Journal # 5

A paragraph to descibe what I have done in 42ow Academic Writing

As time flies away, I have spent almost three months in 420w academic writing course so far. During this class, it is a pretty energetic class. First, the teacher is extremely nice and teaches some idioms and does some funny games and activities to make progress in students writing, such as setting up a blog, writing sentences on the board, timed writing on the class and grammar exercises, giving some useful sheets on how to writing connecting sentences and how to write a wonderful introductory paragraph. The classmates also are very nice. They always give each other sincere suggestions in their bolg and help each other to do peer editing and correct some grammar errors. The textbook is very vivid but the topic which for students chooses to write is not interesting and sometimes it is boring. However, some instructions and some language focus is really useful and help students to sharp their language use. From this class, I have learned lots of things. I learned how to write a good essay. There are some steps to write an essay, from brainstorming to outline, from outline to the first draft, from the first draft to edit and proofreading. This is very crucial for students to format their essay and not fail in their essay. The most interesting part is brainstorm. Students can write every odd or simple ideas of this topic and not care about whether it is in the topic or out of topic. The hardest part maybe is to write an essay, especially timed writing. Students felt nervous when they did timed writing and they can’t think the better phrase or words, at the same time, some of them worry about if it is out of topic. Sometimes, they don’t feel comfortable when they did this thing. It looks like students are not willing to write, like someone forces them to write. It is upset and can not develop by them. In short, this class teaches lots of techniques and students make some new good friends among each other; meanwhile, students also sharp my writing skills. For students, it is amazing moment because they not only get fun but also improve their writing.

420W Journal#4

However the world becomes a small village with the help of latest electro technologies, some people still choose to move to another country permanently. There is doubtless that they believe that there are various beneficial effects. Firstly, to explore a different culture is fascinating. They can understand different culture in their life; enjoy the different perspectives in tackling the problem; view the diverse landscapes and talk to foreigner about the news or economic problem. They must have a views adventure if they move abroad. Moreover, their children will benefit from their parents moving. From the childhood, they can learn different cultures from their school and from their parents. It is extremely positive because the complexity is required by society. They grow up with density so they must have a good development in there either academic fields or their career advance. Furthermore, living in another country, people must break the circle of their original life. In their own country, they can live peacefully and comfortably. But the life sounds boring because you have no surprise, no curves and no hope beyond possibility. Moving abroad, every day is full of expectation. Indeed, moving abroad is not only a challenge for your culture and knowledge, but also even a new landscape for your future.

420W Journal#3

In advanced industrial countries, most people choose writing to reduce their pressure. For me, it is not only a way to relax, but also a very effective approach to show myself and record everything that happened in my life.

First of all, writing is a very useful tool to relax your pressure from your study or work. In your work life, you can not complain your work conditions and your wages, however, you can write everything in your writing , you can show your own opinions in your journals, you can complain your boss, you can complain your work conditions, also you can grumble on the net .It is a opportunity to describe your complains without dangers.

Another meaning of writing is to show yourselves. Every day something happened, you should record your experience no matter it is strange or it is involved you in a big trouble. It is a valuable record for you. It is your chance to make your life more colorful and filled with surprise. If you feel every day is boring, you may find some interesting things from your writings.

Besides that, it is a real great way to check yourselves everyday. When you write something in your life, you may find that it is not proper to handle your trouble or relationships with your workmates or other people, may be you have another way to tackle them better. In that way, you will become more mature and become better to do everything. It is a way to train yourselves.

As a consequence, when you enjoy writing, you are enjoying the life and yourself at the same time. That ‘s why I enjoy writing .

420w Journal#2

Explain , in a well-written paragraph, your different reasons for choosing to study English in the language program that you are in now.

