Reflective Journal
Haddad Building
Kfarhbab, V8 Street
Ghazir, Lebanon
December 4, 2017
Dr. Zane Sinno
Department of English
American University of Beirut
Beirut, Lebanon
Dear Dr. Sinno,
It’s been a pleasure taking this rich English course with you. It was truly a great opportunity for me to develop my communication skill in that language. Revisiting my work throughout this semester made me realize how much this skill has evolved, and how my unique writing process played a major role in achieving this progress. In fact, as you once told me, I possess a special writing style; a style that wouldn’t exist without my personal writing process which I always rely on. Now, it is time for me to share this procedure.
When having a writing assignment, a personal and effective methodology dictates how I shall proceed with my work. First, I always read the prompt more than once, and locate the ‘boundaries’ of the writing assignment. Setting up the specifications of the subject (theme, approach, audience, genre…) is, in my opinion, the most important task for writing a text, because it orientates all my thinking into the proper direction. So, I start by brainstorming all the relevant ideas to the subject, and I organize them in bullet points; this is only the beginning. Then, as I proceed in writing my work, I always keep in mind my favorite characteristic of a text: the structure and the flow of ideas. As you may have noticed in my writings, the sentences are generally complete and clear, and there’s always an invisible ‘cable’ that connects them all together. I think this structure is mainly due to my strong grammar; when I construct a phrase, I never forget to check for errors and whether it makes sense. Also, relying on logical connectors is a tool I love to use. In the beginning of the semester, I downloaded a pdf containing a list of connectors (categorized in types); after 2 writing assignments, I stopped opening the file, since I had familiarized myself with a bunch of helpful connectors. They always help me establish a link between sentences to create the proper flow of ideas.
Sometimes (well, very often) I get stuck; stuck in finding a new word or building a sentence. For the former, I rely a lot on synonyms (available in Word or Google) because I hate repetition. As for the latter, translating words and phrases from French or Arabic would sometimes help me overcome this issue. Another great way to resolve that problem is to think outside the box: I would revisit my text, and try to find a creative continuation. Even when I’m not working on it (hanging out), I would even try to find more ideas for the assignment (especially for online sessions). Also, I love to add figures and unusual words to my writings; since I’m a gamer and a fantasy fan, words and expressions borrowed from games or movies are usual toppings added to my texts.
Unfortunately, I encountered some annoyances with my writing process. All the thinking and formulation of sentences was time-consuming. Writing texts takes time with me, because I’m perfectionist and I always try to find the best phrase possible. Also, when I’m stuck, I try to fill up spaces with sentences that aren’t always coherent; so, when I read my text again, these ‘filling’ words are found out to be useless and I’m forced to reformulate my ideas, which is time-consuming. Another obstacle that increased the time spent on writing is ‘starting’ the assignment. Often, I would prepare all the main ideas (with examples, transitions…) on my draft, but I would freeze and desperately try to find the appropriate introduction for the text. Overall, my beautiful writing comes at a price: time consumption.
Regardless of all these obstacles, I really enjoyed enhancing my English trough ENGL 203. Personally, I found it very modern, rich and beneficial. Most of the topics discussed in the material were interesting because they’re recent ones that we encounter nowadays; while learning English, we discovered that body image pressure is a real thing for boys, language is valuable, obsessive healthy eating is a disorder… In other words, I enhanced my general culture. Speaking of culture, since I’m French educated, that language had extremely positive impacts on my English writing. French is more complicated than English; so, being used to dealing with complex sentences helped me a lot in constructing good and complete English sentences. Furthermore, I often used French ideas (values, history, examples) to enrich my texts and add new colors to my writings.
Surely, my communication skills can be improved in various ways. I think that I would benefit a lot from reading novels in English, because they’re the best sources for new words and expressions; learning those would help me acquire a richer vocabulary, which is essential for my writings. I should also consider reducing the length and complexity of my sentences, because I frequently miss my main points. This would be done by removing unnecessary ‘junk’ words, as you always tell us. Moreover, although translation helps me express my ideas easily, it would be best to start relying less on this tool, so that I master the English language.
Finally, I think that my writing process has evolved a lot throughout this semester. I feel I’ve become a better and more confident writer, that can effectively extract information from sources and use it correctly. I would like to thank you for your openness, your active interaction with us, and your effort on teaching us the course in a friendly and instructive way.
