now I am well aware of this and hope to improve this throughout the rest of the course.
Not only have I learnt writing skills throughout this course but also have gained a strong opinion and a great understanding of the various topics we covered such as attitudes towards pre marital sex, sex reassignment and the rejection of homosexuals. These topics have opened my eyes to the importance of fitting into the confines of normalcy or else being marginalized, something that I had never really noticed. It also broadened my knowledge about the social norms and sexism that exist in the Arab World.
* this is not the full journal it does not fit
The first couple of days of university, I was a bit nervous that I am going to speak English a lot more than I had before because I am French educated, so I have not practiced my English a lot in both writing and talking. At first, I even talked Arabic during English courses. Then the English teacher came and she seemed nice and we laughed a bit. But, that didn’t last long. Suddenly, we became surrounded by homework, texts, essays and lots and lots of stuff. There were lots of stuff that many times I got lost and no longer know what to do and where to begin. Although she gives us a lot to do, I feel that the tough work is actually fruitful. For example, now I am trying to stop talking Arabic and talk English more frequently in and outside the classroom. I once compared my first reading response to the second. When I read my first reading response, I felt my writing was short and needed a lot of work, I didn’t go deeply in the texts and I didn’t critically read them. But when I read the second reading response, I was impressed by the progress I have made. The second reading response was longer, my way of writing and critical thinking evolved a lot, I found myself enjoying writing and stretching thoughts, which is kind of weird to me because I usually like getting straight to the point. How much I write does not matter, but writing more means progress. Writing more and better means a lot of progress, which I feel is my case. In addition, I found that my ideas in my second reading response have improved and the reading response itself was better in terms of both organization and way of linking and saying the ideas. I am eager to find out the grade of my second reading response to confirm if what I am saying now is true or not. When I am always thinking critically and writing, I feel I am expanding my way of thinking and analyzing things, which is good especially when I am in a middle of debates. When I argue, I state some of the ideas from the texts that I have read or even my own ideas; I feel I am more capable now of discussing topics with people, especially the important topics. Most importantly, I don’t have only one teacher. Other than my English teacher, I am learning from others when I read their blog entries, discuss our ideas, read their essays and comment on them; all these allowed me to discover new ways of writing, practice my English with them, enhance my critics, and improve my analysis by expanding different points of view. I really liked the assignment of the poems, I thought it is very beneficial to me because I love poetry and write poems myself. Reading peer’s poems was a nice bonus for me as well because I got the chance to find new ideas and style of writing. I also found myself taking less time writing a 4 page essay than I thought. Actually, I thought writing a 4 page essay is mission impossible because at school, I barely could write half a page while now, not only I am capable of such
ReplyDeleteaccomplishment, but I also enjoy writing. Although I am better now, I still cannot brainstorm quickly, it takes me some time to adjust my ideas and write them down properly. But if things continue this way, I should be able to easily do quick and good brainstorms. However, sometimes I find myself taking some time to well do certain assignments in general. I don’t know if taking some time means I am a bit weak or the assignment should take so long in order for it to be good or even both. Today for example, English took half my day between the essay draft 2 and this journal here. In order to do my best in the assignments you give, English today took the place of two math courses and I am majoring in applied math. I also found some trouble in my essay; I was unable to put enough in-text citations because I was unable to find suitable text citations that were relevant to my idea. Maybe there were but I was unable to find them. Despite the pressure, I still like this class and I don’t know why. I find your way of teaching interesting because, above all, the discussions between the classmates, you and your classmates make this course dynamic, intriguing, and useful for the entire class (and no I am not praising you :P). That’s pretty much it. All in all, I pretty much liked this course and found the assignments very interesting and fruitful yet agonizing. I have done a long way, but there is still a long (long :P) way ahead of me, especially if the assignments will continue at this rate and quantity. But, I should look at the bright side and think that I should continue improving at this pace and that I will be a lot better once this course is done…someday :P.
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ReplyDeleteI am having difficulties in trying to cope with the amount of assignments given. There are a lot of assignments given each week. It is hard for me to try to make the time for anything other than English. It is taking time for me to do assignments as I have other subjects that require time as well. Time is an issue with me. I finish approximately at four every day and it takes me time to go back home. Those assignments take the rest of my time. I do not have enough time to focus on other subjects. Sometimes, I do not understand the assignment description immediately and thus it takes a lot of time to try to understand it and submit it on time. For example, I don’t really understand this assignment and I don’t know if I am doing it correct right now. I am always worried whether I submitted a good correct assignment. Thus, a lot of my time is put into the assignments. However, I am getting used to it. It was really hard at first, but now I am actually better at managing my time appropriately.
All these assignments have improved my writing/reading techniques and my knowledge. I feel that I write better now. Also, I am now able to organize my ideas and understand the text. It was hard for me at the beginning to understand the texts that were given to read as assignments but then it got easier and easier after every assignment. My critical reading of the texts got better and I was successfully able to understand and answer questions from the texts. I have also gained knowledge through reading those texts. However, I did not like some of the assignments given such as the reading responses. The reading responses were kind of similar to the blog responses but I felt that the blog responses had much more interesting topics and it was kind of easier. I believe that most of the assignments, although time consuming, are helping me get better at English.
Writing an essay isn't something I wished to do in university. In fact it’s my first time that I do an English formal writing because back when I was in high school I was required to write essays in French. But finally I was able to finish it on time although I faced some problems while writing the first draft but also when I was asked again to improve it a lot following lots mistakes I’ve done. First of all, writing the thesis caused me lots of problems because I didn’t understand based on what I should’ve chosen it. I thought that when we said the thesis must not be a copy of the prompt we meant that it should be related to it but express other main ideas. That’s why when I decided to choose the first prompt about the impositions in societies, instead of making these impositions my main ideas I explained more about the society attitude towards us which is not what I was supposed to do. This mistake cost me lots of time to re-plan my essay and to re-organize my main ideas. This didn’t just affect my grade on my first draft but it has also prevented me from studying for other courses that needs to be studied every single day. I also felt that every time I have to write a blog or an informal assignment I need a minimum of 30 minutes to get an idea about how I should start which makes me really nervous for example spending lots of time in writing the introduction that usualy should not take more than 10 min.
ReplyDeleteIn the same time, due to the progressive hard work in this course I felt improvement in many levels such as the critical reading. This helped me a lot in supporting my main ideas in the essay. For example to talk about the virginity or the homosexuality issue that’s rejected by most of us in the Arab I used my knowledge but also the new informations that I was able to get from analyzing the texts.
I hope I can seem myself improving more in this course on other levels.
Ouch! I know what it feels like when you feel like writing whatever you feel like writing!!! I mean, when you want to write anything you want that is not based on any format. Having to check whether your thesis statement and each topic sentence (and all the sentences) are well written can seem to be a tough task... And I also know how disturbing it can be to have to finish up something for English class really quickly; you can't really force your brain to generate ideas the same way you force it to think of mathematical concepts. The most interesting part is the fact that English 203 has been taking, probably, more time than any other course though it's the least important course an engineering student would be taking; yet, I suppose that this is the course that would actually boost our GPA! And finally it's good to know that your hard work has paid off.
DeleteEnglish 203 is a very important course that help us improve our english writing level. I am having a hard time in english 203 because I am french educated. But from the moment I started this course and till now, I noticed that I have advanced my english to a whole new level. Usually when I write essays in school it takes about 2 hours. But now I am doing a lot of thinking and a lot of revising and its taking me several days to finalize my essay. My biggest mistake was that I got my thesis wrong and it is not related to the prompt. Fortunately, after a lot of thinking I got my thesis right(I think). Moreover, considering I am an engineering student, I have a lot of things to do other than english assignments. The number of assignments is a bit high. Besides, other professors are not so open minded to reschedule their assignments due dates. I really liked that Dr.Sinno comments our essays before grading them and I liked more the idea of "peer review". It helped me improve my essay in so many ways. And from the many things I liked in this course are the topics. Pre-marital sex, homosexuality, transexuality, etc. are toboo-ed topics especially in Lebanon and I loved that I can discuss them with my colleagues and with my teacher in class.
ReplyDeleteEver since the beginning of my first semester at AUB, I have been facing difficulties with managing my time between courses, and dedicating the proper amount of time on each assignment depending on its importance and difficulty. Being a French educated student previously, I was aware of the challenge I would face by going to an English university. I have always loved reading, and this class has pushed me to read when my schedule was loaded and I could not free some time for my daily reading habits. The book “After Words” has been prepared by teachers at AUB so the themes are well chosen to match the students’ interests, and the authors in this book are mostly people who have lived where we live, and wrote about people like us based on studies we are living. My English class is the most interesting between all of my courses. It is when I get to say my personal opinion on issues I cope with every single day in my country and listen to my classmates. This has helped me to rethink a couple of principles I had and opened my mind on several differences I was taught were wrong. As for writing, well it is not my favorite thing. I know I’m not a very good writer and I have problems expressing myself the way I should. This class has helped me a lot to practice and improve my writing skills, and I feel like I’m getting better at it with every assignment. By reviewing my classmate’s essay and giving feedback on it I learned mistakes that I make all the time but would never pay attention to. I realized that by sitting down and writing my essay in one day I would be putting my mind in a blank where finding new ideas and forming sentences becomes impossible. I should always write my essay by different steps so that every time I read it over I notice my mistakes and prepare new ideas.
ReplyDeleteWriting has never been one of my strengths. I’m able to express myself perfectly verbally but when it comes to putting it down on paper I get mixed up. I did the Syrian educational system and the English syllabus there is pretty weak. I had to teach myself, and work hard in order to get accepted into the American University of Beirut.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I’ve found hard while writing draft one was paraphrasing what the authors had to say without moving into summarizing. I found my paragraphs to be mini summaries of the texts we had been given. Even though I used my own words and probable solutions to many of the problems addressed by the authors it still wasn’t enough.
Another thing I’ve had difficulties with was focusing. I found myself procrastinating a lot. I’d barely write a paragraph then I’d take a break, even though I had all the ideas in my head.
I prefer subjectivity and directness. I’m a very blunt person and academic writing doesn’t allow me to channel that. That’s one of the reasons why I’m just not into academic writing.
Many times I’d find myself using extreme and subjective words that clearly show an emotional outburst but without even realising so I go on with my paragraph and essay.
What I did enjoy in academic writing was the fact that we’re getting a point through to the readers with providing quotes and paraphrases but at the same time our voice is in our essay, we get to contribute to the information and add a little more to the whole concept. The reason as to why I loved that is because I do like being a bit personal in an essay. I like adding and contributing in a way that satisfies the current modern reader.
Another thing I loved is what we discussed in class from topics to issues. It got me very interested because the topics were controversial and modern. They were perfect for our age group. Seeing how other people expressed their opinions about such controversial topics was also interesting. I love absorbing good insights and criticizing bad ones.
One thing that helped me in class was the way we approached essays beforehand. We were taught to brainstorm and write our preliminary ideas and get them sorted out. I found this to be very useful for eliminating unnecessary ideas and sticking to what’s useful for our essays.
It also allowed me to work on my thesis properly.
One last thing I didn’t like was when we were assigned in groups to work on an essay or a worksheet. I don’t prefer being in a situation where my success is related to other people’s work. There’s never equal work in a group in school/university. The future might demand group work in companies and such, but I’d like to think my peers would be on the same level as I am and even better.
Overall, the whole course is a bit hard for me. I’ve had no experience whatsoever in writing before and definitely not academic writing. But as the course is moving I’m progressing and hopefully I’m going to find a big difference in my writing style.
Writing essays has always been my weakness. Sometimes I’m scared of going to English class because I’m afraid the teacher will assign an essay, but honestly I did not mind writing this essay. Whenever I write an essay I tend to have my ideas in my mind but it’s always so hard to put it into words. Even if I do find the words to say I find it difficult to organize my thoughts and ideas into ways that actually flow and make sense to the reader. The worst part of the essay for me would be writing the introduction and the conclusion, the introduction especially. What I do sometimes is figure out how I want to organize my body paragraphs, what I want to discuss in them, and then I go back to my introduction. A problem I know I have and my peers or teachers have told me is I tend to go off topic sometimes; I tend to bring in topics/ideas that do not necessarily need to be introduced in that paragraph. Another thing I tend to do is forget that I am writing a formal paper and I start giving my opinion which shouldn’t really be done. What I learned this time was whenever I’m writing something I should always make sure it relates to the topic sentence; that is why it is important each paragraph has a good topic sentence. I still have difficulties staying on topic but learning about relating my ideas to my topic sentence helped me stay on track and therefore I feel I succeeded in that area. What I also rarely did when trying to outline my essay was brainstorming or creating the diagram as a way to have a visual idea of my topics. Doing that for this essay made me successful in creating my outline and deciding what topics to discuss and what not to discuss. What also really helped with creating an outline and I think will be helpful in the future is the explanatory synthesis that was provided to us before we wrote our first drafts. A part I feel I do pretty well at is when I credit my sources. It was helpful being able to talk about a specific issue and then being able to have something to back me up by using one of the works we read in class. What was also really helpful about writing this essay was the fact that we discussed most of the works I used in my essay in class. Talking and discussing the different stories was really helpful because it gave me better understanding especially when I used them in my essay. It was easier to talk about them and relate them to the prompts that were provided. Getting feedback from a peer and from the teacher was really helpful. Giving feedback was something I feel was helpful because as you read someone else’s paper and you correct their mistakes you learn not to make those mistakes in your essay too.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the writing of this essay, I have encountered some difficulties but also enjoyed some of its aspects. Writing is a time consuming exercise, even for those who are well read and are used to writing in English. Coming from a French educated school, writing this essay wasn’t an easy exercise. As a graphic designer student, I am assigned projects that require long hours of work, coming up with creative ideas and hence some overnights. Adding the English assignments has just increased my work load and diminished my hours of sleep especially that writing is as much a creating exercise as my graphic design projects. The repetition of the same subject in many assignments, although from different angles, has made them sometimes dull. However, even though I thought I was taking precious time away from my major courses, I have to admit that the course has been really helpful. Indeed, I have learnt how to think critically, to argument and link several texts one to another, to go beyond what the author has written and to analyze the text thoroughly. The assignments of this course helped me structure my ideas and develop my arguments in a coherent sequence. At the end of each idea, I made it a point to relate it to the prompt hence circle back to link it to the main idea. I’ve learnt also how to express my ideas in a more developed and elaborate way by going beyond the face value of what I am reading and by illustrating it with examples from the text references. I didn’t know how to do it before this course and when to place these examples in my argumentation and explanation. I learnt therefore how to use my references and select the supporting quotations for my ideas. Also, one of my major problems was my excessive paraphrasing what I had just said above in any of my writings. It is now much clearer for me how to avoid it and on the contrary go straight to the point without turning in circles.
ReplyDeleteNot only have I felt the improvement of my writing skills, but also learnt a lot of the actual taboo subjects of my environment, things that I didn’t know of. The class debates and readings gave me a lot more interesting information and also gave us students a chance to express our opinions on sexual topics. I have gained knowledge in several aspects and have learnt how to use them in my assignments wisely and thoroughly.
I hope that the next assignments will be easier to cope with since I have started to get used to this form of writing and to this rate of assignment bombardment.
Ever since this semester started, I was told that I was "late" in my progress. This is a really tough transitional phase, the very first semester in university life. All of a sudden, we have to be much more serious about everything and much more hard-working. Personally, I am a serious student but all this responsibility is tough because my life was much different in high school. In high school, whenever we had an assignment we didn't feel like doing, we could actually choose not to do it if we could get away with that. It is obvious when I say that no such thing exists right now! Every single course is extremely demanding and time management is a skill I never had and am supposed to learn. Confidently, I can say that this English course is the course that's keeping me busy more than any other though I'm an engineering student. In this transitional phase, we have to get used to this new world and, at the same time, work really hard to get good grades; this is one of the reasons why university students don't score very well in their first few quizzes. Back in high school, getting enough sleep wasn't always doable, yet that life was a blessing compared to this one since we find ourselves missing consecutive nights of sleep, now. There are some facts that make the time-management problem even harder: the fact that the human brain doesn't have the ability to concentrate all the time, and the fact that, at most times, anything can seem more attractive than studying which contributes to wasting more time. Other facts include the length of a day (24 hours only) and that human-beings must get some sleep within each 24-hour interval. I find myself always late though I never attempt to waste my time entertaining myself; I am sure that the first two mentioned issues have a big role in this especially that I'm a person who gets easily distracted. I'm even planning to take the minimum number of credits next semester because of the time-management issue. Time-management is really tough for an AUB student who is taking an English course, especially if this course includes a lot of assignments. I'm saying this because generating creative ideas cannot be done quickly which is the reason why every single assignment requires a worthwhile period of time which would make us work on this course so hard that it negatively affects our grades in other courses.
