#Final reflection

1. Do you feel like your writing has improved this semester? Why or why not? In what ways has it improved? In what ways do you want to continue improving your writing?

Yes, I do. I feel like my writing has improved this semester. When I was a freshman, I took elementary English reading and writing class and I thought it was hard for me to write essay in English. At that time, I decided not to take a class including writing. But in a year later, I felt the importance of writing English so that I took IERW class. A lot of homework could make me having practice English writing. I think that the more I practice English writing, the more I would have various English writing skills and improve my English writing. So I need to practice a lot.

2. Do you feel like your reading comprehension skills have improved this semester? Why or why not? In what ways have they improved? In what ways do you want to continue improving your reading skills?

I think the reading comprehension skills have improved a little bit in this semester. I have read many English writings since I was an elementary school student so it would be easier than practicing writing skills. Since I was a middle school student, I have rarely learned about English writing. And I did not want to read the writing which includes long and a lot of paragraphs. In this semester, I read a lot of long writings and answered reading comprehension questions so that it leads to strengthen my reading skills. I think I have to read English books or newspapers. If the reading material can capture my attention, it would be better.

3. Was this the first time you kept a blog? Did you enjoy blogging? Was blogging a helpful way to practice writing? Did you enjoy reading your classmates' blogs? Do you think you will continue blogging in the future?

It was first time to have and keep a blog. Having a blog can have my own writing area. It has more private side in comparison with sharing sites like Edmodo. I can decorate my blog home. And I also enjoy reading my classmates’ blogs. Some people had their picture so I can know who she is. But it was a little confusing to find other’s specific writing because Edmodo has groups to gather writings about only one topic.

4. What were some of the best and/or worst aspects of this course? Would you recommend this course to others? Why or why not?

I rarely think this class is boring because we discuss a lot with classmates, watch a lot of material and share others’ writing. But the only worst aspect of this course is a lot of homework. It is really tough time to me to write formal essay but I have improved my English writing. So I recommend this course those who want to improve their English writing and reading skills. And I will mention if you want your English skills, it will have a lot of time.

Thank you for preparing a lot of educational material and teaching me. It was nice to meet you!

 

Essay#2 Rewriting

Hye Jeong Han

Prof. Kyle Brebner
IERW (04)
November 20, 2015

Taking All the Classes Online

             “Data will dominate the world,” says the head of Samsung Electronics, which is the leader in the production of electrical goods in the world. All products are rapidly changing from analog devices to digital ones like books and notebooks for writing notes and we cannot help relying on our digital goods for searching a lot of information due to convenience and portability. For example, we can easily find places that we never have been by using various applications in smartphones like Google Maps. In addition, using our digital devices, we can watch the latest movies instead of going to the theaters and be taught by the famous teacher instead of finding intelligent teachers in our own town. This technique is extending the range of universities education by providing the online education system. What if university students could take all their classes in online? In my opinion, I disagree that students should be able to take all their classes in online because it would cause passive participation, decrease their concentration, promote their laziness and lead to the loss of an astronomical amount of money.

             First of all, the reason that students should not be able to take all their classes online is that the students can be passive. In the lectures of universities, it is important for university students to discuss various issues about their education contents with students and professors and question with specific parts that students cannot understand. From the online lectures, students can easily accept their contents without rethinking because in the monitor the professor teaches alone and nobody takes the class in the lecture room. No matter how online classes can contain discussion boards where students have to write comments and interact with other students and the teacher, we cannot catch the other side’s expression, intonation and gesture when they assert their opinion and we cannot communicate each other in real time. Therefore, we cannot know whether atmosphere of debate will serve us well in coming to a good conclusion. In addition, we cannot be guaranteed to receive some feedback from professor and answer for curious problems instantly. It will make students passive due to shortages of active communication each other.

             The other reason for disagreeing with taking all their classes online is that students can decrease their concentration and can be lazy easily. In front of them, the professors are on the monitor so students can listen to music, use their smartphones or sleep lightly while the lecture is playing. In addition, they do not need to care about their attitudes to their professor in the monitor, wake up early and prepare clean-cut good looks, for example, they can take lectures with their pajamas. They have only to turn on their computer as soon as they are in home. It will lead to be lazy for students since it weakens the right mind set and lifestyle.

             Finally, taking all students’ classes online can promote the loss of an astronomical amount of money. Even though it might save the commute money or electricity bills in universities, the maintenance costs for useless building in universities and the cost that buildings in universities are destroyed due to useless functions also can have enormous amount of money and the electricity bills can increase as much because many students would take all their classes online. There are a lot of buildings in universities and they will lose their functions in a moment and become nuisances considering how to demolish buildings.

