ESP COURSE SELF-ASSESSMENT

WRITING A SUMMARY

Summary writing is very essential task for everyone of us. I used to write a summary quite good, but there are still grammar and stylistic mystakes probability in it.

PERFORMANCE IN ESP VOCABULARY TEST

There was a constrast in my ESP vocabulary test results, but altogether I think my performance was good and my knowledge of terms is good enough to pass an exam.

PERFORMANCE IN CLASS DICTATIONS

It is still a quite strange and unusual task for me. But class dictations helped me to understand in which words I am making mystakes, so my performance is better than at the beginning.

LISTENING PRACTICE IN CLASS

I made no progress in that type of activity in university, because I had much more practice while studying at school. This type of activity is quite difficult for me, but I had much practice at school so I hope that this experience will help me to pass ESP course exam.

LISTENING TO PEERS POWER POINT PRESENTATION

This is a type of activity I enjoy the most. I find it very useful to listen for my classmates because they give me a chance to know a lot of useful and interesting things about psychology. I find this task really outstanding.

SHORT TALKS ON ESP THEMES IN CLASS

This activity became very ordinary for everyone of us, because we speek about ESP themes nearly every class. I made a progress in that type of activity, but there still some pronuncation mystakes in my speech.

Your True Colours

Summary

The colour itself influences people's decisions in different ways and situations. Marketing world succesfully using psychology of colours for it's interests.

Researcher John Ott discovered that colour might directly affect our nervous sistem. For example, red colour evokes subjective reactions of increased energy and hunger, that is why we could see this colour in restaurants, such as McDonald's. Cultural differences could also affect people to prefer different products, French will eat grey tinned peas, while the British will not.

To sum up, psychology of colours is an interesting area for research, furthermore it could play a great role in person's everyday life.

Picture:
http://toko.deviantart.com/art/find-the-colour-95291501

SELF-ASSESSMENT ON PODCASTING SKILLS

Listening task is an essential part of our final ESP course exam. That is why we were given a task to listen for 2 podcasts on http://martinmcmorrow.podomatic.com/ . I listened "The science of sleep" and "An interview with an astronomer Alan Gilmour".

THE RATE OF SPEAKING

The rate was not too fast. It was not so difficult to understand the speakers.

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU LISTENED TO SELECTED PODCASTS?

I listened the podcasts once because I used to do listening task that way and I do not need to hear the recordings twice.

WHICH EXERCISES ARE USEFUL FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS?

I think that all the exercise helps student to improve his listening skills, but the most important are multipile choice.

HOW DO YOU EVALUATE YOUR ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND AUTHENTIC SPEECH?

My ability to understand authentic speech is quite well. Maybe that is because I am watching movies in English and it helps me to understand specific language a bit better.

DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO PASS A LISTENING EXAM PAPER IF YOU HAD TO TAKE AN EXAM TODAY?

I think yes. I alreaady passed my English exam at school, maybe it was a little bit easier, but I think that I will pass university's exam as well.

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE YOUR LISTENING SKILLS?

Movies, music and other activities, such as travelling to foreign countries, could help me and everyone else to improve the listening skills.

Phobias

A phobia, or morbid fear, is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or people. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one's control, or if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made. Let's analyse some widespread phobias.

Aviophobia (Fear of flying)

Aviophobia is a fear of being on a plane while flying. Fear of flying receives more attention than most other phobias because air travel is often difficult for people to avoid—especially in professional contexts—and because the fear is widespread, affecting a significant minority of the population. A fear of flying may prevent a person from going on vacations or visiting family and friends, and it can cripple the career of a businessperson by preventing him or her from traveling on work-related business. The fear of flying may be created by various other phobias and fears, such as claustrophobia or a fear of terrorism. In some cases, educating people with a fear of flying about the realities of aviation can considerably diminish their fears. Learning how aircraft fly, how airliners are flown in practice, and other aspects of aviation can assist people with a fear of flying in overcoming its irrational nature. Famous people who suffer from this disorder include : Aretha Franklin, singer; Whoopi Goldberg, actor; Billy Bob Thornton, actor; and boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

Arachnophobia (Fear of spiders)

It is among the most common of all phobias. The reactions of arachnophobics often seem irrational to others (and sometimes to the sufferers themselves). People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbor spiders or that has visible signs of their presence, such as webs. An evolutionary reason for the phobias, such as arachnophobia, claustrophobia, remains unresolved. The fear of spiders can be treated by any of the general techniques suggested for specific phobias. Tennis star Andre Agassi is arachnophobic.

To sum up, phobias are the most common form for anxiety disorders. Otherwise, person should just recognize that he could defeat his phobia and do not be afraid of it then he will achieve the best results.

references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnophobia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviophobia
http://www.phobias-help.com/Famous_People_With_Phobias.html
https://www.caremark.com/Imagebank/Articles_images/PhobiaFlyFinal.jpg

END-OF-TERM SELF-ASSESSMENT

• Writing (A summary)

I feel progress this term in summary writing because we really wrote a lot of summaries and that is why I have no more problems in writing a summaries.