ReplyDeleteThe good part is that my hard work has actually paid off. I think that my writing skills are, actually, improving because of all this work. I'm actually learning how to enhance the different parts of an essay which was a skill I lacked. This is very useful in formal writing for students majoring in anything at all since any of us might be asked to write a report or another form of formal writing; even the e-mails exchanged among employees, businessmen, partners, contractors and others have to be formally written. My writing skills should, also, have improved because of all the critical reading we're doing in which the subjects we're tackling include real life facts and examples we're living today. This book (After Words) is definitely broadening our background information, making us more aware of what is going on in Lebanon and in other regions of the world. The critical reading we're doing also allows us to, actually, have an opinion concerning certain issues with the help of the background information we're receiving. It also allows us to grow stronger stances in certain matters in which we can become more persuasive, and it allows us to disown some opinions we previously had. The critical reading we're doing is reflected in our critical writing; we are given freedom to think what we want to think and write what we want to write. Our personalities are actually developing because of this without us even noticing it simply because all the assignments we were given asked us the same question, a question that shows me an image of freedom: "What do you think about that?"
Learning is a never-ending process. From the very first day I was brought to life, I started learning from my surrounding. Later, with my alphabetization, school opened new horizons throughout my childhood and teenage years as it gave me the ability to read and understand others. Being an AUB student is a new step in my life aiming to further deepen that experience of sharing, communicating and empowering my intellectual capacities.
ReplyDeleteThe shift from a French system to an American one has been one of the hardest steps in my life. It is most clearly observed during my English 203 class, as I struggled to think in English before writing with proper wordings. Furthermore, I am acquired to manipulate the new learning tools (computers, internet…) that I previously perceived as an entertainment source. I feel like I am growing up by acquiring more maturity that is coming from more access to knowledge in so many different fields. For example discussing about the basis of our society, what it is made of, normalization and marginalization etc., since I have access to a bigger forum of discussion, in enjoyable ways (blog entries in particular). An English course is an open field for exchanging ideas. I have discovered, thanks to my peers’ and my teacher, new ways of thinking unveiling taboos that my previous catholic school used to shield by orienting my thoughts accordingly to their beliefs. Therefore, I feel like I have acquired freedom of thinking and freedom of expression. I specifically feel at ease due to the bond with my peers and my teacher as the brainstorming sessions stays within the walls of the classroom and granted each of us the security of not being judged. I am thankful to this English 203 course that made me discovered deep within me the attraction I have for leadership. Indeed, during our side group studies, I realized that I am the one that guides the current of the discussion and that eases the spirits that tends to fly outside the subject. As a consequence, I realized I have organizational skills. I definitely cannot omit the fact that when I first heard about the essay I have to submit for this course, I not only panicked but also doubted my ability to write such a long paper. However, the presence of my teacher during the progression (Reading Responses, Draft 1, and Draft 2) reassured me and helped me to develop my analytic abilities and widen my opinion in order to see the world through other people’s eyes, be it the authors or my peers (through peer reviews).
In the future, starting this year, I would use my critical and analytical skills gained in English 203 in order to tackle problems I will face in my business major now, and maybe even in my job later on, from a more mature angle. Indeed, I will have the wisdom to take my time and organize my actions, as well as understand the issues that I am facing and the opinions of those involved, the people working with me and against me, in order to plan my work accordingly and get to solutions in an optimum manner.
This course has presented me with the opportunity to improve my reading, writing and speaking skills through interesting topics that encourage discussion. I like how the topics chosen in the textbook are ones that I would normally want to read more about even if it weren’t required. I do, however, find it a bit hard to write about these topics in our assignments. Maybe the main reason for that is because I have a hard time expressing myself through academic writing as opposed to creative writing. Then again, learning how to formally express myself and my opinions is something I would like to learn how to do. It’s not only a skill I will have to use someday when I start working, but it’s also something that will help me express myself in clearer ways during shorter periods of time.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we have a lot of assignments, they are helping me learn how to manage my time: something I have always failed to do. The assignments can be a bit tiresome, leaving me staring at my keyboard surrounded by bags of chips, but week after week it’s getting easier to figure out the right time I should spend on these assignments. I won’t pretend that I’m very grateful for having a lot of homework (no one is), but I’m saying that I’m actually learning a lot from our homework which isn’t that boring anyway since our assignments involve interaction with one another.
In addition to that, I often find myself suffering from the inability to write my thoughts down on paper. My thoughts are constantly running through my mind and I just can’t seem to easily organize them and transform them into written sentences. I have always had to spend time organizing everything in my head before managing to write anything down. The free writing technique that you showed us in class really did help me find a solution to that problem and I find free writing very useful for all my other courses as well. I won’t always have time to think about everything before writing, so writing everything down first then organizing it afterwards is a great way to free all the ideas stuck in my mind; I’m even doing that right now.
All in all, I’m certainly faced with a few difficulties but at the same time I’m learning skills that are helping me get through them. I will need more time to get the hang of everything, but hopefully by the end of this semester I will turn into the best thinker, reader, writer and speaker that I can be at this point in my life. Although the road may be packed with homework and occasional hysteria, I don’t think the easy things in life are the ones worth learning.
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ReplyDeleteWorking out through the essay I faced many difficulties but to consider one in particular as the main difficulty I would refer to the lack of correlated references; class reading, articles, internet websites I could come up with writing my essay. Although the material provided was more than enough and to speak about the efforts that I’ve done to sort out the right conclusion about what really happened in the Arab upraise and Arab history, this would be very time consuming. But in bringing this issue in our discussion just to let you know how scarce and limited are the authentic certified citations on which we could rely on in sorting out what really and actually took place from an unbiased point of view. Few were the sources that I relied on confidently in seeking the theme of my essay, contradicting, lacking authenticity, unreliability, etc…were many of the citations and articles that I’ve seen throughout my research. However, the very few ones that I relied on were close to reality and were true reflections of the actual incidents that I could rely on with confidence while editing/writing my essay. Not to mention the time waste that I suffered while categorizing the citations in this case the transitions. In brief, the lack of time management and not comprehending the correct and specified sources were my difficulties in writing my essay. Never the less, the numerous grammatical errors and clarifying some of the main idea remains a bit difficult although I have tried my best in making this second draft a better one. Hopefully by the final draft I would’ve fixed most of the errors mentioned.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, never before have I had the chance to evaluate the importance of the open class discussions the way experienced throughout previous high school years education. The true success about having these open discussions had lead me to a more objective opinion about these class discussions unbiased by personal opinion and subjective attitude but rather learning about how to listen and respect what others have to say. In a way s much like what took place in the said Arab up rise
I truly believe that sharing opinion and open discussions followed by the understanding and respects of others thoughts and opinions even though contradicting with our own is the one great success that I feel was achieved while writing, discussing, and openly talking about the theme of this essay. Moreover, the homework that was given to us along with its due dates showed me to become more punctual and be more serious with my other courses.
As a student who has been newly introduced to the university, English 203 has been a great start. Being different from the English class we took in school, English 203 made me see new ways to master the English Language. I can see myself improving in many ways; however, only half the journey has passed so far, and there is more that we still need to learn. English 203 has had a major role in enhancing my critical reading strategies and writing skills, yet I believe I still need to improve my oral communication skills.
ReplyDeleteSince the beginning of this course, we were assigned different types of readings as homework and then we used to discuss them in class. At first, I did not quite see the purpose of these discussions; however, as I look back, I can see that the questions that the instructor used to asked were meant to make us think in a certain way. The discussions certainly aimed to develop our critical thinking strategies. I was able to see this development reflected on the writings we were assigned to do. As I compare the first reading response we wrote to the first draft of the essay, I could see a major change. I learned the necessary steps I need to follow when analyzing a text, the right structure that should be used to comment on the author’s opinion, and the right words that should be used when I want to criticize the author in my writing. All these new acquired skills helped me improve in writing and express my thoughts in a more thorough and clear way. Moreover, the instructor was focusing in class on certain ideas and details in the readings. This emphasis on certain ideas in class helped me improve the way I read my text and the way I analyse them.
On the other hand, I can still see some gaps in my communication and grammar skills. The discussions in class often occur in a specific order. First, the instructor asks us questions about the readings. Second, whoever volunteers to speak can give her/his opinion. Then, the others reply and so on. Because I am not so fluent in speaking, I tend to avoid participating most of the times. This is maybe the reason why I have not become more comfortable in speaking yet. I believe that if in each session few of the students are assigned to speak then there will be no room for hesitation and i will be obliged to participate. Through this technique may be able to speak more and improve my communication skills. In addition, the huge amount of writings we have done in class and as homework made me see that I still have quite a number of grammatical mistakes. Yet, I have not been able to figure out how shall I work on overcoming them. In class, we often discuss the general mistakes that most of the students commit but not the specific ones. This strategy has been quite helpful but still not enough for me. I demand the best out of myself, and that is why I will never be fully content from any improvement.
English 203 is being quite a unique experience that had a major role in making me realise my weak and strong points in my English Language. I hope that my progression as writer would be expressed in my coming writings essay. I myself believe that putting so much effort in this course is so essential because the English Language is the base of all the other courses.
I honestly never thought of myself as a good writer; not because of lack of confidence or anything but only because I am aware of my weaknesses in the English language. Nevertheless, over the past 2 years my English has improved. Today I feel like I can write a well organized essay. I think my strong point in my essays is the fact that my essays are meaningful and there is usage of references. Every sentence I mention in my essays has a purpose and I also use references to back up my points. What I like about my essays, is not the end result, but the process before writing my essays. I think my technique for writing my essays is a beneficial one since I dig deeply into my sources before brainstorming and I write down all the ideas that interest me. After doing this, I start brainstorming and organizing my thoughts. I also always try to go one step further with my essay and make a statement that humans can relate to.
ReplyDeleteMy problem comes while writing my essay. The language I use is not always university level and as sophisticated as I wish it to be. Also, sometimes I can’t communicate my ideas clearly. I am so used to the way I think and express my thoughts that I tend to forget that certain sentences might not make sense to readers, as it does to me. I feel that my English is very basic and limited and I don’t always know how to express my thoughts, for it depends on how familiar and comfortable I am with the topic. What I mean by familiar is that if my essay is about a topic that I have previously thought about or discussed then I will be able to know how to express my thoughts; but if it is a new topic that I am not so familiar with, then I will struggle with the style of language that I am supposed to use. I feel that I cannot write any type of essay or clearly express my thoughts because my vocabulary is limited. Usually, if I write a good essay, I don’t take it as a sign that I am a good writer but I think of it as chance. I think this is because previously, there were times when I assumed I wrote a decent essay, but actually failed to notice the weaknesses found in my essay. So now every time I write an essay, I keep in mind that there might be some weaknesses in my essay that I do not notice. I also think that different weaknesses show up when I write different essays.
What I have improved recently in my essay writing is the organization of my essay and the fact that I focus on my thesis statement, since I used to have a problem coming up with the proper thesis that summarizes my essay clearly. What I would like to do next is broaden my language and vocabulary instead of limiting myself to the same set of words, which might not always express my ideas clearly. Also, I would like to be able to write essays in a certain amount of time instead of taking too much time without notice. I guess and hope that all of this will come with the practice of writing essays.
Upon first coming to class, I thought I would do well having done High Level English in the IB program. It was very naïve of me to assume that that would help me pass this class easily. It definitely helped but it still was not enough. From this class, I was able to point that a weakness I had was not being able to properly summarize or paraphrase. Another weakness was not being able to organize my essay into smaller paragraphs to discuss each individual thought and instead opted for long, bulky paragraphs. However, I was able to find success in this class in critical reading and writing.
ReplyDeleteThe problem essentially with my inability to summarize or paraphrase was because I never really had done it before in any of my essays. Usually, I would take direct quotes from texts and wouldn’t have to summarize or paraphrase any of the texts. I found it a lot simpler to quote than to summarize the text or to paraphrase it into my own words because I thought that the actual text made the most sense and that I would maybe tamper with the meaning of the information. However, the importance and usefulness of summarizing and paraphrasing came to me during this class. In order to save myself time and having to always go back and forth between the book and my essay to get the exact quote, I would only have to read through the text once and could summarize the main ideas or paraphrase them to my liking. I was however unsure about how to go around it and for that reason I had some difficulty being able to summarize and paraphrase as well as to properly site my sources when I do so. With time, however, I managed to grasp the concept easily.
It’s said old habits die hard and my habit to write large paragraphs with several ideas refuses to sit in a grave and perish. I’ve always had this continuous custom to write long paragraphs that go on for maybe a page and I tend to ignore that I introduce several new ideas and concepts in these paragraphs. I always figured they fall under one huge umbrella of the same idea and I would never register that splitting them into smaller paragraphs would help deliver my point. However, with time I became aware with the problem but I would never resolve it until someone would point it out. That way, the problem continues to occur as it has happened in my essay for this class. I definitely know that the problem exists but I only think it’s an issue of proper revision and being able to notice that the paragraphs may be too long. I don’t think it’s a serious problem but rather a very annoying one.
Critical reading wasn’t really something I would do until two years ago when I began the IB program. After that, I couldn’t even enjoy light reading without beginning to critically read every line. When English 203 began, I thought that the critical reading skills acquired in high school would help and fortunately they did. I enjoyed the articles we read immensely and they were full of surprising bits of information that are up for discussion and are very modern. This class refreshed my ability to read critically and analyze all aspects of the text thoroughly. I found great success and relief in that. Another area I found success was critical writing. I always enjoyed writing, mostly of the creative sort, but critical writing has its uses I suppose. With this class, I was able once again to refresh my abilities picked up from high school in critical writing which I can now apply to all my future courses and for that I am very grateful. I feel confident when writing my essays and any formal pieces of writing and this class helped in building my self-confidence, reassuring me that I can write good essays and read critically.
Overall, English 203 has helped me find some annoying weaknesses of mine and has helped me find success in my strengths, thus helping me figure out what I can learn from this class to improve my critical writing and reading skills. I enjoyed this class and I can say that I have learned valuable lessons that can improve my chances for success in other classes.
Tracy Zeinoun
ReplyDeleteNovember 6, 2012
My first semester in the American University of Beirut has been full of new experiences, bad and good, surprises, friendships, mistakes, and lessons learned. University life was like all I heard of and imagined, but I have never expected to be handed so much responsibility in so little time. Although the challenge is compelling in itself and I have found myself having to step up to a whole new level and have enjoyed it, it has been extremely tiring, both mentally and physically. This new life and new experiences will obviously mould me into a more mature and more responsible person, and prepare me as well as possible for the challenges of life that I will come across after I finish with my education.
This English course is one of the five courses I have registered this semester. There have been areas I have faced difficulties in, and areas I have been able to step up and achieve success in.
The area where I have faced difficulties in this course is the workload and amount of effort required. Being an Electrical and Computer Engineering student, I already have extremely demanding engineering courses, so I almost always find myself rushing assignments and studying, writing as essay two hours before the deadline, solving my mathematics homework fifteen minutes before class, and studying for a quiz the night before. I am fully aware that one is supposed to study daily and always be up-to-date with the material that is being given but sometimes it just gets too much. After a full day of classes and meetings, it is almost physically impossible to drive home in rush hour traffic and be able to study for a long time. More than once in the past several weeks, my mom has woken me up in the morning still on my desk and in the day before’s clothes, with all my books and pens scattered all over the table with an unfinished assignment or incomplete test preparation. I sometimes find myself so overwhelmed with duties and things to do that I start forgetting things and just break down eventually. Moreover, English assignments need time and a lot of thought. Mathematics or engineering assignments can be finished in an hour or two at most. However, essays or papers need a lot of time to come together, plus reviewing, proofreading, and editing. I know this is AUB and we have high standards to keep but sometimes it would be preferable for professors and instructors to consider what students sometimes pass though and decrease the workload every now and then, which would make our lives a bit easier and our campus life more enjoyable.
