reflection paper

I major in finance. It is hard to improve our English skills because the things we learned in class is accounting, economy, and finance management. We spend much time learning professional subjects. Though it is good for us to acquire more knowledge on the field of finance, but we ignore the importance of English. English is the common language we communicate with the globe. Because of that, I want to find a way to learn English. Then I knew that there is an optional course called computer assisted learning language. The motivation that I chose this course is that I want my English skills such as listening and speaking getting better. In this course we learned some useful websites, for example, Corpus, Podcast, TED talks, My ET, and OpenCourseWare.

We learned many kinds of English websites. The website that impresses me a lot is corpus. This website changed my way of learning English. I used to look up the vocabularies through the dictionary especially bilingual dictionaries. When teacher introduced this website for us, I was amazed because I didn’t notice this kind of dictionary before. This website includes a collection of texts, spoken and written. Corpus not only can find the words I don’t know but also let me know how to use the word correctly. I can read the articles which include the words I am searching for. After knowing corpus, I can look up the vocabulary which I want to know through corpus instead of using dictionaries like Yahoo or Google.

There is another website which impressed me a lot called my ET. This website can record your voice through microphone and tell you the disadvantage about your pronunciation, pitch, rhythm, and intensity. Through my ET, you can discover your speaking problem, and improve it by practicing. It is a good way for beginner to improve their pronunciation. For me, I didn’t know there is a website which can examine my speaking problems before this class. Furthermore, I don’t think how the website can help me improve my English speaking. After knowing this website, I was astonished because it can really examine my speaking through computer. It is amazing to me because I didn’t believe that this kind of website really exists. After using my ET, I found my speaking problems which I didn’t noticed before. There is no big problem on my speaking, but I had some small mistakes which can find in my English report. There are details about my speaking such as the pronunciation of the letters, pitch, timing, and emphasis. The report shows me about my speaking mistakes and then gives suggestion which contains the comments and how to improve my mistake I made.

I have learned a lot from this course. At first, I don’t know that computer can play such a big role in my English learning. I only used the computer to look up the dictionary before. After taking this course, I can use computer to improve my English skills including listening, speaking, and reading. These websites can let my English skills become better if I continue study English by using these websites which I learned from CALL class. I will continue to improve my English skills for sure and hope I can make progress.

#10 Open Course Ware

I haven't heard about Open Course Ware before until last Tuesday. It's my first time using this kind of websites. These websites are pretty interesting and amazing for me. I can choose the titles which I am interested in. Also most of the programs are held by very famous universities such as Harvard and massachusetts institute of technology and so on. Even if we can not take the class in person, we can use Open Course Ware to listen online. It can really help us not only to improve our English skills especially listening also to acquire more knowledge which we can't learn from the school. I do really think that it is a good way to enhance our English.

# 4 Steve Jobs’ Talk

#6 TED talks

This video is different from other TED video. This video's main character is a person who  is not the celebrity of a certain field. They are the staff of TED. The video is a kind of musical. Because of that, I am interested in this video.

#5 Love and loss

When I was a junior high school student, my father died in a car accident. At that time, I was collapsed. Though it is hard to believe that my father was gone, I have to be strong and take care of my family. After undergoing these hard time ,I start to concern about my family, getting close with they. The relationship between my family and I become more and more close. When going home on the weekend, I always spend most of time accompanying my family. By doing that way, I feel strong love among me and my family.

#3 Podcast

Listening is a very important and useful skill, but most of us do not concentrate on this. In our country, the teachers always focus on grammar, vocabulary, and reading. Wanting to improve our listening skill, we have to practice in our own. because of this reason, the teacher tell us this Podcast which is good for us to practice ourselves. This website is different from others which I used before. Podcast helps someone who is a learner from the first stage to practice, because the speed is not too fast for a beginner to catch what they are talking about. I also think Podcast as a beginning tool. It is good for us to spend about thirty minutes practicing listening , also  learning new vocabulary.

#2 Dictionary Exercise

1.commuter
    definition: a person who travels into a city to work each day, usually from quite far away
There are many commuter who go to downtown on the first train every morning.

2.psychological
    definition: connected with a person’s mind and the way in which it works
Some people have to deal with psychological problems.

3.reinforce
    definition:to make a feeling, an idea, etc. stronger
The experience reinforced my sense of loss.

4.analyse
    definition: to examine the nature or structure of something, especially by separating it into its parts, in order to understand or explain it
He analysed the various factors.

5.swap
    definition:to give something to somebody and receive something in exchange
I'll swap you my hat for shirts.

Before these class, I always look up the bilingual dictionary such as google or Yahoo.This calss suggest us to use monolingual dictionary which we can improve our English. During reading this kind of dictionary, I'll know how to explain the word and what is similar to the word.