English Language Invasion

Summary

Invasion of the English language is becoming a huge problem in other countries such as France or Chinese. It is fear that English can take over the local language.

To begin with, English invasion into French is clearly noticeable. There are a lot of areas where French was changed to English. Some organizations and unions constructed slogans in English. It is thought that English invasion could be avoided but there was lack of political will. What is more, statistics states that French is becoming less popular.

Moreover, Mr. Hugan, chairman of the International Federation of Translators, is the person who is strongly resisting English invasion to Chinese. In his opinion, this phenomenon causes a lot of problems and, according to him, using English does not make people open-minded and international. However, although Gu Yeugo agrees with Mr. Hugan, he also supposes that English invasion is a global phenomenon and there is no way that China can stop it.

All in all, it is the fact that English makes considerable influence on the nation, traditions and customs and it is natural that people are resisting invasion of foreign language. However, it is almost impossible to stop this phenomenon.

References:

Articles: “Chinese language damaged by invasion of English words” and “English invasion threatens French language more than Nazis did”.

Self-esteem

Self-esteem, also called self-respect or self-love, is a term used in psychology to reflect a person’s overall evaluation on his or her own worth. In short, it is somebody’s opinion of oneself. High self-esteem is a good opinion of oneself and low self-esteem is a bad opinion of oneself.

Many early theories suggested that self-esteem is a basic human need or motivation. American psychologist Abraham Maslow, for example, included self-esteem in his hierarchy of needs. He described two different forms of esteem: the need for respect from others and the need for self respect. According to Maslow, when people fulfill a need for self-esteem, then they can seek the last self-actualization need. So self-esteem is the next-to-last need in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

But it is not good when people have not enough or too much self-esteem. Not enough self-love can lead people to become depressed and hopeless or to tolerate abusive situations and relationships. People who self-esteem is low can see themselves as victims. But there are some ways in which people can improve their self-respect. For example, people with low self-esteem should get their facts right and take a realistic view of themselves. Moreover, everyone should know that disappointments and failures are a part of daily life and life isn’t always fair. On the other hand, too much self-respect results in an inability to learn from failures. And it’s occasionally a sign of narcissism.

All in all, I would like to say that it is really important to have high (but not too high) self-esteem because it helps to keep a positive outlook on life.

References:

http://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/increase_your_self-esteem

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/emotional_health/mental_health/emotion_esteem.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-esteem
(2011-02-11) 

Multiple intelligences test

I have taken multiple intelligences test and I’m going to review my results.

Test shows that I have good naturalistic and interpersonal intelligences. I got 20 points. That means that I may be nature smart and I like the world of plants and animals. It’s true, because I have a dog and I really like flowers. There are a lot of flowers in my room. But it is interesting that when I came to Vilnius and I left flowers at home with my mother flowers started to fade. So I suppose that my mother hasn’t as good naturalistic intelligence as I have. Actually, I don’t think that my interpersonal intelligence is as good as shows results of the test. Of course, I like socialize with others and be with people, but I like to be alone too. In my opinion my intrapersonal intelligence are better that interpersonal. I think I know more about myself than about others. In addition, I’m writing a diary.

The least is my musical and linguistic intelligences. I got only 10 points. Although I enjoy the music, I don’t like play with musical instruments and I think it is quite difficult to me and it is true that I’m not linguistic smart because I don’t like writing and I read books really rarely with pleasure. Of course, now I have to read a lot, because I’m studying, but it isn’t really fulfilling.

My kinaesthetic and logical intelligences were assessed 18 points. I agree with it. I suppose that it is quite good assessment, because I like sports and I enjoy doing exercises. Moreover, mathematics wasn’t difficult for me when I was at school. So I think I may be number smart.

In my opinion, this test is quite reliable, because it shown results that I think aren’t lie.

Self-assessment

ESP vocabulary tests

In my opinion, these tests were really useful because we should learn many new words which are concerned with psychology. On the other hand, it was really difficult to explain some concepts.

Writing summaries

Writing summaries is new for me. We had written all of them at home, so it wasn’t really difficult. Nevertheless, I made quite number mistakes and I needed time to understand the text and write summary.

Online exercises Multiple Choice & Filling in blank

This task is useful because we can revise the material that we learnt at home. Online exercises weren’t difficult when I saw into the module fairly.

Moodle tests

When I was doing these tests I was using the book. It was good because I could scan through the text one more time.

Online listening in class. Traditional listening to cassettes.

Listening was quite difficult for me. Sometimes speakers spoke too fast or their speeches were hardly understandable.

Power Point Presentation

Although this task was the most difficult and I spent a long time preparing presentation it was the most interesting too.

Speaking impromptu

I think that I was not enough active in class discussions and speaking impromptu was the hardest task for me because my speaking skills are not so good.

Short-talk (ready made speech)

This task is simpler than speaking impromptu for me because I can look for unknown words and prepare at home.

Have a nice day!

The mystery of memory

Interest in memory is not new. Scientists are trying to find out how exactly distinct brain regions and processes are working with in creating such phenomenon.

Human brain has a huge net of neurons. Every time a person tries to save new information this net becomes wider.

Scientists separate several types of memory. Firstly, there can be noticed short-term and long-term memories which term of keeping information alive. Second one, procedural (reminiscence of how to do something) that is more permanent than declarative which helps to recall material images of some object.

Also, there are such different processes as recognition and recall. Furthermore, very common from of memory is photographic memory related to people senses.

All in all, although scientists are made a lof of discoveries which reveal the mystery of memory they also have a many unanswered questions.

Richard Wiseman

Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman started his working life as a professional magician, but now he is professor at the University in the United Kingdom. This man is well known - over 1 milion people have taken part in his mass participation experiments and his Youtube channel has received over 10 milion views. Professor Wiseman has written three best selling books: „The Luck Factor“, „Quirkology“ and „59 Seconds“. Ofcourse, he has written more books, but these three are bestsellers.

Richard Wiseman is an author of the unique worldwide experiment. He has invited people from around the world to send the most favourite joke to his website. Scientist‘s aim was to find the joke which is the funniest in the world. Although, some jokes are popular only in some countries, Richard Wiseman considered that there are universal joke that is liked by all people and now, when this experment has finished, we can read the funniest jokes on the Internet (in Richard Wiseman‘s website or in wikipedia). Of course, we can read more about this experiment in Wiseman‘s book Quirkology.

All in all, we can clearly see that proffesor Richard Wiseman is really active psychologist. His experiments are interesting and original and he is liked by a lof of people.

References:
http://www.richardwiseman.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Funniest_Joke_in_the_World