Lecture: Mathematics for the Life and Social Sciences

Location: CLH E
Date: 14:00-17:00 Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Professor: Jag Chawla
On Wednesday’s morning, I went to Nexus and signed up the lecture. In fact, that the only accurate time for me to attend a lecture is math because others are at 6 or 7 p.m. There are two different teachers to teach math, one is Mohammed, who is a non-native speaker professor, and asked me to go to the platform; the other is a professor called Jag Chawla. I signed up a lecture which is taught by Jag without any hesitation. After class, before, Lily and I went to the lecture hall. Similar to the last one, I sat in the second last row.

The professor did not ask me anything; however, a female student who sat in the last row asked me whether they should have test on that day. I am getting smart on that day because I answered “I don't know”. She smiled and asked “You didn’t come to class last time?” I said “yes, I am sorry”. Suppose I wanted to say that I am not a student in York University, and I am a student from YUELI; however, I thought she might not know what YUELI is. I did not want the situation become complicate. I did not want to explain and make people laugh again.

After that, the professor asked the students to go to in front of the platform and picked up some paper. I was curious, so I followed the students and went to the. Those pieces of paper are their test. In the first 30 minutes, the professor was talking about the solution of the test. The students were dead silent. They all took notes and watched the screen.

The professor, Jag, who is 50 years old or so, is also a non-native speaker; however, his English pronunciation is much better than Mohammed. Finally, after 3:30 p.m, Lily and I decided to level because the lecture may be all about test.

Workshop: Preparing YELT

Location: Founders 112
Date: 13:30-15:30 Wednesday, June 11st, 2008
Instructor: Patricia Glogowski

Today I went to a university skills workshop, and the topic was about YELT. In the beginning of the workshop, the instructor, Patricia Glogowski, asked us to introduce ourselves. I found that I was the only level six student in that workshop. I was pround of that. There were 12 students in that workshop including one level 5b and one level six. Patricia asked me to introduce myself first because I attended her last workshop also. Actually, I had attended the YELT test on May 2^nd, 2008 or so. The topic was about children and working mother. How Working father and mother take care of their children? Compare the past, what does it change? I think the reading was easy to understand and the writing was easy to write, but I did not know how to organize the answers correctly. Finally, I got band 6 which was fail. When Patricia asked me the purpose of coming to this workshop, I said “honestly, the reason I came to this workshop was that I have to do my assignment”. In fact, I do not want to attend a lecture again because I have attended fore lecture before. This time I want to try something different; however, this workshop was the same as last one which I had attended on April. After that, she talked about the structure of the YELT such as, time, mark, and topics. I thought that technology, traditional medicine, and economic will be the general topics of the YELT this month. When we answer the reading questions, it is very important to find key words from the questions and answer the questions by using our own words which is paraphrasing. After an hour, Patricia gave us a sample of YELT to write. The article was the same as last one which talked about napping. The reading was not so difficult, but I did not have enough time to finish all questions. At last, she said “good luck” to us. “Yeah, please good luck to my next YELT.”

Lecture: Mathematics for the Life and Social Sciences

Location: CLH A
Date: 14:00-16:00 Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Professor: A. Mohammed

On Wednesday, June 4^th, 2008, I attended a lecture about math. Actually, I attended the same course before. The professor is about 40 or 50 years old. He said that he has been taught math for 10 to 15 years. That the professor is non-native English speaker is the reason that I could not understand completely. It was the worst situation that I encountered in York University including YUELI. I sat on the back of the lecture hall. In the beginning of the lecture, the professor asked two students to go to platform, and write formula of limit on the blackboard. After that, the professor pointed at me and asked me to go there and write the formula on the blackboard. I felt scared at that time. I walked downstairs. I stood near him, and said “I am a YUELI student”. He asked me what YUELI is. “YUELI is an English institute” I answered. He shouted “what? You come here for learning English”. All students in the lecture hall laughed. I found that I could not communicate with him, so I went to the platform. At that time, I was afraid because I knew nothing. I just wrote something which was similar to the previous formula, but he said “if you came here last time, you know how to write”. I thought that I was de facto not here last time, but I did not say anything. Finally, he asked me to go back to my seat. After that, he said formula is simple if students spend few minutes to remember that. This lecture was about “limit”. He analyzed exercise in the first hour. Some students asked him several questions, he asked the students to ask some critical and correct questions; otherwise, students could not get the right answers. I thought that it was right because teacher do not have enough time to answer all stupid questions. All students seem to be patient and hard-working in this lecture. They too notes all the time. He also said students should have their own experience. They should do exercise by themselves. If they feel simple when they do that by themselves, it is fine; however, that students feel simple when they look at how teacher do is useless. In the rest of the lecture, he talked about the introduction of continue function. That part was more complicate. Fortunately, he made some graph on the blackboard, so I could understand easily.