On the other hand, I have had success in the non-academic side of the course. I have made new friends, met new people from different backgrounds, and learned how to communicate effectively, coordinate, and cooperate with people I did not know before. I realized I have a talent or inclination to boldly step into a new community and familiarize myself with and become friends with the people around me. This is something I was told about AUB. I had spent my whole life in the area around my home and school, encountering similar people with similar background and similar beliefs. When I came to AUB, in my first week, I met people from areas I never knew existed, people with names and family names I have never heard of, people from even different countries! This mix of people is kind of humbling and made me step back and realize there are so many things I don’t know and so many places I have never been, that the world is not full of people like me, on the contrary, I am small part of something much bigger. In addition, I have learned to optimize my work and organize myself to meet deadlines and submission dates. Although these new skills have helped me a lot, often work overwhelms organization and things fall apart. However I know I always have to do my best and that is the biggest part of proudly being an AUB student. In English 203 particularly, I learnt not only to deal with issues but to discuss them openly in class, to meet new ideas and principles and ways of thinking, and most importantly to think critically and read in between the lines!
ReplyDeleteI agree with my classmates about the time management issue. From the beginning of this semester as it is my first, I have been facing problems at managing my time with my other 4 courses. I am overwhelmed with all that's happening. As you said when you introduced yourself, you are very demanding. The time you give us for each assignment was not enough for me. I hate coming to class unprepared and that seemed to be happening a lot lately. I hope I can change that. I'm not really fond of essays and writing in general because I'm not really good at them. I am not the best at expressing myself. I actually prefer free-writing rather than an essay with a specific topic. I loved the readings but I did not know how to use them in my essay.
ReplyDeleteI am not giving my full potential in this class and that will hopefully change soon.
I really love the class discussions and i feel comfortable in class. I enjoy this course but my only problem is with the assignments. I don't really know how I'm going to fill 2 pages now.. and that also is a problem for me I don't always complete my assignments fully.
Finally, I love this class but I hate the fact that I don't get enough with my assignments. I hope my writing skills improve because I really need that.
Thank you
Writing essays is not what I expected to do, especially ones related to what we've covered in the book. I was willing to write economic or political essays: thing that are more palpable and concrete in our everyday life; such subjects are far more interesting! However, I was really impressed regarding my ability to write the essay that I've submitted: I never thought I would ever be able to write such long and coherent text that includes social identity subject in a formal way! In fact, I never wrote an essay before: my school essays where no more than copy/past texts for the Internet (embarrassing but true!). But this essay was totally "exploratory experience": I wrote a four pages long essay all alone for the first time of my entire life (because to the plagiarism strict rules)! During this semi-semester, I've learned a lot of thing that developed my Academic English writing capability: many where doable, while others weren't.
ReplyDeleteIn text citations where very useful to my essay writing, they added to my text the element of credibility. My older sister, a conference translate student in USJ, read my final essay and was quite impressed of my ability to write a such credible text, knowing that I'm French educated. She also said that it could be posted in a newspaper (I really liked that!). Plus, the quotation/reformation rules helped in improving my skills. At school, I used to use a lot of quotations: it turned out that most of my essays were not written by me. Now, although I had troubles, I am able to reform other people's quotes in my own words and adding in-text citations as well.
On another hand, I hated two things: the numerous assignments per week and the prohibition of questions! Assignments are good for practicing Academic English writing. However, with too many assignments per week, I can't catch-up and study other main courses; they are taking a lot of my time! Plus, I'm having problems with the "no question" rule; I can't agree with that. I think that rhetorical questions add strength to my writings, especially when it supports my point of view. Most people use questions in their speech (ex: Obama and Romney in their campaign speeches used a lot of questions).
In an over view, I think that I really improved in my writings, thanks to my hard work and of course my instructor's and peer's reviews!
Dana Marie Hatab
ReplyDeleteNovember 7th, 2012
Zane Sinno
Section 25
Reflective Journal
Growing up in America with English as my first language has definitely impacted my English and writing skills. Since all I have ever known was English, I was taught to basically just think, dream, and live in English. In school, Middle School to be more specific, we never really focused much on the grammar rules of the English language. Instead, a lot of these skills just came naturally. While writing an essay, we as students would usually just go by what feels right or sounds correct. I find this to be a mixed blessing. Although I am correct in my grammar most of the time, I do feel like I could have a better grammatical structure in my writing in order for me to better get my point across as clearly and precisely as possible.
Once I moved to Lebanon and observed just how my French and Arabic educated friends are learning English I realized how much more they focus on the rules of it, which genuinely impressed me. I feel like this could be a possible weakness of mine, though it has never caused me much struggle or difficulty. It is just something I would simply like to tone up a bit in case I were to further pursue English as a major or maybe someday write a book. I enjoy writing actually, which is something that a lot of my peers find strange. In fact, I used to write poetry. It began as a mandatory part of American curriculum in my Elementary school when I was young, and then it eventually progressed into a hobby. I also truly enjoy writing essays, no joke. Although I most likely will not major in English, I would love to someday write a book about a topic I feel strongly about. I hope that I can work on the more technical parts of my English some more, like sentence structure, parallelism, grammar, avoidance of fallacies, business letter etiquette, etc, and know the original rules instead of always having to rely on instinct.
I like English 203 because I get to discuss topics I am particularly interested in and so far all of the feedback I have received from both the teacher and my classmates has been highly beneficial to me. While being analyzed and critiqued by my peers and then also having to evaluate my classmates has opened my eyes to a lot of common mistakes that I often do yet have never noticed before. My only concern is time. I feel like every class there is a deadline for something, which is fine, but trying to find balance with all my other courses as a Freshman is proving difficult. I just keep telling myself, “Welcome to University!” I find the book “After Words” to be quite impressive. The amount of work put into it is apparent and very much appreciated. I’m glad that the curriculum is not banal, and even more so, I am very glad to finally feel like I can openly discuss and debate “adult” issues inside the classroom in a mature manner without anyone freaking out or gasping in shock that somebody said the word “sex” or “transgender” or anything of the sort.
CONTINUED.....
ReplyDeleteOne of my strongpoints that I have fortunately been encouraged to use and improve on since Middle School is Public Speaking and debate. In my previous English classes in the States and even here at my American High School, I have always been expected to give presentations. Whether it be a project in front of the class or an informal debate, my English teachers have always encouraged me to be comfortable speaking my point of view in a confident manner. I would have some form of presentation due every other week or so, this trained me to always prepared to be able to go in front of a crowd of people and just talk without any nervousness or jitters. In my opinion, good public speaking is a skill that I feel is more or less crucial to have. In everyday life communication and people skills are needed, and the better developed the skill is, the more successful a person will be in their social and working life. Also, being good at giving presentations means being a quick thinker and having the capability to have words come naturally to the mind. This skill of being able to think on my feet has definitely helped me a lot in essay writing because it results in my voice coming out in my writing. Thankfully not experiencing a “writer’s block” and writing with voice is something I know is a good quality to have.
I enjoy English class because I feel like I learn a whole lot more than just English. I sense that the entire class has gotten off to a good start this year and I am excited for all there is to come.
The reason why I am taking the English 203 course is because I need to enrich my English. Enriching my English would permit me to communicate properly in the workplace.
ReplyDeleteI have realized that my writing skills need major improvement. Since I had attended a French school, the way I write my essay leans towards the French way of writing. This is mostly the problem I have been facing with my writing. I have a problem with my thesis structure as well as my perception of the subject I am given to write about. When I wrote my draft 1, the comments were many and most of them were based on how I oriented my essay. The way I had written my essay was much more complicated than I should have. As I had mentioned I had written my essay in the French way instead of the American way, which is simpler. I think I had underestimated the toughness of this course. I thought it would be the English I took in school and which I usually thrived in. Instead I am dealing with this course with difficulty. After the conference with Mrs Sinno, I was able to understand exactly what I had done wrong and hope to fix the mistakes very soon. Hopefully with the help of the writing center I will be able to adapt well.
Speaking of the difficulties I am undergoing, I cannot say my English is that bad. I know I am good at speaking the language as I grew up in an English speaking home. My vocabulary is correct because I read books in English.
I think I just need to improve my writing skills and technique and this course would have done what I needed it to, which is to prepare me to communicate better.
Since I was a child, English class has always been one of my favorite classes and one of my strengths. Unlike most other students, I am never bothered by writing essays. Also, it never takes me as much time to complete them. On the contrary, I quite enjoy writing (that is unless I find the topic uninteresting). Although at first I had no idea what to expect from English 203, it being my first university-level English course, I found that my high school and having been in the International Baccalaureate program truly prepared me well. I don’t feel like English 203 is a challenging course at all. I find the class discussions very interesting and captivating and the essays have been somewhat fun to write. In fact, I had quite a strong opinion on some of the topics that we had to write about for our essay and so I found that this helped me produce a good essay. In general, I am a very opinionated person and so when I am given the chance to express myself concerning such matters, I produce good results. Also, I find that my grammar is strong and that I am often good at expressing my ideas in a clear way and so this helped me even more. However, I did feel that in some instances in writing the essay, I had no idea how to phrase what I wanted to say (although this seemed to only be the case when I was writing about the topics that were not as interesting to me). So far, I don’t feel that English 203 has really challenged me or caused me to push myself and improve my English. I feel like I can complete the assignments very easily. Obviously, this is not such a bad thing for me because I save time. However, I really would like to develop my English skills. I think that writing formal and academic essays has become too redundant and that we should discover new areas of English that are more stimulating. For example, something that interests me is poetry or maybe even an argumentative essay (as we discussed in class today). Hopefully, this will help me develop skills in new areas of English that I have not yet been properly exposed to.
ReplyDeleteOne of the troubles that I have been having with my essay is the in-text citation. I find it somewhat confusing as to when to place what where. However, I found that after completing this essay I have become a bit more comfortable with it although I still have room for improvement. Also, I need to learn to deviate from the 5-paragraph essay format that I have gotten accustomed to. I am actually happy about this because I find it quite ridiculous that in writing an essay we need to be limited to some specific format. Writing should not have such specifications because it really limits the student in terms of his writing and makes for an essay which is less than the student’s potential (or mine at least). I obviously have been having trouble with being aware of the work we had due. I have missed many deadlines (and especially for the blogs) and that really bothers me because it means that I have not given the course all that I have to offer simply because I have been unaware. I hate the fact that the course is so Moodle-based! I find that it really complicates our lives, especially because the Moodle page is not organized or clear in terms of keeping us informed or, for example, in directing us to where we need to make submissions. It’s obvious, though, that I need to get used to Moodle as the course is very dependent on it and I will need it to keep up-to-date and to complete my assignments on time.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t want to take English 203 at first, since I was interested in other courses related to engineering. At the beginning, I experienced difficulties in this course in using moodle and keeping up with the assignments every week. It was a big challenge for me to organize my time: each time I found a solution to this problem the intensity rose and it did not work anymore. English 203 was not a heavy load compared to my other courses, but I had difficulties to allocate some time for this course. Before I started the course, I was expecting boring and repetitive subjects. It turned out to be quiet interesting and wide ranged. Academic English seemed useless at first, but now I see the benefits of intensive writing and critical reading. It allowed me to express myself better and to communicate with more ease in all my courses. Another benefit of this course is that it allowed me to be quick in putting my thoughts to paper while being concise and straight forward.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, this course improved my reading skills in comprehension as we crossed texts that are not the usual texts that most of students read. I think that it is one of the most important skills I learned in this course as it helped me in all my other courses. Reading has been interesting for me, the topic are varied enough while being in same subjects. Some texts nevertheless are heavy and I didn’t enjoy reading them. I think that it is good for me to read text I dislike in order to be able to criticize them and have a critical mind. I think that criticizing some texts is very useful, it is important that I make my own opinion of each text and this course helped me a lot to do it.
I think that the essay drafts are a very useful exercise to organize ideas and to construct a logical continuity around them. I had problems in high school to organize my ideas and to clarify them. I think that I am improving on this level. The reading responses are also helpful in a way that it allows us to cross text and find common areas that can be used later in our essays. It was difficult at first to write reading responses since it was not very obvious to find similarities between texts.
Today I am glad that I took this course, it is helping me a lot in all me courses and I am learning interesting information and broadening my horizons. It also gives me an opportunity to think about new subject that affect our lives.
Being an English educated student, I have found this English course to be quite an easy one. I have learned a lot from this course, and I am now able to understand where I stand as a writer. Indeed, this English class has made me progress as a writer, however it has also made me aware of my weaknesses in writing. In this course we have done a lot of both, reading and writing. I think that this course has made me stronger in putting my thoughts to writing. It has been an advantage for me to analyze texts and translate my thoughts through writing. However, I have found it difficult to organize these thoughts. When organizing thoughts, a person would find it simple expanding on his writing, which I cant grasp. By that I mean that I have a difficulty with elaborating properly. When I attempt to elaborate, I begin to be repetitious. Even though I try to build on my idea, I tend to repeat instead of progress. I think that this happens because when I am in the process of writing, I end up having writer’s block. So my thoughts are always limited when I am writing. This is an issue I have to work on because I have always had this problem in when writing. The outlines and brainstorming that we have done helped me organize what I want to say, but my thoughts remain limited when it comes to expanding. So, when I brainstorm I know how the main structure and outline of my writing will look like, but it wouldn’t help me expand and develop the idea properly. For this reason, I think I should make a detailed outline. Under each idea, I need to list and organize everything I need to mention before writing. I should take note everything that comes to my mind about the idea. So when it comes down to writing an essay, it would be easier for me to reassemble my thoughts in a way that builds on an idea and doesn’t repeat it.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, when I first registered for English 203, I had never imagined myself putting this much effort into it. In my mind, it was just a required course I had to take some time during my four years of university. Being an engineering student, writing an essay was one of the least important tasks I had to do in comparison to my other courses which require computer, physics and mathematical skills. And although I do have a passion for writing, I was determined not to “waste” my time on English 203.
ReplyDeleteBut soon enough, after approximately one week of university, my view on this particular course had changed completely. I soon enough realized how much any English course can actually be helpful in all the other courses. Any student in AUB should be a critical thinker; he/she should analyze any given situation and come up with innovative ideas. Also, this student should be able to clearly express these ideas in an academic formal way. These two characteristics are the main points focused on in English 203.Thus, after having this wake-up call that had pushed me to take this course more seriously; I started figuring out where my strong and weak points were in academic English. And two months of university later, I can easily say that I have witnessed much progress in various aspects.
To begin with, as I had stated earlier, I have a passion for writing. I prefer it over reading and analyzing a text, although these forms are much related. Thus, I enjoyed it when our teacher gave us a five page written assignment, and I am positive that I would have done it better if I had more time. Writing for me is similar to listening to music; it’s an escape, a place where there are no boundaries, a place where I could express my inner thoughts freely. Thus, length and probably grammatical error were never a problem for me.
Another thing I enjoyed in this course was group work. It had helped me improve my talking skills in English (since I had been French educated all my life). The group activities permitted us to share ideas, see other people’s thoughts and opinions and discuss them since there is no unique right answer in this subject. The classroom was an area of discussion and confidentially, we had attacked sensitive topics such as sexuality and gender.
Second of all, there are no doubts many weak points I have yet to improve hopefully in this course. One major area was critical reading. I feel sometimes that I am a very shallow reader, I do not grasp ideas and symbols as others do, I just notice the superficial stuff without taking into consideration the meanings an author might have behind them. Thus, when I first start reading a text, I rarely use the techniques learned in class where I should look at the author’s name, the title, the references…etc I just simply start reading without having any pre-ideas in mind. This had affected me while writing my essays because when I wanted to use a text as an example to an argument I had given I would state it as it is without going into depth of its backstage significance.
