K S LO ENGLISH

Have you ever wondered about social sciences? You have science lessons in school. But what about social science? You may come across this subject when you visit the university websites. As a social science student this semester, I would like to share some facts about social science with you. Are you suitable for studying social science in the future? Read this article to find out more.

1. What is social science? Is it related to something that we have learned in the science lesson?

Social science is the field of human knowledge that deals with all aspects of the group life of human beings. Social scientists believe that understanding society is learning the conditions that limit our lives and the opportunities open to us for improving the human condition. They think that much of the laws and understanding of international relations and government facilitate our knowledge of current world events. It relates to science to a certain extent. Have you remembered that you learned scientific investigations in form one? The rationale of the social science experiments is almost the same as scientific investigations. Both emphasize the use of scientific approaches and research methods to study and understand social issues and problems, making social science knowledge more generalizable and objective.

2. Why do people study social sciences?

Social science helps people better understand themselves and the social world objectively and comprehensively. It facilitates them to look beyond their personal experiences and gain insights about society and the social world in an integrative and systematic view. Also, it enables them to develop a greater awareness of the connection between their personal opinions and others’ opinions of the world.

3. What are the major disciplines of social sciences?

Doubtless, to say, social sciences are a vast subject. It mainly involves four subjects: Sociology, Social Work, Criminology, and Psychology. Sociology is the scientific study of social behavior, its origins, development, organizations, and institutions. Social work is a professional and academic discipline. The aim is to improve the quality of life of individuals, groups, and communities. Criminology is the scientific study of nature extent, management control, consequences, and prevention of criminal behaviors on individual and social levels. Psychology is the study of mental functions and behaviors.

4. Is there any limitation of social sciences?

Yes. Sometimes, it is hard for us to conduct a social science experiment. Unlike the experiments in which the independent variables are measurable in your science lessons, something in social sciences is unmeasurable. Satisfaction and democracy are examples. It is difficult and impossible to find and evaluate all the causes of a given situation in this complex society. There is the human element in every social condition, except in routine cases, we can seldom predict individual behavior with complete certainty. If the social scientists succeed in finding uniformities or “laws” of social behavior and setting up hypotheses to explain them, investigators seldom employ controlled experiments to test their ideas. Social scientists must substitute careful observation and the mental process of abstraction for investigations.

5. Who is suitable for studying Social Sciences?

If you want to study Social Sciences at the university, you have to be observant because you must design a thorough experiment. Apart from that, you have to be curious about everything to be more motivated to conduct the experiments and write a report. More importantly, you have to be perseverant because the experiments may be unsuccessful. Then, you have to try again!

To sum up, studying social sciences is fun because we can explore a society in detail. Are you interested in Social Sciences? If you are interested, you may read books about Social Sciences to gain detailed knowledge! If you want to further your study, you may choose Social Sciences at the university!

Reference:

Hunt, E. F., & Colander, D. C. (2011). Social science: an introduction to the study of society
(14th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education/Allyn & Bacon. Chapter 1: Social
Science and Its Methods, pp.1-24
Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Positive psychology: An introduction. In
Flow and the foundations of positive psychology (pp. 279-298). Springer, Dordrecht.
Seligman, M. E., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology
progress: empirical validation of interventions. American psychologist, 60(5), 410.
Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Strengths of character and well-being,
Journal Social and Clinical Psychology, 23 (5), 603-619 

Notice: All the names are pseudonyms. This story is adapted from a true story that I heard of in the university. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.

I was Chris Wong, who was a year one student at the City University of Hong Kong, who studied Chinese and History. I had to form a group of four with my classmate in a course which was about methods of studying humanities. Professor Dr Smith was a very strict teacher. She always blamed someone who had not read all the assigned reading before her lessons. Apart from that, she valued all the group presentations.

Well… perhaps it was a better idea for me to focus on my groupmates. When I first stepped into the lecture hall, I saw a lot of new faces. I was a bit anxious about forming a group because I was shy. Fortunately, I formed a group with the help of Dr Smith. However, things did not go well after forming a group.

