Learning journal 3rd week

Q1. The most interesting thing that I learnt in this weak was about the birth control policy. It was not a studying strategies but I think it was good information and studying. In reading class, we did a reading circle and it was about birth control policy of China. We talked about this policy and share each classmate countries’ policy about this. Interest thing was most of country don’t have this birth control policy but they do have a birth support policy. Except China, most of countries have a low birth rate and it’s a huge problem. If young couple doesn’t have a baby, later when they (babies) grow up, they have to support many elderly by their selves. It’s like unbalanced an inverted triangle, that top is full with elderly people who cannot work anymore, and than bottom will be the young generation, who have to work for their parents and grandparents. But if I think about Korea, the education fee is too expensive, even kinder garden, so if we have more than 2 children, it’s gonna be really hard to support. It was good to share each countries situation together. In that reading circle there were lots of difficult words but it was good chance to infer the words. Also, after that we made a sentence with those words and found the collocation about that words, so it was good practice and learning for vocabs.

Q2. What I learnt from outside of HELP. I talked about touching, aka skinship, with Mana and Chris. It was interesting because Korea, Japan and Taiwan have different thoughts about touching. Before I met Kwansei students in HELP, I thought Japanese don’t like to touch other people’s body. Because before I met them there was no chance to meet Japanese and when I read about Japan, I thought they consider a lot about etiquette. So in their language they don’t have bad words and usually do not touch other people’s body as for etiquette. But after I met Japanese friends in HELP, I realize that I was wrong. According to Mana, they usually like to touch each other. I mean don’t hate.  Anyway, we agree that Korea, Japan, and Taiwan like to touch each other but the difference was about touching face. Korean don’t usually touch friend’s face or kiss on the cheek. But Japanese don’t care about this, and for Taiwanese both are okay.  Also, I think, in Korea, we don’t usually talk too close, face to face, but nowadays I sometime realize that face and face are too close with Japanese friend when we talk. I thought Japanese are cold, but they are full of love and really friendly. (or maybe just Kwansei? haha) Of course this is depends on the person, but it was interesting to compare each countries touching habits.

Q3. When I create the GO, first, I just read the article briefly, so I can understand what this article is about. Then, I check the signal words. It shows me about what type is this paragraph, like contrast, comparison, or sequence. After that I decide the figure depends on the type of that article.  But I think usually, most of my GO is same, overlapped two circles, T chart, or charts with arrows. Finally, I organize the information and choose the important key words, so write down them in the charts. I think this is it, when I make a GO. And I still don’t know about signal words… Do I have to write down them in the charts? 

Q4.

Learning journal 2nd week

1. One New thing that you learnt from any of your HELP classes.

            1) In reading class, Daniela class, I learned lots of vocabulary. In other class, I just infer the vocab meaning in context and solve the problems. Like as other reading class, I learned same thing, guess the meaning, and moreover in this reading class, I have to think about the collocations and synonyms too. Maybe because of these, I won’t forget those vocabs. 2) In GO class, I learned about logical connectors. In other class, I learned about this before, but I think GO class logical connectors are harder (?) than other class, maybe because of the amounts of connectors. Also, before I just memorize the connectors before, but in GO class, I have to understand accurately where they used. It makes me tired but it will be really helpful in my reading and writing. 3) In writing class, I learned about how can we use quote in writing. I’ve never learned about this one, so it was new and confused to me. I might don’t use in TOEFL writing, but in academic writing such as essay and report in English, it would be helpful practical tips for real (?) writing. It’s still hard to use quote, but it will make an essay more diverse. 4) In grammar class, I learned about article. Article looks so simple like a, an, the, but it’s so confusing!!!! I need more practice.

2. One New thing that you learnt from outside of HELP classes.

This time was my first Halloween day in U.S, so everything was interesting and exiting, because in Korea, people don’t usually care about Halloween. Although, nowadays it became a trend for young people having a party for Halloween day, but I think most of people don’t know what Halloween is, and so do I.  All I know about Halloween is that people dress up in this day and ask for candies. So I searched about Halloween for detail. On the Internet, it said Halloween was the festival for Samhain who is God of death. People had a party for welcoming new winter and new year, and now it turned to a big festival in U.S. I think, in Korea we don’t have this kind of holiday that every people can enjoy. I saw many family members who dressed up in the same costume. Of course, we have to care about more important holiday, which has good meaning like national holiday, but I think this kind of holiday is good too, which can people unite into one and enjoy together. The only thing I feel sad was I couldn’t watch the young children who visit the house and asking for candies. I’m not sure I can watch it later in someday, because I’ll go back to Korea, but I’m satisfied about this year Halloween. It was good experience for me that I can feel the foreign holiday.

3. Are there any reading strategies in reading in your L1(first language)?

            It’s hard to remember what strategies are there in first language, Korean. I think we don’t have any special strategies for just academic reading. We just learned strategies for University entrance exam.

I learned different type of paragraph in here, like comparison, sequence, or cause-effect. However, in Korea, I remembered that I studied reading paragraphs and solved problems by different genre, like art, science, or literature, just for the test. Guessing words meaning, skimming, scanning or reading first line and last line is same, but I didn’t learn about make a topic sentence or supporting sentence in school, maybe because we don’t have writing test. I think I learned in the academy. I don’t know why I cannot remember my studying, maybe I didn’t study hard…. L haha.

4. Do you have any questions about creating GOs so far? Anything you would like yo know at this point?

                  I don’t have any question for now. I think learning logical connectors by different types are helpful, because I can recognize what kind of this paragraph is this, and also I can use when I write a paragraph. But sometimes, I wonder about making tables, GO, are really helpful for the test? Maybe just think about the test is because I’m used to learn about only test strategies. Like making tables before writing a paragraph, it would be helpful, but if I take the test for real, I think I cannot use the strategies in that time (because I don’t have time). Maybe the reason why I think like this is I didn’t learn GO enough yet, so I want to learn more.