Other issues I had faced when writing an essay were the reference placements, run-on fragments and the use of punctuation. These three aspects had made some of my essays difficult to read because the professor would not know if I had taken the idea from a text or it was my own, and the sentences became a bit too heavy. Personally, I have a problem with commas, it’s either I use too much or none at all, and I aim to fix this problem entirely by the end of this course.
In conclusion, what I expect by the end of this semester is to make my English writing somewhat faultless. And hopefully I will be able with some exercises to become a good critical reader. I do hope that I stay this enthusiastic in this course because it is somehow an escape for me from all the scientific subjects I have been taking. And I do wish one thing can be added to this course and that is more oral activities (maybe some presentations, and definitely more interesting discussions). English 203 is not considered an easy course at all, it does require much work and it is somehow time consuming, but I found it to be extremely interesting, innovative and helpful.
ReplyDeleteThe reflective journal assignment is a very good opportunity to step back and think about my improvement and development in academic English.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of this semester, I thought that this course would be the easiest between the five courses I’ve taken, because, as a French educated student, the English language course has always been a source of alleviation for me at school. But my thoughts deceived me, as I got shocked by the burden of responsibility and work this course imposes on the student.
Talking about myself, I’ve found few difficulties that interfered with my progress in many areas. First of all, the main difficulty I’ve encountered was the reading of some assigned texts that I’ve found really difficult to read and understand. When the words used in a text are hard to understand, and the style with which it is written is highly formal, the text becomes lifeless and boring for students like me, as the time will be spent on searching for the meanings of the words in the dictionary, rather than concentrating on the content and the background of the text. Thus, the ideas will be fragmented and disconnected, and the text will seem so tiring for the student.
Second of all, another obstacle I’ve came across in this course so far was the management of time. The tasks required in this course, such as the reading responses, the blogs, and mainly the essays are time consuming, to the extent that I’ve stayed awake several times till midnight just to submit the assignment on time. It is important to take into consideration the fact that us students have a minimum of four other courses, that few of them are major courses and require a high attention and a lot of time, without forgetting that as a pre-med student, the English 203 is a required pre-med course, that’s why I can’t ignore it and I should do my best to get the highest grade possible on it.
In the other hand, I’ve experienced success in many levels in this course by learning a lot of new things and earning a lot of new skills, such as taking notes while reading, summarizing a text, analyzing a text, responding to a text and thinking critically about it, finding main ideas, building a good vocabulary and recognizing organizational patterns. These skills have mainly taught me to interact with the text, live with it, not just skim over it and pass swiftly and lightly over it as I used to do at school. These skills are not helpful only in this course, but also help the student build constructive criticism skills that are indispensable in life for the judgment of the situations.
ReplyDeleteWhat I’ve also liked in this course is the dynamic work in class and the interaction between the students and the teacher. Mrs Sinno is a very active and professional professor who does her best to satisfy the students’ needs in acquiring the basic skills of the Academic English. Also, the group work is very helpful in my opinion, because it creates a bond between the students and is a very good opportunity to analyze the texts from many angles because each student has a different point of view than the other. The group work has also been an opportunity for me to know what others think about a subject and recognize their sexual behavior given that most of the texts we dealt with were related to sexuality.
One main point I also like to mention is that it’s extremely comforting to have a professor who is always in touch with her students by sending them emails, replying to the questions students ask and posting the assignments on moodle so that the students won’t be lost, which this thing is really relieving.
In conclusion, although the barriers I’ve encountered since the beginning of this course were many, but in fact they’re being reduced day after day as I follow the advices of my professor. Now at the present moment I feel more confident than before and able to deal rationally with problems. I can really see my progression in many levels, and one of the proofs is the fact that I wrote this journal in half an hour instead of passing the whole day on it. I can really say now that the best is yet to come!
English 203 has presented me with many reading and writing skills that will help me throughout my university years. There are some new skills I have been taught that I have been able to adapt well into my writing pieces such as critical thinking and some in which I feel need more work for example my many grammatical errors. I have extended my ability to do certain tasks I have learnt in high school such as paraphrasing summarizing and annotating. This shows clearly in my work not only for English but also for other subjects. As English 203 is a high demanding course I have been able to regularly practice my writing skills, which has lead to major improvements in my writing.
ReplyDeleteEnglish 203 teaches us how to Paraphrase, Annotate and Summarize texts that we read in class. These are skills I have learnt earlier but never really had a chance to put into practice. When I was given reading responses and an exploratory synthesis to do, they required all of these three skills, meaning I was able to practice them and extend my ability to do them. From writing workshops and a one on one conference with my teacher I was successfully able to understand how to use ideas and quotes from writers by paraphrasing, annotating or summarizing them. I improved the way in which I integrated quotes successfully and smoothly into my work, minimizing free standing quotes from appearing in my writing pieces. This greatly improved the flow of my writing and made my writing much easier to read and understand.
From this course I have learnt many new skills that I had not used into my writing previously. I learnt the art of critical thinking, looking beyond what the author is telling me and understanding the true meaning of the text. I learnt to ask questions about everything I read and to not always agree but to form my own opinion. I am now able to easily form my own opinion when reading texts and naturally be critical about what I read due to the great amount of practice I have done throughout this course, reading the various articles. Another new thing I have learnt is how to correctly give credit to the authors whose work I am referring to in my writing pieces. I learnt the proper APA in text citation style, a reference style I had never used previously in high school. These new skills I have learnt have enriched my writing and have made me proud of my work.
Throughout this course I have paid close attention to my grammatical errors particularly run-ons and fragments, although, my grammar is still not perfect. These errors have weakened my writing and have drawn away attention from my content. I need to pay close attention in the future to these reoccurring mistakes. I have also learnt in this course that long paragraphs concerning one topic should be reviewed, and I should create a backwards outline so that I am able to break them down into several smaller paragraphs with different focal points. I have learnt how important grammar and organization is in my work and that I should not only pay attention to the content, which I have done previously. Grammar can change the whole meaning and understanding of a piece of writing, now I am well aware of this and hope to improve this throughout the rest of the course.
Continued..
ReplyDeleteNot only have I learnt writing skills throughout this course but also have gained a strong opinion and a great understanding of the various topics we covered such as attitudes towards pre marital sex, sex reassignment and the rejection of homosexuals. These topics have opened my eyes to the importance of fitting into the confines of normalcy or else being marginalized, something that I had never really noticed. It also broadened my knowledge about the social norms and sexism that exist in the Arab World.
As it can be seen English 203 has been greatly beneficial, as I have acquired many new and useful skills, Increased my ability to use previously learnt skills and found my weak points, allowing me to improve them. This has lead to the improvement of the standard of my writing and has meant I am now able to proudly submit pieces of work, not only with greater use of writing skills but also with greater knowledge throughout my content, gained from critically reading and analyzing articles in class.
Writing was never something that would come to me naturally. Math, chemistry physics are so much easier subjects for me because I did not need to really work hard to do well in the subject, it just came to me naturally. In high school, I had a lot of trouble with English class because of my ‘stream of consciousness’ writing style that would always be relevant, but on paper the ideas would always be jumbled up. I think this is because I prefer face-to-face communication rather than writing, because I find that I can always express myself better, in a full aspect and convey what it is I am trying to say. Moreover, the fact that reading never intrigued me as a child really affected me in the long run. I absolutely hate reading. People find themselves open to all sorts of wonders when a good book is placed between their hands, but It never occurred to me as such. To me, a book just has words on paper, and I find myself drifting off in my mind because I can’t seem to focus for more than ten minutes on at a time. I believe its because I get bored, that this happens. Whenever my father would make me read a book I would always tell him that why should I waste my time reading about other people’s experience where I can just go out and experience for myself? It was never enough to convince him though. He always stressed that if I was ever to achieve anything I would have to read. No matter what the genre of the book, I completely detested the thought of reading. I know this because I have tried them all, mystery books, horror books, fiction, non-fiction, history, biographies etc..
ReplyDeleteI find that my imagination is very powerful even if I do not like to read. I don’t know why but, while my mind drifts off while having a book in my hands, it’s got to go somewhere right? Going back to the writing, I find that if I force myself to read more, then maybe writing will come naturally just like the other subjects do.
In eighth grade, I had this English teacher, Mr. Roger, this teacher was not an ordinary one. He would always push us and push us to become better critical readers and writers. I could honestly say that all I know about writing and reading is because of him. Regardless of any personal feelings I have against him that man was a good teacher but I still feel that he did not point me in the direction that I must go on in order to become the best I can truly be when it comes to writing specifically.
I wish all writing can be done as a journal entry where its just me and the reader, I feel like I am talking to myself on the computer however its nice to pour out some ideas out loud where I can evaluate myself, and reflect on how I think about everything more clearly, yet then it comes to reading it again, and that’s why I do not write a journal.
Upon entering the American University of Beirut, my life changed completely. I have realized that university life is totally different from school life both socially and educationally. At first I didn't like it, but then I adapted to the change. Unlike my other classes at AUB, English 203 has allowed me to express my views and feelings in class and on paper. I have enjoyed the lengthy debates we have in class where we discuss many topics but mostly sex and sexuality. I appreciated the fact that we are discussing the problems that occur in our area and society so we are able to relate and share our views. We are able to discuss what we encounter in everyday life. I am able to share my ideas in a friendly environment and have them discussed. I have felt more confident over the course of this class as I am becoming closer to my classmates as well as my teacher. We are able to joke around as well as discuss important topics and complete required class assignment and that is what I look for in a class. The combination of fun and education is a key interest of mine and I have certainly found it in this class.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I enjoy the debates and discussions, English 203 brings with it an enormous work load. We are given assignments which engulf our time. I am being forced into working so many hours on my assignments and essays. Time needed for other major subjects is being depleted because I am forced to complete essays, reports and blogs. Time which could be spent studying for tests or getting some much needed sleep is going into doing these reports. Essays and writing, although I believe I'm not bad at them, take up a lot of my time to complete. I can’t help but get distracted while writing my essays. My mind can’t focus on writing for too long, it’s just not who I am. I'm the type of person who is better at solving formulas and equations. During the course of this essay I've probably stopped around 20 times to chat, check the internet, nap, eat, etc… Many other times, I postpone the English assignment for days because I need to study other subjects which require a lot of my attention. I end up, staying late nights just to complete my assignments. Even this essay is taking up my precious sleep time and I just want to get it over with!
The demand overload is something I must learn to adapt to and manage my time. It is partly my fault, but I still believe that English should leave our time for different classes related to our majors. Other than that the class is a very nice environment to be in and I feel lucky to have chosen it.
Since the beginning of the semester, I have been experiencing a major problem which is the following: I can't manage my time to do those assignments. I'm a pre med student and I'm spending my time doing assignments instead of studying chemistry and biology. And what makes the situation worse is that I'm not really motivated maybe because it takes a lot of time and at the end it becomes boring. Furthermore, I'm facing difficulties in expressing myself in English being a French educated student. Indeed, it takes time to find the right words without making grammar mistakes for example. Sometimes, when we have several homework due the same day I really become nervous.
ReplyDeleteDespite everything I have previously mentioned, I'm still benefiting a lot from this class. Indeed, those 50 minutes pass by in a glimpse! I love the group work activities and the atmosphere in general. I truly believe that your teaching skills had a strong and positive impact on my English experience. For instance, I remember my disastrous 1st assignment which took hours long to complete. About two months on, I no longer have that difficulty to express myself even though I still believe it's my 3rd language. Although you've told us not to praise you, I simply cannot! Thank you for being so patient and kind with us. Furthermore I used to be so sensitive. I wrote in my introductory paragraph in the beginning that I am a closed book. However, now I am more open and feel freer while expressing my opinions regarding all the different topics and issues. I'm not saying that I'm so fluent in English nor am I that grammar-freak, but I believe I am getting there. By the end of this semester, I hope I will be mistaken for being English educated!
Four months ago as we did the online registration I discovered that in order to complete my journey in AUB as an engineer I have to take two English classes. I took the English 203 course, because I had to not because I wanted to. So I decided that I should make the best out of it try to improve my writing and reading skills. I can frankly say that I have made a huge progress so far this semester.
ReplyDeleteIn these last two months I have written assignments and essays more than I have ever written before. When a person is writing his own ideas, he understands them in a better way, expands them, and works on them. Honestly this course helped me a lot to discover myself, my beliefs, and my insights.
Another very important thing I learned, something that would help me through my career as an engineer, is the ability to integrate other authors’ ideas in my text and avoid being plagiarized for it.
On another level I learned how an essay should be written, the main components of it. What my paragraphs should include, how to begin and end one. How I should make my thesis.
I also learned how a critical reading of text should be, what the steps are, how it helps me better understand the text. The reason is that critical reading makes us understand the hidden meaning behind everything: the outline of the text, the title. Moreover it helps us learn more about situation of the writer, thus better understanding of the soul of the text.
Some peripheral skills were also enhanced like my ability to participate in debates, concerning many topics I so rarely discussed before: sex, female’s status in the Arab world, marital sex…
But I can see that my sentences still lacks a good structure. I don’t know how to put the proper punctuation, and my grammar is not that good.
In the future I am hoping to work on my flaws, in order to get a high grade. But, more importantly to improve my English, since I am in an American University and plus English is the worldwide language.
In conclusion, this course armed me with new skills so far, skills that would be so helpful for my long journey ahead of me. Writing argumentative essays, writing responses, avoiding plagiarism are crucial abilities. But the semester is not done yet; I still have enough time to improve my sentence structure and grammar… because I am aiming for perfection.
In the beginning of the semester I took this English 203 course just because I had to do so as an engineering student thinking that it would be an easy going cool class; I would have never imagined that it would take so much effort and time.
ReplyDeleteTime… a major issue for me, I try as much as possible to manage it in order to get everything done by the deadlines but we are crawling under the amount of work and I personally sometimes loose control over what I have to do. And especially in this course, English 203 turned out to be a time-consuming course who requires a lot of energy, concentration, inspiration and creativity; which I don’t necessarily have at the end of the day. I also experienced some difficulties concerning moodle. This system is new to us, first year student, and it is frankly quite complicated to manipulate at first. It was hard for me to keep up with the assignments because I didn’t know we had one, I was really lost. But in the end it was only a minor issue and we get used to it.
I am quite weak in formal writing and outlining in English, I prefer to just write down whatever comes to my mind without having to worry about the structures, the arguments, the thesis statement or topic sentences. And this was a real handicap for me when I first entered this course that requires a lot of organization.
On another hand, this course made me improve my writing skills and organization; plus, I really love the interactions we have when we discuss about the texts and I think that tackling such taboo and controversial subjects was something really interesting and enriching. Being always in scientific class where no one expresses his true opinion, I love it that it is the only class where I can truly witness the difference of cultures and interests. Each one of us can express his own opinion and we all listen to each other with respect even if we do not necessarily agree. I like to think of our class as a melting pot where everyone with his own background comes and expresses himself.
This course has really put some pressure on me I think that it is not that bad; actually it is for the best ; and made me push my limits further than I could ever imagine.
What I really liked about what I learned in this course so far is especially the way I feel about my writing’s constant improvement. I got rid of a lot of bad habits that I used to employ in writings. I am actually taking law courses in English at Sagesse University so English is really important to me and I should perfect it as much as I can.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to this, the topics discussed in class are really interesting as I have learned many new facts about sexual subjects.
English 203 is an absorbing course because it isn’t a lecture but a discussion in which students exchange ideas and point of views. However, the absorbing part of the course manifests itself, as well, by the amount of time required to do all of the assignments given.
I hope this course will help me improve more and more to finally reach a level i never thought i would have, given my french educated background.
