Task 2

Analyse your own language abilities and needs

This is an analysis of my abilities. Though I did this task last month, I have a new understanding of my personal standard of English, because of the two-month study.

The study of this month mainly focused on writing. And I found that I am really poor at writing. In my essay, there are a lot of mistakes on grammar and vocabulary. I still need do some more reading to improve my writing skills.

But speaking and listening are much better than last month. So the environment is so important to the English study. Beside above, reading also made some progress. Everyday I spend some time to do some reading on newspaper. At the same time, I learnt more British culture from the reading.

self-study

Love in an unlikely season

Today I read a story of the true love between two old people which written by Marjorie Holmes. This is a really story happened in her life. The story begins with I’ve Got to Talk to Somebody, God one of books she wrote.

One day she received a call from a man who has a rich male voice. “You saved my life,” he said to Marjorie, “I love you.” And after that, they had their first date. Then as a lot of love story, they were fall in love. Because of the age and some other reason, Marjorie was not very confident at the beginning. But at last, they got married.

“As a young woman, I dreamed of marrying a man who would always be crazy about me. When things didn’t turn out that way, I was bitterly disillusioned. Then I grew up and accepted some ancient truths—there are different kinds of love. There is romance, and there is devotion. Romance, we are warned, is fleeting. So we must settle down and be content. For years, I lived that way. And then, George found me. In the ten years, six months and eight days we had been together—before he died of lung cancer in 1992—I had both romance and devotion, and I learned what happiness really was. As the groom was told at the wedding in Cana: truly, the best wine was saved for the last.” Said by Marjorie after many years.

I am really felt sensationless after reading this story. At the same time, I learned some new vocabulary from the passage.

For example:
Protest vt. Mean disagree with something.
e.g. She protested strongly at his suggestion.

Desperation n.
e.g. She is in an agony of desperation.

Façade n.
e.g. Poverty lay behind the city’s glittering façade.

self-study

The murderer rapped by his son’s DNA.

The news told the reader a story about the police caught the murderer by his son’s DNA after 17 years. When I saw this passage, I felt sad and gratified. Though the murderer named Tobin were caught 17 years later, it still is a comfort for the victim, who was just 15 when she die, and her parents.

“Tobin should rot in the hell,” said by killer’s son.

As his son, I feel shame and angry. Nobody want the father like him. Before he was separated from my mother, I began hating him because he always beating my mother and me. He gave me a very bad influence, but I won’t be the person like him. Because of my mother gave me good education. Now I don’t know the other people see me. If I were not his son, I should have a better life.

Task 17

Reflective writing

This passage is about the seminar on this Monday which is about the “fighting crime with science”. Due to we attended to the lecture, we got a lot of information of the media and crime.

In the seminar, we talked a lot about “surveillance society” and different situations in different countries. In most countries, namely Germany, they use the surveillance system on the highway, bank and some supermarket. There also some special example: in China, they use the cameras in the classroom only for the most important exam.

Though most in our group agree with the surveillance system is useful, we agree with the arguments for reducing the use of this surveillance technology. Because the overweigh using of surveillance will breaches personal privacy. Moreover, we believed that in the future, there will be more laws to protect our privacy.

Task 9

Library resources for seminar/writing preparation

Bearing the topic of this month is media; I should find some more information on it to do the better job. Due to the second essay is about the surveillance system, it is important to prepare some data and information for the subject. I took some notes about the article on my essay title by reading some book which related to the topic.

“The media fulfill three societal roles: surveillance of the larger environment, achieving consensus among segments of society, and transmission of culture including validation of civil society values. Media content analysis applied to a consistent sample over time will allow monitoring of an issue’s progress from a state of disambiguation to legitimation and routinization.” （by Harold Lasswell ）

From his passage, I knew the main reason why the society need the surveillance system is to given the proof of crime. Though the media can not control the rate of crime happened, it still make people feel safer.

In addition, I found the relationship between the media and crime. The surveillance system become more and more famous because of the increase of crime, at the same time more and more people begin to think about whether it infract their privacy.

Task 3

Diagnostic Language Test and follow-up

In the first week of this month, Simon gave us a diagnostic language test which was quiet different from last month. I completed it and found my poorest area.

Organizing information is my poorest area in this test. When I did the first essay this month, I lose a lot of mark because of the poor organizing. So it is important to improve it. Bearing this mind, I went to the ENGLISH-ZONE which is a useful website for English study. I did some test on this last month about the vocabulary, and thought it’s really helpful. Moreover there are many students in my last group use this website, and most of them think English-zone is nice.

This time, I found some test about the grammar. I believed that grammar is the basic of organizing. There also are some introductions about how to use the modals and auxiliary verbs just like the picture below.


After that I found some passage about how to write the essay. Due to I got a low mark of the first essay, I should get more information about it. The English-zone really help me a lot.

Task 12

THE LECTURE

Last Friday, I attended a lecture in our university. The topic of the lecture named 'fighting crime with science'.

Nowadays a lot of science and technology were used into the fight for crime. Just like the surveillance system and CCTV. They are really helpful. Firstly, the lecture gave us an example of how the media help the police to find the student who killed his professor: The CCTV which is in the room where the violent took place saw the part of face of the student. After that the police found many things that the student had ever toughed and worn. So they got the DNA of the student in order to identify the killer.

Beside all above, we knew something more. There are many cameras around us. When we walk along the street or buy some food in the supermarket, we are seeing by some others. More and more people believe the surveillance system breaches their life.

So everything has two sides. Though the surveillance system is really helpful to the police and fight for crime, it can not keep the people far away from dangers.

From this lecture, I got a lot of knowledge of media and crime. Moreover, it really helpful to my listening skills for understanding lectures and talks.