Psychology ESP Course

END-OF-ESP COURSE SELF-ASSESMENT

2008-12-01T05:57:00.000-08:00

• Writing a summary.
At writing summaries I’ve made some spelling and grammar mistakes, but even though, I think I improved my skills at it and performed quite good.

• Writing ESP vocabulary tests
I think I performed badly in ESP vocabulary tests, because I didn’t have much time to prepare for them so I used my knowledge from previous subjects about those terms.

• Writing class dictations
When writing class dictations I made some spelling mistakes, because it was a bit difficult to write so fast, when I needed to think a bit about how the unknown word should be spelled, but there was just a few of them, so in my opinion I performed well at it.

• Listening comprehension in class
In my opinion, I performed very good at listening comprehension in class, because I found it easy to understand what the speaker is saying, even if he/she had an accent. So I think I improved my listening skills.

• Making PowerPoint presentation
It was quite difficult for me to make a good presentation, because I didn’t have much time to make it and I’ve tried to make it as fast as I could, so it had some minuses. However, I think that I performed well at this task.

• Listening to peers’ PowerPoint presentations
I performed well at listening to others’ presentations, because I could understand everything that presenters were saying. And when they were using some specific terms, I could understand them knowing the context. However, it was a bit difficult to listen to some presentations, because they weren’t very interesting to me.

• Speaking on ESP themes in class
In my opinion, I performed very badly in speaking on ESP themes, because most of the times I didn’t know what to say and I just didn’t have energy to discuss on it (because our lectures were at 8 am :))

Kleptomania

2008-11-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

Kleptomania is described as a condition of not being able to resist the urge to steal. People, who have this kind of disorder, usually steal things not because they need it or want to get money for it, but just because of the process of stealing. It is because at the time of stealing, the person feels pleasure or relief.
The causes of kleptomania aren't known, but it is believed that main causes of it could be abnormalities in the brain chemical serotonin.
Diagnosing kleptomania is usually very difficult since people do not seek help for it, so in most cases it is diagnosed when they goes to psychologists to take a medical advice for other reason. So there is a high posibility that most of the people, who have this disorder don't get medical help.
Although there's no cure for kleptomania, this disorder sometimes is treated with medication or behavior modification.
To sum up, kleptomania is a very serious mental disorder, which is realy difficult to diagnose nad treat. So people, who have it, should be encouraged not to be afraid to admit having it and to seek for medical help.

Artificial intelligence

2008-05-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

As artificial intelligence is both the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it I think it is very important in nowadays when computers take bigger and bigger part in our life. Most of us can't imagine or life without a computer anymore, because it helps us in doing so many things. So when the quality of artificial intelligence is very good, it helps us to do more things not going out from home. For exampe, before few years people couldn't imagine declaration of taxable earnings using just a computer and now it is usual thing. So artificial intelligence makes our life easier and that is a very good thing. To sum up, as artificial intelligence becomes more developed, it is better for us.

Self-assessement of ESP learning

2008-05-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

WRITING SKILLS

Summaries. At first it was quite difficult to perform well in writing summaries, because I hadn't much experience, but after I have written some, I think I become better at that. Even though I didn't avoid grammar mistakes, so I think it was the main reason why I didn't performe very well.

ESP vocabulary tests. In my opinion I performed quuite bad in ESP vocabulary tests, because I didn't have enough time to prepare for the most of the tests , and it was really difficult to remember all the definitions after some time, when we have to write tests including words from more than one module.

Self-designed tests. I think I performed well in self-designed tests, because it was quite easy for me creating questions as well as answering others' questions. Partly, it wes easy form ne, because I found it fun and interesting.

Dictations. I think that I am not good at writing dictations, because for me it is quite difficult to hear all the words correctly especially those that I don't know the meaning of.

Contributions to weblogs. In my opinion I performed good in filling weblog, because I have read my contributions several times not to leave any mistakes.

SPEAKING SKILLS

Participation in class discussions. In my opinion, I didn't participate in class discussions as good as I could. Most of the cases I just didn't have ideas,and some of the times I did'n now how to express them so I didn't want to mess everything up.

Presentation. I think I performed quite good in making prasentation, because the topic was very interesting to me so I could prepare better. Of course it is really stressful for me to talk to audience, so I have made some mistakes because of the stress.

Speaking in pairs. I performed well while speaking in pairs, because I feel more confident when talking to one person than the whole group. Also, I think that I have improved my speaking skills if comparing this term to the previous one.

LISTENING SKILLS

Listening activities in class. I think I peformed satisfactorily in listening. It is difficult for me to understand some certain word when they are taped and said by foreigners , but usualyy I can understand the main idea of the speech, so I think I just need to have wider vocabulary and to listen to foreign speakers more often.

Listening to podcasts. In my opinion, my performance in listening to podcasts was satisfactory. Again, it was difficult to inderstand some certain ideas, but the main idea of the speech was clear to me.

READING SKILLS

Home reading. The most of the modules were quite long so I didn't have time to read them appropriately. I didn't focus on the text as much as I did last term.

Class reading. It was easy to focus on the text when reading in the class, so it was much more appropriate than reading at home. So I think I done it quite good. Moreover, the thexts were much shorter than modules which we had to read at home, and more interesting, so it was enjoying and not very difficult.

Reading comprehension exercises. In my opinion, my performance in this task was appropriate. It was quite difficult at first because I had to focus on the text very strongly, but after reading text several times, it became much more easy.

