Friday, April 25, 2008
Reflection
At first, I would like to say, time flies. Within a wink of eye, our computer assistant language learning class has come to an end. It is short indeed, however, I learnt a lot from this class, not only in English learning, but computer techniques such as making our own websites and doing podcasts. Looking back the whole lessons, I would like to thank to all my professors in this class for all the hard work they made for us. They help me to read, write and do researches by providing us different projects step by step. They also help me to learn the right format of writing. Of all those projects, I like the photo collection most, because personally I love taking photos and it is interesting to develop my own photo collection, which I’ve never done before. This project provided me this chance and I also learnt expressing and writing at the same time. If I have to pick a project that I like least, I would say the creating podcast project. It’s a lot of fun to hear my own voices from a record, but to be honest, I think a conversation should be natural and smooth rather than two people acting around a mike, it is a little awkward to me. But anyway, this is simply my own problem, I think it is also a good project for us practice speaking, writing and learning the culture difference at the same time. I tried to find some ideas that I can help to improve those projects, but I couldn’t think of any. -) I like all those projects, thanks to them, I learnt a lot of culture things too.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Writing differences? Quick answers
Do you think that writing in Chinese is more "colorful?" That is to say, when you are writing in Chinese, what images do you form in your head?
--Yes, I think that writing in Chinese is more “colorful”. I don’t think I can conclude this difference in several words but it is one of the biggest differences indeed from my point of view. The “more colorful” thing is, generally we don’t have a certain fixed way or format in writing, in another word, we have more freedom to write as many ways and words as we like to express our opinions like using idioms, poems or a story of myth or some famous people’s stories would be great helpful to out writings. When we write, it doesn’t necessary has to be very supportive sentences to topic, maybe we just want to describe it and make our writing more elegant and beautiful.
Chinese characters are very beautiful - when writing with these characters, tell us what is going on in your mind.
--This is an interesting question -) what's going on in my mind when I am writing? To be honest, I don't actually know. Characters are just characters, they are just words, maybe all those strokes in Chinese characters look awesome and hard to write, but in fact, once we memorize them, they are just like English vocabulary. Probably a better way to understand is that the strokes of Chinese characters are likes English letters and those characters are like English vocabulary. Once you remember those characters and know how to use them, they will pop up when you need to think of some ideas.
China has a long, rich, history - how does this long, rich, history affect you as a writer when you are writing in Chinese?
--Oh, I think the history do influence my writing and it influences in the way of my writing. Throughout the whole studying years that I’ve been taking, I met so many articles, stories written by the people in the past, their ideas, their thinking and their ways of writings are definitely affect my way of writing. Sometimes I like to reference some wonderful sentences from those excellent writers. And I think, because of history, the Chinese language became extensive and profound. From the ancient dynasties to nowadays, the language has changed enormously. Meanwhile, the fortune of literature accumulated continuously over the history. So in my opinion, the history made it possible for me to see variety of literature and help to form my own way of writing.
How do you feel when you must write in American English?
--I have to say that it made me a little uncomfortable when I start to write in American English, after all it is another language which I still don’t quite familiar with. The thing that I don’t like writing in American English most is that the standard of format is so strict, I have to spend so much time to write a acceptable reference.
In ENGL 396, many of your projects have involved the use of images, photos, and/or videos. Did using these items help you to express your ideas better in English? Why or why not?
--Yes, I think they are helpful. Learning English in a single way of reading vocabulary would be monotonously and boring. However, the use of image, photos and video help to motivate myself to express, and also help me to gain interests to express in English. Those images, photos and videos can be strongly supportive to my topics and they help me to explain my ideas. As many people would like to say, “A image is more than thousands of words”. That’s the power of those visual things. That's how they help me to express in English.
--Yes, I think that writing in Chinese is more “colorful”. I don’t think I can conclude this difference in several words but it is one of the biggest differences indeed from my point of view. The “more colorful” thing is, generally we don’t have a certain fixed way or format in writing, in another word, we have more freedom to write as many ways and words as we like to express our opinions like using idioms, poems or a story of myth or some famous people’s stories would be great helpful to out writings. When we write, it doesn’t necessary has to be very supportive sentences to topic, maybe we just want to describe it and make our writing more elegant and beautiful.
Chinese characters are very beautiful - when writing with these characters, tell us what is going on in your mind.
--This is an interesting question -) what's going on in my mind when I am writing? To be honest, I don't actually know. Characters are just characters, they are just words, maybe all those strokes in Chinese characters look awesome and hard to write, but in fact, once we memorize them, they are just like English vocabulary. Probably a better way to understand is that the strokes of Chinese characters are likes English letters and those characters are like English vocabulary. Once you remember those characters and know how to use them, they will pop up when you need to think of some ideas.
China has a long, rich, history - how does this long, rich, history affect you as a writer when you are writing in Chinese?
--Oh, I think the history do influence my writing and it influences in the way of my writing. Throughout the whole studying years that I’ve been taking, I met so many articles, stories written by the people in the past, their ideas, their thinking and their ways of writings are definitely affect my way of writing. Sometimes I like to reference some wonderful sentences from those excellent writers. And I think, because of history, the Chinese language became extensive and profound. From the ancient dynasties to nowadays, the language has changed enormously. Meanwhile, the fortune of literature accumulated continuously over the history. So in my opinion, the history made it possible for me to see variety of literature and help to form my own way of writing.
How do you feel when you must write in American English?
--I have to say that it made me a little uncomfortable when I start to write in American English, after all it is another language which I still don’t quite familiar with. The thing that I don’t like writing in American English most is that the standard of format is so strict, I have to spend so much time to write a acceptable reference.
In ENGL 396, many of your projects have involved the use of images, photos, and/or videos. Did using these items help you to express your ideas better in English? Why or why not?
--Yes, I think they are helpful. Learning English in a single way of reading vocabulary would be monotonously and boring. However, the use of image, photos and video help to motivate myself to express, and also help me to gain interests to express in English. Those images, photos and videos can be strongly supportive to my topics and they help me to explain my ideas. As many people would like to say, “A image is more than thousands of words”. That’s the power of those visual things. That's how they help me to express in English.
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