reflective journal 4

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

WEEK 4

This week we practised note taking in listening class. In oral presentation class we discussed the strategies towards a successful oral presentation. In reading class we practised summary writing. Also, this week we were given our first 1000 word writing assignment on the topic of herbal medicine.
Herbal medicine is quite interesting topic. Although I have a basic knowledge of some commonly used herbs learning more about them through researching and reading would definitely be a useful future reference.
Due to many side effects of conventional medicine, many people turn to alternative medicine. Although alternative treatments can not cure diseases, they can prevent many serious problems.
Many conventional medicine practitioners oppose treatments with herbs in belief that they not as good as conventional medicine. Significant interest in herbal remedies proves that people trust them more then they do chemically made drugs. Using herbs and combining them with conventional preparations could provide better treatment, so integration of both could be of enormous benefit.

reflective journal 3

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

WEEK 3


This week we did a lot of class discussion and reading exercises. We also practised note taking and were introduced to elements of computer. It was an intensive week. We began the week study with writing class, where we discussed differences of deductive and inductive style of writing. With this lesson we concluded a topic on academic culture. Up to this point, we learned a many features of academic text. We learned that academic text is always logical, rational and impersonal. Every statement in academic text needs to be supported by evidence, in reverse claims not supported by evidence have to be qualified using qualifying words such as: may, many, some etc.In academic text opinion is called position. It differs from personal opinion in the sense that it is impersonal and needs evidence. A position always needs to be supported by verifiable evidence. In some instance, an academic text can have a personal opinion only if; writer is taking a responsibility for his statement or, is presenting an academic text/argument based on his /her research study.

Furthermore, we looked at descriptive and analytical approach to academic text. Descriptive text provides information about the subject, while analytical analyses the text through comparison and contrast. Last, we learned deductive and inductive style of writing. Deductive text features a statement of position supported by evidence and concludes with re-statement of position, while deductive text presents a reason first and than leads to conclusion. Deductive style is the one accepted at University.

Similarly to writing class, we discussed Academic culture in reading class in slightly different way. We read and talked about difficulties overseas students encounter studying in Australia. The ‘culture shock’ it is called. Some of the social aspects of difficulties that overseas students face are: finding hard to adapt to a new environment, make new friends and missing their loved once.
From academic point of view, language barriers, adjusting ti a new study pattern are more common difficulties.

In listening class, we practised note taking and then learned how to look and listen for directions (clues) to lecture excerpt. We also did an exercise on text prediction.

Overall week was full on learning. We were given a lot of hand-outs. There is a fairly
large amount of reading to do.
Writing tasks still cause me a headache. I have to deeply concentrate and brainstorm my thoughts. I need time to come with writing that I am happy with. I spend time re-reading and re-writing my thoughts in better words and sentences. I hope my flow of writing will improve with practice.
I also feel a bit anxious about a computer class. My computer skills are pretty basic. Knowing that I need to type my writing on to computer is an extra time consuming task to do. But practise makes perfect, so hopefully it will work for me.

reflective journal 2

REFLECTIVE jOURNAL


WEEK 2


This week we studied strategies for effective reading in the reading class and discussed academic culture in more detail in writing class.

Some of the strategies towards effective reading are skimming through a book to get an idea of the concept, guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words by looking at the whole sentence to find the role of the word in a sentence and scanning for details.
I always use a dictionary for new words, and I do write my new words in the book, so that I can remember them, go over them and understand the meaning to be able to recognise them in a future and confidently use them in my writing.
I do not know how effective my reading would be If I was guessing the meaning of the words. I like to fully understand what I read.

In writing skills class we explored academic text and learned some of the features of it. We look at the difference between academic and non-academic text. We learned that academic text is always logical, rational and impersonal. Also, in academic text claims have to be supported by evidence and facts need to be precise, while in non-academic text that is not necessary. Non –academic text can carry personal opinion, but academic text is always impersonal. The difference between two are easily recognisable.
The other feature of academic text we discussed was descriptive and analytical approach to academic text.
I found this not clear enough, because the text used in the book to show differences between texts were taken from economics and management subjects hard to understand. I found it a bit confusing, although I knew that descriptive refers to describing and analytical to breaking something in parts and analysing it, I had to spend more time in reading texts again to clarify it.
If we had more time in class to discuss academic text in more detail It would have been much clearer.

In this week journal, I focused my attention to reading and writing classes as I believe that they carry important foundation skills and strategies towards writing academically successful assay.

Journal week 1

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL



WEEK 1



First week was short and went fast.
In our reading and listening classes we spent some time in getting to know each other. It was nice to meet all the new people in the class, and to hear something about them. Some
People had gone through very rough times, their life experience were quite touching.

Apart from this, we had some work to do.
In our listening class we listened to a recorded University lecture – Comprehension lecture. We had to take notes, and than answer the questions.
It was challenging enough to get the information down on the paper, quickly. I was able to get most of it and answer the questions.

In writing class we discussed the topic on Academic culture. We had a writing task at the end of our lesson. That did not go so smoothly for me, because I did not know what to write.

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