Let me introduce my groupmates first. My groupmates were Peter, Mary and Sam. Peter and Mary were really helpful and punctual. They attended every group meeting before our presentation day. On the contrary, Sam was busy because he was an athlete. He did not join any of our group meetings because our group meeting days coincided with his training days. We did not know whether Sam knew what we had done during all the group meetings but I hoped that he would do his works because Dr Smith would give a group mark. That meant if one of us did not do anything, we would receive a poor grade which could affect our overall results of the course.

After our last group meeting before our presentation day, we still did not see Sam. We asked him what happened in our Whatsapp group but there was no reply. We realized that Sam was a freerider*. Ah… that sucked because we had to do all his work.

During the presentation day, Sam sent a message on Whatsapp suddenly. He said that he was at the airport. He was going to participate in a competition in a country. After that, he left a very long voice message which was his part of our presentation. He told us to send his message to Dr Smith. We tried to call him but he was missing now! Perhaps he had left Hong Kong already.

Anyway, we still had to continue our presentation. When it came to Sam’s part, we just carried his voice message to Dr Smith through a speaker. I said, “The following voice message is Sam’s presentation. He is absent because he has to leave Hong Kong and take part in a competition. Also, please familiarize yourself with Sam’s presentation slides.” After that, I delivered Sam’s voice message.

In the meantime, Dr Smith was in a rage. She was angry like a bull with a red cloth on her face. Meanwhile, I pleaded to Jesus and all the deities that our grades would not be affected because Sam could not answer Dr Smith’s follow-up questions. It seemed that Sam was training Dr Smith to take the DSE listening exam. Perhaps I would play “Green Sleeves” before delivering Sam’s voice message.

After our presentation, Dr Smith’s eyes were filled with anger. She said angrily, “I don’t know why someone has to concentrate on sports only. Can’t he play sports after studying?” She was kind to us. She awarded us a good grade. However, Sam failed the whole subject because he was unable to answer all the follow-up questions. I realized that I had to find groupmates carefully next time.

Although this story ended, I had just embarked on my university adventure.

*Freerider: a groupmate who does not make any contribution to a project. He even misses all the group presentations. Notably, he was a burden to his groupmates.

Have you ever imagined your life as a university student? Which university would you like to apply to in the future? When I was a student in secondary school, I always wondered about my life at the university. Is there a lot of freedom? Will professors blame me if I didn’t hand in assignments on time? I will tell you the major differences as being a student at the City University of Hong Kong.

1. Freedom

In secondary school, you are not allowed to skip all the lessons without teachers’ permission. On the contrary, in the university, you can skip lessons if you want. Some of my classmates skipped a majority of lessons in a semester because professors would not care about them. However, they had to bear the consequences of poor results. If someone gets a poor grade in the university, they cannot participate in exchange and internship programs, especially those that require good results. I recommend you not to skip lessons because it will be difficult for you to catch up. Once you skip a theory lesson, you cannot fully understand and apply those theories in quizzes. Eventually, you cannot perform well in the tests.

In addition, the timetable is more flexible in the university. In secondary school, you are required to follow the timetable strictly. Their timetables are well-designed by teachers. Also, teachers will design quizzes and tests for students to be well-prepared in the final exams. Sometimes, you may feel anxious because of the hectic quiz schedules. In the university, you can choose your favourite courses and master your class schedules. The lecturers will tell you the important dates such as quizzes, tests and deadlines of final papers. They do not help you prepare. You have to manage your time wisely. Nobody will tell you how to revise and what to prepare. Freedom is granted in the university but the key is that you have to grasp how to allocate your time.

2. Venue

In secondary school, most of your lessons are in different classrooms, laboratories and some special rooms (STEM room, technology and living room, music room, etc). Teachers will tell you how to go on the first day of school. All you need is to follow teachers’ instructions and go to the destinations. In the university, nobody would tell you how to go to different classrooms. You have to remember all the places by yourself. More importantly, you have to memorize when to go to classrooms and lecture halls. If you get to the wrong place, you will be embarrassing.

3. Assignment

Homework is quite different. In secondary school, teachers would probably like to give you a lot of assignments, particularly during holidays which have a long time. In the university, you only have a few assignments to do. For example, I was a student of the course called “History and Heritage” this semester. I only had an individual paper that requires me to write at least 1,500 words, a group paper (UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Nomination Form) and two open-book tests. Notably, the workload is almost the same as your holiday assignments if you would like to get a better grade in the university because a lot of time is spent collecting all the information.