             To sum up, students should not be able to take all their classes in online because it would cause passive participation, decrease their concentration, promote their laziness and lead to the loss of an astronomical amount of money. Online lectures may have advantages to the students who hurt their body or have a long commute to their universities so most universities provide students with online lectures slightly. Taking all classes online is similar to losing the nature of the universities because the universities are the places that students who gather to achieve their academic aims study and discuss ideas altogether and the universities are differ from unspecified groups through social media, blogs and chat forums and the unspecified groups do not seek to achieve academic aims but just share their own suggestions. As the technique develops, online lecture will have better functions like remote video education that people can communicate with respective cameras and mics. So we can participate with more active attitudes but it could not replace the whole lectures in universities.

Should Korea Have More Than One Official Language?

As the world is becoming globalization, it is important to use and know other country’s language. Many Korean people want to acquire second language to communicate a lot of other country’s people and have competitiveness to the globalization world so it is trend that they bring their children to the second language academy when they are young. However, even though we live in the globalization world, Korea should not have more than one official language because the illiterate rates are low, it causes to waste of money and it lead to threaten the language of its country.

One reason that Korea should not have more than one official language is that Korea has few illiterate people. According to the research, more than 95 percentages in the Korean people can read the Korean language. If the illiterate rates had been higher, the Korean government should have think about additional official language because it is

Another reason that Korea should not have more than one official language is wasting of money. While having another official language may be helpful for non-Korean people living in Korea to ease pressure to acquire hard information, they immediately should have in mind that it is not easy for them to live other country to gain useful information like finding official documents that everybody in Korea would be required. In addition, it will be a lot of spending money to add another official language on official documents. The necessary documents to another people immediately wrote in other language so it can waste of money if the Korean government orders to write additional language on all of documents.

Finally, the reason that Korea should not have more than one official language is that it causes the Korean official language, Han Geul, to threaten. Adapting other official language may force the nature of own country to be lost because native language has respective history, emotion and culture and represents respective country. For example, Korea has a lot of words derived from the ancestor's wisdom. Millstone using for mixing food has a handle to haul around and the name of handle is Eocheoguni. If millstone do not have the Eocheoguni, we cannot do everything and we feel ridiculous with the handle disppearing.So when the Korean people face the ridiculous and stupid case, they used to say that it has no Eocheoguni. Likethis, language have their culture. So having another official language finally might conquer the native language.

The fact that the illiterate rates are low and that it causes to threaten the nature of its country and it leads to waste of money will prevent Korea from having another official language. As K-pop culture is growing more and more and many non-Korean people would like to learn the Korean language, it would be efficient for Korea to provide additional official language on signs.

Essay#1

Hye Jeong Han

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW(04)                                                                                                      

11 November 2015

What If Syrian Refugees Move To Korea

Some Syrians protested against the government because they wanted their country to become democratic and demanded power change. But the dictatorship in that country has lasted for second generation. After all, antigovernment protestors rose against the dictatorship. At that time, the Russian government, which had helped to provide the Syria soldiers to arm with modern weapons, finally was required to intervene between the Syria government and antigovernment protestors and bombed the central part of the city in Syria. The civil wars destroyed the nation. Many Syrians are leaving their home and becoming refugees because they want to live somewhat safety places. The refugee movement becomes the conversation topic all around the world and there is a large range of opinion on this issue in Korea. In my opinion, Korean government should not welcome the Syrian refugees to settle in Korea due to the public emotion, prejudice and situation in Korea.

First of all, the Korean government cannot help considering the public emotion that the Korean people mostly have passive attitudes toward new ethnic group. Many Koreans prefer conservatism about politics and religion and believed that Korea was a homogeneous nation because Korea was geographically on a peninsula surrounded by three powerful nations: China, Japan and Russia, consequently, the Korean people had to get together in order to guard their country without accepting new ethnic groups. For this reason, the Korean government has to consider the public emotion that the Korean people don’t want to accept various groups.

             Additionally, the religions of Syria are Muslim(70%) but many Koreans have a prejudice about Muslim countries and culture. They have fear and horror by the influence of the 911 Attacks that the Muslim people happened. In addition to the public emotion that the Korean people mostly have passive attitudes toward new ethnic group, the Korean prejudice would make bad awareness of the Syrian refugees. But the Korean people need to be more broadminded about their acceptance because the world is turning into a multicultural society.

             Lastly, the Korean government should take diplomatic challenges into consideration. South and North Korea are in a state of truce. Accepting Syrian refugees can produce paradoxical results because it means that the country under war accepts other country’s refugees, consequently, the North Korean government may think accepting other country’s refugees is the South’s provocative actions against the North.

