Self-assessment in learning ESP

I had been learning ESP for almost 1,5 years. During that time I had gained many new and useful information, I learned many psychological terms in English. Now I would like to analyse my self-assessment in learning ESP.
To start with, I had acquired to write two types of summary: restatement and analytical. Despite the fact, that I had many difficulties in discerning one type from the other, I think I had managed to master writing them.
What is more, I have written many ESP vocabulary tests (regretfully not all) and in my opinion, preparing for the test was the most difficult activity, though I am quite satisfied with the results.
What is more, I had taken performance in class dictations. What is the most dissapointing, I didn't broaden my knowledge in punctuation. It was always a blind-spot for me, through all three semesters I haven't broaden my knowledge about the punctuaction which is a little dissapointing.
In addition to this, I had participated in listening practice in class. After the two semesters results were disappointing, but in my opinion, my understanding of the spoken English language had improved a little during this term.
Moreover, I had made power point presentation and presented them in front of the whole group. Although that was quite dificult and required some courage and preparing, the process of making power point presentation was interesting and involving.
Furthermore, I had participated in short talks on ESP themes in class, what had improved my speaking skills a lot. I am very glad about that, because I think the most important is to be able fluently speak in English.
In conclusion, learning ESP required many efforts and occupied much time, I had managed to do all the tasks. The only dissapointing fact is that I think that I could make all the tasks better.

Your true colors. Restatement summary

The article analyzes, what impact the colours have on people's life.

To start with, there are many folklore about people reaction to colour, though the preference to one or other has much to do with the cultural custom. The investigations show that dyes have greater influence that it is imagined. According to John Ott, colour may directly affect the nervous system. Many fast food chains are embracing the effects of hues in business. Furthermore, colours are also used in the marketing of consumer products.

In conclusion, colours impact people's life in many aspects.

Online listening practice

Few days ago I did some listening practices online on a website http://martinmcmorrow.podomatic.com. It was the first time that I did listening practices online and i would like to share my opinion and retell about my success.

To begin with, the task was really difficult, more confusing that i expected. The rate of speaking was quite fast and in some places I had big difficulties in understanding what the speakers are saying. The thing i didn't like about the recordings was that in many of them there were some extraneous sounds, which compounded the task.

Secondly, I would like to evaluate my performance. As I mentioned before, the rate of speaking was fast and sometimes hardly understandable so i had to listen to the recording again and again. In overall, i listened to the recording 5 times. In my opinion it is quite much. If to evaluate my ability to understand authentic speech, it is hardly satisfactory. To say the truth, I have big doubts about passing my exam paper.

In conclusion, listening practices helped me to understand that i must improve my listening skills. I promised myself to do to more online practices and i hope it would be possible to do some listening practice in class.

Phobias

A phobia is an intense fear of something that poses no actual danger. Phobics often find that facing, or even thinking about facing the feared situation brings on a panic attack or severe anxiety. Then they may feel shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying. All phobias are created by the unconscious mind as a protective mechanism. They can spring up from a real life-scare of some sort, but also they can emerge from seeing someone else experiencing trauma. Serious phobias often significantly impact the quality of life.
Catoptrophobia is a special kind of fear in which people start fearing looking into mirrors, specially larger ones. Sufferers may fear mirrors for a variety of reasons, usually because of some emotional trauma involving mirrors, but also superstitious fear of being watched through mirrors, or because of a low self esteem and avoidance to see and judge themselves.
Ailurophobia is a persistent, irrational fear of cats. People who suffer rom this phobia may fear physical contact, such as bites and scratches, the sight of a real life cat and cats in pictures and television, the imaginable supernatural nature of cats. This phobia could be obtained by a real life scare of some kind that has to do with cats and emotional trauma. What is strange, many corageous men had suffered from this phobia: Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar.
According to the American Psychological Association, phobias are one of the most common mental disorders, affecting over 11 percent of men and women. The most important is to appeal to psychiatrist or other therapy specialist for help.

Self-assessment of success in learning ESP

I am learning ESP for almost 9 moths. During this spring semester I have gained much new and useful information. I would like to analyse my achievements and failures in more detail.
To start with, I have learned to write a new type of summary – the restatement summary. Although I have some difficulties with distinguishing from the plenty of information the basic facts and not writing the details, I have managed to master writing this kind of summary.
Secondly, I have written ESP vocabulary tests and I am quite satisfied with the results. Although it was hard to learn all information in English, still it was already known from my Psychology classes.
What is more, I have taken performance in class dictations, which was the easiest part for me. I have made only few mistakes. I think I should broaden my knowledge in punctuation, because the dictation showed up that I am quite weak in this area.
In addition to this, I have participated in listening practice in class. The results were disappointing. I think I must do more listening practices, because I have big difficulties in understanding the spoken language.
Moreover, I have made power point presentation. Although making power point presentation was a difficult task, it was interesting and involving. The most interesting and my favorite part of the lectures was to listen my peers’ power point presentations, some of them were really good.
Furthermore, I have participated in short talks on ESP themes in class and that had improved my speaking skills. I am very glad about that, because I think the most important is to be able fluently speak in English.
In conclusion, the requirements were high, but I have managed to inure to them during the winter semester so now it was easier to fulfill them. In my opinion, it is still plenty to learn and I hope that I will have a possibility to do that in next term.

