Learning languages

Learning languages is very important in our world today. Many cultures in the world are blending especially with the growth of the internet and travel industries. Let's face it, we are interacting more with people of different languages now than ever before. So learning foreign language is useful and ordinary thing. There are various methods of learning other language.
Firstly, teacher is really influential in the learning process. There are a lot of possible ways to help learning language. The most important way in my opinion is setting regular homework, because it helps to remember known information and get a lot of new knowledge. Second one is getting students to work in pairs or groups. It helps to express your opinion with other and better understand themes. Working through past examination papers is also very useful.
Absolutely, you must attempt if you want to learn language and find the way which is the most suitable for you. There are some unhelpful in the long run and some very good language learning habits. For instance, translate every unknown word as you read. Sometimes it is helpful but in the long run it can become useless, because in some situations you can’t look it up in the dictionary - you must understand text from the context. Nevertheless, guess unknown words as you read is also not so advantageous in all situations. Both habits are useful just in some cases. Also, only speaking in class when you are sure you won’t make a mistake is really bad habit. We are learning from our mistakes.
Moreover, there a lot of good learning habits. Very useful habit is to keep a vocabulary notebook and revise new vocabulary regularly. You must do this in order to develop your vocabulary. There are some more important habits. For example, reading newspapers or magazines outside class, watching films, TV shows in other language, speaking only foreign language in class. The last one is very influential, because you get good practice in speaking and this will be very helpful for talking with native speakers.
In conclusion, everyone uses some established methods in order to learn foreign language. But also we develop our own learning habits and skills, which are the most suitable for us and helps us to learn language as good as possible.

Professor Richard Wiseman’s experiments

Professor Richard Wiseman is very famous and licensed psychologist. Professor Wiseman has established international authority and reputation for his research into unusual areas of psychology, including deception, luck and the paranormal. Prof Wiseman’s research has been featured on over 150 television programmes.

One of his television shows is “The People Watchers”. This BBC programme is made by Professor Richard Wiseman and his team. This team comprises of members: Sara Clarke, psychologist; Dr Jack Lewis, neuroscientist; Emma Kenny, psychologist. There are a lot of experiments concerning human behaviour done by this team.

One of experiments is made by Jack Lewis. He tries to show that people like you more when they help to you. There was a situation then the girl helped Jack twice in a few minutes and did his job. After this Richard Wiseman’s team asked her what she thought about Jack. The girl’s answer was surprising: in her opinion Jack was very helpful man. In conclusion, the more you be asked the more you are liked.

Second experiment was made by Emma Kenny. Emma watched what kind of notes were the most suitable for keeping her clients out side the door: a small printed, a large printed or hand written notes. The answer was the hand written notes. For instance, one woman did not want to go inside because note was so informal.

There are more interesting experiments. For example, one experiment shows that people are more likely to help women not for man. One of the girl asked people to use their mobile and most of people gave her to call. Than Jack asked people to help they did not want to help him and did not trust him.

Professor Richard Wiseman is exciting person and deserved in psychology. He did various experiments which are very interesting and useful to read or watch for development of your knowledge in psychology.

Studies of psychology in diffrent universities

       Psychology is very important subject suggested by many universities all over the world. It is worth to compare our university to some other universities in the field of psychology in order to find out some similarities and differences. 

       Firstly, my object of comparison is the Psychology programmes in The American University in Cairo with studies in our university. Unfortunately, I have found just programme of the first course of The American University. So, I am comparing just subjects of the first year studies. As we all know, we need to have forty credits then we finish our first course and the similar amount of credits is required in the American University- there you have to have about thirty-six credits. The strange fact is that all subjects have three credits there and in our university every subject has different number of credits. Some subjects are the same as in our university, for instance, Theories of Personality, Introduction to Psychology. There are some objects which would engage me in the American university, for example, Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Psychological Testing and Assessment, but I hope we will have these objects later. There is also Lifespan Development in this university but I think that it is very similar to Positive Thinking that we have possibility to learn in our university. 