• Performance in ESP vocabulary tests

I feel quite good in ESP vocabulary tests because I am trying to read a module in time then there is no problem in writing a test. I think every person in group feels quite same because it is just take a couple of hour to rethink all the definitions before the test and to be concentrated during the test.

• Performance in class dictations

I am not quite sure with my performance in class dictations because I wrote it only once and I could not really understand the point of writing dictations.

• Listening practice in class

I think that listening practice is a really good and useful thing for student, as a shame my performance in it is not as good as I could be but I will try to work on it.

• Listening to peers' Power Point presentations

In my opinion, PPP is a very essential thing in university, that is why PPP listening is very interesting and useful thing for me. I like the way every student present his topic.

• Making Power Point presentations

I enjoy that type of work, because making presentation let me collect a lot of useful information and to share it with peers.

• Short talks on ESP themes in class

I really enjoy talking activity in class, but I think that short talks on ESP themes is rather boring because all students in the class are repeating same things.

Professor Richard Wiseman

Richard Wiseman is a professor of the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. Wiseman started his professional life as a magician, before graduating in Psychology from University College London and obtaining a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh. Richard Wiseman is famous by his researches in such human life areas as luck, humour and paranormal.

Professor Richard Wiseman has studied the principles of good and bad luck, publishing the results in his very famous book "The Luck Factor". Psychologist found out that both good and bad luck result from measurable habits. Lucky people are outgoing and observant and therefore have many more chance encounters than unlucky people, each of which could bring a lucky opportunity.

It was very interesting for me to read Wiseman's blog, where he is posting his experiments, tests for people and other stuff few times a day. As I can see in blog, he is not afraid of communicating with people who are interested in his research. In his blog everyone could find a useful information or just funny things to read.

To sum up, professor Richard Wiseman made a great influence in modern psychology by his experiments and research.

references:
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wiseman
http://www.richardwiseman.com/quirkology/new/Rarologia/Rarologia/Images/RichardWiseman.jpg

Psychology at MRU and abroad

A lot of universities in Lithuania, such as Vilnius University, Mykolas Romeris university, offers people to study psychology. Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour and mental functioning. I will try to compare Mykolas Romeris University, the university I am studying in, and University of Kent.

Mykolas Romeris University is a modern and dynamic institution seeking to have a well-established position in European higher education. Faculty of Social Policy provides students a Bachelor's degree in psychology and also provides Master's degree in such branches as a Social psychology, Law psychology and Business psychology.

The Department of Psychology at the University of Kent in Great Britain has established itself as a leading centre of research and teaching in theoretical and applied psychology and has a commitment to excellence in scientific research with a concern for problems of contemporary relevance. The Department of Psychology offers a Bachelor's degree in Psychology or Social psychology and also offers a Master's degree in many branches, such as Cognitive psychology, Forensic psychology, etc.

To sum up, there are some differences and some similarities between Mykolas Romeris University and University of Kent, but the purpose is the same - to train the high level specialists who will help people to cope with problems and to make their life better.

references: www.mruni.lt
http://www.kent.ac.uk/contact/

Average happiness

Happiness is the thing, which makes our life bright and colourful. Some people want to have a lot of money, some want to become a great artists, but everyone wants to be happy. Dutch sociologist Ruut Veenhoven by his researches found out that people are not equally happy. So what is the level of happiness for an average human being in my home country, Lithuania?

As a shame, Lithuania is on the bottom of the Ruut Veenhoven's list. I think, the 85th place of 95 countries is not a good result, but it is true. That is why Lithuania is the leader in European Union by suicides. I am not good in politics and ecomonics, but I don't think that someone will be happy, when the food and living prices in his country are growing up, and salaries standstill.

Of course, the main thing that makes people feel happy are not money or other worldly goods, but I think, that person could not be completely happy when he is poor and have nothing to eat.

In my opinion, there are still many things to change in Lithuania. Politicians should stop stealing the money from the government and start improving the situation in the country. Citizens should get humanity and try to respect people around them. Then the level of average happiness in the country will increase and people will enjoy living.

references: http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/hap_nat/nat_fp.php http://www.persuasive.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/happiness.jpg

Learning Languages

Have you ever thought how language is important in our life? Every day we use it for different reasons in different situations. But how to improve language skills?

If we speak about native language, there is no problem with learning it in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools. Teachers in school teaches children how to speak fluently, clearly and correctly so until the adolescence person will speak his native language very well. But what about foreign language?

Of course, if there is an opportunity, person should take a basics of foreign language, for example English, in school. Second step could be an university, where person will learn an ESP (English for special purposes). But I think there are some more additional ways how to improve language, such as watching English movies and listening English songs.

But the most useful thing in learning English is going abroad, if it is possible, in England. Using foreign language in everyday life in the country where everyone speaks this language will give a great result.

To sum up, every person should pay attention to his language, because language is a very essential part of our everyday life.