FINAL (END OF ESP COURSE) SELF – ASSESSMENT

My ESP course is ending and I want to share my thoughts about second term, compare with first half of ESP course. 

WRITING. I have to admit, that writing summaries come much easier that it was in first term. I learnt from my mistakes and now I know how to write good summary. In this term I had my highest mark from summary writing.  Although, in every summary I had some grammar mistakes, but I hope that in future I will be able to write good summaries, without any mistakes.

SPEAKING. My speaking also is better that it was, because I speak a lot with some of my friends in English language to improve speaking skills. Some short talks, that I had made was really good and interesting. My PPP was property done. There were a beautiful slides rich of basic information. The most that I like was a speaking impromptu.  However, sometimes my pronunciation is not nice and correct.

LISTENING. I had no problems with listening tasks. I like more listening to online materials, because there are much more interesting themes. Listening to cassettes was a little bit harder, maybe because sound had bad quality and speech sound sometimes like bubble.

ESP VOCABLUARY. In second term we were able to write different kind of formal tests in class and I like it more than old way. Maybe that is why my results were much better. Class tests online were interesting, I like them a lot and I enjoy solving them. Moodle tests that we were able to do at home were easy to me as in the first term also. I am feeling free doing it, because I have a lot of time and no one is disturbing me.

All in all, I have to admit, that I collect many needful information. I improve many skills in speaking, writing summaries that I will need to face with in my future psychology studies.

Scared to Death: The Link Between Stress and Coronary Heart Disease

Summary

Researches examined coroners records from Los Angeles County and found a jump in cardiovascular deaths few months after huge earthquake struck near that state. Most of people who died had a history of coronary disease, but those people who died were not involved in rescue efforts.

Furthermore, heart specialist found that psychological stress is just as harmful to heart as many sources of physiological stress. Researchers also found out that people who had some psychological problems in their childhood later would have bigger risk of heart disease. What is more, in another study, researches asked many people who had first time heart attack. Many of these people was smokers, had high blood pressure, but also there were many people who had high psychological risk factors.

Moreover, stress hormones causes physiological changes that damage blood vessels over time – including the coronary arteries. Other research suggests that activities that reduce stress may have a protective effect.

All in all, considering that the stresses of modern life aren’t easily avoided, people should be happier. Laughter helps arteries to relax and it has a good influence on blood flow. That helps to avoid heart diseases. 

Top 3 happiest countries in the world

I would speak about Top 3 happiest countries in the world. Happiness can be very subjective. Some people are are happy when it rains, other – when the sun is shining. So it hard to measure. Professor Ruut Veenhoven who runs the World Database of Happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam make a research. Participants should answer to the following multiple choice question “How happy are you?”. Having all the variables they run it through a computer and get a number from 1 to 10. The bigger the number, the happier the country.

1^st place take Denmark with 8.2 points. In this country it is expensive to buy a car, because Denmark has world’s highest taxes. So people here more often ride a bike or use public transport. People there are very friendly and helpful. 

Second happiest country is Switzerland with 8.1 points. This cheese and chocolate producing land is the world’s 10th richest country. Switzerland is also one of the top garbage recyclers in the world. They achieve this by keeping recycling free, but asking money for regular garbage – this giving people a financial incentive to recycle.

And 3d place takes Austria with 8 points. Austria is the home to the popular energy drink Red Bull. Thanks to the wide use of wind, solar and hydropower Austria produces around 80% of its energy from renewable resources. Education is mostly free, so students feel very happy there.

All in all, I think this research can be true. I want to visit those countries, then I would say much more of my opinion.

Biorhythm test

Biorhythm is an attempt to predict various aspects of a person's life through simple mathematical cycles. Some believe that the idea has no more predictive power than chance, and consider the concept an example of pseudosience.

I had chance to take a biorhythm test. State analysis was based on 31^st of March. On that day we had test from which I got good result. Biorhythm test point is compare if my test results were affected by rhythmic biological cycles which affect ability in various domains, such as mental, physical, and emotional activity.

 From emotional cycle I got 100%. This cycle tracks the stability and positive energy of my psyche and outlook on life, as well as my capacity to empathize with and build rapport with other people.

Then from intellectual cycle I got 90%. This cycle tracks my verbal, mathematical, symbolic, and creative abilities, as well as my capacity to apply reason and analysis to the world around me.
And last cycle is physical. Here I got minus 90%. This cycle tracks my strength, health, and raw physical vitality. This on that day was not quite well.

