Week 1: 08/11/72014 – 08/17/2014
The Physics professor said
that we had to watch videos about the topics that we were going to discuss during
the classes every week. The first topic was "Vectors" and he recommended us to
visit the MIT official site in order to watch online courses. The video explained the parts of a vector and how they are represented mathematically.
Link
Reflection
While I was
watching the video, I couldn’t understand a lot of words because it involved a lot
of technical terms, so I had to turn on the subtitles and use a dictionary,
besides that I had to stop the video constantly.
Week 2: 08/18/72014 – 08/24/2014
One of my best friends came to my house on Friday and we watched the movie "The notebook", we turned off the subtitles and we listened to it in English. The movie was about 2 teenagers that loved each other but they had to take different ways, many years later they got together again and got married.
Reflection
It was not so difficult to understand what the actors were saying because most of the words that they used were the ones that we all know and use frequently, besides that I had watched that movie lots of times in Spanish, so I knew what they were talking about and what was going to happen in the next scene.
Week 3: 08/25/72014 – 08/31/2014
The Physics topic of this week was "Kinematics", so I watched an online course that was recorded on the MIT campus. The course explained the movements that any object can have in 2 dimensions when it is dropped from a determined height; and some exercises were solved using simulations and formules.
Link
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-1999/video-lectures/lecture-2/
Reflection
This time I removed the subtitles from the video and tried to understand everything by my own, it was not as difficult as the first time but I admit that sometimes I had to read the script when I listened to weird words.
Week 4: 09/01/72014 – 09/07/2014
On the MIT official page, I found a video related to movement in 2 dimensions that involved the acceleration of gravity. I watched it because I thought it could be helpful, it was about the movements of objects when they are thrown from the floor and it explained the height that those objects can reach depending on the initial velocity, the angle and the effect of gravity.
Link
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-1999/video-lectures/lecture-4/
Reflection
I understood the whole video without looking at the script, I am sure that my listening skills are improving significantly because I have been practicing every week.
Week 5: 09/08/72014 – 09/14/2014
I watched a video in which 3 experts discussed about the development that Biotechnology has had in the last 20 years, as well as the advantages and disadvantages that it can have in the future, such as provoking the collapse of the pharmaceutic industries or the accelerated evolution of humanity.
Link
Reflection
I am sure that as the time goes on, I have fewer problems to understand long videos in English, I just have to learn technical terms that are used in biological sciences so I will be able to understand the 100% of the audios.
Week 6: 09/15/72014 – 09/21/2014
The last year I went to England for one month and I lived with 2 different families. I still keep in touch with them. This week I decided to phone them and talk for a while with them, it was a little bit difficult because of their british accent , however, I managed to understand both conversations.
Reflection
It is more difficult to understand conversations by phone because the sound is not good and you can't listen clearly, I need to practice more with phone calls and get used to the british accent in case I have to listen to it more frequently.
Final Reflection
I believe that durings these weeks, I have improved a lot because I don't use subtitles anymore. My strengths are that I look for the words that I don't understand in the dictionary, so I learn new concepts and definitions that I can use while speaking. My weakness is that I am not used to listen to academic audios that involve technical terms, that is why it resulted more difficult for me to understand the whole videos. I can solve this problem by reading specialized texts that contain those academic words so I can learn their meaning and get used to them.
Week 7: 09/22/72014 – 09/28/2014
"Circular motion" was the new topic in Physics class, so I watched a video that explained the positions, velocities and accelerations that are involved when a centrifuge is working; some examples and exercises were given in order to ease the comprehension of the topic.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-1999/video-lectures/lecture-5/
Reflection
I really enjoy watching these kind of videos in English, it has become easier for me to understand what people in the video are saying. I didn't have problems understanding the explanation of the teacher recorded.
Week 8: 09/29/2014 - 10/05/2014
New York is the best city I have ever been to, so I watched a video of how it was constructed and the growth it has had, the video showed all the buildings and the ways of transportation that were added gradually til the point that it was considered as the "The Big Apple".
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfz3ql_AxAM
Reflection
The voice of the video was so fast so I missed some words; however, I understood the complete ideas. I realized that I get interested in these kind of videos so I will try to search documentaries about different cities and countries.
