Category: Adnan

Hi everybody

I hope that everyone is doing well facing the storm of papers and finals that is blowing as we are wrapping up this semester. Concerning the score on that little quiz, I got 8. Actually I have no problem using semicolons in my writing. They really help me organize my writing sometimes though they are confusing if overused. Here is a paragraph from one of my writings in which I used semicolons.

“Taguchi (2007) used the Lexical Access Test (LAT) to measure participants’ speed in semantic classifications of individual words. The test contained 80 words and the test takers had to quickly determine whether the word that appeared on the screen is a living or a nonliving object. The words were familiar to speakers of English and were confirmed to be so by a 10-year experienced high school teacher (Taguchi, 2007).The general proficiency of participants was determined through the institutional TOEFL test. The author used this test to investigate the relation of pragmatic comprehension to the overall language knowledge (Taguchi, 2007). The students took the test twice; at the beginning and at the end of the 7-week program (Taguchi, 2007).”

Hi everyone,

As the the end of this semester is approaching, due times of submitting our assignments and papers are fighting over places on our calendars. However, there is some room–with a little bit of organization– for fun. Two weeks ago, I hung around with some friends of mine in Monterey and Carmel as well. It is important that study time is perforated by some fun. Anyways, time goes on and as I mentioned, the end of this semester is getting closer. As far as the project of this class is concerned, Maryam and I put an outline for the video first to keep track of the steps of the project. Then we started shooting the videos. We enjoyed this phase (though it was sort of taxing and time consuming sometimes) asking people about their opinions about our topic–passive and active voice. After collecting our data, we started trimming our videos and design our slides. We had some problems with transfering the videos because we used our own camera (Sony camera) to shoot the videos. However, the DLC staf was there to help us when necessary. They helped us transfer the video clips iinto another format that can be opened in iMovie program. We resumed our work and now we are done except for making the background sound slower. Tomorrow, Maryam and I will meet again and finish up the project, doing the final touches on it. Aside from this project, I have three other big papers for my TESOL classes. I will try try to enjoy the break (Thanksgiving week) doing my assignments. In fact, I’m more than ready for the winter break. A friend of mine (student at Saint Michael’s College-Vermont)  is visiting me here in Monterey. I hope that you all are having a good time and I wish you a happy break.

Adnan

It is unfortunate that sometimes teachers tell you that this is wrong or you have to replace this by this. And when you ask them why they are not always sure of their answers. Like what we read about White and Strunk, teachers often tell you what THEY think wrong and make that as a rule for future reference. As students, especially in the early stages of our learning journey, we had to agree. Further, we make stereotypes about grammar rules with the help of our teachers. Then we became older and liguistically aware of different perspectives about grammar, many thing began to make sense for us.

I was many times told not to use the passive voice that I began to hate it and avoid it as much as I can in my academic writing. HOWEVER, and I do not know whether White and Strunk would agree with using it in the beginning of the sentence, I started to understand when we use the passive voice and when we use the active voice. I agree with the autheor of the article we read that it is frustrating to see red-circled words on my paper without knowing the reason why this is wrong. There must be an understanding between the teacher and the students of the purpose behind this grammar point and not that one for instance. The same is said about apostrophes because it was not until recently that I knew the difference between “its” and “it’s”. I used to confuse them but my teachers helped me understand the difference.

 I believe that group work is important and beneficial in grad school. Dividing the work on this class project was helpful. Particularly, today was productive. After we finished up the outline for our project, Maryam and I decided to meet this morning again for our next step; shooting the video. I had never imagined how interesting this process would be until we met this morning and interviewed MIIS students on campus. Since our topic is concerned with passive and active voices, we decided to ask the students about the uses of both and we thought that it is a good idea to let the students change a sentence into passive. Again, I tremendously enjoyed interviewing students asking them few questions about the topic while Maryam professionally held the digital camera to document these happy moments. People were very helpful and kind in letting us take two minutes of their times. They were students from a mosaic of majors here at the institute. In short, I think that Maryam and I are doing a good job so far and the next step is to make power point slides and shoot another couple of videos.

In this week’s reading, the writer discussed the most four serious errors in writing in English. They are fragments, run-on sentences, problems with subject-verb agreement and problems with forms and tense. The writer started discussing the constituents of the English sentence with examples. He started with the subject. He said that the subject can be realized in many forms such as specific noun or proper noun (Peter), non-specific noun such as (the player), specific place such as (the kitchen) and non-specific place such as (public parks). He also tackled prepositions. Later, he began discussing verbs. Every sentence should contain at least one main verb. The writer also distinguished types of verbs such action verbs for example (play), linking verbs such as (seem, is). The other type of verbs is helping verbs such as (be, have, and modal verbs). As for the problems of writing, the writer started with fragments or incomplete sentences. Such type of errors poses a problem in academic writing. Let’s consider the following example: “I went to the market. With Ali”. This sentence has a problem because the second part should be joined with first one in order to have a complete meaning. In this case, we have to remove the period. The other problem is run-on sentences. This type of errors occurs when we have two main independent sentences joined together without periods, commas, conjunctions or semi-colon. For example, “the weather was nice outside we went on a trip”. This is a run-on sentence. To correct it we can put a conjunction like “therefore” between the sentences. Another correction would be inserting a semi-colon between them. I believe that these points presented in this chapter are important for us as students to enhance our academic writing. It is particularly important for international students because some students may sometimes use a style of writing from their native language but it turns to be a problem in English.

