The last ...

EAP stands for English for Academic Purposes and we are done with that. It is now about 7 months that I personally started this program. Most of the student have the same condition while some started earlier and some starter from EAP 3. It does not matter when you start this program, the important issue is we finished it together now and that is the end of our story. I am very happy, not for finishing this program, but for meeting all of you guys. I now know many people from China (neehow!) and Korea (anion!). I know people from Russia and Ukraine (privet!). I know people from Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Syria (Asalamon Alaikom). I know people from Niger and Quebec (saloot). I know people from Netherlands (Hallo) and many other countries. I also found people from my own country (Salam) that I did not know before. This is an experience of a life time. We had many wonderful moments and lots of great memories. We had many wonderful teachers and we learnt a lot. Now, on this moment we have to choose our own way in life. This bridge, EAP is going to end. This chapter of our life finished and we need to pass it. I enjoyed being with you guys. I hope the best for all of you and hope to have all of you as my friends after this program. Take care. Khoodenakh, Poka, janjan, ma3al salam, khodahafez and goodbye.

How Much I Learnt in EAP Program

Maybe the most important question about EAP program is how much we have learnt. How different you think your level of English is since you started this program. For me that is a though question. For answering that question, first I better answer in each category separately. In the Listening and Speaking, for sure I am more fluent and my understanding improved but I do not know how much because I have nothing to compare now. The same thing is true about the Reading. I know more words and more important than that, I know more useful strategies now, unfortunately again nothing to compare with. In the writing, I have a lot to compare. Let me bring some evidence for you.
It is the introduction of my first essay in EAP 2.

There are many different things that a human looks for in life. Maybe one of the most important things is good living. With the purpose of having a good life, successful business could help a lot. A successful business in my opinion is a business that could survive in long term and turn a profit. In order to achieve this, the business needs many factors such as money, appropriate skills and a business plan.

This one is my introduction for the second term paper in EAP 3.

Air pollution, global warming, high price and decreasing reserves of fossil fuels, along with the world’s growing energy needs, have encouraged efforts to develop alternative energy sources. Due to these efforts, nowadays, many new energy sources are being used such as tidal power, hydroelectric power, pumped storage, and geothermal power. Although each of these new sources has its own strengths and benefits, none of them is capable of becoming the alternative energy source since they are hard to access and not efficient in comparison to fossil fuels. The most likely energy source that is capable of replacing society’s dependence on fossil fuels is solar power because of its prized advantages. Solar power is non-polluting, cost effective, and abundant. According to the Solar Energy Society of Canada “The Sun is a powerhouse, showering the earth every hour with more energy than the entire planet consumes in a year”. These points make solar power the energy of the future.

I guess my point is clear now. In the writing, considering the differences between my first essay and my last one, I can see how huge I changed my skills in English. I think if you have doubts about your improvment in English, you can compare like me, I am kind of sure you can see what I saw.

First Final

Hello everyone. Today we had our first final exam- writing. Before the exam, I was not stressful. However, after I received the questions, time passed extremely fast. I managed to write a 5 paragraphs essay but when I looked at my watch in the middle of exam I realized that I do not have enough time, so I combined my two last paragraphs into one. First I wanted to write about the entrepreneur topic, then I thought since I wrote my term paper about energy, I can write about energy stuff better. As a result, I changed my mind and wrote about least likely energy to replace fossil fuels, which in my opinion is wind power ( it is not cost effective and efficient). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find enough time to proof read my essay. I only could find some words’ spelling in dictionary. After all, how much I learnt is the main point, and I learnt a lot. I wish you good luck for your other exams (but as Murray said, you do not need it!). For me, being done with writing is a big relief. Have a nice weekend.

I do not know if you belived me or you think it is ... ;)

Today we had our second and last presentation for this semester. For the last recent days I thought with myself it is not a big deal, I can be very relax and natural. The audience are my friends and I know them for many months. Well, it is true, but today in the morning the exact opposite happened. I saw some friends of mine practicing their presentation in the library of education. The thing we did was giving our presentation to a small group of students. I did it twice and especially the first time was awful! I forgot what I wanted to say and my mind became out of words in some moments. The second practice was better but still not satisfactory for me. Anyway, we came to ST 141 and I did my presentation in front of all of you. The real presentations, of course, was not perfect or even anything near perfect but was satisfactory for myself. I believe the practice that we did really helped me today, otherwise I would probably give my awful first practice as the real one! :)
The Last but not the least, I would like to mention Jason’s presentation, I mean the last sentence!!!! It was the best moment of all the presentations- ever! Jason was there when we were practicing our presentations and he did not finish his presentation with “I do not know if you believed me or you think it is …” :D otherwise we could give him some recommendation, like I do not know if you believed me or not! Anyway, thank you Jason.

Calgary

Yesterday, we had Scott for the first time since he came back from his trip to New York. As you all know we discussed about his trip during yesterday’s grammar class. Well, we talked about ground zero, food, especially different kind of bread, and the appearance of the ESL teachers. All those topics were interesting for me, but we discussed something else as well that was the most attention grabbing part for me. Scott said in New York they do not even know that a place like Calgary exists, while in New York you feel you are in the middle of every thing. That is true, Calgary in not very famous. I personally never heard of it before my family decided to come here. However, I am kind of like that. Calgary is not very big, it is not well known, but still we have everything here (almost) and there is no pollution, it is safe and many other advantages of a city with this size. I lived most of my life in a city like Tehran, a really crowd and huge city so I am familiar with living in big cities. Living in big cities has its own advantageous. You have more facilities, there are more places to go and have fun, the city as alive day and night. Anyway, I am happy with situation of Calgary, it is a new experience and I like it.

Small/Big World

Have you ever heard that people say “it is a very small world?” they usually say that when something strange with a very low probability happens. Few days ago I was in service stop of our university. As you all know, you need to obtain a ticket before you can go in. I was sitting there waiting for my turn when I saw a very familiar face who was getting his ticket from that special device. I went closer and kind of stared at him! Then he saw me and I saw the surprise in his face and became sure. He was my friend in high school and I have not seen him for more than 5 or 6 years. Then suddenly we saw each other thousands of kilometers far from home in Calgary! It was really strange for me and I got to the point that it is a small world.
Another thing that I would like to talk about this time is, Calgary is a small place! It is very rare that you go out on Friday or Saturday and you do not see anyone that you know, especially if you use C-train. If you want to go out with someone secretly and no one see you, you better forget about most places in downtown. I will talk about this subject in future. For now, that’s all.