        My second case of comparing includes our university and the University of Leeds which is one of the best universities in UK. According to information I have found about the course of psychology in this university I am considering the aspect of all studies of psychology in both universities. The period of studies is different: you have to study psychology for four years in Lithuania and the studies are shorter -three years in UK. On the other hand, the number of credits you have to get during every year of studies is the same: forty credits, 20 per semester. The system of choosing and learning the subjects of psychology during years of studies is quite different. You are required to attend fixed amount of compulsory subjects and you can freely choose some elective subjects according to your interest during every semester in our university. On contrary, you get a list of compulsory subjects for all three years in the University of Leeds and you can make your own individual schedule of studies. In fact, statistics and use of statistical packages is offered to cover at the start of the first semester and original research project, which is worth 40 credits, is recommended to complete during the last year of studies in this university. It is interesting that other subjects have the same amount of credits -10 there and the amount of credits for every subject is different in our university. Also I noticed that students have quite smaller number of subjects during all studies in UK, but they are deeply studying compulsory subjects. I think the areas covered by different subjects are very similar in both universities: cognition, emotion, motivation, visual perception and language, developmental psychology & individual differences, neuropsychology, learning & motivation, social psychology and so on. It was very interesting for me to find out that University of Leeds strongly encourages to attend the programme of Research Seminars, featuring world-leading researchers summarising their recent, often ground-breaking work.

        In the first case I was comparing the programmes of short period of studies in two different universities and found out that the subjects of studying are quite similar. The second case of comparison showed more differences especially in the system of studies. In conclusion, I think that the programme of our university is very good and comprehensive comparing to other universities. 

References:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/

http://catalog.aucegypt.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=11&poid=1146&bc=1

Happiness

Happiness is very relevant and important feeling. There are a lot of books, articles about it nowadays.
According to psychological researchers, happiness is life experience marked by a preponderance of positive emotion. In my opinion, every person has this feeling inside.

Firstly, people have their biological instincts. We must satisfy our instincts (such as eating, drinking, sleeping and so on), because we can’t think about psychic things without this. 

Secondly, we are a part of society. So, we need communication and close relationships with other people, otherwise we feel inadequate and lonely, we can’t realize ourselves. Of course, money and comfortable life is also significant, but it is important not for all people - it depends on our personal qualities. 

Thirdly, positive mind has great influence on our feeling happy. For example, if a person has some problems, he can feel happy and satisfied if he thinks positively and sees good sides of life. Thought is very powerful: if we believe that our life is terrible, it really becomes terrible. 

In conclusion, almost everything is in our hands, our mind and feelings. So, in my opinion happiness is very individual feeling and every person must find its own way to be happy.  

Restatement summary “The mystery of memory”

Memory is the field of interest and research for a long time. 

Firstly psychologists made distinction between short-term and long-term of memory: information we remember jus for a short time and information which is not lost and stored for a long period of time.

There are many different kinds of memory. There is procedural and declarative memory. Procedural memory is about how we must do a lot of things and use it. Declarative memory is about how we recognize things. Also the difference between recognition and recall is pointed out. Experiments prove this difference. Also we have photographic memory based on tastes, smells or colours in the period of childhood. Memories are made in the way of creating new patterns of connections, consisting of nerve cells. Information we need to remember something is stored in different regions of the brain. 

The memory remains interesting and mysterious, because nowadays neuroscientists are still doing research how these regions and processes are connected and capable to give information called memory.

Francesca Steele I have nomophobia: fear of being without a mobile Summary

A mobile phone is very important and necessary communicative means in the 21st century. A lot of people do not imagine their life without mobile phone, feel stress then do not have it with themselves, so they have nomophobia. Nomophobia is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Francesca Steele has performed an experiment about this fear. Francesca Steele decided to live a week without a mobile phone.

 Primarily, she turned off her mobile phone. She felt confused and stressed because she was thinking about it all the time and wanted check her phone on the first day. All week turned out to be a total disaster. Francesca missed trains, she was constantly late on appointments. She could not even meet up with her friends.

On the other hand, this experiment had some positive sides. Francesca spoke with her parents on a landline and chatting on the landline was certainly more relaxing and focused. 

In conclusion, Francesca Steele understood that without mobile phone she could not live her normal and full-rate life. So, she accepts that she has nomophobia and promises to keep her mobile phone always near and never turn it off. 

Analytical summary

Sleep and Dreams

"Sleep and dreams" is the 14th module in Robert S. Feldman's course book "Understanding Psychology". You can get very useful information about sleep and dreams in this module. For instance, we get to know more about different stages of sleep, sleep disturbances, theories of dreams.

Firstly, author sets out four stages of sleep and explains that every of them are necessary for us. The writer broadly describes REM stage. Furthermore, we can deepen one’s knowledge about the importance of sleep and how much sleep is absolutely required.

Secondly, we are introduced with mysterious subject– dreams and meaning of them. Moreover, author represents three major theories, which are very important for the meaning of dreaming. Also, we can read about sleep disturbances. Besides, Robert S. Feldman supplies various tasks and questions for recap. So, we have a possibility to remember all information perfectly.  

In conclusion, the writer gives various and exciting information about sleep and dreams. This knowledge has importance for us – future psychologists.