4. People

Teachers are different in the university. In secondary school, teachers would spend a lot of time answering your questions and talking about your quizzes. If you are lazy, some teachers will blame you because they care about you. They don’t want you to get poor results. In the university, professors will not care about you. If you are not proactive in the lessons, professors may not recognize you as well. Even if you finish your first draft of the final paper and would like to receive suggestions, they will only provide some guiding questions and point out some major problems. They would not answer you in detail.

On the other hand, classmates are different too. In secondary school, you have lessons with your classmates. When you get to the classroom, you will see a lot of familiar faces. You can share a lot of unforgettable moments with them. If you do group projects, your classmates are willing to make contributions. In the university, although you have classmates, you will not see them if they do not take the same courses as you. As for doing group projects, you will sometimes meet some free-riders who don’t want to make contributions to the group projects. They even ignore you even if you blame them. You may wonder why there are free-riders in the university. Well…don’t ask me. I don’t know. I encountered some in the university. All I do is report them and blame them on Whatsapp. Ugh…that’s useless if they are still unwilling to do but they will almost certainly don’t want to become my groupmates because they are afraid of being blamed.

5. Activity

In secondary school, there are numerous activities. In the student-and-teacher activity week, you can participate in a lot of competitions with your friends and even teachers. Before the Christmas holidays, there is a Christmas variety show for the whole school. In the first and second terms, there are some inter-class and inter-house competitions. That sound quite fun! However, in the university, there are not so many activities for you unless you are one of the committee members of a different society. Although there are many activities organized by the student development service centre (SDS), you may not have spare time to join if you want to get good grades. You have to spend time doing research and consulting professors. Meanwhile, there are weekly required readings in some courses. One weekly reading contains at least ten pages. You may have to consult a dictionary many times when you encounter some professional terms.

In conclusion, things are different once you have entered the university. You have to learn how to study strategically and diligently with the help of teachers in secondary school because nobody will tell you how to study in the university. Once you have the right attitude towards studying, you will probably perform better in university. From my point of view, I love secondary more because I have a lot of good teachers and friends! I hope you all can enter your dream universities and further pursue your studies, especially those of you who are preparing for your DSE exams!

In part one, I have talked about part of English history (from the first century to 410 AD). Now, I will discuss the entire history with you.

During the Scandinavian Viking invasion (the 9^th century), old Norse was spread in England. Words such as “drag”, “ransack”, “thrust”, “die”, “give” as well as “take” were invented. At the end of the 9^th century, only Wessex remained independent from Vikings. King Alfred the Great (848-899), a king of Wessex/Anglo Saxons was a great military leader and scholar who promoted the translation of Latin works into the vernacular (Old English) to encourage literacy. As for the rest of England, people spoke between English and Danes, which became known as the Danelaw.

In 1066, William the Conqueror invaded Britain (The Norman Conquest) and brought with him French words to add to the English Language. French became used for “all official business” (i.e. the language of prestige, law and religion up until the 14^th century). Some words are still remaining in English. They are “judge”, “jury”, “evidence” and “justice”. In that period, Latin was still used in church. People spoke English (old English) words for animals from English-speaking farmers. About 10,000 words were absorbed from French marking the beginnings of Middle English. Here are some examples: “beef (cow)”, “mutton (sheep)” and “pork”(swine).

From 1337 to 1453, England was at war with France. The was a hundred year’s war. After that, English took over as the language of power. English evolved from contact between these languages. Today, English is continuously evolving.

In conclusion, English developed from complex patterns of contact between speakers of different languages. From the earliest times, English has varied in response to historical events and social change. Next time, when you are blamed that you did not speak “proper English’, you should ask those people a question: how to define “proper English”? If you look at the history of English, there is no “proper English” because English is everchanging in the world!

Reference:

Viney, B. (2008). The history of the English language (Oxford bookworms library. Factfiles. Stage 4). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

The City University of Hong Kong-English on the Move (Course code: EN2011) Week two power point

Have you ever wondered about the history of English when you are having your English lessons in your classrooms every week? It is known that “English” emerged in Britain. But how does it evolve from time to time?

