Lesson 6

I altered and submitted the rough draft of my critical thinking essay and then I went on to the readings, reading through four of them before making a discussion board post.

Discussion Board Post: The drinking age should not be lowered from 21 because young people are very irresponsible with alcohol and at such a young age, they are still not fully aware of how their actions affect other people. Alcohol impairs common sense and with just one drink, people lose enough of their common sense that they end up overindulging. Overindulgence of alcohol definitely has physical, social, and emotional consequences that don't just affect the drinker. 

When a person overindulges in alcohol, they can turn either angry enough to cause harm to other things of people, quiet, or funny enough to make a fool of themselves. A person who succumbs to anger fueled by alcohol can become abusive to others or do things that can cause lasting damage to both objects and relationships. I definitely do not agree that underage drinking should be allowed at all because minors don't have a definite awareness of who they are and consuming alcohol will only decrease that awareness. Additionally, not all parents are responsible in parenting under normal circumstances and to introduce alcohol into such situations would be disastrous for minors. If parents are already irresponsible under normal circumstances, unstable factors such as alcohol should not be introduced into the equation as it would make both parent and child act irresponsibly. 

Although there are people who do occasionally indulge for religious or cultural reasons, limits are set on how much alcohol can be consumed so that the drinkers won't lose the ability to behave responsibly. If people are going to drink, they need to set limits beforehand so that their drinking doesn't become out of control and they end up causing harm to other people or things. If people are going to drink, they are better off to do so around others so that people are there to remind them of their limits and stop them from overindulging. If one drinks alone, they are more than likely to overindulge.

When a person drinks, it clouds their common sense and also puts stress on more responsible people to make sure that the drinker is safe by serving as a designated driver, which is stressful because they are holding the drinker's life in their hands. Life is so fragile and short as it is, so why make it even more fragile and potentially shorter for youth by wanting to lower the minimum drinking age? The minimum age in Alberta is 18 and the fact that 18 year olds can drink scares me, as I often see people that young bragging about how irresponsibly they act because they can drink and it's very upsetting. It's as if they don't care or know that too much drinking or mixing it with other activities can have grave effects.

I then turned my attention to the Grammar Lesson for the week, which was awkward sentences. I read a handout and then watched a video before moving on to the quiz. I took the quiz twice and got two wrong the first time, but I got 100% the second time. Thank you, my dear Lord!

After that, I watched the videos on writing that talked about transition and coherence, integrating questions, and paragraphing, summarizing, and quoting. After that, I wrote an essay about my experiences as a speaking tutor.

Mid-Term Writing Assignment

Speaking Partner Mid-Term Assignment

In the second semester of Pathways, I applied for and got assigned to a speaking partner from Brazil named Ismenia Riberio. We were both so eager to get into this assignment that we actually started a week earlier than we were supposed to, so now we are a lesson ahead! Our plan in the beginning was to meet every Tuesday at 4 P.M. her time on Skype, which is 11 A.M. my time and when we haven't met on the designated day for whatever reason, we simply picked an alternate day and kept the time the same for the sake of consistency. It has been a fun experience thus far and I have come to discover that I really enjoy teaching others things they don't know well.
            I  have learned that Ismenia is a very dedicated wife and mother to a seven year old and a five year old boy and also works both at home and on the internet to help support her family. Her husband is also from Brazil, but he is from a different city. Ismenia likes to listen to music, loves going to church, and loves going to the cinema with her family. She is so very eager to learn and is very grateful that I am willing to help her work on the English terminology that she needs to know for Math and also help her with ways in which to do her math problems, as we did some math problems verbally during one of our calls. 

Besides using our speaking partner appointments to go through each lesson, Ismenia and I have also worked on grammar in speaking, as she told me very early on into her lessons that her Pathway teacher said that she sometimes uses improper grammar when speaking and she needed to work on it. During our appointments, Ismenia told me that she sometimes doesn't understand what people said and it is embarrassing because she doesn't know what they are saying because they speak fast, they put words together, and their pronunciation. Ismenia says that at the Pathway gathering, she doesn't have any problem understanding the language because everyone, including the missionaries, speaks slowly and helps everyone to understand. I gently reminded Ismenia that I am here to help her and that if she has questions, she can ask them and to not be afraid of asking me questions. Sometimes, Ismenia feels uncomfortable about asking people to repeat what they have said because it makes her feel limited in trying to express her thoughts. I do my best to make Ismenia feel comfortable and safe enough to ask questions during our sessions by encouraging her to be honest when she doesn't understand something so we can work on it right away rather than wait until later on.

I love working with Ismenia and it makes me to teach English to others in another country someday or even help people learn English in Canada or the United States, as I am a citizen of both countries and can work in both places. Ismenia seems so eager to learn and do her best, but her internet gives her problems at times, so I often copy the lesson text from the page and share it on Skype line by line so that she will not miss the opportunity to learn anything. I love how determined Ismenia is to learn and how positive she is throughout the entire learning process. She makes such an amazing effort to learn and I am very pleased with her efforts to do her absolute best.

I make an effort to continually compliment Ismenia on her improvement in English and I have to say that she has improved so much from when we started. I love helping anyone rise to the potential they have as children of God and it brings me joy when others gain joy through learning. I am so grateful that God gave me the opportunity to do this, as I am learning that I am capable of being a good teacher.