SELF-ASSESSMENT OF SUCCESS IN LEARNING ESP

Every semester we write summaries of self-assessment as we need critically evaluate our knowledge and achievements in English.
WRITING A SUMMARY. This task is a little bit complicated for me. Despite of the fact that we are practicing at this, I still have some difficulties to write good restatement summary. The main mistakes remain the same in my summaries: some grammar mistakes and content mistakes as well, which involve not appropriate length of the text, too many details instead of concentration on the main facts. So I need to extract the main ideas of a text, consider every sentence in my summary and accurately check every word if I want to write a good summary.
WRITING COMPREHENSION TESTS ON MODULES IN PSYCHOLOGY. This semester tests were different as we were get used to learn definitions and write them. These tests required more efforts and comprehension skills as they included multiple choice questions and applying of learnt definitions in the sentence. The latter one I found the most difficult, because I am not sure I could find the right sentence for each definition.
MAKING POWER POINT PRESENTATIONS. This task is very interesting for me, because I can learn something new and present this to other people. In fact, this semester I was not able to concentrate on this task and prepare to it very well as we had very busy and complicated subjects requiring a lot of time and studies.
IMPROMPTU SPEAKING IN CLASS. I tried to improve my speaking skills this semester. Maybe the result could be better. I am still afraid about my mistakes and pronunciation, so I do not get used to express my ideas impromptu.
PERFORMANCE IN LISTENING PRACTICE. This semester we had quite a lot of practice in this field and I appreciate this, because it was very necessary for improvement of my listening skills. But assessing my skills critically, I know that I need to expand my vocabulary in order to understand everything and also I must to improve my writing skills concerning grammar that I could write down what I hear correctly.
WRITING CONTRIBUTIONS TO E-PORTFOLIO (WEBLOG). Writing contributions is very interesting task for me, because it develops my creativity. Unfortunately, I had not enough time for this task this semester as it was very busy and complicated. So I need to renew my weblog with new articles, photos that my friends, family members or all people using internet could look at it and maybe find something interesting, new and unexpected about psychology.
To sum up, I had some challenges about my English this semester, but this helped to improve some skills. I know some fields as speaking, listening require more efforts, time and further learning.

Self – assessment of podcasting skills

Online listening to podcasts was new challenge for me because we have never done such a task before. I selected two podcasts from the given list: the fist one “Treatment of teenage depression” and the second one “Sleep and memory”.

After listening to both podcasts some remarks concerning self-assessment can be done.

The rate of speaking was average with some moments of quite fast rate of speech. So it was not so difficult to listen to, and three times for each podcast was enough. I noticed that listening to the second podcast was easier because I got some practice during the first one.

Speaking about the exercises I had to do after listening, open-ended questions were more difficult to answer, comparing to exercises of multiple choice. Open – ended questions required more time because I had to consider the answer accurately. Multiple choice questions are more common in listening tasks, so I needed just to overlook the possible answers and to choose the right one.

Listening to the authentic speech I found difficult as my listening skills are just satisfactory, not very good. This fact is the reason I do not think I would be able to pass a listening exam paper today or next week. I need more preparation and listening practice in order to do this.

In my opinion, there are some useful ways for improvement of my listening skills. Firs of all, I need to listen to podcasts as often as possible. Secondly, listening tasks in class are also very important. Finally, I should watch English films or English TV channels in my spare time.

In conclusion, this new listening task was interesting and useful for improvement of my listening skills. It is good method of preparation for English exam paper as well.