You may wonder about when English began. Before the first century, original settlers were Celts, which were a group of people spread across today’s Europe. Interestingly, few Celtic words were found in today’s English. They were rivers and settlements (for example, Aron, London, Kent), seabirds (penguins, gulls, puffins) as well as frequent use of present continuous tense (be+ -ing form). They were common in Celtic.

In AD 43-410, Britain was a Roman province. Roman spoke Latin. Latin became the official language of commerce and government departments. Therefore, Latin was well connected with other parts of the world through administration, trade and scholarship. Meanwhile, many languages were spoken in Britain but Latin was essential for essential communication between traders. Due to increasing intermarriage between Celtic and Romans, Celtic was spoken at home while Latin was spoken in the street in many people’s lives. Nowadays, Latin words were still used in English. They were: alibi (elsewhere), bonus (good), exempli gratia (abbreviation is “EG” which means for the sake of example), ego (I), impromptu (spontaneous), intro (within), multi (many), re: (about).

In AD 443, Roman legions withdrew to defend Rome during the Anglo-Saxon Invasions period. Britain undefended. It was invaded and settled by Germanics tribes called Anglos, Saxons and Jutes. (The sites were Northern part of Germany and Denmark nowadays.) Native Britain was driven westward into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland or remained as servants. Old English (or Anglo-Saxon English) was formed. It inherited all simple everyday nouns for today’s English. For instance, “woman” is the old English word “wif”. “Earth” comes from the old English word “ertha”. “Tuesday” comes from Proto-Germanic “Tiwaz” which means “god of the sky”. Also, Some vocab of family relationships (brothers, sisters, fathers), determiners, prepositions, auxiliary verbs came from Old English.

Next time, I will tell you about the entire part of English history. Stay tuned!

Reference:

Viney, B. (2008). The history of the English language (Oxford bookworms library. Factfiles. Stage 4). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

With the virus running amok, the whole world spiralled into chaos. Sometimes I wish this was all a nightmare I have yet to wake up from, yet no matter how many times I pinch myself, everything stays the same. Many aspects of my life have been altered to accommodate the global epidemic, some good some bad. Even though we are forced to change and mature under the unfortunate circumstances, it also allowed us to see things we were blind to, cherish those we didn’t. 

To begin with, my social life has been significantly affected. To me, friends are one of the most important things. It’s a great feeling when you can share anything with your friends and they would agree to disagree with you, a pleasurable discussion about anything. Now due to policies implemented by the Government for the health and safety of everyone, I’m unable to hang out with my friends as much as I used to. Therefore, slowly but surely I’m losing touch with my buddies. With school closed, we cannot chit-chat to our heart’s content during recess or after-school. Before everything, we used to talk every day but now it’s just a few messages sent here and there over the few months. It’s a fact that chatting online is completely different from in-person, the body language which makes conversations much more intriguing is non-existent, considering what’s in front of you are plain texts and not a living person, in one word it’s dull. In a way thanks to the limited chances of getting physical contact, I have come to appreciate the time spent with friends when we are given the green light to go to school, treasuring the seconds that I could speak with them. The old me would have never thought that there will be a day I can’t socialise. It’s like the old saying “You never know how important something is until they’re gone.” 

In addition, with lessons suspended, I have had more free time than ever before. As a result, I’m able to cultivate new hobbies. At first, it was overwhelming for me to have so much spare time. Prior to the pandemic, I had a packed schedule. Leisure time was never within sight for the reason that I was barely able to complete the never-ending tasks before the end of the day. Then without warning, everything came to a stop. Schools were to be suspended until further notice. In other words, all the tests and homework would be postponed or cancelled. “Finally! I have all the time to myself.” This was my initial thought after hearing the news. As the day passed, however, I felt complete and utter boredom. I repeated the same meaningless activities 24/7, even my favourite entertainment became monotonous. Then it struck me that I should use the time to enrich myself with different skills. Consequently I started to learn Japanese, bettered myself in culinary arts, made origami and etc… Even though they may not be of use for now, someday when I look back at myself I will be thankful for the path I took. The future is full of uncertainty, who knows when I will have as much free time as I do now? That’s why it’s important to utilize the time to its fullest extent, instead of rotting away doing nothing.

