END-OF-ESP COURSE SELF-ASSESMENT

• 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

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

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

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

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)

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

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.