Ever since I was a child, my biggest flaws have always been disorganization and procrastination. I don't like the idea of deadlines and throughout my school years I have always managed to somehow do everything at the last minute. When I first registered for this English 203 class, I thought it was going to be just like my previous English courses at school and that it wouldn't take much of my time but I couldn't have been more wrong. I found out that this English 203 course requires an extreme amount of attention, time and creativity and I've had difficulties in managing all of these Also, I realized that "doing everything at the last minute" like I used to do in school is absolutely impossible in this course. We had many assignments due different dates and I sometimes got lost and confused. For example, I thought this reflective journal was due next Monday...
ReplyDeleteAnother difficulty I encountered is learning to use Moodle. It’s my first semester at university and I’m used to teachers always reminding us of the upcoming homework and telling us what we have to do in class. It may sound childish but at first, I was very disoriented and lost when I found out that you (the teacher) were not going to always remind us about homework and that I was going to have to keep up with a website in order to know what I had to do. To be honest, I was overwhelmed with the amount of homework you gave us at first and it was especially hard to meet deadlines when I had quizzes and midterms the same week. Moreover, I have always liked writing but I have a lot of ideas and still have some trouble with structuring them in my formal essays.
On the other hand, this English 203 course has helped me in various ways. Although I often complain about the amount of assignments you give us, I now realize how comfortable it has made me with my writing. I take less time to write essays now and critical thinking has become much more easier for me. This course has changed my way of reading too. I used to read through texts without giving a second thought about what the author really meant…I didn’t try to connect the text I was reading to some bigger issue or to other texts but this course improved my critical reading skills. What I like most about this English 203 class is that it isn’t lecture like and it actually encourages dialogue and participation. It is impossible not to react or want to participate to the discussions held in class and I find them extremely interesting especially because we all have different opinions and sometimes come from different backgrounds which creates interaction. Also, the themes discussed in class are interesting because they usually are taboo in society : At first, we all were a bit reluctant to talk openly about subjects such as pre marital sex or homosexuals but I noticed that after the multiple blog entries, readings, essays and reading responses, everyone was more comfortable with talking about these themes. I believe that the teacher also helped in keeping us interested by varying the texts, and the types of assignments. I particularly liked the idea of group work in class, it helped us socialize, share opinions and work at the same time.
To conclude, this course is very challenging and even though I sometimes find myself overwhelmed by the assignments, it also forced me to work harder and more efficiently which I think will be useful to me not only at university, but also later in the future.
When I signed up for this course I didn’t feel like my English needed any improvement since I used to get high grades at school. I only chose English 203 because I thought it was going to be the easiest course and that I wouldn’t need to spend much time on it. Soon enough I realized that I was wrong, that I would have to work hard on this class but that it would be worth it since I had much yet to learn.
ReplyDeleteThe texts we read were very interesting and different from those we read at school. I learned how to critique a text’s contents and also its layout. While writing the first draft of my essay I encountered some difficulty in developing my ideas. My arguments were very short and incomplete. Reading the teacher’s and my peer’s comments on my essay helped me a lot. I not only learned how to develop my ideas but also make my arguments more concrete by adding examples and citations from texts. The only problem is that I am not sure that I am doing a good job in crediting my sources, which is something that I will have to work on. I also realized while reading the first draft review that my punctuation has much yet to improve. Something that I feel has certainly improved in my writing is the way that I express my ideas and thoughts which is something that I used to find great difficulty in doing at school. However it still takes me a very long time to write even the shortest paragraphs, which is something that I definitely have to work on.
I think that this class has taught me a lot and will continue to do so. I feel confident that by the end of the semester I will have improved a lot in my writing. This class also taught me a lot about different cultures and I feel up to date about what is happening in today’s society. The only problem is that I am having great difficulty in managing my time. Being a graphic design student and having to turn in projects on a weekly bases isn’t really helping me to do so however I will try my best to keep up.
When I first came to AUB I was threatened by the word, been told how difficult it is and the amount of challenges the students pass through during their studying periods here. One of the first challenges I came across was my english course, ENGLISH 203. It was a new experience for me since during my highschool years we were not accustomed to write this much essays, our focus was mainly on grammar, vocabulary, and barely writing one essay during the entire semester.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this course I found it difficult to always keep on submitting reading responses on a weekly basis, as well as using moodle that’s a very confusing website for me. Nontheless I have to admit that I considered this to be more of a challenge and an obstacle I have to overcome more than a depressive diffculty I have to face. It provoked me to find new meanings of writing, new methods for using my words in a more elaborate manner, daring my brain to surpass its limits and focusing on critical thinking. I felt the true satisfaction after accomplishing each assignment. It kept me academicaly motivated for learning more, reading more articles.
In conclusion, this is a very interesting course regardless to the level of its difficulty it subjected upon us. I expect to have a well enhanced english level by the end of this course, be able to write in a more organized, technically formal, high standardized method. I’ll possess the proper skills to reflect my opinion to any article I may face and express my opinion in a well put manner.
oops, i just saw that we have to submit the reflective journal here.
ReplyDeleteAfter having exactly 480 on the writing part of the SAT, I was able to skip ENGL 102 and take directly ENGL 203. I thought in the beginning that the topics are going to be the same as before: Racial discrimination and human rights. I also pre-thought that this course would be like all the previous English classes, boring, and without long term benefits. On my side, I used to encounter low reading skills. In the writing process, I was good at structuring the text, writing a concrete thesis and topic sentences but my English level was not that fluent.
In fact at high school, I used to have reading issues. I couldn’t concentrate on the text for more than 2 minutes. I am easily distracted by anything that occurs around me. Moreover I used to see the texts pointless and didn’t use to enjoy them at all. ENGL 203 showed me up that I wasn’t that bad in reading. I can read very fast, and concentrate for an hour when the topic is interesting.
Critical thinking is one of the most important things I learnt in ENGL 203. Critical thinking helps me everywhere. I am an engineering student, more specifically, an ECE student with a minor in economics. I decided to take the academic English course because I think that it is very necessary to be able to read, speak and write appropriate formal English. In fact, I would need to read academic English in all my classes. All the researchers report, articles are written in academic English. Critical thinking that I developed until now, through ENG 203, is helping me to understand deeply articles, especially in the economical field. Moreover, later on, when I start my career, I will have to use academic English with my peers and boss. Speaking academic English is really important in interviews for example. Field engineering, my dream job,is also involved in writing academic English, since engineers have many reports to fulfill. Until now ENGL 203 was full of benefits to me.
I used believe that the “chatting English”, if we can call it so, makes things easier and lead us to the point faster. But in fact, after the reading response, I found out that organizing ideas in a critical way, and writing in appropriate English would aim closer to the target. Emails and messages sent to the teachers have to be in academic English, everything must be clear and organized. Moreover writing in academic English makes me look more professional, smart and would give a nice first impression.
ENGL 203 teaches me time management. To be able to ace AUB, you need to manage your time in a very consistent way. I found a real difficulty in submitting my first reading response at time. In fact, I submitted it on time but it was very bad. I didn’t even have the time to read it a second time after finishing it. For my Draft 1, I learnt from my first mistake. I finish my draft 1, 2 days before the deadline and read it another time before submitting it which let me find some stupid mistakes I did. Moreover, for the essay, I used the worksheet to settle my ideas properly and plan everything before starting the writing process. I also use the peer review sheet to correct my essay. I kept an edition of the revision checklist saved on my laptop to be able to use it later on, whenever I write an essay.
In conclusion, this course until now was really helpful. I really like the topics met in class. It helped me achieve time management, critical thinking and reading
In case we are supposed to post the SECOND reflective blog here, here goes:
ReplyDeleteThough we live in the Arab world, the American culture has penetrated into ours, just like the rest of the world's culture. As a result, the English language has become the global language which has contributed to the transformation of the world into a global village. Consequently, the English language has become a main language in most countries around the world. This makes it necessary for us, as citizens influenced by globalization, to become fluent in English and to master the different branches of this language as the grammar, the pronunciation, the spelling and the vocabulary. As AUB students, we have to take some English courses as English 203 to ensure that this language in communication is never a problem in our future careers.
As an engineering student, English 203 is not the only English course I'm supposed to take which means that there is much more to learn. I believe that the main skills I need to acquire and improve are communication skills that I will, hopefully, learn in English 206. In this English course, each of us has done a single presentation as a member in a group which I do not consider to be sufficient for any of us to gain effective communication skills. When I performed my part of the presentation, I felt very nervous, to the extent that I consider it a success that I was able to present almost all the points I was planning to discuss. I'm very glad that I was able to find this information in the maze of convolutions I like to call "my brain" because I had nothing written on paper. In fact, I was very confident at first and thought that this presentation was no "big deal"; I was even reading some lecture notes about electricity right before the presentation. Another skill I would like to improve is my pronunciation. Though I am an English-educated student, I've noticed that my pronunciation and my accent have become worse in the last few years. As a child, I gained an accent that is closest to the American accent from the cartoons I used to watch on T.V. and from some of my English teachers who had encouraged me a lot and whom I still feel very grateful for. However, in the last few years of school, I started losing my accent gradually until I started communicating with my English teachers using the Arabic language; of course, this means that I didn't use the English language in oral communication with anyone at all. When I first came to AUB, I met a girl who barely knew any Arabic which meant that I had to talk to her in English. I felt very disappointed when I realized that I was having a hard time building sentences while speaking which was something I had never noticed in my writing when I was still in school. Being an AUB student is my chance to improve my accent and my speaking skills and I do believe that I was able to regain this accent, or at least part of it because I had to use it in practice while communicating with all my instructors and some of my classmates as well. However, perfection can never be met and I still would like my speaking skills to improve more. I would definitely like to see my communication skills improving as the future semesters pass, especially while taking English 206 because it is very important for an engineer to master these skills. (continued in comment)
On the other hand, I can say that one skill I have mastered is formal writing. In this course, we were asked to write four reading responses that had to be written in a formal manner and two long essays that had to be written even in a more formal manner. We also had to improve the first drafts of the two essays and give feedback to our peers. Writing all those assignments must have improved the formal writing skills of each and every one of us even if we didn't plan for this improvement! These assignments were not the only activities that enhanced our formal writing skills but even sending e-mails to our instructors contributed to improving these skills. Though I tried using some informal terms in my messages as "hi" and "hello!", I tried to write the main content of my messages in a formal, clear and understandable way. I also tried to write my messages even more formally when I had to send them to the professors I barely talked to. For example, instead of saying "hi!", I would write "Dear Professor X," in such a case. At first, writing such a message seemed very annoying but it soon became second nature to me which is very useful.
DeleteI consider myself very lucky because I was able to enroll at AUB, a learning institution that provides us with all the skills we need for our future careers.
Nowadays English has become the most used language in the world and in the Arab world as well. It has become the language of business, trade and almost everything else in the world. As for myself, I believe that if I want to become a successful engineer one day I should master the English language, be able to communicate in it with ease, be able to write well organized and very comprehensible reports and studies in it and be able to understand other people’s reports.
ReplyDeleteEven though I am very comfortable with using English, I think that there are still a lot of areas that I need to improve in to become a successful engineer in the future. One of these areas is my pronunciation. If I am able to improve my pronunciation I would be able to speak more fluently and get my message across much easier while talking to foreigners. This way it would be easier for them to understand the message that I am trying to get across. But still, I think that this is not a very important issue, there much more important things that I have improved in throughout this semester. In my opinion the most important skill that I have gained thanks to English 203 is being organized in writing my essays. I learned that I should always start by choosing my thesis statement and continue by doing some brainstorming to gather a few reliable information about the topic that I am about to discuss. After that I write down the main ideas and divide the essay into many paragraphs. I also learned that I shouldn’t talk about more than one idea in each paragraph. This organization would help readers understand my essay better and I would be able to get my ideas across in a very simple way.
Therefore this course has helped me a lot in improving my English skills and especially in organizing my essay as I stated before. This would help me a lot in the future by helping me write better reports and doing better projects.
Solid points were mentioned. It seems that you know how advantageous this course is (as well as mastering the English language, in general). It also seems that your skills in writing an essay have improved a lot (as you mentioned) since you now know exactly what you should do and what you shouldn't do. What I'm trying to say is that you seem to know how proficiency can be achieved and I can see that you're working hard on that.
Delete“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance”- Confucius
ReplyDeleteWhat is much more dangerous in life than indifference, is ignorance, it is man’s last nail in his coffin! The environment one lives in always has the greatest impact on one’s upbringing, his personality, and his social skills and milieu. We are often influenced by how people around us act which is basically how slang language and other abbreviated words got to proliferate all over. One of man’s hardest challenges is his ability to be living in an environment and acting or communication according to another society’s norms or rules. Arabs, having lived their lives in an Arab background, find it difficult to comply or conform to the English communication skills that foreigners acquire; this is due to their lack of many skills.
Arabs often confront reality from a perspective of “I-Know-It-All’. Well the majority of Arabs are pejorative people; they seem to make you believe they know it all which is often manifested in the way they face situations. For example, upon noticing several Arab conversations, we tend to correct other’s knowledge on the subjects and often impose advice and our points of view in a subjective and barbaric manner. Moreover, not only do we dispense our opinions regarding any subject what-so-ever, but we also state it as a fact that is not to be argued upon. And while we allow ourselves to abruptly share our advice or “impose” it on others, we do not openly accept other’s advice, as to us, there is only one right way of dealing with the subject. This is one of the biggest issues we as Arabs confront in our approach of welcoming different societies’ norms. To me, the issue doesn’t lie behind books; it lies behind our indifference and ignorance, our close-mindedness, and our lack of proper communication skills.
Like it is always said, the content is more important than the size. We tend to fill our conversations with “grandiloquent” and “flatulent” words, and fail to recognize the essence of what lies behind our speech. I don’t think what Arabs lack is a rich English vocabulary, although in most countries, Arabs have a poor English vocabulary and are often unable to express themselves freely due to the restricted ability in their fluency in English. This however is a very easy problem to be solved. Read books! Throughout the history of mankind, and after all the statistics made, the only way to enrich one’s vocabulary is to read, to get used to the words, and not only to know they exist, but also to be able to use them in useful sentences and to engage in conversations in a comfortable manner. If you walk abroad in metro stations, or across train stations, or buses and public transportation vehicles, you notice that books are man’s best friend. However, there must be a main reason why foreigners keep books with them, I am perfectly sure it is not for the educational purposes only, books are actually known to have an own ambience whereby the reader engages in a new world, and is captivated by the events that are taking place.
In addition to that, the ability to listen to other peoples’ opinions and accept them openly is in itself a task that demarcates ones level of integrity and social respect of others. We hear, but we do not listen. We should learn to accept opinions, to share them, to give and take, and to stop imposing ideals. Moreover, one of the common mistakes our society makes in teaching a foreign language is to compare it to the native tongue. This approach is the correct path, but a certain extent, whereby translation must only be used for the basics. In order for a person to learn something, he must think of it deeply, study not only its surfaces but also its depths, inclinations and boundaries, for a language is not only a set of words but a means of communication between human beings. As an Arab, having lived in an Arab country, I try to fit my ideas in English the same way I formulated them in Arabic, I tend to think in Arabic and find a way to translate my thoughts, which is a very big mistake for each language has its own unique way of delivering a message. Surely had a learnt from the beginning the essence of that language, and the way to communicate my thoughts directly, my English would have amended. One of the other obstacles I have encountered as an Arab speaker is the pronunciation of words; my accent, and also my immediate interpretation, through reading the word, of what it might sound like. Noam Chomsky has found in his research that people coming from different backgrounds have different patterns of phonemes arrangements (smallest possible unit of sound; a combination of phonemes could lead to a word). According to these arrangements, we interpret words the way they appear to us.
ReplyDeleteIn my English 203 course, we were taught to battle one of the biggest barriers, in my opinion, that Arabs face in their attempt of approaching a language. Throughout the semester we have engaged in class conversations, debates, and many other activities. These activities have enhanced our communication skills and have healed our ‘listening’ issue. We now know how to listen objectively and take sides to a certain topic but to some extent present our side in a neutral manner. Moreover, we have learned to read in between the lines, to actually understand the purpose behind a certain text and to some extent agree or disagree with the author. Not only that, but we had read a lot of articles, and had many reading responses. All in all, this English course has focused on the issue we Arabs lack, proper way of communication.
