Final assignment

Reflection Paper

In the beginning, my classmate encouraged me to choose this course, she said it would be very helpful for my English learning. I hesitated about that, because I am poor at English. After discussing with my classmate, I decided to choose this class. I hoped it could improve my English skills.

In this semester, teacher introduced lots of useful online tools and websites that I have never seen before, such as online dictionary, podcast, TED, MyET, and Open CourseWare. I can enhance my English writing, listening, and reading by using these tools.

I was very impressed by open courseware. I have not visited any of the open courseware before. It is very convenient and useful. I prefer to use Edx, it provides free online courses from many universities. I can choose the course that I am interested in. After watching the video, I can discuss with other students and share my opinions. Moreover, if I finish a course, I can get the certificate, and it is useful for me to get a better job in the future.

I was also impressed by TED. It provides lots of speech that inspire me very much. I like the speech “How to speak so that people want to listen” by Julian Treasure. He said that if we want our speech to be powerful and to make change in the world, there are four really powerful cornerstones that we can stand on, is “honesty, authenticity, integrity, and love”. At school, we have lots of opportunity to speak in front of people or communicate with others. I think this speech can help me to make more people listen to me.

I have never known that there is so much information about English learning on the internet. In the past, I just use Google translate and Google search. But now, I know lots of online tools, they are so convenient and useful. I can use these websites to help me learning English without the limitation of time or space.  

In the future, if I have an English report or homework, I will use these online tools. Moreover, I hope that I can write blog every week to share my opinion or emotion. I am happy that I chose this class, I learned lots of knowledge. It is very interesting and helpful for me. 

#7 OpenCourseWare

I have not visited any of the opencourseware before. The opencourseware is different from the courses that we learned at school. It is very convenient and useful. I prefer to use Edx, it provides free online courses from many universities. We can choose the course that we are interested in. After watching the video, we can discuss with other students and share our opinions. If we finish a course, we can get the certificate, and it is useful for us to get a better job in the future.

#6 How to speak so that people want to listen

Julian Treasure: How to speak so that people want to listen

Many people have the experience that when they speak, people don't listen to them. Why is that? How can we speak powerfully to make change in the world? 
Julian Treasure said that there are some habits we need to move away from our speaking, such as gossip, judging, negativity, complaining, excuses, embroidery, exaggeration and dogmatism. He suggest that there are four really powerful cornerstones, foundations, that we can stand on if we want our speech to be powerful and to make change in the world. The word is "hail," and it has a great definition as well. The H is honesty. The A is authenticity. The I is integrity. And the L is love.

I think this is a very powerful talk, I learned a lot from it. Julian Treasure give us a toolbox for effective communication, it's very useful. I want to be listened by people when speaking. However, it is not so easy to do it, but I believe practice makes one perfect.

#4 Steve Jobs' speech

• Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
• You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. Because believing that dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart.
• Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
• Time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life.
• Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition.
• If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.
• Stay hungry, stay foolish.

#3 Podcast

I think podcast is an useful learning resource. I like it very much. Because its speed of conversation is slow, we can listen clearly. The host not only repeat the conversation in normal speed but also explain the vocabulary and phrase in English.
Through this website, we can train our listening ability, and we can also learn lots of vocabulary that we don't understand. Moreover, it provides the mp3 for everyone to download, so we can listen it anywhere. It is such a convenient tool for us to improve our listening ability.

#2 Dictionary Exercise

Commuter noun
A person who travels into a city to work each day, usually from quite far away.
The five o’clock train is always packed with commuters.

Correspondingly adverb
In a way that matches or is connected with something that you have just mentioned.
The cost of living in the city is more expensive, but salaries are supposed to be correspondingly higher.

Disruption noun
A situation in which something is prevented from continuing in its usual way.
The accident on the main road through town is causing widespread disruption for motorists.

Reinforce verb
1.To make something stronger.
    The experience reinforced my sense of loss.
2.If something reinforces an idea or opinion, it provides more proof or support for it and makes it seem true.
    All buildings are now reinforced to withstand earthquakes.
3.To make a group of people, especially an army, stronger by adding people, equipment.
    The UN has undertaken to reinforce its military presence along the borders.

Swap verb
1.To give something to somebody and receive something in exchange.
    I swapped my red scarf for her blue one.
2.To start doing somebody else's job, etc. while they do yours.
    I'll drive there and then we'll swap over on the way back.
3.To replace one person or thing with another

    I think I'll swap this sweater for one in another color.

These online dictionaries are very useful and convenient for us to look up the words that we don't know. I prefer to use Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionaries and Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionaries. Their definitions are clear, and they provides good sentences of the words. I hope I can learn more vocabulary through these online dictionaries. 

#1 Hello~

Hello everyone, my name is Vivian. Nice to meet you! I'm from the department of Accounting Information. I'm not good at English, but I hope that I can strengthen my English ability by this class. My hometown is Hualien. It is a beautiful place. There are lots of beautiful scenery and delicious foods there. Taroko National Park is the most famous attraction in Hualien. If you want to relax yourselves, you can go there, and enjoy the clean air. I like watching movie and listening the music in my leisure time. I just saw the movie "Kingsman: The Secret Service" few days ago, I recommend you to see this movie, it is very interesting!