Sincerely yours,
Christophe El Haddad
Kfarhbab, V8 Street
Ghazir, Lebanon
December 4, 2017
Dr. Zane Sinno
Department of English
American University of Beirut
Beirut, Lebanon
Dear Dr. Sinno,
It’s been a pleasure taking this rich English course with you. It was truly a great opportunity for me to develop my communication skill in that language. Revisiting my work throughout this semester made me realize how much this skill has evolved, and how my unique writing process played a major role in achieving this progress. In fact, as you once told me, I possess a special writing style; a style that wouldn’t exist without my personal writing process which I always rely on. Now, it is time for me to share this procedure.
When having a writing assignment, a personal and effective methodology dictates how I shall proceed with my work. First, I always read the prompt more than once, and locate the ‘boundaries’ of the writing assignment. Setting up the specifications of the subject (theme, approach, audience, genre…) is, in my opinion, the most important task for writing a text, because it orientates all my thinking into the proper direction. So, I start by brainstorming all the relevant ideas to the subject, and I organize them in bullet points; this is only the beginning. Then, as I proceed in writing my work, I always keep in mind my favorite characteristic of a text: the structure and the flow of ideas. As you may have noticed in my writings, the sentences are generally complete and clear, and there’s always an invisible ‘cable’ that connects them all together. I think this structure is mainly due to my strong grammar; when I construct a phrase, I never forget to check for errors and whether it makes sense. Also, relying on logical connectors is a tool I love to use. In the beginning of the semester, I downloaded a pdf containing a list of connectors (categorized in types); after 2 writing assignments, I stopped opening the file, since I had familiarized myself with a bunch of helpful connectors. They always help me establish a link between sentences to create the proper flow of ideas.
Sometimes (well, very often) I get stuck; stuck in finding a new word or building a sentence. For the former, I rely a lot on synonyms (available in Word or Google) because I hate repetition. As for the latter, translating words and phrases from French or Arabic would sometimes help me overcome this issue. Another great way to resolve that problem is to think outside the box: I would revisit my text, and try to find a creative continuation. Even when I’m not working on it (hanging out), I would even try to find more ideas for the assignment (especially for online sessions). Also, I love to add figures and unusual words to my writings; since I’m a gamer and a fantasy fan, words and expressions borrowed from games or movies are usual toppings added to my texts.
Unfortunately, I encountered some annoyances with my writing process. All the thinking and formulation of sentences was time-consuming. Writing texts takes time with me, because I’m perfectionist and I always try to find the best phrase possible. Also, when I’m stuck, I try to fill up spaces with sentences that aren’t always coherent; so, when I read my text again, these ‘filling’ words are found out to be useless and I’m forced to reformulate my ideas, which is time-consuming. Another obstacle that increased the time spent on writing is ‘starting’ the assignment. Often, I would prepare all the main ideas (with examples, transitions…) on my draft, but I would freeze and desperately try to find the appropriate introduction for the text. Overall, my beautiful writing comes at a price: time consumption.
Regardless of all these obstacles, I really enjoyed enhancing my English trough ENGL 203. Personally, I found it very modern, rich and beneficial. Most of the topics discussed in the material were interesting because they’re recent ones that we encounter nowadays; while learning English, we discovered that body image pressure is a real thing for boys, language is valuable, obsessive healthy eating is a disorder… In other words, I enhanced my general culture. Speaking of culture, since I’m French educated, that language had extremely positive impacts on my English writing. French is more complicated than English; so, being used to dealing with complex sentences helped me a lot in constructing good and complete English sentences. Furthermore, I often used French ideas (values, history, examples) to enrich my texts and add new colors to my writings.
Surely, my communication skills can be improved in various ways. I think that I would benefit a lot from reading novels in English, because they’re the best sources for new words and expressions; learning those would help me acquire a richer vocabulary, which is essential for my writings. I should also consider reducing the length and complexity of my sentences, because I frequently miss my main points. This would be done by removing unnecessary ‘junk’ words, as you always tell us. Moreover, although translation helps me express my ideas easily, it would be best to start relying less on this tool, so that I master the English language.
Finally, I think that my writing process has evolved a lot throughout this semester. I feel I’ve become a better and more confident writer, that can effectively extract information from sources and use it correctly. I would like to thank you for your openness, your active interaction with us, and your effort on teaching us the course in a friendly and instructive way.
Sincerely yours,
Christophe El Haddad
Comments
Post a Comment