Weakness and Strength in the Learning Process
In the ENGL 301 course, I have gained a lot of English skills by writing various assignments. I have realized some weakness and strength of my learning process. My weakness is that I am a slow and inefficient writer; it takes a lot of time to finish an assignment. I sometimes had to spend more than three days (about 45 hours) for just one assignment. On the other hand, the strength is my organization skill. I always think how to order the contents in order to flow smoothly. Actually, the formal report outline was one of the hardest parts because of a lot of ways to organize it and difficulty to choose which organization best described my points. This experience made me strong in organization. Overall, I was able to gain a strong organization skill in this course.
Weakness and Strength in the Assignments
In the ENGL 301 course, I have written a lot of assignments in order to increase the writing ability and creativity. My weaknesses are grammar and usages. Since I am an international student, articles and prepositions are the hardest to choose. Moreover, some usages I think are correct are not actually correct. On the other hand, I found some grammatical mistakes, thanks to my classmates, and even learned some sophisticated phrases or expressions from them. My strength in the assignments is that I can see one aspect from various viewpoints. This is because I have a lot of experience both in Japan and Canada, so I can consider things from the perspectives of both Japanese and Canadians. That was useful when thinking about writing topics or contents. For example, the topic of formal report was selected, comparing Japanese work environment to Canadian one; that is, long working hours is usual in Japan but not in Canada. Overall, my weaknesses are poor grammar and usages, and my strength is having various viewpoints, both of which is because I am Japanese.
Obtained Skills and Strength for the Future Career, Volunteer or Educational Goals
The ENGL 301 course has notified me many strategies for writing. Before the term started, I had no opportunities to learn how to write in professional and technical situations so that I am glad that I was able to gain these important writing skills. Especially, the “You-Attitude” writing style was new to me. Even though I was struggling for writing positively about negative points, using this “You-Attitude” writing style led to showing more sincereness and attracting readers. Regarding the assignment to write a definition, I explained a technical term to non-technical audience, which will be beneficial to explain my subject to ordinal people in the future. In addition, since I would like to work for a chemical company, writing business letters using a correct format will be necessary in order to send them from my company to its clients, employees, and other companies. Furthermore, although application packages are very important for job hunting, I had never learned how to write a resume, a cover letter and requesting letters before this class. Therefore, writing an application package was a great opportunity for me. Those are some examples of what I have learned; I learned more various writing formats, styles, structures and voices in specific situations. I am glad of taking this impressive course and proud of what I have done in this semester. Overall, this course significantly enriches my future career.