All in all I have to say, that for some reasons biorhythms are relative to my test results. Because on that day I had high intellectual cycle so maybe this is because I got good results from my test, but I was tired and my physical cycle showed minus 90%, which is very low.

Stress

Hello,

I would like to share my thoughts and results of a stress test that I have done.

Firstly I want to say few words about stress. So what is stress? J

Stress is simply a fact of nature - forces from the inside or outside world affecting the individual. People usually think of stress as a negative experience, but from a biological point of view, stress can be a neutral, negative, or positive experience.

In general, stress is related to both external and internal factors. External factors include the physical environment, including people’s job, relationships with others and all the situations, challenges, difficulties, and expectations they are confronted with on a daily basis. Internal factors which influence your ability to handle stress include people’s nutritional status, overall health and fitness levels, emotional well-being, and the amount of sleep and rest they get.

I was doing my stress test very focused, because I found it very interesting and I wanted that my results were correct.

So after I press DONE I saw that my overall stress score is 4,63. Maximum that people can get in this test is 5, and my result is very high and it shows that my overall emotional well-being is very high.

 In Quality of my life section I have 4.3. It shows that I am satisfied with my life. And it is true, I really enjoying to be in this world and I’m feeling happy.

 Symptom distress score showed that I have no symptoms of depression. Here I have my highest score  - 4.89.

In levels of functioning area my score is 4.75 and it shows how well I am able to get along in community.  It is really a true, because I enjoy being with my friends, finding a new relationships. I rather would go to communicate with other people than be alone or go to a party than read a book. I also like to be in a spotlight.

All in all, I have to say, that this stress test results reflected my emotional well-being. 

Giving Entire Cultures a Personality Test

Summary

Today it is easy to distinguish who among known people is extraverted and who is introverted. Most of people are aware of stereotypes of people from their own and other cultures. Researches started searching ways how to assess the reliability of cultural stereotypes.

Researches create short questionnaire that can be used cross-cultures on which respondents could indicate the characteristics of their own culture. The simile of personality profiles allowed researches to be sure whether the actual personalities within a given culture matched beliefs about the national character of people from those cultures.

The results show that participants were able to produce summaries of their national character. More important is that those profiles of national character did not match the actual personality profile of participants. Researches telling that people thoughts about themselves are based on the historical characters. National character show only how people see themselves rather than of how they actually are. 

Self-assessment

ESP vocabulary tests

ESP vocabulary tests are not easy for me, because I feel difficulties in learning new foreign language words.  In a future I should pay more attention to it, because new words relative to psychology is basic thing to read and understand literature about psychology.

Writing summaries

At first there was some difficulties for me in writing summaries. But after I saw my mistakes, correct them, write another summaries I feel progress in my summary writing skills. I hope my next summaries would be much better.

Online exercises

Exercises are not difficult for me, but not easy either. While doing these kind of exercises we also learn psychology. I like this kind of learning, because it helps us more think about these new words and encode information in a deep processing which will help us easier recall them.  

Moodle tests

I like Moodle test, because doing them at home I have time to think, use dictionary and cousebook. Result was a quite better than doing online exercises, so I like it more. Also there are basic things pull out from our Model texts.

Online listening in class. Traditional listening to cassettes.

I enjoy online listening in a class. Listening exercises are also very exciting. I feeling lucky while listening tasks.

PPP

This was my first  Power Point Presentation in english language, so it was something new for me. I think that I was a little nerviuos, so meybe for that reason my pronunciation of some words was not correct. Assessment of all I think that my presentation was interesting. Several collegues said so. I am happy if they enjoy it. 

Speaking in prompt

Speaking in prompt is my favorite task. While speaking in prompt we improving our skills, using information from our experience. Everyone has a chance to say their opinion. Sometimes we are laughing, joking by the topic. 

Short talks

I have some difficulties speaking short talks, because I was not using English language for over half of a year. All thing where I use this language was some reading in the internet. In a future I would spend much more time to prepare well for short talks.

In conclusion, I want to admit, that I could show better results of my English language skills. At the beginning my English was very poor, because, as I say, I was not using it for over half of a year. Also I feel much of an improvement at my skills since beginning of this term. I can say that I really enjoying English lessons. I wish in a future they would be as good as at this term.