The EPP 106 Experience
Reflections on a successful semester
Prof's Corner
EPP 106 is always a challenge. In the beginning, you were all challenged by the fact that you didn't want to take any more English classes. Wasn't passing the TOEFL enough!? As we continued, that challenge evolved. Eventually, you realized the difficulty of the course and the areas of English that you needed to improve on. Here are some of your reflections about what you've learned about English and yourselves from this past semester.
Review Games
You all impressed me with your professionalism and enthusiasm as you prepared our monthly review games. I learned about new types of games that I will share with my future students.
Writing Mentors
I was so happy to see you all visiting the Writing Mentors and revising your essays. I was happy to see that you understood the importance of revision in the writing process!
Great Memories
All of you made a long class so much fun. Your energy and enthusiasm made our classroom a warm environment for your classmates and a great place to learn.
Reading
Qingyang
"We did the same reading practice for three times at the beginning, middle and end of the semester. And it is for compare with ourselves that how our reading skills improve after study. This is a good way for ourselves to see the differences between before study and after. Although I am not good at reading, I still thought that I have something changed by doing practice."
Raphael
"Reading allowed me to acquire new capacities to develop my ideas in English. I read my first English book called 1984. Because I have to focus on my partner’s essays about this book, I had improved my writing and reading skills in English. Moreover, I learned new vocabularies and I also understood how to work with someone else. I did not have to study by myself but with different classmates in a way to compare our essays."
Writing
Angie
"When I started this class I notice that my writing was really weak, even in a simple sentences because I made a lot of mistakes in its structure. I remember when I had the make just one paragraph of summary, I felt it was the harder thing to do, but now I am really surprise how I improve my writing skill, that I am able to create an all complete essay. Obviously I still making mistakes, but I am still learning too."
Alex
"[At first] I felt very uncertain because I knew that my writing skills were not really good at this time. For this reason I was disappointed and had a little bit of feared because my classmate’s level of writing was in contrast to my more advanced."
"I think where I mostly improved is the vocabulary and how I can use this vocabulary in different situations. Because of this developing of vocabulary I learned in which ways the using of vocabulary change the meaning of sentences. I demonstrated this progress in my essays by using more specific vocabulary on the right points the sentences of my essay. The right using of this words gave my words a specific meaning and a more academic sense."
Michi
"I feel like the structure of an essay is one of the strongest areas of my writing itself. Learning how an essay should be written and studying all the notes from class has helped me to understand better how to write an essay. I feel my last work it’s easy to read because it presents all the structure needed to write in an academic way. The division in paragraphs, including all the requirement needed for each paragraph, make the essay fluent and easy to read."