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.