SELF- ASSESSMENT OF ESP LEARNING

WRITING SKILLS: This semester I find successful for me in writing restatement and analytical summaries. Despite the fact tasks were really hard at first, when we were first time given these tasks, after training several times I performed well when I had to write my final summaries. So as for this task, I feel that not just I improved my skills, but actually learned something new- academic writing and also to evaluate given information more analytically. As for ESP vocabulary tests, I find them not difficult now and happily I don't need so much effort in order to write it well. I believe it is because of better understanding of definitions that we have to learn. There appeared one new thing in our lessons which I like a lot and find it beneficial- it is self-designed tests. These tests I find not difficult, but time-consuming and of course knowledge requiring. Plus I find them fun because it is not an individual job. While preparing self-designed tests, you discuss the things, possible questions, important or not so important aspects of module with your partner, which lets you to look at the module more objectively. This is one of the tasks which gives a feeling of joy while doing it. As for dictations, I find them not so difficult for me. However, there appear some mistakes, mostly ones of punctuation, to which I have to pay attention. The last thing to mention in this section is my contributions to weblog in which I could assess my performance in a term of good. I can't be very objective here as I don't know the evaluation of my teacher yet.

SPEAKING SKILLS: I think I perform well in all three speaking tasks that we are doing - participation in class discussions, presentations and speaking in pairs. However, I notice myself sometimes searching for a proper word to use which means I have to learn more words of professional vocabulary as well as various structures of sentences in order my speaking tasks to be more fluent.

LISTENING SKILLS: I think my level of listening activities in classes is satisfactory. Performance of listening tasks vary and sometimes the results are good, although sometimes the results are quite poor. In this aspect I think I need more practise in listening, especially advanced level listening and doing some comprehension tasks. As for home task, which was listening to podcasts, I personally think I performed good and comprehension was not a difficult task for me. Still I have some problems in understanding and trying to interpret new words, phrases.

READING SKILLS: I find my level of reading satisfactory as well which means I have a lot where to improve. Although I find home reading not so difficult, I face some problems in class reading as sometimes I don't separate the most imporatant information needed from the whole text. As for reading comprehension tasks, I don't feel I improved as results from these tasks are satisfactory and there appear that they are sometimes poor as well.

Artificial Intelligence

Artifcial Intelligence ( AI) refers to intelligence of machines and also names the field that strives to create AI. Functions that are believed to be gained by machines are reasoning, knowledge, perception, communication and other. Therefore the fields that explore this phenomenon include not just computer science or neuroscience, but also psychology, liguistics, philosophy, cognitive science.

I believe an important question related to AI is the usage of it. What is the benefit of AI? There is a wide range of things for which AI can be used. Firstly, I'd like to mention an example of entertaining part- programme Chinook became a world champion in chess. in 1994. However, there are more aspects that are more practical. These involve oil mining, commanding robots (e.g. in factories), automatical translation, objective sign recognition ,which let to read texts, and other systems working mostly for safety and convenience of people.

As for the future of AI, there is much to predict. Researchers work on improving their functions, but there is also a question about the other aspect of those machines. Many films suggest idea that there may be that robots can gain feelings and with this aspect to functionate as people. This sounds as from the series of fantastic tales, but just look back at the past. Unbelievable "prognoses" of Jule Verne came truth. It just shows that something thought to be unbelievable doesn't mean to be such. As for AI, we also don't know what surprise humans' intelligence can suggest.

Reference: http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0333801369.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Psychology of body language

There exist not just a verbal language. Communication is also possible using body language and understanding it can help understand others.

We use our body to send signals unconsciously but revealing true feelings. But now it is also used in different aspects of public life, such as politics or interviews. Body language includes facial expressions, body posture, eye contact and other and is claimed to be influenced by both heredity and environment.

Here are some keys revealing the emotions of people showing specific signals. If a person crosses his/her arms, this means he puts a barrier between you and him/her. On the other hand, if a person is in a friendly mood, this may mean he is contemplative. If person looks at your eyes consistently, it may also have two different meanings. One is a positive attitude and another - a person simply doesn't trust you. In opposite situation, when there is no eye contact, a person may have a negative attitude towards you. If you notice a person gazing to somewhere else while you are speaking and doing such actions as touching ear or scratching chin, you have to know that person shows disbelief. To notice boredom is not a difficult task as well- head tilting or just unfocussed look at a speaker show that. But of course there are exceptions in understanding body language of people- you have to be aware of the fact that people with some certain diseases act in a different way as well as there exist differences among cultures.

People are not always tend to express their feelings, states in words or sometimes just are not capable of doing it. Therefore understanding body language is really beneficial.



References: http://www.lifepositive.com/mind/psychology/body-language/body-language.html , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_language