The fifth journal: The words list revision.

A week ago our teacher gave us a timed writing essay, and when I was writing that essay I found some difficulties in writing the new words which I had learned from the (Inside Reading book). So that, I avoided from writing them because I did not review them. Then when our teacher returned our essays after assessed it she mentioned that we should not forget to review our words list because the final exam is coming. After what our teacher said I felt that I forgot the words list. In the next day I decided to focus on reviewing the new words because if I did not review them I will face difficulties in the exam. Another point, vocabularies are important for writing, reading, listening and speaking exam. In writing exam, it is important to know the right spelling of the words and it is important to know the meanings of the words in reading exam to not suffer during the exam. In addition, if I want to increase my speaking exam’s scour, I should use the higher level vocabulary.

I practiced some words in the Inside Reading’s CD and it was very helpful for me because the CD helped me to review the exact words which I want to focus on them. Also, I used the website (www.eslbears.homestead.com ) to practice my vocabulary but it did not help me to review particular words which I want to review them because in this website I cannot choose the words that I want to practice.

The fourth journal: My experience with “The Effective Academic writing book”.

After writing my third journal I noticed that I had some weakness in writing supporting ideas and topic sentences. So I interested in developing and improving my writing particularly, in writing supporting ideas and topic sentences. In addition, The Effective Academic writing book was the suitable book to improve my writing and this book was one of my resources in my LLP that I chose them to improve my writing skills. Beside that this book was one of the curriculum’s books that I studied them in last year. However, I felt that I did not benefit from The Effective Academic writing book in last year as I benefited from it in this year and the cause of which I narrowed specific goals to achieve them out of this book whereas in last year I did not determine any aim to achieve from it. I discover the value of “The Effective Academic writing book” after reading and solving some exercises from it because it helped me to negotiate some of my weakness in writing especially in the aforementioned points. For instance, I noticed from part 2 in unit one on the book that if I want my writing to be effective I should make all my sentences for every point supports my single idea. Also, I liked exercise 5 - on page 12 from the same book - because it was focusing in the supporting ideas and I felt it was very powerful for me.

The secret of my slow speed in writing essays

Last Tuesday I proceeded in the strategy that will help me to improve my speed in writing timed essays. But because of the pressures from the assignment that I have in this moth, I decided to do this strategy with my sister and my cousin instead of my classmates and my friends in the college. We chose the time from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm to write an essay about (the development of the education in the UAE from the past to the present). After 8:00 pm we stopped writing and we started to compare between the three essays from the count of the words, the ideas, the grammar and spelling errors to know which one is the best and to learn from our and others mistakes, additionally to benefit from others experience.

Then we used the website (http://ed.essayrater.com/editor/view?analyzeJustCompleted=true) to correct our essays accurately, it was very helpful for us because there were some grammar and spelling errors which we did not notice them. From this activity I found out the cause of my slow speed in writing essays which was due to the disorganization of my ideas and because I did not write outlines for my essays. Furthermore, I learned the importance from writing brainstorms and outlines which I was not interested in them because I thought that brainstorming and outlining are not important and they will lose my time but now I am trying to write a brainstorms and outlines for my next essays.

What I did in the second week of applying my Language Learning Plan?

Everything has an aim. And the aim that I hope to Achieve from my Language Learning Plan is improving my English. I had written many strategies in my plan to develop my skills in English which are vocabulary, writing, speaking and pronunciation.
A few days ago I discussed with my father about my improvement in English and he advised me to give the best effort if I want to achieve my goals and he said “if you want to develop your speaking skill quickly, you should try to speak English in your home, then I told him that this idea is one of my strategies in my plan then he said “I’m ready to help you if you want any help”.
I started to speak English in my home with my cousin two days ago. In that day, we decided to speak English throughout the day. It was difficult for us because it was the first time and every one in our home was laughing when they heard our Conversation. Although it was a difficult experience, we benefited from our mistakes because we shared our ideas together to avoid our mistakes at the next time.
I was always confusing between two words which are nature and nurture. These words I learned them from my Academic Reading and Writing class, and my teacher tried to help me to understand what is the different between them and how I can distinguish between them. But I did not get the idea clearly because some students were noisy. So, after I returned to my home, I worked on the two words. Firstly, I looked for their meaning in Oxford Dictionary. When I distinguished between their meaning I understood what my teacher were talking about to help me to distinguish between them by their form. She said that nurture has to two letters “R” and it means the help, education, care, etc. that is given to a child who is growing and developing whereas nature has one letter “R” and it means all the things in the world that were not made or caused by people.

My first journal entry

Learning English became one of the main aspects in my study life. So, it is important to have a learning plan to know about my improved and poor areas in my studying. When I started to apply my strategies in the first day, I felt that I can’t do what I planned but after a few days I found that I did what I planned. To improve my speaking skills, I used the Sky Pronunciation Suite program and I felt that I had benefited from that program. It helped me pronounce the difficult words correctly. Also, I learned that in English there are many homophones. Last Thursday I went to the learning support center to take a lesson in writing skill at 10:30. It was difficult to discuss with the teacher about what I want him to teach me because I forgot my notes which were about my areas of weakness in writing. However, I immediately opened my essays that I brought them with me and then I remembered my notes. After that happening I repent from forget my notes. That lesson helped me to be more attention in the ideas which I must write them in my essays because if I write an essay with poor ideas, I will get a low grade like making food, if I make a cake with less flour, I will get a damaged cake. To improve my vocabulary, I picked up three words from the book (Inside Reading The Academic List In Context) and I defined their meaning, spelling and part of speech from my Oxford Wordpower Dictionary. Then I used them in sentences to be more sophisticated with them. When I want to use the three words in speaking I felt it was difficult for me because they are new vocabularies and I can’t pronounce them fluently.

Fattoom
B.Ed1 Section:101