Furthermore, with the pandemic raging on I personally feel I have become sluggish. Normally I have deadlines upon deadlines to meet and so to avoid punishments I must finish all my work on time. Now without face-to-face lessons, teachers are more lenient considering there’s not much choice on how to punish us when we don’t do our assignments. Plus with online classes, nobody knows what we are doing behind the screen. Never once did I focus on the lesson. In consequence, my grades have suffered, as seen from my first exam since the pandemic. Am I angry with myself? Yes, I am furious. Yet I didn’t make an effort to right my wrong owing to my laziness, there’s not an ounce of self-discipline in me. Well not until the latest exam in which I hit a dead end, I only met the bare minimum for passing the tests. The results shocked me to my core. DSE is only in a year, there’s little to no time left. If I don’t devote to my studies, I will be dooming my future. However the road of commitment and perseverance is brutal, the mental effort to force yourself to do things you dislike is gruelling. It’s even worse when you beat yourself up for failing. Though through trial and error I understood that I should walk before I run, I’m trying bit by bit, telling myself that I’ve surpassed the me of yesterday.  In hopes of a future that I would not regret.

No one knew that the coronavirus would have such a devastating effect on the world. In spite of everything whatever we do we could not change the past, we can only look forward. We should acknowledge and amend our mistakes as well as ignorance. Through the impacts of the pandemic such as limited socialising, excess time, lax restriction. I won’t appreciate how precious the time spent with friends is, I would’ve never thought of exploring different hobbies and never would I know the importance of tenacity.  Luckily humans are the most adaptable species on Earth, thus no matter what situations are thrown at us we will adapt and become better than ever.

Thanks to the coronavirus, we are forced to switch our lifestyle and working style in a totally different way. The education industry is one of the main place feeling the effect of the pandemic. Teachers and students need to adopt online education, and they need to have lessons on ‘Zoom’, which is a distance learning app, and hand in their homework in ‘Google Classroom’ or ‘Canvas’. As a student, people always ask me which kind of classes I prefer the most——online or in the classroom. Without a doubt, my own belief will always, definitely be ‘in the classroom’.

     The first point to consider why classroom life is better is that it can help maintain the quality of education and learning efficiency. The learning schedule of online education can be quite flexible, relaxed and convenient, but on the other hand, it actually offers an opportunity for students to be slothful and inattentive in online lessons. Teachers cannot pay attention to all the students by looking at the electronic screen. Consequently, the teacher will deliberately slow down his/her teaching in order to let all the kids understand the concept. Moreover, it is a must to do experiments for subjects such as Biology, Chemistry and Physics because they can help students know the complicated knowledge more. But if we just stuff the courses onto a tiny little electronic screen, we won’t have the chance to experience the principles behind the experiments ourselves. Classroom teaching will improve these problems, teachers can talk to the children face-to-face and solve their questions quickly. Students can also do experiments instead of watching videos. Therefore, there is evidence of a decline in learning efficiency and education quality while having online learning.

      Furthermore, it is the case that adopting online education often can lead to eye diseases such as short sightedness. Studying online means students need to look at the electronic display for a long period of time, According to a research from the University of Toledo, when our eyes receive Blu-ray from the screen, it will damage the retinal cells in our eyes and we may easily have eyestrain. This research proves that there is a detrimental impact on our eyes if we keep looking at the screen for a long time. I am convinced that more and more students will start to wear glasses if online education becomes common. Always using electronic devices is not good for our mental health too, people may get depressed or anxious easily if they have to face the computer or iPad every day.

      A final point is, we can keep up the social interaction with people when having classroom life. Social interaction is always important no matter at what time. It can let us have a better mental health, chatting with friends or playing with them face-to-face can lighten our mood. We won’t have ample chance to communicate with our classmates if all the teaching changes to online education.

       In a nutshell, teaching quality and efficiency do not have to be compromised with resumption of normal classroom teaching. Moreover, eye diseases can be prevented. In addition, we won’t lose our social interaction which essentially makes us happier. Because of the above reasons, I prefer classroom life to online education.