Week 9: 10/06/2014 - 10/12/2014
On Wednesday evening I started to have some questions about how the Universe works and how vast it is or at least how big we think it is. I watched a documentary that is extremely astonishing, it explained the basics of the Universe and each of its components while demonstrated the importance of the orbits that planets and stars follow; this video supported that life would not be possible on Earth without planets, stars, asteroids, orbits, etc.
Link
http://youtu.be/b38EUdW_g4k
Reflection
I found this documentary very useful because I learned a lot of new things that I didn't know about the Universe, also my viewpoint about life has changed in a good way after watching this video, now I am more interested in Astronomy. It was easy to understand the audio, I didn't have trouble because the video had a lot of explanations and images so I was able to infer the meaning of new words.
Week 10: 10/13/2014 - 10/19/2014
My brother was talking about the best airplanes and he mentioned one called "Concorde", which was able to travel from New York to Paris in about 4 hours. We wanted to get more information about that airplane so we decided to watch a video about it.
The race between USA and the European Union to create an aircraft able to go faster than the speed of sound, brought as a result the creation of the Concorde by England and France. After being the fastest commercial airplane on Earth for 25 years, it stopped flying due to several accidents that it had. It is worth mentioning that the tickets for "Concorde" were very expensive and just rich people wer able to afford them; Phil Collins and Arnold Schwartzenegger were some artists that use "Concorde" as a way of transportation.
Link
http://youtu.be/MVcig2pi9qs
Week 11: 10/20/2014 - 10/26/2014
The lion is my favorite animal because of his elegance and ferocity. I watched a video that explained the way he conquers new territories and how he revenges when someone else hurts one of his herd. He hunts any kind of animals even though he could die in order to feed his family and defend huis area.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRLMCoCGxHI
Week 12: 10/27/2014 - 11/02/2014
The video I watched this week was about cracking the human genetic code, it mentioned that due to the technology, nowadays any person is able to ask for some clinical studies in order to know which diseases he/she is likely to develop, so he/she can take specialized medicine or treatments to prevent illnesses and his/her death.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leOd6NQq4A4
Reflection
I learned too much after watching this video and I realized that I am getting acquainted with technical terms used in the areas of science because I understood all the words that experts said during their professional explanations.
Week 13: 11/03/2014 - 11/09/2014
This week I met a cardiologist and I got really interested in his job, I managed to have more information by watching a video. It explained how the heart works when we have high levels of cholesterol in the blood vessels; also it mentioned the reactions produced in our body by the excessive alcohol intake.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQIMpkAQm4
Reflection
Each time that I get informed about the human body, I get more impressed because of its perfection. This video used a lot of animations that caught my attention easily and I loved that I didn't need to read the subtitles , this time I was able to understand every single word and that makes me feel very proud.
Week 14: 11/10/2014 - 11/16/2014
I strongly believe that viruses are very important molecules in the world and they are one of the main responsibles of life. I watched a documentary called "The virus hunters" which was based on the experiments done my experts and scientists, they discovered the origins of the HIV virus, the posible birth of a new virus called "mimivirus" and the importance of retroviruses during gestation.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtnejNGOONk
Reflection
I fall in love with the major I am studying every time I watch a video related to science, I recognize that I am improving my listening skills and that I am learning a lot of vocabulary words that I will surely need for the rest f my life if I work at laboratories or pharmaceutic industries. This time I didn't use a dictionary to look for the meaning of some words, I managed to infer them.
Week 8: 09/29/2014 - 10/05/2014
New York is the best city I have ever been to, so I watched a video of how it was constructed and the growth it has had, the video showed all the buildings and the ways of transportation that were added gradually til the point that it was considered as the "The Big Apple".
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfz3ql_AxAM
Reflection
The voice of the video was so fast so I missed some words; however, I understood the complete ideas. I realized that I get interested in these kind of videos so I will try to search documentaries about different cities and countries.
Week 9: 10/06/2014 - 10/12/2014
On Wednesday evening I started to have some questions about how the Universe works and how vast it is or at least how big we think it is. I watched a documentary that is extremely astonishing, it explained the basics of the Universe and each of its components while demonstrated the importance of the orbits that planets and stars follow; this video supported that life would not be possible on Earth without planets, stars, asteroids, orbits, etc.