             To sum up, the Korean government should not welcome Syrian refugees. There are many considerations that the Korean government must think. Firstly, the Korean people have the passive attitudes toward new ethnic people. In addition, the Korean people judge by their prevailing prejudice toward Muslim. Lastly, the Korean government should consider the relationship between North Korean and South Korea because two countries are in a state of truce. I think, rather than accepting the Syrian refugees, the Korean government would give the international support like distributing relief supplies or sending abroad international volunteers to help them. I also consider this issue will continue to be discussed and debated to solve it.

References :
1. The relationship between Syria and Russia
http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=2087131&cid=48613&categoryId=48613

2. Syria's religion distribution
http://www.mofa.go.kr/countries/middleeast/countries/20110810/1_23078.jsp?menu=m_40_60_20

The Apple Watch

Apple Inc, which has given people all around the world tremendous convenience because of being able to replace the abilities of computers with the iPhone, has released a new product, Apple Watch. It grafted watches on the IT system which can operate the Internet service. Due to the portability and the optimization systems of doing exercise, Apple Watch has been gaining popularity.

One reason that the Apple Watch has become popular is that it has the portability. It is far smaller electronic equipment than all of the smartphones. You only need to put on the Apple Watch, like typical watches. Because you just stick your wrist, you can always equip yourself with it. But it has enormous functions as compared with typical watches. For example, because it is compatible with the iPhone series, you can text a message and make a call using on-board microphone as radio transceiver, when you send a message, it can analyze and announce your message whether you have to answer it quickly or not.

Another reason that the Apple Watch has had popularity is the optimization systems of doing exercise. It has a sensor that measures your heart rates so you can measure your heart rates every time and everywhere. In addition, it can measure your foot steps and calculate how you spend your calories and how long it takes time to exercise. And if you set up a health goal in the Apple Watch, it will examine your achievement contents.

The Apple Watch has been popular thanks to the portability and the optimization systems of doing exercising. You can always equip yourself with it every time because it is lighter and smaller than smartphones and improves your health care through it. It will start to gain sensational trends, as smartphones are showing saturation.

How to save our earth in a small way

             Environmental pollution is getting more serious. It is an inescapable problem that must be solved. We have to save our earth. There are a lot of ways to start protecting the earth. But it’s hard to practice it. So we can start to carry out in a small way. Reducing needless products can help protect the Earth. Using smart phone and carrying shopping baskets are good examples.

             Using smartphone for taking notes instead of writing on papers is efficient way to decrease waste of products. To make papers, many trees are cut. It takes five years to decay in land. As the trees burn, they release harmful emissions like carbon dioxide. So by using smart phone, you don’t have to use papers. Most of people use smartphones. You can immediately use it for writing. If you want more details for taking notes, just buy touchpen in low prices instead of buying a lot of pens. Using it, you can write with various writing supplies.

             Carrying shopping basket is the one of the good examples to conserve unnecessary products. When you go a convenience store, you can see the clerk pouring in a plastic bag. Recently, too many plastic bags have been used. It’s the big waste of needless products. Also, waiting time to decay plastic bags is about 100 years.

             Using smartphone and carrying shopping basket are good ways to save our future because it helps conserve products. Other than these two actions, there are more good ways like using tumblers and riding bicycles, etc. We can reduce needless products by minor habits. 

Haeundae; the reason why the places are important

      Have you ever watched the movie, 'Haeundae'? Maybe if you are Korean, you may watch this movie because it is the most 10th popular movie in Korea so it is very famous movie in Korea. The place Haeundae in this movie contributes to the popularity. Some of  movies are important to choose places. The places may touch the core in stories of movies. 'Haeundae' is the one example. This movie is a very important element of the location because the movie's plot is rooted in the place and the movie expresses the reality of the places vividly.

     The first reason why the place is important in Haeundae is that the movie's plot is rooted in the place, Haeundae. As you can see the title, this movie is about Haeundae. In the story, the disaster, tsunami, occred in Haeundae. Haeundae is the second biggest city and the most largest seashore city in Korea. So the director could not help choosing this country. The director may think Haeundae is the most suitable background expressing the natural disaster in Korea.

     Another reason why the place is important in Haeundae is that the movie expresses the reality of the places vividly. In this movie, real buildings or houses were destroyed in Haeundae. So many people were excited because their real houses or buildings were destroyed. Due to the good computer graphic, it described vividly. If the background of this movie had not been real place, it would be unfamous. Although the film was completely fictional, its location is realistic.
  
    In conclusion, Haeundae could not be set in any other city because the movie's plot is rooted in the place and the movie expresses the reality of the places vividly. Everything in this movie happened in Haeundae. This kind of movies based on real cities in Korea will continue to catch popularity.