Learning English language

English language is one of the most popular languages in the world, it is beneficial in many aspects of life. Beyond a doubt, to learn this language is a difficult task, however there are many ways and means to make this task a little bit easier.

To begin with, a good teacher is very helpful in learning. He should attach importance to grammar, because it is the basement of every language. What is more, he should set regular homework by giving different practice. Another important point is to correct every mistake, as it is very useful to learn from them.

However even the best teacher will not be able to help a student if he will not make any afford by himself. So how can you help yourself? Firstly, you can not only write down the unknown words but also to record it in a short phrase or sentence and it will be easier to memorize it. In addition to this, it is recommended to use a monolingual dictionary in learning the language as it will make you think about the word only in English language and it will also help to absorb it better. Moreover, every learner know his weak areas in English. You can make an extra practice to change that, besides you can set yourself learning targets and fulfil them.

In my opinion, everyone can learn foreign language, it is only a question of time and the input into the process of learning.

Professor Richard Wiseman

Prof Richard Wiseman recently has became one of the most known and popular psychologists. He has gained an international reputation through his research about various areas of psychology.

To begin with, Richard Wiseman is an author of two books: "The Luck Factor", which writes about the lives and minds of lucky people, and "Quirkology" which writes about the psychology in everyday life.

In addition to this, Professor has his own website and also there is a possibility to get to know more about his research on Quirkology website. Both websites are very compulsive. There you can find an information about such unusual experiments as ''Pet personality project", "The Santa effect", "The lying experiment" and many more. On Richard Wiseman website you can read Professor's web blog and to know the latest news about the research, also to see Quirkology videos.

In conclusion, Professor Richard Wiseman is a really interesting personage, having a great imagination. His research are original, innovative, with simple ideas but revealing a lot about human thinking.

Studying abroad

Nowadays many put much value upon knowledge. Presumably university is the best place to gain it. There are plenty of them, and in my opinion it is extremely important to choose the right one. I would like to look deeper into the Psychology programmes in two academies: Mykolo Romerio University in Lithuania and University of Griffith in Australia.

University of Griffith is in Brisbane. The Bachelor of Psychology programme there tooks 4 years. What is interesting, you can get a Bachelor of Psychological Science after 3 years, but the best students, who satisfy stated criteria can study further and after a year get a Bachelor of Psychology with Honour. What is more, Griffith University offers an advisor for 1st year students, who gives them any information they need and helps them to integrate into university life. In my opinion it is not a bad idea. As a 1st year student I know, how it is difficult to orient in new surroundings.

Moreover, there is a big difference in attendance of the lectures in both universities. In Griffith full-time students attend 10-15 hours of scheduled classes per week, while students of Mykolo Romerio University have more than 20 hours of lectures. It is so because in first university scholars have about 5-6 variuos subjects per year, while in the second university - twice as much. In my submission, students in Australia go deeper into the studied subject, while in Mykolo Romerio students have to study many subjects which are not directly connected with Psychology, such as Philosophy, Ethics, Informatics or Economics. Those subjects only divert from the essential things.

Furthermore, career opportunities in Australia are much more bigger than in Lithuania. After 4 years of studying, Australian students can work in such areas as job placement, forensic psychology,councelling, guidance, health management and social research. In Lithuania you must study at least 2 yars more if you want to have such opportunities.

In conclusion, I think that both univerities have their good and bad points. The most important is that the department of the university could see the drawbacks and would not be afraid of innovations.

Happiness

Happiness - undoubtedly, the most desired state of mind. We all strive for it, we all want to be happy and if something fails we suffer and often blame ourselves. Happiness depends from many factors, they are different for everyone. Runt Veenhover, a sociologist, have done an enormous research to find out do people of our planet are glad and where do the happiest live.

The survey was done in 95 nations and it was found out that people in Denmark, Switzerland and Austria are the happiest. It was not a surprise for me that Lithuania is only 83rd. If we will compare our country with the happiest one, we will see, that not only economis conditions made it so, but also better social security, good level of education, peaceful atmosphere in the country. In my opinion, it is extremly important for every human being to feel secure and to know what to expect from the future. In Lithuania and in many more countries people are looking into future with fear and uncertainty.

To sum up, although happiness is a subjective state and it is different for everybody, the basic thing which is needed to be happy is a feeling of secure. I only hope, that situation in my country will get better and if there will happen the second survey we will carry ourselves with pride into the vastly higher position.