UNIVERSITY OF NARIÑO

DEPARTAMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGES

Lic. IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH
ENGLISH V: ENGLISH COMMUNICATION INDEPENDENT USER II

Presented to:
Cristian J. Tovar, Ph. D.
Andrés Pinza
Diego Quiñones

SEMESTER V
2019
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Table of contents
PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................ 3
LEARNING PHILOSOPHY ................................................................................................... 4
ESSAY 1............................................................................................................................... 5
ESSAY 2............................................................................................................................... 6
ESSAY 3............................................................................................................................... 7
SOME QUESTION FOR REFLECTION ................................................................................ 8
EVIDENCES ....................................................................................................................... 10
NEW EVIDENCE ................................................................................................................ 13

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PURPOSE
Throughout this portfolio, we are wished to show how have been our progress
from the beginning, during and at the end of this semester. Furthermore, our main
idea is report everything that we have learned, the advances that we have had in our
learning during this course using different tools such as audios, videos, documents,
presentations, among others to improve our knowledge. With this project, we
expected identify our strengths and weaknesses as learners.

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LEARNING PHILOSOPHY
At the beginning of this semester, we were anxiety for know about how to
improve our skills in this course known as “English Communication Independent
User II”. At the start of this course, we had a professor with whom we had worked
the previous semester in "Reading and Writing IV". We knew how he worked, and
which his methodology was. But, something happened and the directives of the
university decided changed to the teachers and for this reason we felt a great
expectation about who would be our new English teacher, and which would be the
new methods of teaching.

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ESSAY 1

We are going to explain the greatest strengths and weaknesses that we have
as speakers, listeners, or thinkers. First of all, some of us improve our listening and
speaking skills, but not all of students. For example, Andres and I have two different
points of view of our progress. In the first case, me, Diego Quiñones since that I
started this career, I always have had difficulties in listening and speaking because I
do not have vocabulary enough. Now, I have improved my listening skill because
when professor talks, I understand the things with major facility, for instance, when
the teacher gives us instructions about anything, I catch the most information.
Second case, me, Andres Pinza. I am persistent and I learn of my faults, I don’t
surrender when things are not work it. I like challenging myself to improve my
mistakes. A great strength is I like listening to my partners and teachers when they
give me some advice, because I don't realize that I make some errors when I try to
speak and write, so they help me to increase my knowledge. Also, they teach me
how to won´t make the same errors. Now, the weakness most relevant to me is the
pronunciation because there are some words that I do not know how they work it.
That's why I make some mistakes when I try to pronounce a new word. According
our points of view, we have realized that many of us have improved in speaking and
listening skills thanks to the activities developed in class such as the first oral
presentation, the stories of our experiences when we were children, personal
presentations, and the conversations with Peter. Finally, we as a students of this
course need to think in English because it is essential to leave the translation, and
we have to get better a lot in our English skills to be an excellent teachers in the
future.

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ESSAY 2

As a result of our process of learning, we have had some problems to

overcome our weaknesses. For instance, me, Andres Pinza have had troubles with
pronunciation, fluency, accuracy and some problems with grammar, due to I have
read different kind of books to improve my weaknesses, besides I have dedicated
more time to study a lot of vocabulary to get more fluency and accuracy, so I have
learned how to use a new vocabulary, phrases, slangs and idioms because they help
me to build a new bases to speak and sound more natural, also I have practiced my
grammar using different strategies as books and some exercises to reach a good
level of grammar and to avoid making the same mistakes that I made before. As
well, I realize that my progress is better than before and now I am able to keep a
conversation with my partners and some professors, but always bearing in mind that
every day I need to practice my weaknesses. Now, me, Diego Quiñones think that
still have some problems with regard to pronunciation, speaking, fluency, grammar,
but during this course and this recess I have tried to improve this weaknesses
through reading, books and articles in English. I think that my pronunciation is better
than the last months because when I am speaking, I make less mistakes and I think
that my vocabulary is larger. In this time, I have listened a lot English music, I have
watched videos, and movies in English and this have helped me too much because I
have improved my listening skill. I consider that in this moment I can speak and
express myself with less difficulty, but I am always thinking that I am capable to
improve every day.

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ESSAY 3

During this course English Communication Independent User II, we had to

create our own topics, to present this material to our partners and teacher, but the
most important were, how to use past and continues tense, the correct use of “used
to and would”, also we learned how to make comparative and superlatives
sentences. Our teacher, as well taught us how to identify some verbs followed by
gerund, infinitive, and base of verbs in some sentences, also he taught us how and
when the “th” sound is voiced and voiceless.

But the most important things were the presentations and one reading called
“The story of a shipwrecked sailor”, because we had the opportunity to show whole
skills and abilities that we have learned during this progress of learning. These were
the best way to master our second language, due to we could control our feelings as
anxiety, nervous, and stress to turn them into positive and get ahead and enhance
our level of English.
In conclusion, in this course, we have learned many important things which
will help us during the rest of our career to improve our skills, our level and in our
future as teachers.

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SOME QUESTION FOR REFLECTION
1. The truemeaning of hard work.
How was the progress and improvement of the main skills during this period?

● Andrés and I think our progress was gratifying because the major of time we
were practicing for a long time. We were dedicated to work individually and in
the group. Many times, we looked for other classmates to help us in anything
such as new vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation to make it in the best way.
● Also we are sure that we have acquired more vocabulary thanks to the oral
presentations, the classes with our professor Cristian who has been our great
companion in this process. In addition, we are grateful with Deborah and
Peter, because thanks them, we could learn more things about their culture
and experiences of their lives.

What did you learn with all these tools?

● In this point, we would like to tell you all things that we learned during this
period. In the last semesters. First, the past tense of the regular verbs was
really difficult for us because we did not know how to pronounce them, but it
was not a large inconvenient because after working a lot, we achieved the
objective, which was to pronounce the verbs in the past tense in the correct
way. Second, we learned the correct way to write different kinds of texts like
descriptive paragraphs, contrast and comparison paragraphs, correct topic
sentences, and finally essays. Finally, in English communication Independent
User II, we learned how to make good presentations, how to use all the
teaching materials and the most important phrase: learning a second
language requires effort, hard work and dedication.

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2- Everyone can learn from mistakes
What did you learn in this way?
● How did the feedback you received assist in your academic and personal
development during this course?
● The feedback during this course was very engaging because here we receive
a great and different help unlike previous semesters. For instance, professor
Cristian used to correct us when we committed some mistakes. Thanks to it,
we learned a lot of vocabulary and the most important, we realized how to
pronounce properly the majority of words and so do not make the same
mistakes again.

Were your professors and classmates tolerant of you?

● Professor Cristian always was a great teacher, due to all along he taught us
how to accomplish our goals in pronunciation, all of us learned a lot because
he gave us some materials such as photocopies, books, exercises and he
spend a lot of time taught different topics, so that we could all improve all our
skill.
● We also thank our colleagues, especially Adonis and Ernesto because they
were always helping us in each part of this process, they always helped us to
correct our mistakes. Thanks to them, their understanding, their patience and
their help, we were able to overcome and advance to a different level than we
already had.

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EVIDENCES

Our first presentation

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Our final Presentation

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NEW EVIDENCE

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