Computer tasks. The most of the tasks had to be done at home so it was quite difficult for me, for the reason that I don't have a computer at home so I had to find time to go to library. But despite this fact I think I performed good in computer tasks.

Body language

2008-03-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

Body language is a part of every aspect of a daily life. And it is realy important. Many information we can get not even listening to person but just looking at him or her. There are eight primary elements of body language: face, eyes, posture, gestures, voice, movement, touch and
appearance. It was surprising for me to know that the voice is also a part of body language, tone of voice, volume, emotion can also influence the messages we send as part of our body language. We should also remember that in different countries, body language differs, so we should find information about it before going to other country to avoid misunderstadings. There are a huge number of variations that can be created within each element of body language, and even more that occur when you combine two or more elements.
It is said that 55% of information we get from body language so I think that it is serious evidence that body language is realy very important in our every day life.

Chimps beat humans in memory tests (restatement summary)

2007-12-11T00:46:00.000-08:00

There are many people who think that humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions. However it seems it's not true. There was a research made and the result is that young chimpanzees at the age of five have better short-term memory than adult people. So it tells us that early humans may have had better short term memory than modern humans. Moreover, such experiments give us more understanding about the skills necessary for the evolution of modern humanity.

Phobias

2007-12-04T06:21:00.000-08:00

Nowdays a lot of people are suffering from phobias. Phobia is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, objects, activities, or persons. There are many kinds of phobias, some of them are more common, some are less, but they all make life more difficult. Some of them are realy strange and it is realy difficult to understand how people can be afraid of those thing. For example: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is a fear of long words, or ideophobia, a fear of ideas. However people are afraid of things like that. So it should cause big prolems in every day life.

Drugs

2007-12-03T02:25:00.000-08:00

Nowdays, when using drugs is becoming more and more popular we sfould seriously consider the causes of this situation.
There are a lot of reasons why people start using drugs. But I'll talk about the most common ones. First of all, a lot of people start using drugs, because their friend do that, and they don't want to be different, because being different is considered as being uncool.What is more, a lot of people start using drugs, besause of curiosity, they want to feel something new, something that is unknown, so in many cases it leads to drugs, as new experience. Moreover, some people try drugs because of trieing to forget about their problems, because they feel too weak to manage problems.
To sum up, there are a lot more reasons why people start using drugs because every situations is unique. So society should not deny the existance of this fast growing problem and consider the ways how to sove it.

My role model

2007-11-29T03:20:00.000-08:00

To start with, I would like to say, that everybody, we have comunicated with, had influenced us in some certain way. However, there are people, who have influenced us much more than others. One of those people, who influenced my life the most is my mother.
In my opinion, my mother influenced my life the most because when I was a child, I was learning how to live by watching how she did different things and how she acted in different situations. Moreover, I can even say that a lot of my desidions was influenced by my mother. For example, she was always saying that psychology should be very interesting subject to study. And now I am studying psychology.
To sum up, my mother gave me the basic knowledge about living, so I can claim that she is my role model. And I also think that she will influence me more or less all my life, because she is one of the most important people in my life.

psychology of colours

2007-10-02T02:38:00.000-07:00

Colours are very important in our every day life. Colors take a big part even in the most simple situations, for example when we are in the shop and want to buy an apple, we can understand wich one is good from the first look at its colour. But colours can also effect our mood so they are realy important in our life.
Colours often have different meanings in various countries and cultures, but main colours have the same basic meaning, for example white colour is always associated with sterility and cleanness. Oposite to white colour is black and it also often has the same meaning in all cultures and it symbolises authority and power. Even if colours have more or less different meaning, I think that some of them effect our mood the same way. Green colour is relaxing and people who want to relax often go somewhere where are a lot oh green colour and they would never go to a red coloured room. So we can claim that colours effect our emotions.
To sum up, even in the different cultures the meaning of colours can differ, but the most of them effect our mood more or less the same.

what subfield of psychology I would choose

2007-09-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

Psychology has a big variety of subfields. When I'm thinking which sphere I should choose, I can't decide what is the most suitable and interesting for me, because almost all of them have something that attracts me. However, if I had to choose just one, I think it would be cross-cultural psychology. In my opinion it's very interesting thing to study, because you have an opportunity to get a lot of knowledge about different cultures. Moreover, it would be interesting to investigate the similarities and differences between them and to know why is it like that.
To sum up, there are lots of subfields in psychology, so it may be realy difficult to choose but whatever you will choose it's going to be interesting in its own way.

Why I've decided to study psychology

2007-09-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

The main reason I have decided to study psychology was that I have always liked comunicating with people. Although I wasn't thinking about studying this subject for a long time, I'm realy glad that I'm into it now. Moreover, I find psychology very interesting sphere to study and I also think that psychologists are very necessary nowdays, because people get a lot of stress every day and they need to talk to a person who can help solve their problems. I think that psychologists are as mush neccesary as doctors. Those two professions have a lot in common, there is just one difference: doctor heals body while psychologist heals soul. And i even think that a healthy soul is more important than healthy body. One more thing I decided to study psychology for, is that I think that the information I will gel is going to be very useful in my every day life, especially when comunicating with my own children.To sum up, there is a lot of reasons why I decided to study psychology, and I think I'm going to be happy to study this subject and working as a psycgologist.