In ELI, there are so many students from different countries to learn English, each person has one’s particular reasons. For me, the original reason is that I am a IGSPP student and learning English in ELI is a part of my program, however, I choose different courses with my own explanations. For reading, I choose academic reading to learn different attitudes about different kinds of science. I would like to study different opinions in science and find my own interests via my classes. It is very amazing. Meanwhile, I could learn different skills to improve your reading and speed my reading, such as surveying, chunking, reacting and scanning. These skills are very useful to improve my reading skills and stimulate my interest to learn. For writing, I also choose academic course. Not only I want to write some beautiful sentences but also I want to prepare my graduate studies. For graduate students, it is of great significance to write essays with formal and academic tones. It is very difficult to classify the formal and informal words, phrases, and sentences structures. For instance, When I express the meaning of having something, almost every time I use the sentence structure “ there be….”, I feel scared when I use it, but I have no idea what other structures I should write. Actually I like writing, in case I find some cliché sentences, I hate writing and it becomes a nightmare. Thus, I took academic writing to throw every boring sentences away. For speaking and listening, I took news and events. One is that I could know what had happened in those days, furthermore I could get topics when talk with native speakers. I could talk on the bus or on the bookstore. That gives me more opportunities to talk and talk. In addition, I will take TOEFL(IBT) exam, which are very concentrated on notes. I will learn the skills how to take notes. When I listen the news , I could take notes, which I could do a lot of exercises to practice my exam, besides that, the teacher could give me lots of advices on my notes. That will help me to make a great progress. In brief, I took these courses not only because these will improve my English fluency, but also it gives me a huge challenge to pass these courses with high marks. I will make a great effort to these courses.

Journal#1

Compare or/and contrast , in a well-written paragraph, two of the following
Studying English in Vancouver and in your own country


Learning English in Vancouver or in China, both of them have advantages and disadvantages. In Vancouver , not only it provides a good atmosphere for you, but also you are involved in the native English culture, which could help you understand English more easily. Firstly, you can learn English words from everywhere, for example, you could see road-signs, you could see the shop names , you could learn new words from everywhere. Secondly, Your learning is vivid and lively, because you know how to use new words, what is different forms of new words, such as adjective, noun. Moreover, in Vancouver, the resource of learning English is so countless that you want to put yourself into different pieces to learn. Newspapers, which are free here, is a main resource to learn .You could learn how to write a sentence, how to write topic sentences, how to support your opinions, how to use a correct word to express your own idea specifically. In addition, when you learn new words, you could use them, talk to the native speakers. If they feel strange, that means you have something wrong with using them In case they understand what you mean, they will say “Do you mean ……”, in that cases , you will learn how to express these idea, how to use this words, how to express the same meaning with different ways. That is interesting. It is better to inspire you to go further. Although learning English in Vancouver is good, you should pay a lot of tuitions for your language study. Sometimes, you feel lonely and home-sick. In China, people give a lot of passion to study the second language, especially in English. For example, you could see a lot of English books on bookstores, like how to learn English, A short way to learn English well, How to improve your grammar, and so on. If you come to bookstore first, you will feel confused. Why so many books talk about Learning English. But it still hard to learn English well even though there are a lot of books here. Because you have few chances to practice what you have learned. You don’t know how to use new words, how to use new words to express your own ideas. The main way to learn new words is to repeat. That’s all. you know what new words mean. But you don’t know how to use them. So, everyone Chinese students’ reading skills is good, but the listening , speaking, and writing are not as good as reading. If you just want to pass the examinations , for example TOEFL(PBT),IELTE, it is a good choice to take training in China. The teachers give you a lot of tips, even you don’t know what is about, you can guess which is right, sometimes, it always right. But your own skills don’t improved. Maybe ETS have found that problem , they take a new form about TOEFL(IBT), some students fail to pass this exam. So, to improve your own language skills is the only way to pass all kinds of examinations, while, some tips about how to pass examinations are still useful. In brief, there is a huge difference between learning English in Vancouver and Learning English in China.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I am Wanting Guo. I am from China. The reason why I choose 420w is to improve my academic writings . I cherish being in the high level of the computer science department in UBC. I hope everyone's dreams come true.