To wrap it up, one must always be objective in life, give and take, and accept differences freely. What Arabs still lack is the skill of communication, besides the fact that we do not read enough. “Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that’s twice as big as it has to be” – Georges Carlin.
There are a lot of skills required for an Arab to acquire to be able to communicate effectively in a world where English is the main language of communication. As an Arab in an American university, I feel that I still need to develop some skills important for my education and career. One of those skills is the American accent. I really want to be able to speak with an American accent. I feel that the accent is the most important aspect in a world where English is the main language of communication. The reason is that one needs to understand what one is saying. Even if one knows all the basics of English and difficult vocabulary, one needs to be able to express it clearly in order to be understood. In my opinion, the best way to efficiently express myself in English is by the American accent. Of course, there are other accents where English can be efficiently understood such as the British accent, Australian accent and so on. However, in my opinion, the American accent is the best accent for the English language. I am still trying to find a way to acquire this skill even though it is going to be very hard. An American accent is extremely important in the business world. Whenever I see an Arab with a perfect American accent, I automatically assume that this person is highly educated. Another skill that I feel is necessary to acquire is the ability of efficiently being able to orally express myself. In other words, that is oral presentations. During my high school years, I have never got the opportunity to present a presentation orally. We were never required to do so. In university, it is not the same. Most English courses require oral presentations. The first time I heard about the oral presentation for English 203, I was frightened because I have never done an oral presentation. I was extremely nervous before the presentation. As I expected, I did not do very well in the presentation but I was not sad because it was my first time ever and I was kind of satisfied with the result because I was able to do it and present regardless of my performance. It was the first step in acquiring the skill. I did not acquire it yet but I hope to acquire such skill in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThere is one skill that I feel that I have mastered in English 203. That skill is efficient writing. A lot of writing assignments has been given to me this past semester. All of them have contributed to making me better at writing. The class writing activities, assignments and writing conferences helped make my writing much better than before. I am now able to efficiently express myself in written communication. Blog posts and reading responses have helped me become better at responding to certain ideas in the texts. They also contributed in helping me develop critical thinking of the texts. I used to just read a text. Now, I feel that I must go in depth in order to efficiently write an accepted response. The essays were also major factors in improving my writing skills. Each essay helped me become better at organizing my sentences and paragraphs. Reflective journals are really all about being able to express myself clearly. I really feel that I am much better now compared to the first reflective journal. Now, I feel that I am expressing myself much more clearly than the first journal. In addition to these assignments, writing conferences were a major help to me. I was able to understand my mistakes and to efficiently correct them in order to improve my writing. My writing skills definitely got better thanks to the course and the professor. Efficient writing will definitely help me in the future in my career. I will be able to efficiently handle written communication in a world dominated by the English language.
Being an Arab in a world dominated by English literature, there are lots of skills I need to acquire in order to get closer to mastering the language. I have in fact achieved some goals and learned some skills but I am still far from mastering any part of English. Knowing English and being fluent in it is a very positive skill since it's the most spoken language on the planted, and it makes communication easier.
ReplyDeleteI used to be French educated so my English was not very strong. I used to be one of the top of my class in English which is a good thing but I was never comfortable speaking and writing in English. I could not think clearly since I was not used to it. I still have difficulties in writing and with the language itself and I most probably have a lack of vocabulary and always run out of words to say. This lack of vocabulary makes communication a failure since I cannot express myself the way I want to. Even if I have the word at the tip of my tongue, being French educated it is always hard to express myself in English.
This English course have helped me become more fluent in English. Although I still have problems expressing myself completely, thanks to the numerous discussions in class I am more comfortable in doing so. Thanks to all the blog posts I have learned from my fellow students and it helped improve my writing. The blog has also taught us to write about different subjects without drowning in information, just superficial comments about a subject. That is useful because this way we learn how to think and write about a wide variety of subjects. This course has also taught me how to write critically. Now we can write academic texts and argumentative texts that help us throughout our lives for anything, there is a lot of writing to do in the future, academic writing, that has to be formal and written clearly. What I have also learned is that it is impossible to leave everything to the last minute and that we have to constantly work when we have the time to do so otherwise we would not have time to do everything in the end. English was a good way to teach us the lesson of time management as well because if we did not manage our time and follow moodle and constantly checking it we would not be informed of the assignments.
What we Arabs now a day’s lack are so many features that prevent us from being successful leaders and good spokesmen. Certainly what most of us, our generation, we agree on among the traits we lack are patience, respect, and good listeners. English 203 isn't just a course that introduces to what academic English is. It teaches you how to be accepted in society and to find the right techniques to blend in. throughout the semester we encountered so many themes and most of them related to the Arab world. And one thing that really grabbed my attention and made me think twice about my Arab identity was the moment I started searching for information and statistics about the series of Arab revolutions or what is known as the “Arab Spring”. The truth behind everything that happened astounded me, it was clear that the Arab people were living behind stacks of corruptions, lies, betrayal, and most importantly thieves. Furthermore, something very important I learned and achieved well in English 203 is respect and having the will and patience to listen to others. Not that I had none of these skills before, but I was able to elevate what I had to higher standards. In addition to that, group projects really helped me cooperate with other, and I think that’s what the Arab world leaders need. Coping together to achieve the unbelievable is what most countries do. Why can’t the twenty three Arab countries form one united nation and work together and rely on each other? The answer is simple, we don’t want that. I won’t forget what you once said, about how Arabs think of what will happen at this moment but European countries and developed countries think of what will happen in the future. It is so sad that most countries are ahead of us by a lot but who knows, maybe one day we will be the ones ahead and on top. In general, English 203 taught me many concepts that I really had difficulties in (not that I don’t have any right now). It still remains hard to master English from all its aspects.
ReplyDeleteDespite harsh comments from past students regarding the hassle of English 203, I entered with full confidence doubting any negative claims made towards the course. I knew that any college student who puts his/her mind into something can make it out just fine. However, as the semester progressed, I realized that I needed major tuning in many areas. As a Arab, I feel that many people share these kinds of weaknesses with me such as speaking skills and style in writing. What I didn’t expect to happen much in the course was open class discussion. Previously in my high school, class discussion was not allowed and it was individual work all the time.
ReplyDeleteAs I began the new college scene, there were many essay style assignments assigned. The essays were usually long, if not hard to discuss. I realized that my speaking skills were a bit off for a college student. I thought I sounded like an elementary stage student talking. I would pronounce words wrong. As soon as I made the mistake of wrong pronunciation my voice would lower in volume and people would not hear therefore asking me to say the word again. I find this insecurity about myself that I haven’t told anyone because it feels embarrassing not to speak in clear and concise language, especially since English is my first language. I realized the only cure for this problem is for me to engage in more discussion in order for my confidence to build up so that whenever of if ever the mistakes come around, I can shrug them off and continue like nothing happened. Of course, the extra practice will get me used to the pronunciation as well.
Another problem that I will have to address is the style of my writing. I realize that in all my writings, the tone seems sarcastic or aggressive unintentionally. It’s something strange that I call “writing with anger”. For example, in the argumentative essay, I felt like I was yelling at the audience even though I tried to present logical facts in a smooth and legible manner. So I hope to be able to get accustomed to writing with the proper tone in the areas needed. It seems more professional to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Like my physics teacher in high school once told me, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt.” Hopefully new topics in future diverse fields will allow me to put proper emotions or no emotions in my writings depending on the situations.
Looking at the positive aspect of my learning experience, I learned how to somewhat raise my voice. The class room discussions in and out of English 203 taught me how to make myself be heard despite my pronunciation problem. At first, dialogue was a joke to me. I thought that work should be done according to my old school’s philosophy, alone. I later began to like the interchanges and found it a duty to raise all aspects of a certain subject and make them known whether in forms of praise or criticism. For example I gave the Malcolm Gladwell article a rather harsh critique. I found his style annoying and unnecessarily complicated to get a couple of his claims across. Yes, I gave a rather primitive review, “It sucked.” At the same time I believe that the English language is a universal language that should be understood quickly and swiftly with no misleading edges. These are the kind of things that I started taking positions in. I feel that if I didn’t begin in raising my voice now, there would be no way that I would do it later. This skill will come in handy later when taking leadership positions in projects, debates, and other activities requiring a rigid role.
In conclusion, I learned that the major fields that I need to strengthen in are speech and writing tone. I see future positive outcomes and improvements with more practice, dedication, and focus. I have learned to throw all ideas “on the table” and to “not keep any stones unturned”. The improvements will definitely be a reality while my skills in dialogue will undoubtedly be refined with time and all the experiences that will follow.
I am French educated that graduated from a French system’s high school. Speaking in three different languages, Arabic, English and French, is a plus one in today’s world. We live in a world that is highly globalized in which cultures interact easily and on a daily basis which make knowing different languages inevitable. As an Arab, I still certainly need many more skills to excel in English. Writing in English and understanding English texts isn’t enough, I think fluency in talking and expressing my feelings in English is what I still need. The day I become able to think and express myself fully in English is the day when I say I am now competent in English based communication.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am still in my first semester in college life i.e. my first experience in an environment in which English is spoken publicly. Four months only were enough for me to develop my language skills in many aspects. Throughout this semester and in English 203 course specifically, I have developed a skill that I believe is way more important than simple language rules. I have developed the skill of thinking and writing critically. This is the first distinction I have made between college and school; in college it is not anymore writing about sunrise and how beautiful the nature is. It is now deeper, reading and understanding texts in order to be able to write responses and understanding deeply a topic so that I am able to build up my own arguments and my own stance on it. In other words, I believe that language rules can be learned by anyone, and are accessed anywhere on the internet, but the ability of thinking and writing critically is what differentiate writers. Critical writing and thinking is what makes me able to understand what is behind the verbal meaning of a text, analyze it and write well structured and insightful essays. I am not saying that language rules aren’t important, but I believe that grammar alone is never the key to success in writing, it is rather grammar combined with imagination and critical thinking. Finally, what makes this skill the most important one is its reflection in real life. Learning how to write critically is a first step towards learning how to view the world in a critical eye. And when you are able to do so, you become able to find your own place in the world apart from what you have been told by others.
No one can argue about the fact that English is the most important language. I mean, after all, it is the most used one. Since the English language is the most popular language, it seems as if the entire world is one country; almost all the countries who are not even related to English or British culture speak English. That’s why even an Arab should acquire and master the proper English language. Nowadays, speaking English is like one of the minimum skills a person should have when he wants to apply for job. The key to mastering English is to first of all communicate with other people using only the English language. Those people you talk to don’t necessarily need to be fluent in English in order for you to speak well. However, if you speak English with the “fluent-in-English” kind of people, it will be a bonus for you because, then, not only will you learn new words and enhance your vocabulary, but you will also have a better pronunciation. Of course, being rich in vocabulary is an essential factor to properly speak and master the English language. Nonetheless, there is no point of being rich in vocabulary if you cannot pronounce them as they should and put them in their right content. Take me as an example…I went to a French school. Although I am not bad in vocabulary, sometimes when I talk to people, they don’t understand what I am telling them from the first time. The reason is that I haven’t practiced my English well enough to get a good pronunciation. So I often have to repeat what I said more than once. Moreover, people have to have a common English vocabulary that most people would understand. For instance, if I want to talk to someone about excessively high prices, I don’t say, “The prices are exorbitant”. Although the word exorbitant is used in the right content, I would have simply said, “The prices are excessively high”. Hopefully, by the time I graduate from AUB, I will be sure that I have good pronunciation and good vocabulary since I am constantly speaking English with my classmates, friends and especially professors. Needless to mention that the way you speak with professors is a whole lot different from the way you speak English with your friends or classmates. What completes a good pronunciation is a nice accent. The only way to have a nice accent in English is to always listen to different people talking English.
ReplyDeleteThey don’t necessarily have to be people you know; they could be strangers who are talking next to you. If you walk in AUB, for example, you hear a lot of different accents. There are so many accents that you would undoubtedly like a specific one.
DeleteAnother important skill one needs to achieve in a world where English is the dominant language is, of course, communication skills. I am gradually acquiring communication skills in my English class. In class, for example, everyone should do an oral presentation. Now, oral presentations improve your pronunciation and accent (which are included in communication skills). Not to mention, all the conferences and meetings in business are done as oral presentations. So, you are kind of getting prepared to do a conference later on when you are going to work. In addition, many times in class we open debates. In other words, we choose a topic that needs arguments. When the classmates argue with each other about controversial topics, they are putting their knowledge in English language in use with other people who are also supposed to respond to your arguments the same way. Doing so, you are interacting and communicating with others which will also improve your communication skills. What is even more important is that, while arguing, you are also using logic. In other words, you should well link the ideas you have in order for the others to understand you. Well relating your ideas is also one of the communication skills people should have, especially if those people were Arab in English countries. So, as an Arab, I should simply practice my English.
With the integration of the new media in our lives, societies around the world have acquired the characteristic of being multi-linguistic. An individual today who has mastered only one language in his life will find that he is incapable of coping with the progress his community faces. When hiring employees, companies pay much attention to the foreign languages included on the CV – the more they know, the better. And it is much noticeable that our world is being dominated by the English language; it has surrounded our environment in every possible aspect. As an Arab and more importantly a university student, I feel that there are much skills required for me to gain in order to be successful later on in my life. These abilities have become part of the necessities I need to obtain during my university years aside the technical information related to my major. And it was shocking but relieving for me to see, that after only one semester in my university, I have managed to master a crucial skill that will be useful for me in my world.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, work fields have shifted entirely throughout the years. Productivity used to be an act of building or creating something entirely alone. This definition has been altered; productivity has now become the ability to communicate and deliver an innovative message. Thus, the key term here is “proper communication”, which personally I believe that it is the most important skill any Arab could gain. And communication is not just about speaking words fluently with a faultless grammar, it’s about knowing how to think critically, create an idea and deliver that idea in the most efficient way possible. Standing up and giving a presentation to an audience is not something any individual is capable of doing without practice. This is similar to presenting a project to a group of professionals. Once a person learns the proper technique to do it, he will be able to grab his audience’s attention and thus deliver his message clearly.
Everyone around me always links a successful person to being charismatic. But what is charisma anyways? It is not something that is completely innate and related to personality. Charisma can be an appropriate knowledge acquired with the proper training.
This is exactly what I am hoping to gain from my university: the ability to think critically in any situation possible and have the courage to directly deliver my idea suitably to my audience.
Another skill that is significant for an Arab to master in a world dominated by English, and that I have managed to gain during a couple of months only is the aptitude to write. And again, it does not only mean writing with the most complex vocabulary words and proper grammar, it refers to being able to argument an idea, give examples, write long but meaningful pages and avoid repetition. And this skill comes in handy in every possible work field or major. Being an engineering student, I will be able to make use of this skill in order to write reports, essays and technical drafts… etc and it will give me the power and privilege to convince my coworkers with my ideas and leave them unable to argument back.
Also, writing is a powerful tool; it has the capability of changing the world around us. It is considered as an escape for most of us, a remedy for our confounded thoughts. And as we see the English language dominating more and more our lives, we need to be able to make advantage of this aspect and use the pen as our weapon in order to come up with the most innovative ideas and help our Arab countries blossom under our words.
In our ever-changing world, a successful person is known to be the one capable of staying updated and gaining all the skills needed to deal with the speed of progress. Communication and writing are the most important skills I hope to gain after graduating and I aim to continue enhancing them throughout my life in order to achieve high positions and let the world hear about my ideas.
After the cold war, the world went through lots of radical changes and especially in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart. Then the tension in the world had disappeared and the two camps (capitalism and communism) began negotiating with each other’s. The connections between countries became more and more solid to a certain extent where these countries became inter dependent. Since there is interdependency, contact and exchange between different cultures, there has to be a way to communicate, using a certain language that both ends could understand. It was then when the English language began having more speakers.