Arabic uses active voice more than passive. I can say it is almost always that we use active voice when we speak or write. In English, however, the case is different. English has specific situations in using both. This reason is one among several reasons why I wanted to talk about passive voice in English. I will be working with Maryam on the grammar video. I have some ideas to include in this project to help explain and at the same time learn about passive voice.

Talking about passive voice is particularly important for our class. Writing research papers and any other academic materials may sometimes focus on passive voice in the structure of sentences. For reasons such as emphasis and subject anonymousity, we use passive voice. Moreover, since it is a problematic area in writing, some students need some reviewing on this topic. For these reasons, I decided to join Maryam in working on this project. We will do our best to make this video meet the needs of students who want to learn about passive. We will also learn from teaching it to others through this video project.

In “Social Identity, Investment, and Language learning”, Pierce argues that SLA theorists have not approached the relationship between the language learner and the social world of that language. They could not provide a definition of this relation since they differentiated between the learner and the social context. Theorists attributed the failures in communication between the learner and the society as lack of motivation and argued that motivation represents a single united unchangeable concept. However, Pierce contends that motivation represents a changeable characteristic of an individual that should be related to the power relations. This motivation makes learners speak through the concept of investment that implies multiple identities for the learner in the society. 113 words

In “Social Identity, Investment, and Language learning”, Pierce argues that SLA theorists have not approached the relationship between the language learner and the social world of that language. However, Pierce contends that motivation represents a changeable characteristic of an individual that should be related to the power relations. 48 words

Pierce argues that SLA theorists have not approached the fact that motivation of a language learner should be related to the power relations. 23 words

Adnan’s writing process

As far as I’m concerned, writing is a process through which the writer reflects his/her ideas, style and even personality. some people consider writing as boring and laborious. Others, on the other hand, enjoy the whole process. I believe that it depends on the type of writing that we are doing. It depends on the genre that we are writing in.

I use language carefully in academic writing because formality and high register are required. However, I used to receive feedback from teachers and peers about my style. On the other hand, I have no problems writing journals, because they tend to be rather informal. Further, in journals, you write about what is going on in your mind. However, I sometimes have problems with transitions and developing idea through the text as well as with formality. As a result, and taking the placement test that we had before the semester started, I ended up taking this class.

The last workshop that we had was helpful to me to a very large extent. Observing your writing through different eyes is in fact useful. In other words, the feedback that I received from my peers was insightful and helped me figure out some gaps that I would never see them by my own. My classmates mentioned many things about my transitions and noted some unclear statements. The feedback that I received from the teacher was also of a high importance due to her insightful comments and the experience that she possess in the field of writing. All of these factors contribute to enhancing my writing in throughout this semester.

The readings that we had were also useful. They helped me know how to cut my sentences short and be to the point. The reading about simplicity is also helpful in understanding how to express myself in simple words through the writing. Cohesion and coherence handouts that we covered were another source of assistance to me because I applied what I learned on my writing.

In short, we can make the process of writing as intriguing or as a nightmare. Maybe my personal opinion is different from others, but I believe that if we do not have the will to write, we should not try to write a sentence. If we were writing for a class, our sentences will be messy and impact our scores. Finally, I can say apply what you learn in your writing and let your ideas flow. Enjoy the process.

As far as I’m concerned, writing is a process through which the writer reflects his/her ideas, style and even personality. some people consider writing as boring and laborious. Others, on the other hand, enjoy the whole process. I believe that it depends on the type of writing that we are doing. It depends on the genre that we are writing in.

In academic writing I’m always careful with the language I use. Formality and high register words are required in this situation. However, I used to receive feedback from teachers and peers about my style. Writing journals on the other hand, I have no problems. Instead, I enjoy writing them because they tend to be rather informal. Further, in journals, you write about what is going on in your mind. However, I sometimes have problems with transitions and developing idea throught the text as well as with formality. As a result, and taking the placement test that we had before the semester started, I ended up taking this class.

The last workshop that we had was helpful to me to a very large extent. Observing your writing through different eyes is in fact useful. In other words, the feedback that I received from my peers was insightful and helped me figure out some gaps that I would never see them by my own. My classmates mentioned many things about my transitions and noted some unclear statements. The feedback that I received from the teacher was also of a high importance due to her insightful comments and the experience that she possess in the field of writing. All of these factors contribute to enhancing my writing in through out this semester.

The readings that we had were also useful. They helped me know how to cut my sentences short and be to the point. The reading about simplicity is also helpful in understanding how to express myself in simple words through the writing. Cohesion and coherence handouts that we covered were another source of assistance to me because I applied what I learned on my writing.

In short, we can make the process of writing as intriguing or as a nightmare. Maybe my personal opinion is different from others, but I believe that if we do not have the will to wirite, we should not try to write a sentence. If we did, it would be messy and impact our scores, for example, if we were writing something for a class. Finally, I can say apply what you learn in your writing and let your ideas flow. Enjoy the process.

Culture shock means the feeling that people experience once they
move to live, temporarily or permanently, in a society which is substantially
different from their own. As a result, they feel stressed, homesick, alienated
and most importantly culturally shocked. In this paper, a special focus will be
dedicated to Arab students from the Middle-East living in the American society.
Most of those students experience culture shock for a variety of differences
that would be discussed in the next part of the paper.