final Journal

I have learnt a lot about the subject of “Academic literacy”. I feel very lucky to have our lecturer, Mrs. Ayami tennekoon. This subject helped me very much in my college life and to work more effectively with other subjects as well. Although it was very much challenging because there were many little tasks. I enjoyed every bit of it. There was something to learn from every task.

Writing journals is my favorite. I can write how I feel and it is all about my thoughts. Discussing board is also interesting. We have to comment on those threads and share our ideas and also to comment on our friend’s posts. We did some in-class activities such as summarizing, note taking activity, persuasive techniques and writing expanded definitions.  It developed many of my language skills.  I came across some really interesting assessments so far. Such as, writing port folios. It is very much challenging. But it is a very good assessment task I would say. Since there was a deadline to submit it, it took our attention and we were forced to do it first no matter how busy we were. To be honest I think this taught me how to manage time and how to do everything on time. I like it. Commenting on TED talks and ABC Radio national were pretty much fun. Some of the TED talks motivated me.  As an example, the speech of Roz Savage, as a woman, she tells to believe in the possibility and necessity of personal transformation, to create powerful visions of the future, and to find the inner strength and self-esteem to make those visions a reality. This gives me the strength how to overcome challenges and how to tackle with them. Working with Diigo is pretty much interesting after getting to know about it although it is not very user friendly. I could annotate any of the texts in Web Pages, and also to highlight it with many colors. www.vocabulary.com is a good site. It helped me a lot in my vocabulary side. It is somewhat like a game. I had to do many quizzes to get points and also to get achievements. So my friends and I do it all the time to get the highest points. We were competing. It was very much fun.

 This subject is very interesting. It has never been boring to me so far. This made academic literacy as my favorite subject.  I enjoyed this subject. I improved a lot with this subject. I suggest that everyone who starts their academic level of studies, they should really do this subject. I as an engineering student, think it is very good to have a subject like this with all the other engineering subjects.  

                                         

Week 08! - Journal

I felt like it is the beginning of a new chapter of my life after eight weeks' time with “Academic literacy”. Even though it was very much challenging, I am completely delighted with all of it. I learnt so many new things throughout this period of time. This helped me very much in my college life and to work more effectively with the subject. Firstly this helped me to find what kind of a learner I am. This helped to change the flaws and to correct my misapprehensions.

 I learnt many new things.I wrote many journals and many portfolios. This helped me to improve my style in writing for academic purposes. "TEEL" model was also very important. It leads us to the correct way of writing. When writing portfolios, I used many mind maps before writing. To make mind maps, we used the "Popplet" tool. It is a very user friendly tool, I would say. I can create many colourful mind maps as we like. www.vocabulary.com is my favorite site. I learnt many words from this. I can make lists and revise them. I can make sentences and make notes. Because of the quizzes they have I could check my knowledge in my vocabulary side. They give achievements according to my progress, so this makes it more interesting and makes us to take more quizzes. To annotate texts, I used www.diigo.com. It is some kind of a web highlighter. From this I could highlight any word and make notes in it. One of my favorite activities is commenting on discussion board.I could express ourselves what I feel about those threads. Listening to "TED" talks is also very much interesting. Some speeches motivated me and some gave me the courage. And from "ABC Radio national", I got to know many things. It gives many knowledge to me.

Eight week of time period changed my life style. I learnt many things about the language and improved my knowledge. This made academic literacy as my favorite subject.  I enjoy this subject. It is very much interesting. I think it is very good to have a subject like this with all the other engineering subjects.  It is mind-blowing.

                                         

All-American Biography

In this poem, “All-American Biography”, by Paige Buffington, she describes about a life of a young boy after his mother’s death. She describes how desperate the boy was after his mother exited the world. “The things he did when she left him. He arranged blackened bones of dead horses into mother shapes long song, gallons of gasoline outside the door. Flowers pushing themselves through snow” (buffinton,2015) These were the lines which touches my heart. It shows how much isolated he was. Those were the things he did when she exited the whole world. He orchestrated darkened bones of dead stallions into mother’s shapes. The writer states how much the kid misses his mom, and the amount his mother cherishes him. He even remembers how his mother taught him to stroll in his more youthful days. The writer shows about the affection between the mother and son and how powerful it is from this poem. 