ReplyDeleteThe English language became the global language of the planet. It is our way of contact with the rest of the world as Arabs. We learned the language throughout the years, but we still lack the art of negotiations. Currently the Arab world is just the pray of the developed countries, we have no say in matters that concern us. For example: The oil is one of the resources that all developed countries depend on, and the Arab oil is one of the finest oils in the world. Still when it comes to setting its price, the west does it according to its own needs disregarding the point of view of the Arabs that are the ones procuring the oil. Once the Arabs would master negotiations, they could have a big influence on the world thus putting themselves in a better position, a position of power.
We can also cite in this circumstance the israeli-arab conflict. Instead of doing negotiations with the United Nations and getting to a point where Palestinian could go back to their home lands, Arabs prefer to cut all communications, and without communication negotiations cannot happen. Practically to negotiate is: knowing what you want and convincing the other that this is what you both need.
As for me, my problem did not lie in negotiation itself. I had an issue with expressing myself clearly. Throughout the semester my goal was to familiarize myself with English. I can honestly say that this course helped a lot! Through the readings and writings we had to do, I had the chance to practice the language and it is practice that makes perfect. Reading other people’s ideas helped me criticize my own work, compare it with others’, whether it is the work of a peer or one of a famous author. At the beginning of the semester, whenever I had to write something I did not know how to organize my writing: where to put a comma and where to put a dot or where to end my paragraph and begin with a new one. My sentences were so long, I could write a whole paragraph consisting of only one sentence. But I was able to work all these out through the readings, where I could see how professional writers express their ideas, reviewing peers’ work where I could notice some of the weaknesses we had in common, and through peer reviews when colleagues could point out my flaws enabling me to work on them and get better.
Every educated man knows how to talk English, and especially in the Arab world where the contact with the west took a great turning lately. Most of the Arabs currently know how to talk English. That is very important on every level, we should benefit from its outcomes, but we should never forget our identity: The Arab identity, one to be proud of. It was our ancestors that created all the sciences from medicine to mathematics to physics. An Arab should never overlook who he really is.
In a world where English is the most widely used language and the base of communication it is important to have the required skills to communicate using this language. Moreover, there are many differences between the Eastern and the Western cultures in communications. In order to overcome the difficulties of communication one needs have skills in sending a message. Nevertheless, in written communication I have acquired the knowledge needed to be able write quickly, to organize my ideas, and to go straight to the point.
ReplyDeleteAs an Arab student, there are skills I think are important to have to able to communicate in English in the Arab world. Communicating orally in the Arab world is challenging since people do not listen to the speaker, rather they focus on what they want to say. Dealing with people who do not listen is a major problem I think I will have to deal with if I wish to pursue my career in Lebanon and/or the Arab world. Furthermore, the skills I think I lack in communicating in the Arab world are related to the listener. Additionally, people tend in this part of the world to refuse much more than in the western, criticism, and lack objectivism as they take the critical comments personally rather than taking it business-wise or as an opportunity to improve. Therefore, it is challenging to communicate with people in the Arab world.
During this semester I have acquired many skills in written and oral communication in English. The most important one I think is conciseness. For my future this skill will be useful even more than it is now. Being concise saves time, and on a business level it is a major advantage, almost a requirement as it gives the opportunity to do something else more productive, a commonly used phrase is “time is money” which is a generally accepted fact. Furthermore, the message conveyed is clearer. The reader finds the useful information faster and does not get lost. Conciseness requires organization which makes the message easy to read, and to address point by point. Nowadays, this is required in the professional world and in this course I think it is the most important skill I acquired.
In conclusion, there are communication skills I still need to acquire to be able to deal properly with people in the Arab world especially in oral communication. Nonetheless, during this semester I gained written skills that are important for now and for my future. Conciseness is a major plus in the business world and even at the University as it saves time and avoids confusion.
“Chinese is about to become the most spoken language” is what people always say nowadays. However, in a world where 3D Printing, as well as all kinds of new production methods are beginning to stand out, low cost labor is no longer required. A 3rd Industrial Revolution is making an appearance, generating the delocalization of production to rich countries. Therefore, the Chinese economy, and as a consequence the Chinese language, are headed to a rough patch. English will in fact remain the most spoken language, which makes it necessary to perfect before moving on to a world of job interviews where communication and language will play a crucial role in being accepted.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this semester, I have tried my best to improve, both by trying to refine my vocabulary in the assignments, and by trying to participate as much as I could in class discussions. I actually feel that I have made a major improvement in English thanks to my 203 course. I believe myself to be more fluent as class discussions gave me a bit of self-confidence in what concerns my English accent. I now no longer avoid people who would talk to me in English as I am trying in a way to master one aspect of the English language.
In addition to the accent, I think that the continuous bombardment of homework actually paid off. As a matter of fact, practice does make perfect! One-on-one conferences with Miss Sinno also gave me a new perspective on what I should improve as well as what I should get rid of concerning my style of writing.
I therefore think that thanks to my 203 course, I am now prepared to face whatever the world has prepared for me, whether it falls within the Arab borders or not.
The English language has gained great importance in the Arab world. It has been a main language of communication .Being a part of the community at the American University of Beirut, mastering the English language is a requirement. If English 203 were not such an important course, the university would not have made it mandatory for all sophomores. Even though there are many skills that I still need to acquire, Eng203 has helped me develop my critical reading and writing skills significantly.
ReplyDeleteThe English language is important in the Arab world where it is used in schools, universities, and most private institutions and companies. English is considered as the language of business, technology, and communications with the non-Arab world and sometimes between Arabs themselves. To succeed in any major a person chooses he should master the English language in order for him to be able to work on his major and job efficiently. One of the important skills needed is the oral communication skill. English is an easy language to communicate with because it is an international language with many dialects. Due to the discussions that talk about class readings that occurred daily in the session, our oral skills have improved critically. Other necessary skills are the spelling and grammar that unfortunately I can still notice clear weaknesses in. Even though we have been writing in very large amounts during this semester, I have not been able to decrease from the numerous grammatical mistakes I have.
Eng203 is unique course that unlike others, have developed my critical reading skills in an impressive way. This significant improvement resulted from the daily discussions held in class and from the reading responses assigned. The reading responses allowed us to go deeper into the texts, scrutinize every idea in it, and analyze it critically. This scientific strategy will be of great help in my university and my work because it taught me how to read carefully and critically. Also, writing the essays made me learn how to connect several similar readings together and assess them gradually in an organized way. Eng203 made me gain a new way of thinking deeply, organizing thoughts, and criticizing writers.
I have admired the English Language ever since I was a kid, and this course has made me discover new sides in it. In addition, the course was fun in general, and I enjoyed learning the new techniques and skills.
There are several Basic English skills one needs to acquire in order to be able to thrive in a world where English is the main language of communication. As an Arab, or precisely a Lebanese, I grew up in an environment where English, Arabic and French were always present. Therefore the English language was no stranger to me. Being able to maintain a basic conversation in English and having the linguistics that enables you to leave an impression in a work environment are two different things. The latter requires you to master some skills that can only come from practice and academic follow up.
ReplyDeleteMy years of academic English courses at the International College gave me the background of skills necessary to be able to engage in an oral debate in English. The lack of practice is what was missing. Indeed, back in school, all my entourage talked French so I didn’t need to express myself in English except during those 5 hours a week of academic English class. Upon my arrival at AUB, expressing myself fluently and even thinking in English was a bit challenging. I always had many things to say but thought of them in French and converting them to English wasn’t an automatic reflex. With the aid of the English 203 course which encourages dialogue and debates in class, I started to express myself more automatically. At one point, I didn’t even have to think before talking and the words came to me fluently. I think this would have been so much harder and slower if not for this course. It also helped me in other domains and classes, and the transition from a French academic environment to an English one went smoothly. Overall, I think this course helped me master my oral English skills and taught me how to communicate my opinion efficiently leaving a strong impression.
On the other hand, I’ve never really had difficulties in the written English. This course helped me also strengthen my writing skills. Globally, it taught me the importance of having a clear and well organized outline (not necessarily written) of the ideas you want to develop in your essay. Indeed, throughout my school years, we were never asked to write a five pages essay; a five paragraph essay was enough (two to three pages). That’s why this course taught me something new; but I am not yet where I aspire to be regarding my writing skills. That’s a skill I’m going to focus on and try to master in English 204. I think that I made some significant improvement in this area but I still have some work to do. Writing has always been an enjoyable task for me and mastering it is important. Also, in the academic work, a well written email, letter etc. can have a bigger and more impressive impact than a regular written one. I think that this is one skill that could be very useful in our world. Indeed, that’s how first impressions can form; and those can make a huge difference in the academic environment.
In our world where English language is the official language of communication, having mastered some language skills can be very helpful. Indeed, it can give us a considerable advantage on average talking/writing opponents. Those small factors are factors that can differentiate two persons with the same GPA for example. Indeed, during an interview, or while responding to an email, mastering English skills might make all the difference.
I discovered this past semester, within my English 203 course, an attraction for leadership. Leaded by passion, I immediately focused on improving this skill, as I felt it is an important piece of the puzzle for my future career in business administration.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the career path I chose is based on communication with others. It means having to deal with business communities worldwide, by using the most commonly spoken language: English. During my presentation project with three of my peers, I realized the importance and the difficulty of transmitting a message that is not clearly defined in one’s own mind. It is at this moment that I became aware about my weaknesses and worked hard on overcoming them. I have now learned to use words as my most powerful weapon. I also took a step back to evaluate that in order to address an audience, a leader should be able to speak fluently and clearly conceptualize his ideas by using the correct wording. He also should be able to fully differentiate between the strength and weaknesses of his audience in order to formulate and transmit his message.
Only then he can enter his audience’s minds and make sure he was entirely understood. However, acquiring this skill is not enough. Being an Arab living in an Arab country, mastering the English language is not enough. I also must learn about the different existing cultures and social values that I may encounter in the future. In order for me to be able to communicate with them, I must acquire the skill of being able to adapt my wording to the different mentalities. I could also use psychological knowledge to put my potential partners in confidence and not to hurt their feelings for a better exchange of ideas and productivity. We Arabs, most of the times, operate on trust. Often business deals are made between partners without written agreements. Nonetheless, it is not the case for the rest of the world. Inspired trust in business is one of the most difficult skills required. Once again the adequate language is needed.
I look forward for my future courses that will help me fulfill the requirements needed in order to accomplish my goals. In fact, the English 203 course has given me a glimpse of the English 204 course I will be taking next semester. As a whole, this course was an awakening to how important the English language is in our societies.
It is true that English is the second most spoken language in the world, but it is the first language of communication because of its huge number of countries where English is their official language. As an Arab, I feel a necessity to be fluent in a language of such importance. Comparing to other countries, Arab countries are still struggling from the learning of English, and I am not saying to ignore or delete our native language, but we have to improve our English because we can’t deny how essential it is. On one hand, and since I was a kid, I watched a lot of American movies and travelled several times to the United States of America, which helped me with my English’s written and verbal communication skills. On the other hand, I felt the same exact improvement of my English in the first English course I took at AUB, which is English 203. I have acquired many skills in this course this past semester, but the main skill I truly feel powerful at is my English writing. Since the beginning of the semester I wrote 4 reading responses, 2 essays, and many blog posts. This excessive amount of writing, besides the topics that I really loved them all, helped me improve my English writing skills. In a world dominated by the English language, I feel so happy and proud of myself that I took my English writing skills to a whole new level. Foremost, we live in an age where knowledge is power, and most of that knowledge, especially on the internet or in books, is written in English. With my good, not saying excellent, English writing skills I can now go through articles online and respond or comment on them in a clever way. Before this course, I understood what I read but had a really difficult time to put my thoughts on paper; I couldn’t find the right words right away. Now I can write anything I think about and this will help me in my future career where I might need to write reports or accounts because most of the companies demand the use of English in their institutions. Moreover, I still feel I need to master other, English relating, skills; especially my oral English. In English 203, yes, we had debates in class and one group project, but the main work was concentrated on writing. I cannot deny that I felt a slight improvement in my oral English but it is negligible to the extent of improvement I felt in my writing. Mastering oral English is highly important to me because I’m studying chemical engineering at AUB and since there are few, or practically none, jobs for this major in Lebanon, I will be travelling abroad and I will be using essentially English to communicate with people from other countries and really push my career forward.
ReplyDeleteThis is the second and hopefully the last reflective journal I write for my English 203 class at the American University of Beirut. Before I even began to write this reflective journal, I took time to read the very first work that I submitted for this class. It was the first reflective journal we had to submit, and meant to portray what we as English 203 students were willing and hoping to accomplish throughout the semester. While reading it, I found several sentence structure errors, along with grammatical and organizational faults. Faults that I have not noticed, or would of ever noticed had I not learned to write with a greater understanding. Throughout this semester English 203 has helped me in the aspect that I needed assistance in, however not towards the point I had planned to reach. I feel I have a greater potential in writing that I am not given credit for. This means that I need to work, and practice extra hard in order to improve. Personally, by practicing writing essays habitually, I believe I have the ability to achieve the goal that I had placed for myself. This goal that I plan to reach, involves my own ability to properly organize and express my very own ideas on paper as well and as efficient as I can in face-to-face conversations.
ReplyDeleteCritical reading is another equally important aspect of the English 203 course. Critical reading enables the reader to go past what is written. One has to be able to read between the lines and find out what the author is trying to hint at; through the tone, sentence structure and overall style of how a work is presented. The critical reading skills that I have acquired throughout this course include the ability to determine the style of writing, and point out logical fallacies within a work when they are available. This skill is crucial to identify reliable pieces of information with others that are often misleading. At the beginning of the semester I found myself to be an average critical reader, but throughout the course whist reading the many works assigned, I can honestly say that this particular skill has improved. I came to this realization when I noticed that while reading articles in newspapers and magazines I was not only able to understand the content of the information, but also dissect the text by clearly identifying what the author is trying to portray.
I find that from now on, whatever I have learned, along with the mistakes I have made should help me progress in the future. Academic English is a base concept that without it the entire education system could not function. It is for this reason that I place English as a top priority not only in my educational environment but also as a key factor in my success.
I have greatly enjoyed the English 203 program, it passed by so fast. I really appreciate teachers that go above and beyond for their students and Mrs. Zane Sinno did that on a daily basis.
In the Arab world, people tend to be aggressive while facing one another in any simple argument.
ReplyDeleteAt least this was what I felt I did before attending the English 203 class at AUB.
I didn’t always listen to what others had to say for themselves before rushing into rejecting their arguments and imposing mine as the unarguable truth.
As an Arab I feel that there are some certain skills that have to be acquired by every single Arab as soon as possible.
First of all, every Arab citizen should at least be able to understand the English language being the international language of communication acknowledged everywhere around the world.
Secondly, we should not forget root language, which is Arabic. Every civilization has its own sacred language.
Third but most importantly, the skill of communication. Our people should learn to listen to each other before getting all upset and angry as listening is what conversation is all about. We should learn to have a conversation instead of an argument.
As I already said, I used to conform to the Arab stereotype, which consisted in being excessively stubborn and always wanting to prove myself right. After learning to listen to what others had to say since I was in a class with people I had never met and it would be impolite to interrupt them with my counter-arguments I finally realized that listening was the key to conversation and you would appreciate people more after giving them a chance to express themselves.
Most problems arising in the Arab world are due to a lack of conversation.
In Lebanon politicians fight instead of having conversations, The Arab spring struck the countries where democracy was threatened meaning that people in those countries had no voice and could not express themselves.
In conclusion, all of those problems could have been evicted if Arabs learned how to have a regular conversation just by listening to what others had to say.
The skill of conversation is the key factor to our reform.
My ability to speak English will probably serve me much more than my ability to speak Arabic, especially when it comes to my education and future career. Being a native English speaker, I’ve never really had struggles with the language in terms of fluent speaking and writing. However, I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to delivering my messages by writing as clearly as possible. If I write a certain text, or even a certain sentence, and I feel like there is even one thing that I aim to deliver but may not be immediately understood by the reader, I rewrite everything. I used to struggle with this quite often, especially during my early teen years when I became obsessed with internet slang. It’s hard to clearly deliver your thoughts while using terms like “foreva”.
