Final Reflection looking back on ARW

1) What are the most valuable things you learned in ARW winter?

The most valuable things that I learned form ARW winter are the three skills to write long essay:1) ICE, 2) the way to expand the essay, and 3) the way to write problem and solution essay. 

First, I learned the sources have to be with ICE style. ICE means that Introduce, Cite, and Explain sources. Before mention or write the source in your essay, you have to introduce the source that you will use. When you introduce the source, you can cite your source next. However, you can not finish at citing the source. You have to explain the source clearly. With those three steps, you can mention sources easily and effectively. 

Second, I learned the easy way to expand the essay. If you want to make your essay longer, you should expand each sections with more paragraphs. For example, first I wrote introduction with one paragraph. However it has three themes including thesis statement. Thus, I separated introduction in three paragraphs so that each paragraphs has detail and meaningfulness. The important thing to write long essay is that you should write step by step!!

Third, I learned how to write problem and solution essay. For this type of essay, you have to introduce your problem in first section. In second section, you explain why it is the problem. In third section, you should write your suggestions for problems. For example, I wrote about the problem for the death penalty in Japan. I mentioned the problem that the government limited so much information about the death penalty in first section. In second section, I wrote three effects by the problem mentioned in first section. In third section, I mentioned two suggestions about improving the education about the death penalty in schools. Because of learning this style of essay, my choices to write essays are increasing.   


To conclude, the most valuable things are that I learned the skills to write long essay. 

(My goal for this term was getting skills to write longer and meaning full essay. Thus, I can say that I can achieve for that goal!!)
 
2) How do you want to continue to improve your reading, writing, and speaking skills?

For Reading...

I have to read as many books as I can. I like books written by Agatha Christie. Thus, I will plan to read her books in spring vacation. 


For Writing...


I should write journals to improve my writing skills. As Mark said in last ARW class, I should have academic learning blog. I can continue this blog, but it is good way to restart new blog in the future. I learned the typing key boards are much easier than writing!!


For Speaking...


I should continue to use English in my daily life. I have many English native speaker friends so it is good way to communicate with them in English. I think the best way to improve my speaking skill is to make English native speaker girl friend!! In this June and July, I will go to Washington University for sea program. I am planning to get girl friend there!!

My 20x20 Pecha-Kucha for Winter Project

How was it? What did you learn? What was difficult?


First impression about Pecha-Kucha was very terrible because I became so nervous that I made many mistakes to present each slides. However I learned three important things. They are importance of practice, passionate, and power of visuals.  


First, I learned how a preparation is important for the presentation. Because of PK, it is true that more preparation is needed. However, I noticed the good presentations are based on good preparations. One skill I learned for the way to practice was to practice with someone else. If you do practicing alone, you can not face any presser from audiences. Thus, practicing with someone else is good way to image the real presentation.


Second, I learned that the passionate is the most important thing for communication and presentation. Saying what you want audience to understand, you have to make sure that you have good eye contacts and using gestures. Without those things, you looked like lack of confidence. If you have good passion, audience shows getting more attention to your presentation. Thus, it is important for presenters to have good passion with good eye contacts and gestures. 


Third, I learned that visuals have big power to influence people. For presentations, visuals are very useful to make presentations easier. For PK, I searched for simple visuals because the time is limited 20 seconds for each slides. I think that I had good simple visuals so that every audiences understood easier. Thus, it is very important for presentations to find good simple visuals.      


Finally, one most difficult thing for PK was that the time was so limited that I had to pay attention for both speaking and time managing. Usually, you do not have to so much pay attention for time when you do presentation. However PK had unique style of presentation, I had to careful about time!! This made me crazy and more nervous. On the other hand, because of this time limited, students are required good practice. In this sense, PK is very good educational skill to educate the importance of practicing.

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