Samaritan

The novel extract from “Samaritan” by David Corbett describes about a young girl who has been helped by a bandit.  This villain’s heart melted for this eight year old young girl and rescues her. He takes her to a diner and drops her to a woman to spend the night safely. Even though he is a villain he helps the girl. He was being a Good Samaritan in this situation. The Samaritans were people who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel. “Good Samaritan” is a parable told by Jesus and is mentioned in only one of the gospels of the New Testament. According to the Gospel of Luke (10:29–37) a traveler (who may or may not have been a Jew) is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead along the road. First a priest and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan comes by. Samaritans and Jews generally despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man. Likewise in this novel this villain helps the girl. So according to this novel, I feel that there are good habits in a villain like him too.

journal 03

                 Is child behavior better or worse than it was years ago?

Time is running and over the time, the world experienced a lot of changes in technical cultural and human realms. All of this lead people to a different life style than they had before. According to the way of regarding this situation, the child behavior is worse than it was years ago.

One of the main reasons for today’s child behavior is the technology.  Due to the use of electronic devices, children nowadays have taken many use of technology far more than years ago. For example, social media that may lead to suicide which happened in Sri Lanka as well, television gives wrong impact and some movies, dramas give many negative ideas.  Due to these circumstances the modern technology destroys the children.

Another reason could also be because of the busy life of parents, as parents have no time to spend with their children and lack of communication with them. The family life and family gathering is declined compared to years ago. In early days at schools students were also taught about their behavior but now the schools are mainly focusing on studies and not on behavioral education. Therefore the child behavior is also changed according to the change of the lifestyles in the modern world.

Over the time the modern world is changing and the child behavior is getting worse compared with the early 1900s. One of the main reasons is the improvement of the technology. The technology has become much advanced as compared to the years ago. Furthermore, another factor has been less attention towards children by their parents. As parents is the most influential part in their children’s life. Children’s behaviors are much different than it was in the early years. 

Mind map 03- Writing process

Week 02 - Goal setting

Goal setting

After identifying my learning style, my prime objective is to identify my language learning goal. During the 2^nd week of our academic literacy class we were taught some strategies to support our goal and how to maintain it.

I think, a goal is a result that a person plans to achieve. My language learning goals are to obtain a high mark in my exams, improving my knowledge and to do well in my studies.

To reach that target I should minimize potential challenges I face. I should make changes or adjustments as my studies progress; So that I won’t be blind-sided in every angle. Managing time is very important, as effective time management will allow me to do my work on time which is vital in goal attainment.  Some other strategies employed by me, are speaking to the lecturers and seniors and seeking their expertise and support. Staying motivated all the time and rewarding myself along with developing my study/research skills will propel me towards my goal.

Completing at least one action per day, making meaningful choices, attending classes daily and getting ready for the lessons before attending the class makes it much easier to reach my destination. Assembling everything I need before I need it and studying day to day work will lead me towards success, when achieving my goal.

O.C Morton 2014, ‘The 5 Steps of SMART Goal Setting’ [image], in THE LEADING EDGE GOLF COMPANY, viewed 15 March 2015, 

<http://www.theleadingedgegolfcompany.com/blog/2014/1/4/goal-setting-guide>.

CartooningGenius, One-step-at-a-time - goal achieving cartoon doodle video, 14 January, 16 03 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cCiqbSJ9fg>.

Week 01 - Mind map

Week 01- Journal writing

Identifying my learning style

I have been trying many learning methods to study. I have not known what kind of a learner I am and what kind of learning methods suit me for 19 years of my life until I met my Academic Literacy lecturer Ms. Ayami Tennekoon .  In this class I learned that there are 3 different learning styles:

• 1.       Visual learner.
• 2.      Auditory learner.
• 3.      Kinesthetic learner.

Most importantly, according to the quiz we did at class and from some online quizzes, I discovered that I am a kinesthetic learner by getting the highest average mark for this category.

Now I realize why I can’t concentrate during long lectures and tend to walk while studying. This also explains why I like to perform in art and drama as well as why I prefer lessons where we can do something practical.

This realization has helped me to seek out ways to improve my learning. I now aim to use the methods given below, which are suitable for a kinesthetic learner.

• ·         Researching.
• ·         Doing practically to understand.
• ·         Demonstrating practicals.
• ·         Learning by doing.
• ·         Doing experiments.

This new understanding of my learning style will make a huge difference in my life I believe. It will change the way I approach to the subject. This will help me to understand the concepts very easily. I intend to develop my academic studies by suing my preferred learning style “Kinesthetic learning”.

It will be a great opportunity to success my degree and as well as my future career. I can easily achieve my goal.

Dunn,R, Beaudry, JS, & Klavas, JS  2002, ‘ What we know about home people learn’, California Journal of Science Education,vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 46-90.