Writing skills

English Course

My Progress in Enhancing My English

In the first part of the second semester, until midterm, of this school year I decided to focus on my writing skills and my overall grammar. This resulted from finding a lack of interest in completing my portfolio in the first semester. This played an important role in understanding that the reason behind my lack of success in this assignment was due to being unsatisfied with how I write and express myself on paper. My goal was to be able to write freely and express myself as best as I could while communicating in English. I wanted to give my full attention and motivation to complete this goal and be eager in learning.

To achieve my goal I did research on online writing platforms and wrote articles and poems. I also got advice from my peers on how they improved their knowledge of grammar and learned about a program named Membean. After purchasing the package and finding a writing platform for my age group I started my 5-week journey.

Week 1:

My first step in starting my learning process was to start using my Membean tool. It is a highly used program in my home country to extend the knowledge of one’s grammar. As I’ve completed over a month of sessions (30 minutes a day) I can easily say it was one of the most fun ways to enhance my grammar. The program starts off with a 30 minute quiz in which it sets your level of grammar. I started in the B1 category and my goal was to reach B2 at the end of the month. Everyday, I learned an average of 10 words, and the tool made sure I didn’t forget any of the words I learned by asking me questions in which I used them in sentences and reminded me of the meaning if I got it wrong. The questions could be about words I learned a day before, a

week before or 2 weeks before. The expectation was to master the meaning of the words by being able to use them in sentences. It also tested me in spelling the words by giving the meanings first.

When I first started the program I thought 30 minutes a day would be too hard to complete, yet I was very invested in the way it helped me learn words with visuals such as pictures and videos. It also gave the option to split the 30 minutes into smaller portions such as 10, 15, or 20 minutes. I could start my daily session in the morning and continue when I got home back from school. I believe this program was one of the most crucial steps in me getting confident in my knowledge, spelling, and use of words. I set reminders on my phone to start and end the program, and I am proud to say I didn’t miss a day! It is better for students who are invested in getting at writing to use programs such as this to make sure their goals are reached on a daily basis. I am very fond of this program and will continue to use it. I may even set my goal to 40 minutes a day!

Week 2:

I continued to use Membean on a daily basis and added a goal of writing a short passage answering questions from Over 1000 Writing Prompts for Students. This was suggested to me by my girlfriend studying at Robert College of Istanbul, one of the leading American colleges in the world. I picked a topic that interested me and did a short research to write a passage of about 600 words explaining my thoughts on the topic. Here is the passage I wrote.

What Are Your Favorite TV Shows?

My earliest memory of watching a tv show on the couch with all of my family was from when I was 5 years old. I remember watching the Pilot episode of AMC’s The Walking dead with my hands full with popcorn. My parents were always interested in zombie movies and they wanted me to start early.. I remember the long nails of the walkers reaching out of the locked door to reach the main character Rick Grimes, followed by the popcorn in my hands dropping to the floor and me letting out the biggest scream I could let out with 5 years of experience on the earth. My parents were right though, from that day on I was obsessed with the idea of a zombie apocalypse. But 15 minutes of the Pilot episode was perfectly enough for a 5 year old.

I started watching The Walking dead again when I was 12 years old, this time I was convinced that I could finish it without having to drop my popcorn and let out the fattest scream. That didn’t work out since the new seasons didn’t get any lighter and the guns that they used to point at walkers were now pointed at survivors and the reality that that could ever happen scared me. I stopped watching season 2.

A few weeks ago I noticed AMC had made a deal with Netflix and all of the seasons were added to Netflix’s original site. I was the right age, had enough popcorn to last me a lifetime and the perfect bed to lay down all day. I think I finished all 9 seasons in about 2 weeks. And I must tell you, that was the best tv show I had ever watched. The characters were so normal yet so anormal it surprised me. How a priest can be a rapist, a shy boy gaining confidence after the shit hits the fan, a cop never giving up from bringing justice into the world and a girl who never wanted to live finally understanding the worth of her breathing. The fact that you can both agree and disagree with one character’s decisions showed me that people don’t always make the right choices, but when they do you forget what they once did.  I related to every character in any way possible. The more I got closer and closer to the end of the tv show I noticed how possible a zombie apocalypse is. It wasn’t just a tv show, it was the world in the future.

This was helpful in seeing my progress to use the words I had learned a week prior in Membean, and helped me see if the program worked or not. It’s safe to say I definitely saw progress in the way I formed sentences and the more definitive words I used while doing so. After writing this passage, I decided to continue answering prompts since it made me more comfortable with my writing skills.

Week 3

I continued to complete my daily sets of Membean and even took a quiz on a specialized quiz based on the words I learned. My score was a whooping 93% which made me extremely happy to see!

[pic 1]

This was a clear representation of how much I had progressed and made me commit even more. I also recommended the program to my classmate Okan who had asked me for advice on advancing his English. I wrote one more passage on a prompt I chose.

Should the School Day Start Later?

Every student's biggest wish is probably to start school at lunch time and finish in the afternoon. I don’t think there is a single person working or studying in schools that enjoy waking up at 6 am to get to class that starts at 8. Is there actually a reason behind school starting early or is it just because ministries of education like to laugh from their big chairs at students waiting at bus stops in the rain just to get to school?

...