We are almost at the half way point in the semester, and you have already accomplished much. You've written an occupational report, a group essay and paragraph, read two novels, produced six news summaries, and given three oral presentations. As we head into the eighth week, I'd like to know your feelings about your EAP experience so far. Your assignment is to write about your triumphs and frustrations--what you've learned, what you are struggling with, what you thought you couldn't do (but did) and even what you hope you never have to do again! This isn't a checklist--feel free to just share whatever you feel is significant in your English study in EAP. This blog is to help you assess your own strengths and to analyze your progress so far.
Your grade, as usual, will be based on how thoroughly you respond to the question and whether you respond to the comments of at least one classmate in your post. Since we will be having interviews on Thursday, October 20, writing some of these ideas down may be a good preparation for verbalizing your ideas before you talk about them.
The assignment is due by midnight on Tuesday, October 18.
We are in the middle of the EAP samister. Before starting the EAP, I promised myself that I would be little bit better in speking and writing skills in English after finishing the samister. Due to some personal reasons, I could not pay expected attention to this 8 weeks and I failed to reach my goal. Writing the news summary and its revision is an excellent tool to improve our speaking skill. In order to improve our speking skill, I thing we need more time in news summary as well as seminar discussion sessions. I believe, we have already got few advantages of reading skill.
ReplyDeleteSeven weeks have passed since I was an EAP student. In general, I feel that the EAP class is busier and more difficult, whereas the former EAP student repeatedly told all the ENP students that the EAP course is more relaxing as he gave us a speech. Why did I have the opposite feeling? I realized the reason is that the lower level of my English knowledge and skills. Also, once Darren (ENP teacher) told us that what is the purpose if the ENP class is easy for your guys? Now I understand the meaning better. However, I benefited a lot from the class. For example, when I look back the work I have done, it is hard to believe that I can deliver a twenty-page long occupational report. Obviously, it is one of the unforgettable experiences that I have ever had. Unfortunately, I am still looking for an effective way to produce a better newspaper summary. For the PLATO assignment, as far as I’m concerned, the improvement of my English skills is very limited. Because this exercise requires an immense amount of time to finish (about 150 hours), it does not allow me to spend more time to think about why the right answer is A not D. Positively, the best way for me to make a little bit bigger step in my EAP learning is to try my best to do any assignment required by this class.
ReplyDeleteBanaj: I agree with you about writing the newspaper summary is a good exercise for improving our writing skills. Even though I find it hard for me, I think I am getting better one by one with Patti’s suggestions, even classmates’ advice (I want to thank Banaj, Oleg, Nicole, James, Angela and Qin for lending me or showing me their marked summaries. I learned something from them.)
I've been learning English deeply through EAP. At the first time I started this semester, I was a new comer of Calgary and I could not have enough time to be used to being in Calgary so whenever I commute to school, I got lost.It took about 2 weeks to know about Calgary and understand EAP's curriculum. After I could accept everything, I was very sick. I think I suffered from huge stress because I was confused and distracted in EAP. When I took a rest and slept sufficiently, I seemed to feel better. However, my condition was worse again again. I could not maintain a balanced diet since I came to Calgary so I did not have enough power and energy to get over weakness. During midterm test period I could not do my best in my exam and finish homework on time. I am missing many things. However, I could have enough time to take a quality rest and eat nutritious food to recharge energy for the rest of semester. Even though I lost my score, I had a essential time during midterm week and I tried to put worries about study out of my head. I have to cheer me up to finish EAP well and focus on it again. I do not want to look back. I would like to keep going.
ReplyDeleteI felt very sad when I got bad mark in some of my newspaper summaries and most of the tests, because I did my best and felt confident about it. Same as what Tracy said, I didn’t believe that I would be able to make a 20-page occupational report. And when I was doing it, I kept working on it till 1 or 2 A.M. for three days. Then when I got my mark, I felt that it was worth it since my mark wasn’t too bad. I also felt that EAP is too busy. But then, a friend told me that we shouldn’t see our marks, and see what we got to learn and improve, so I will just do my best to finish EAP class.
ReplyDeleteTracy & Banaj: Me too! Making newspaper summaries is always a challenge for me, because sometimes I get good mark and sometimes it drops again. As for PLATO assignment, I also feel that it's too heavy. I just did 2 hours yesterday and it gave me a big headache, maybe because I’m already old enough. I also believe that we wouldn’t be able to reach this point without our classmates, since we also have some group activities too. So thank you, everybody for encouraging each other to be patient in finishing assignments and what’s important is that we learn something valuable (knowledge and friendship).
Actually, I do not believe that there are seven weeks of EAP already. However, it is a fact and as we are half way through, some reflections are just beneficial. Most of the assignments are not very hard to do but I continue to struggle with my grammar, articles, prepositions and verb tenses. Although the occupational report was the most difficult for me, the news articles summaries are the most challenging. I mean, every time I try my best doing them but unfortunately, not all of them are good. The good part in summaries is that we improve our grammar every time we correct them. Moreover, here in school is the right place to practice, to make mistakes and correct them because we learn how to do them right. I feel that the group work such as The Pearl and Water essays gave us a good opportunity to see and analyze our writing and receive some constructive critique from our classmates that it is very important. I think we should use the remaining time to improve ourselves and fix as much as it is possible our weaknesses.