Link
http://youtu.be/b38EUdW_g4k
Reflection
I found this documentary very useful because I learned a lot of new things that I didn't know about the Universe, also my viewpoint about life has changed in a good way after watching this video, now I am more interested in Astronomy. It was easy to understand the audio, I didn't have trouble because the video had a lot of explanations and images so I was able to infer the meaning of new words.
Week 10: 10/13/2014 - 10/19/2014
My brother was talking about the best airplanes and he mentioned one called "Concorde", which was able to travel from New York to Paris in about 4 hours. We wanted to get more information about that airplane so we decided to watch a video about it.
The race between USA and the European Union to create an aircraft able to go faster than the speed of sound, brought as a result the creation of the Concorde by England and France. After being the fastest commercial airplane on Earth for 25 years, it stopped flying due to several accidents that it had. It is worth mentioning that the tickets for "Concorde" were very expensive and just rich people wer able to afford them; Phil Collins and Arnold Schwartzenegger were some artists that use "Concorde" as a way of transportation.
Link
http://youtu.be/MVcig2pi9qs
Reflection
I suffered while watching this video because there were mentioned some parts of the airplane that I didn't even know their meaning in Spanish. On the other hand, I liked it because I discovered how technology has advanced in the last 50 years. I am sure that I will never watch this kind of videos again because even though they are interesant, I find them a little bit boring.
Week 11: 10/20/2014 - 10/26/2014
The lion is my favorite animal because of his elegance and ferocity. I watched a video that explained the way he conquers new territories and how he revenges when someone else hurts one of his herd. He hunts any kind of animals even though he could die in order to feed his family and defend huis area.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRLMCoCGxHI
Reflection
I enjoyed the video but the audio was very short and concrete. There was not mentioned a lot of information so I couldn't practice as much as I planned.On the other hand, I understood all the words and I had no problems.
Week 12: 10/27/2014 - 11/02/2014
The video I watched this week was about cracking the human genetic code, it mentioned that due to the technology, nowadays any person is able to ask for some clinical studies in order to know which diseases he/she is likely to develop, so he/she can take specialized medicine or treatments to prevent illnesses and his/her death.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leOd6NQq4A4
Reflection
I learned too much after watching this video and I realized that I am getting acquainted with technical terms used in the areas of science because I understood all the words that experts said during their professional explanations.
Week 13: 11/03/2014 - 11/09/2014
This week I met a cardiologist and I got really interested in his job, I managed to have more information by watching a video. It explained how the heart works when we have high levels of cholesterol in the blood vessels; also it mentioned the reactions produced in our body by the excessive alcohol intake.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQIMpkAQm4
Reflection
Each time that I get informed about the human body, I get more impressed because of its perfection. This video used a lot of animations that caught my attention easily and I loved that I didn't need to read the subtitles , this time I was able to understand every single word and that makes me feel very proud.
Week 14: 11/10/2014 - 11/16/2014
I strongly believe that viruses are very important molecules in the world and they are one of the main responsibles of life. I watched a documentary called "The virus hunters" which was based on the experiments done my experts and scientists, they discovered the origins of the HIV virus, the posible birth of a new virus called "mimivirus" and the importance of retroviruses during gestation.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtnejNGOONk
Reflection
I fall in love with the major I am studying every time I watch a video related to science, I recognize that I am improving my listening skills and that I am learning a lot of vocabulary words that I will surely need for the rest f my life if I work at laboratories or pharmaceutic industries. This time I didn't use a dictionary to look for the meaning of some words, I managed to infer them.
Final Reflection
I can swear that a have mastered my listening skills during this second period, I worked harder than in the last one. I tried to stop watching entertainment videos so I could focus on scientific videos in order to get familiar with new and useful vocabulary that is very common in science areas. My strengths are that I completely avoid the subtitles, that I don't use the dictionary as aften as I did in the first period and that I am able to understand academic videos because I know the meaning of many technical words. My weakness is that I focus in tehnical words that belong to a same area, so I don't know a lot of specialized words that are commonly used in other areas such as the mechanic industry. I will do my best to watch videos related to cars and big machines in order to increase my level of English.
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