ReplyDeleteAfter taking this course, I no longer struggle with this because one of the main reasons that led me to feel that my thoughts weren’t being clearly delivered was because I didn’t rely much on formal writing. With social media being so popular nowadays, English language sometimes tends to get lost; each person customizes the language in a way that suits them best. That’s fine for communicating with friends, but when aiming to deliver messages to wider audiences, especially audiences from different countries, formal writing is the most suitable way to do so. I love writing, and I love it when people relate to and understand what I write. The way that my thoughts will be delivered to my audience is through language. The proper or poor use of language greatly affects the way in which the audience responds to what the author is trying to say. So, as an Arab, or as an individual living in this region of the world, I find formal writing a very useful way to convey my thoughts to greater audiences.
I would probably still want to learn how to become more at ease while using academic writing in order to feel more confident in my work. I don’t have much experience with formal and academic writing, and I feel like more experience would help me better understand the notions that lie behind these manners of writing and their importance. For example, while working on my final essay, all the referencing helped me realize the value of all the researchers’ hard work and it helped me understand how wrong it would be not to credit people for their own work. This skill can be generalized to all kinds of situations I may find myself in, even when I’m posting status updates on Facebook that contain song lyrics that don’t belong to me.
Although this English 203 class was really time-consuming and required a lot of energy, concentration, inspiration and creativity, it has really put some pressure on me and it was for the best. It mad me push my limits further than I could ever imagine.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, being an Arab in a world where English is the main language of communication (second most spoken language) requires us to at least know how to speak English, which I thought was enough, but it isn’t. I took the English 203 class just because I had to, but it turned out to be a very useful class, this class made me improve my writing skills and organization; plus I really love the interaction we have in class when we discuss about a text. . Being always in scientific class where no one expresses his true opinion, I love it that it is the only class where I can truly witness the difference of cultures and interests. Each one of us can express his own opinion and we all listen to each other with respect even if we do not necessarily agree. I like to think of our class as a melting pot where everyone with his own background comes and expresses himself.
And it is now that I realize that in order to live in a society where English is one of the most spoken languages, and just knowing how to speak it is not sufficient. One of the most important skills I have learned in this class is communication and organization and these are very important in order to know how to express ourselves and it is after working for the English 203 assignments that I realized this. Knowing how to organize ideas and to write them down in order to send the message we want to send and to express exactly what we want was very difficult for me knowing that I am quite weak in formal writing and outlining in English.
On another hand there are some skills that are also very important which I should master but it is quite difficult for me which are mostly grammar in English but also not to be impulsive while dialoguing about a topic because I really like it when each one of us can express his own opinion and we all listen to each other with respect even if we do not necessarily agree.
In conclusion this English course made me realize that many the English language is very important in order to grow in our society and it helped possess some of them which I find really important.
The English 203 course allowed me express my ideas and thoughts on certain subjects, which are hot topics around the world at the time being; such as the Arab spring, the cyberspace, etc…
ReplyDeleteMajor sections of the course rely on written assignments where I had to analyze assigned topics in details and present my thoughts, in this respect.
So, attending the mentioned course above assisted me in learning how to develop my ideas and helped me further to acquire the adequate ways to express my point of view by using the right terminology. I think this improvement is a big success, since in my high school education, French was academically the main language, while English was studied as a third language; English assignments then, weren’t so demanding, so we didn’t give a lot of attention and interest to search for the accurate ways or techniques for writing essays, responses and exploratory synthesis. However, this course helped me gain some fundamental techniques for writing and analyzing issues or topics.
Furthermore, since we live in an Arabic country, it is normal that we use mostly the Arabic language as a means of communication and correspondences with others. This led me to face difficulties when carrying serious dialogues or discussions with others in English, given that I don’t usually carry instant dialogues in English so often.
As a result and after completing the 203 English course, I really think that I still need to work on myself to acquire the needed skills to let me manage and be in control of my capabilities in a world that is dominated by the English language. This is especially requested for the sake of carrying on a dialogue, or a negotiation and to enable me express myself straight to the point by using the appropriate words, in order to avoid any misinterpretations for the purpose of having a constructive and conclusive dialogue. These skills are mastered by practicing and using the English language more often, through reading and carrying on discussions with others in an intellectual knowledgeable ways. This practice will enrich my stock of useful English phrases, vocabulary, etc… that can be used afterwards off-hand when needed.
As an Arab living in a world dominated by the English language, it is important to know more than just how to speak the language but also having the proper communication skills. Being able to speak a certain dialect does not necessarily mean being able to accurately understand what the other party is saying. One must take into consideration that different cultures have different mentalities and certain etiquette even though they are speaking the same language as you. A skill that Arabs must attain while communicating cross-culturally is to look past the actual words that are being spoken and comprehend the true meaning behind the words. Also, a crucial attribute Arabs should keep while interacting with members of a separate culture is that often times the other party might not hold or accept the same beliefs as you, and all dogma anyone holds should not be shown or discussed in conversations.
ReplyDeleteA skill that I feel like I have mastered in this past semester is looking past all dogmas and stereotypes I might have while trying to speak with or learn more about other people. It is important to always keep an open mind while talking to other people because you won’t learn anything from life if it is lived with shut eyes and a closed mind. Keeping an open mind is vital in order to give the person you are communicating with a fair chance. Since we are mainly conversing in English, it is likely that you are speaking with a person of a different culture and you have to be sure that while talking about business, for example, you speak as a businessman and not a man with certain views towards the others’ culture. A good portion of the articles read in English 203 have to do with taking a deeper look into the lives of diverse individuals. From those who engage in pre-marital sex to transgender individuals to those who lived in times of great tragedy and war, we have touched on many topics that are typically considered as taboo and discussed them openly. After talking about such matters in depth and realizing how it must be to live like these people, we realize how wrong stereotypes are and how they should not affect our daily encounters with people. I have found that to be a large part of successful communication. Also, the article we read by Hall (1966) discussing all the negatives about Arabs really opened up my eyes to how degrading, frustrating, and unacceptable it is to hold such stereotypes and have it show in the reading.
Fortunately, social skills come more or less naturally to me because I am quite a loquacious person and thankfully, I am not a racist person but because of English 203 and my other experiences during this semester, I realize just how careful to be while talking to people from other cultures.
There is is no doubt that education has filled most if the gaps in my life, and has granted me skills to adapt to my society and be a functioning person in it, giving back as much as I can so I could in return live peacefully in it. But I also feel that there is something missing, something that will help me adapt better as a Lebanese-Armenian living in an English dominated area.
ReplyDeleteIt is very hard to actually put a finger on this skill that would actually help me completely, but I have to admit that throughout this semester, I have learned and grasped some skills that in my opinion have helped me adapt more in this English dominated world. The skill can be condensed and explained simply by saying that my English has enhanced greatly, not only by enrolling in English classes, but also by staying in an environment full of intellectual and English educated people. By interacting with them, first of all I realized that my English was not as good as theirs, but I always would like to think that I did learn a bit from them. but the people around me were not the only influence, the main skill that I feel I have practiced greatly on is researching, not specifically any topic, but general research thanks to the English essays, and I feel that this has not only helped expand if not greatly but a little my general knowledge over some stuff, but it has also shaped my way of writing, and kind to think of it my oral English. Its kind of hard to explain it at the moment, but I cannot deny that fact that it something has changed, and definitely towards the better.
Not to get too excited, I cannot say that I have fully mastered the skill and do not need anymore practice, I have to admit that I am just at the beginning and I have a whole way to go to actually consider myself “good” at this skill. Being this said, there is no stopping it anytime soon, and speaking of research, I have to continue mine for my English essay !
Nowadays, the Arab world is in constant development. As English is known as the “worldwide” language, it is natural for us Arabs to want to learn it in order to expand our horizons and communicate with people from other countries.
ReplyDeleteThis past semester, I have mastered a skill that seems very important and useful to me in a world dominated by the English language: Fluency.
Before this English 203 class, I used to consider myself as a good English speaker. However, I didn’t realize my difficulties in clearly expressing myself until I had so many essays, responses and blog entries to write. In fact, I was only comparing myself to my French educated peers, being French educated myself. My ideas were numerous but I noticed that I had no idea how to state them and make myself clear. English at school used to be easy for me since I used to consider myself above the class’ level. The level was relatively easy and the texts we had to read were explicit. The essays we had to write weren’t very deep and didn’t require a lot of reflection or research. I thought English 203 at AUB would be the same: An easy English class that required minimum attention and time. I obviously couldn’t have been more wrong. At the beginning of the semester, I found myself spending hours writing a simple reading response which turned out to be a very small part of my overall grade. I used to spend hours organizing my ideas and deciding which words or arguments to use. While writing my last reading responses and my final essay, I slowly began to realize that the words were coming naturally to me and I had no difficulty writing anything. I was comfortable with what I was writing and even enjoyed doing so. I didn’t see writing as an obligation anymore, it was more of an agreeable thing to do. As a business student, since the world is now “dominated” by the English language, fluency in this language will be very useful to me as it will help me communicate and exchange ideas, opinions and maybe even negotiate and find a place in the worldwide market.
This fluency has enhanced my self-confidence. I have always been a bit of a shy person especially when it comes to speaking in front of an audience. I think the presentation in class where we had to gather claims and other information in order to present and expose them to the rest of the class has helped me equally in gaining confidence. I am now more comfortable with speaking English in public and I am convinced that it will help me in the future, especially in the Arab and the business world where English has become a main component.
Although this course has taught me a lot, I feel like I still need to learn how to manage my time in order to meet deadlines and be more organized and prepared. As I have already mentioned in my previous reflective journal, I have always had difficulties with time management: I always leave everything to the last minute and end up being stressed and doing things in a hurry. Procrastination is my major flaw and I still don’t know how to manage my time perfectly. I tend to give a certain thing a lot of attention and completely ignore the other for example. In a world where English is the main language, I feel like us Arabs need to organize ourselves and know how to manage our time between conserving our traditions and dedicating attention to the westernized aspect of our country. We need to learn how to divide our time between both the old and the new facets of our world: It is important to dedicate enough time to respect and honor the Arab culture but it is as essential to learn and develop new English skills in order to mingle with and fit in today’s world of communication and development.
DeleteMoreover, I feel like it would help me improve my argumentation skills so that I could be able to negotiate more easily and find a place in the business world. The argumentative essay has helped me a lot in enriching these argumentative skills since we had to use concrete proof and evidence in order to prove our points and make them valid.
To conclude, this past semester has helped me become more fluent in English and more comfortable with my writing. Through the numerous essays, blog entries, readings and reading responses, I felt myself become at ease with everything that had to do with the language skills. I am now confident with both my writing and speaking skills although I still have to learn to manage my time and priorities.
English is nowadays spoken by the majority of people in the world which makes it the most dominant and important language on earth. English is from now on used in almost everything, starting with instruction books, TV show that are spoken or written in this language. That’s why as an Arab living in a world where English dominates, I think I still need to acquire and improve many skills in order to adapt to this life in this new world.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I need to improve my writing skills on many levels starting with the sentence structure that can be very crucial in transmitting a certain idea. This problem in sentence structures is either due to a lack of vocabulary where I tend to use the wrong words to express my thoughts or to a word by word translation from Arabic to English which end up usually with expressing an unclear idea. Beside the sentence structure, I must work more on grammar so I don’t commit lots of grammatical mistakes that can weaken my essay. This kind of weakness in writing can be crucial in the future especially in my career where I can use it sometimes to explain certain ideas in a project.
In addition to the writing skills, I think I need to work more on my oral skills. And by oral skills I don’t mean my English pronunciation, neither my accent which is surely not the same than the Americans. In fact I mean I should become better in making long discussion without having problems finding words in order to say meaningful and complete sentences. This can be very important especially if I am talking to a foreigner where English is the only common language for us to communicate. It can also affect badly my status as a future engineer if I am not really skilled in speaking English.
As for the skills that I mastered this semester is the way I now understand things that I see or read during my daily life. I usually looked at things as I view them without even trying to go deep in understanding their meanings. Analyzing is from now on a skill that I acquire a lot better than I used to do which can help me in my future life not only in literature such as reading other’s books and listening to their opinions but also in other domains such as engineering. I became more interested now in learning it without memorizing formulas made by physicists or mathematicians but in understanding its proofs that show me how they came up with it. And since most of the things are nowadays explained in English, I can live in a better way by understanding very well what’s happening around me starting with reading scientific books, commercials, news in magazines and on TVs.
Finally, as an Arab I should acknowledge that as long as English is becoming more widely spread I should work hard on my English language especially where I feel I have some weakness.
During the summer of 2011, I attended a summer camp at Oxford University and through this experience I met several International students. Even though we were all from different countries and different cultures, we all communicated through one dominating language, the English language. During these two weeks, I noticed my weakness in this crucial language; I felt that my level of English was not as good as the others. Even though I continuously speak English in Lebanon, this is not enough for me to acquire a well-established level of English. A few drawbacks that I noticed are my limitations in grammar and vocabulary. Several times I committed grammatical errors but then corrected myself; I usually notice when I make a grammatical mistake but sometimes I am also dubious about whether my sentence structure is right or not. This proved to me that I am still not comfortable with the English language. Also, my vocabulary is limited, and this is an issue when it comes to communicating a thought. Many times I feel limited while expressing an elaborate thought, and I sound repetitive due to sticking to the same set of words. This being said, having these weaknesses can affect my confidence while speaking which is another drawback. So the skill I need to acquire in the English language is speaking fluidly, comfortably and in an advanced manner. I think I will acquire this skill once I expose myself to different genres of books.
ReplyDeleteThrough University, I noticed that different subjects have different ways of communication through the English language. If discussing a specific topic of a certain subject, it is important to know the vocabulary and the language of that subject. I plan on working with people and helping those who have problems through communication, therefore it is very important for me to develop my English language and even my native language. It is very unfortunate that as an Arab, my English is better than my Arabic, and this is the case for countless of adolescents. I think this is problematic because the new generations are losing the Arabic culture when they do not speak their native language. I once read an article about how your language shapes your perception, so speaking a different language is a process of becoming part of a different culture.
Sorry for going off topic, now for the skill I think I have mastered this semester is awareness. I am now careful when I write an essay or paper about a certain subject. I now know how to organize my essays and I study different possibilities to how to structure my essay. I learned to try to be as clear as possible and that sometimes when an idea sounds clear to me, it might not sound as clear to someone who is oblivious to the text. I also learned the importance and values of words, and when put properly, they can truly influence the reader.
As bi/trilingual students living in Middle Eastern countries we obtain certain advantages over other students and people who only speak Arabic. Lots of skills are needed for us to excel in the Arab world, but communication skills are the definitely the ones we need to work on the most, and in my university they try to hone our communication skills more than anything.
ReplyDeleteThroughout my first semester here in the American University of Beirut, we were taught to think and write creatively. We were taught to put down our basic ideas and scratch notes into something more constructed and well built. I found this to be a very helpful factor in eliminating unnecessary thoughts and getting to the bottom of my point. So while writing a formal essay/letter/speech I wouldn’t stand out as someone who’s only begun to learn English. I like to think in time they wouldn’t be able to separate my writings from the writings of an American. This should be more helpful in future jobs, whether working for a foreign company or not, my employers would demand some writing skills.
In certain courses, we had debates with other students over controversial topics and themes. This definitely strengthened our conversation skills. We had to hear the other side’s arguments fully without interrupting them and then we had to present our counter arguments in return and swiftly. In return, this made us speak with more comfort and in a direct way, which can only help in a world where English is overly used; conversing smoothly with people from different backgrounds shouldn’t be a problem, as long as they speak in English of course.
Last but not least, I was applying for a study-abroad program in the states just a week ago, and I had to call one of their personnel. They were actually impressed with the way I conversed with them, and asked if I were raised in the states. If my language/communication skills weren’t as honed as they were here in this university, I don’t think any of it would’ve worked out.
If anything, I’m thankful that early in my life I’m able to converse and communicate eloquently at different levels. I definitely feel that these skills would get me further in life than any other skills would, whether on a societal or a professional level of course.