ReplyDeleteTracy I agree with you that PLATO is not the perfect tool for getting the grammar fixed because as you mentioned it requires a lot of time. Sometimes, I just go fast trough the tutorial and I start the exercises that require more attention but we really do not have time to analyze the answers.
MJ I wish you good health, success and full charge:) stay on track and you will be ok!
Thank you all! and Good luck!
It took me almost an hour to write a comment on this topic. After I posted it, it had disappeared. This story tells us that we better use office word to write comment and then copy and paste.
ReplyDeleteOk, back to the topic. Even I know my mom cannot read English, I sent my occupational report to my mom and some of my friends last week. They can tell my English is improved and they told me that they are very impressed. It is unbelievable that I can write a twenty-four pages assignment, but I did it. I felt that I benefited a lot from EAP experience. First of all, I learned how to read and write efficiently. English writing is my weakness. I was always struggling with English grammar. I used to make sentences by translated Chinese sentences into English sentences. As the result, I usually make a “Chinglish” (Chinese English) sentence. Like most of my classmate, I feel news summary is difficult at first. But after this eight week’s practice, it’s getting better now. By reading very carefully Patti’s comment and getting lots of helping from my dear classmates, my news summary writing skill is improved. Secondly, I feel giving presentations is very useful. It is a good practice for our soft skill. I will help us to build our career in the future. I worked hard to finish every assignment because I know we will benefit from it. I believe practice makes perfect. There is no short cut to improve my English skills.
There is one thing frustrate me that is my English pronunciation. Some time I just cannot pronounce some English words properly. I know I need practice more. Maybe I need to find a local Canadian friend to help me out this problem. I will see.
To: Banaj and Tracy:
I totally with you guys. I had same feeling with you. Talking about PLATO, I think the purpose of PLATO is making us read more and practice more.
EAP is the course for the next academic program. I had a trouble in the first four weeks because I did not have enough preparation for the course. Now, it is better.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think I had improved my writing. At the first writing assignment, I had no idea about the news summary. After discussion with my classmates for several times and reading the teacher’s comments, I can write a better news summary. However, it is still very hard for me to get the formula of writing news summary.
Second, I am able to listen to a lecture and take the note. It is very important for us because we need to listen a lot of professor’s lectures in the professional program.
Finally, I had a good experience work with my classmate. We wrote the Pear l paragraph and Water essay together. The experience let me be aware of the skills and knowledge of team work.
My shortness is pronunciation and grammar. Unfortunately, I cannot improve them in a short time.
Lia: I have the same feeling with you. I think EAP is hard program, but we have got lots of improvement of you language skills.
To All: I don’t the PLATO too. Actually, I don’t know the purpose of PLATO, but I think it is benefit to my comprehension.
For this week blog topic, I think most of our classmates have a lot of words to say, me either. When I looked back the deepest impression of the term is busy. As the previous EAP students said EAP class is real busy. Funny thing was my friend lost weights. In my case I felt this class was most busy and difficult. Another thing is I found I had a huge gap between my classmates. They all have good English skills, such as writing, speaking and so on. Compared with their excellent performance, I felt no confidence and motivation. Especially I got bad mark. Unfortunately, I got many stressful. I have a big problem in writing, and I didn’t realize before. But I think it is also good thing for me because I can recognize my weaknesses and do more practices. During the half term I felt I improved my writing skill, also I improved my other skills, in addition, it becomes a positive motivation to force me doing better. For the following weeks, I hope I can perform better and improve my vocabulary. And do better job in my projects. In the end of this term I can achieve my goal.
ReplyDeleteNow we already pass the half way of EAP class, I think I have learned a lot of things, even though I am not good at some part. Before I start this semester my friend told me that in this class it will be very hard and busy comparing with the ESL course. When I heard that I have never imagine it how hard it will be. But now I realized that this semester is really busy and hard. In this EAP class, I feel really stressed and frustrated. Especially when I got bad mark, I feel so disappointed at myself. Also the most challenge me is reading and writing, I always can not focus on reading and every time my reading test is low score. I have no idea why I always can't improve my reading skills which make me so overwhelmed. However, I think I need to spend more time on reading and writing. In addition, I have been learned how to distinguish the difference between a victim and a creator when they are facing the troubles. I realized that my attitude is a little bit negative, when I got bad mark, I always use the victim language to complaining myself how stupid I am and I never think about how can I change the way to enhance my english skill. Therefore, I think the best way is to have positive mind is important for me which can help me to deal with difficult, and also I will try my best to reach my goal and pass this semester.
