Class Review

The spring semester of 2015, I took the English 187. In overall the class was great. However, I think there were too much Chinese speakers. Therefore, I think the writing, listening and reading I could learn more, but in the speaking I barely used English. I learned many things by writing each essay and recording the errors. It was a new way to see and understand where was my most common mistake in the writing process. I think a good idea for this class is to read an English book and write resume or having quizzes about it. This way I could improve my vocabulary and my reading speed in English. The research paper was a little complicated for me because I miss some important classes about how to write a research paper. The research paper was long and at same time sort. Once we started to write, the time was flying away and all exams and projects were coming along. I did not organize myself to write this paper in time. In addition, I did not really put effort in the first, second drafts. I think I am almost prepared for the college writing. I do not have the confidence to say that I am really because sometimes I still make some silly mistakes in grammar and spelling. I think I should have given more attention to this class to have a higher grade. Comparing to the previous semester I think I put more effort, but it was not enough. In summer, I will take the English 150 with Native American speakers it will be a challenge for me, but I think it will highly increase my quality of writing to be more mature and smooth. I really liked the class even sometimes there were too much work. Thank you professor Crystal.

Blog

During this semester I think my writing have been improving. At the beginning of the semester I had many errors in subject verb agreement, wrong word use, and miss of articles. Recording the errors in the pattern sheet helped me to realize my writing was not as good as I thought. The errors pattern sheet showed me my usual mistake, which is almost the same over and over. Therefore, after recording many times I started to pay more attention in my common mistake sentence situation. I think these mistakes are made by lack of revising the paper. I am a faster writer, so maybe as the idea came out I forgot to revised and read out loud I start to miss some articles in the sentence or words that are important. Other occasions is when I use the wrong word thinking that this word is the meaning that I meant in the paper, so I used many words that sounds alike, but the spelling was different or words that are similar to Portuguese, but does not have the same meaning. In addition, the most common mistake made by ESL students, which is the subject verb agreement and these errors are very often in my papers. After, knowing this problem I start to revise my paper marking all subject in all sentences; then, I could see clearly which conjugation of verb fit perfect in the sentence. Moreover, the number of the mistakes start to get lower and lower. In sum, I think I have been improving, gaining confidence to write and the idea of recording the error is a perfect way to understand your errors and recognized them.