ReplyDeleteWhat other students mentioned above is their improvements and some struggles in the EAP class. Tracy talked about the difference between ENP and EAP, and her efforts to overcome the obstacles, MJ described his struggle in the past several weeks in both body and assignments, Oleg who, in my mind, is a very informed person mentioned she was struggling with Newspaper summary, and found it difficult to accomplish Occupational Report. To our joy, they all realized how much progress they have made by their hard-work. I'd like firstly to share some my characters, I am a very stubborn person, which can presents in the EAP class. I always insist on thinking what i do is right, for example, the summary i spent a lot of energy and time on was not given a ideal mark if i can not find the reasons of losing marks, i would write my thinkings in the revision. To my disappointment, I have never received response from the teacher, maybe the teacher was too busy to read mine. Also, I am a person who does not have a strong will to ask questions, this trait influences me a lot. For instance, I was accused of plagiarism because I thought I knew the rules very well and did what i thought about. As a result, I got punished even though it is not very serious but gave me a deep impression on how the rules in Canada work, and it broadened the distance between teacher and me, which resulted me almost to shut up my month in class. Fortunately, I did make some progress in the class, excluding newspaper summary that is still challenging me. I accomplished the big project, Occupational Report; I was lucky to write and combine water essay, and also I finished most part of PLATO in just two weeks. What I want to mention finally is some strategies or methods used in coming challenges. I need initially go over the weakness in my characteristics, and then make a regular study schedule, finally cost my time and energy to finish the class assignments and widen the extent of knowledge by conducting outside work.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all of you who have posted so far. Just an important reminder. In order to get full marks (out of 2) for this assignment, you need to comment on at least one post from another student as well as post comments about your own learning experience. Only one of these gets you only one point. If yours is incomplete, you can still add comments before midnight!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have just finished half of the EAP. I didn`t get much English skills because this class is too difficult for me. When I took first reading test in the first week, I realized that it won`t be smooth road. I am always afraid of taking tests. In addition, I worried about getting certification. I hope time goes slowly in EAP class. Surprisingly, I already finished mid-term in EAP. I am so sad. However, I did it when Patti gave us assignments and projects. Even though my score was poor, I could learn and understand about what I should do more in news article summary and how to write report and essay. It was not bad to me. Someday, those things that I learned from EAP course will help me improve my English skills. One final words, thank you guys~
ReplyDeleteBanaj Majumder, I am on your side. I also promised myself that I would improve my English skills better than before, but I am not. I think you improved your speaking skill during the 8weeks because you always have confidence when you speak. Where did you get it? Moreover, I agree with you that writing the news summary helped me improving my writing skills. One bad point to me is that I used dictionary when I write news article summary.
Hello everybody. The topic is about our EAP experience. First of all I didn’t know that EAP classes will be more difficult than ENP. However I supposed to think about it before, ENP is English for New pathways and EAP is English for Academic Purposes. When I started the EAP classes, my goal was to improve my writing skills. I hope that I improved the summary writing assignments. However the essay wasn’t good.
ReplyDeleteI still have aspiration of improving my writing skills. Moreover I want to finish PLATO on time. At least I will try to do it.
MJ. I’d like your optimistically point about keeping going and don’t look back. I think because I am a positive person and always think that “everything that has happened in our life –for the best”
James. I always enjoy your writing. I think you have a charisma to do it. On all of the occasions you use vocabulary varieties. I think it’s a good point. Moreover you was a good student to finish half of PLATO just within two weeks. I wish you good luck.
Sunny. I wanted just encourage you to be strong and more positive. Everything comes on time.
Oleg. I think that everybody will agree with me that you one of the smartest student in our class. Don’t worry Oleg about your grammar; you are not along because I have the same problems as you. I hope it will come on time. As my daughter always says, “Mom you have to feel where to put articles, prepositions, etc.”
To all classmates. I wish everybody good luck and I hope that all of you will get the highest marks at the end of the EAP.
Sunny, I think we have same situation, we are not good as other classmate, I think EAP is very hard program, even though we got bad marks on reading and writing, but we should not easily to give up. We need to put more efforts on and to achieve our goal.
ReplyDeleteAs Lia said that we would not see the mark, but we would do best to improve our skills by working hard is interesting and encouraging. I also believe this idea. Plato is a challenging item for me just like Lia because I am not only the most elderly student in my class but also I have some other challenges. If I want to improve my skills, I will have to spent more time for this samister.
ReplyDeleteTo Lia and Stephanie: I have same felling like you guys. But, I didn’t as hard as you did. I just need study in EAP class without taking care family or other class. For me, sometimes I felt confused when I got bad mark, because I didn’t know want should I do to improve it. However, when I get helps from Patti and other classmates I think I got the idea how to improve. I hope all of us can reach our goal and enjoy our following term.
ReplyDeleteTo. Banaj
ReplyDeleteI had the same plan as yours. I hoped that I attend all days, but I missed so many classes so far. I wanted to do every homework on time, but I could not.
To. Tracy and Lia
I agree with your opinion. I think EAP makes us very busy and sometimes feel disappointed whenever I get low marks in newspaper summary or tests. However, I would like to believe that there would be something beneficial in my future.
To. Everyone
I did not do Plato. I was too lazy. I am just in the beginning. I am so worried about that. I would like to believe that it is still not late, it is not bad to start PLATO right now. I hope that everyone can have a meaningful and beneficial time in EAP, and also let's do our best, again !!!!