ENG II Project 1- Compare/Contrast Essay

In this first English II assignment, we were given a task to compare any two types of English movies in the two given options- James Bond films and Horror/ Thriller films. The comparison or contrast should be compiled in an essay form.

Aims and Accomplishments:

The main objective of this assignment is to understand the concept of a film genre. Not only to have the ability to understand a film genre, we should demonstrate the skills to compare, contrast, analyse and communicate the information clearly in written form.

What are the practical ways to achieve these outcomes? 

To get the idea of a movie genre, we certainly should expose ourselves with it first. Watch more than one movies of the same type to get the big picture of how do the story lines go, what are the significant parts of the stories and what are the audiences expectations. Movie genre is very important for the initial marketing of a film and it helps the audiences to make their pick.

To demonstrate the ability to analyse movies, one could start with finding similarities or differences in two films of the same category. For instance, both How To Train Your Dragon and Big Hero 6 in animation movie category shares the same concepts of having an adventurous boy as the main character who has a strong bond with a fictional creature. Then, get into details of the similarity or difference found as a guide to compare or contrast the two movies in a critical way. The whole process of comparing movies requires critical thinking skill in which one should be able to logically and deeply understand the connection between ideas. By having all the information and evidences, it is easier to present them in texts.

Learning Process:

I am neither a James Bond fans nor a horror movies addicts unfortunately. Therefore, I have to admit that this assignment did not interest me much at first. However, it gives me a chance to learn about things that I have never thought I would before. The starting might seem sad but the process was quite fun.

So I decided to pick James Bond film to focus on. Leafing though the movie list and the story summaries, I found that James Bond movies had actually lasted for almost 50 years and the newest one is about to released in this year. There must be something really interesting about it to have the potential of maintaining its popularity for such a long period. The main character was played by several different actors so to make it easier, I chose two films with the same main actor- which were Goldeneye (1995) and Die Another Day (2002) played by Pierce Brosnan. Those from the 50's would not be my choice because the way of presenting seemed so so old.

And it's movie time! I managed to watch the two selected movies in two days time and I started to analyse the story lines on the following day to look for relevant points for the comparison. I personally think that comparing movies is simpler to be focused on than contrasting because there are way too much contrast between the two movies that I would rather leave them aside. 

Week before submission, Ms Cassie gave us chance to show our progresses to ask for advices and suggestions. My points for the draft were fine so I could just continue improving on it and writing the citation.

And here is the outcome!

Reflection:

As an overall, what I have learned most from this project is the general knowledge in different types of movie categories and the importance of them. I learned to make reviews on films and put in my own thoughts rationally into an essay. I could say that what I am good at is my ability to summarize the story plots and characters in a movie as a whole. Meanwhile, I am somehow weak at analysing small details as I am big picture thinking type. I think this can be improved in the future by exposing myself to more books and media to enhance my sensitivity to things or people surrounding myself. Effective learning strategies proven are doing tasks step by step and check for the mistakes in every step taken.
Last but not least, TGC capabilities learned are:

Discipline Specific Knowledge

- I am able to complete the task given following all of the important requirements. Also, knowledge in movie genre is obtained. I am able to demonstrate basic skills in categorizing movies and doing formal movie reviews.

Lifelong Learning

- Extraction and wise utilisation of information provided in the assignment brief were done independently.

Communication Skills

- I could logically present my analysis of movies into proper written language so as to show the viewers my research, idea synthesis and review.

ENG II Project 2- Research Report and Presentation

This English II second project is about the comparative analysis of two different businesses in the similar industry. In a small group, we were required to find the businesses we intended to approach and our information collected and analysed would be presented in a standard research report. The report were to be presented verbally in class to explain briefly about the business research we had done.

Aims and Accomplishments:

The main intended learning outcome of this assignment is having the skills to appropriately conduct a standard research report with the right content, format and techniques. We will also be able to demonstrate the ability to get relevant information for the topic given by asking proper questions during the interviews with businesses approached. As an example, questions that are too personal or unrelated should not be put in when preparing the questionnaires so as to avoid unnecessary unethical issues with the interviewees. Besides, analysing and synthesising information is also a crucial component in compiling a research report as it requires great amount of thinking and researching. To present the report, we should select and summarize it and clearly explain to the class audiences.

There are several possible good attitudes and practical ways to achieve the outcomes above. First, we as a group must have the ability to work as a team. Everyone must understand the requirements for the project before we begin our research work. In the process of approaching the intended businesses, group members should put the best effort in his own part of job delegated by the leader. As we know that this assignment would be marked as a group so it is impossible and so unfair to leave the job for the others or to do it inappropriately. With all the good teamwork skill and the ability to conduct research, everything would definitely done correctly on time. For example, a secretary who did a good job on preparing the interview form could lead to a positive outcome of information quality obtained. An analyser who carefully extracted and compared the data while kept on updating himself with related knowledge could provide a logical and great middle content of a report. As for the presentation, one should never leave the group by preparing his own slides and contents. It is good to prepare and discuss together in order to be able to present it as a good team. 

Learning Process:

Let us start with the group members. I have found a group consisting of 5 members including myself about a week after we were given the project brief. They are Jaclyn, Wei Shan, Jennifer and Jia En.  Coincidently, all of them are from economic class so I was told to compromise with them as this assignment would be done simultaneously with their economic project using the same topic.

Lots of online research and phone calls were done during the first week to find the businesses that were willing to be our targets. We looked for pastry shops, optical stores, bicycle shops and lastly we got acceptances from two hardware businesses thanks to Wei Shan's help from his father who happened to know one of the business owners. I had just realised even starting a research is not just a piece of cake.

Now it comes to the task delegation part. I was assigned to conduct the compare analysis of the two businesses. Hence the most part of my job would be done after the interviews with the business owners, where I had to replay the recordings again and again to avoid any information being overlooked. As both of the businesses chosen did not provide any other useful sources that we could refer to for the analysis, therefore we happened to interviewed one of the business owner informally using phone call to get some short answers we did not obtained earlier. I learned about the basic marketing structure, competing strategies and some other useful business knowledge from the research I have done.

After few weeks of struggling, yes we finally completed the whole report. The presentation was nearly the denouement of the whole project. I appreciated all of my group members for giving full commitment in contributing for the final report and presentation.

Here are our works.

i) Research Report

ii) Presentation Slides

Reflection:

This project gave us opportunity to expand our knowledge in business field rather than just focusing on language and writing skills. It is great to understand more about the business and working society as it sharpen our thinking skills in a more matured way. One of the most obvious strength I found in myself in this project is my ability to organize and arrange information orderly. I could help my group members to summarize their long written paragraphs and reallocate every piece of information into a simpler table form in order to meet the word count requirement. What I am lacked of is my presentation skill where I was lacked of the right skill in verbally explaining to the audiences clearly about what I had done in our analysis. It would be better if I practise to present my work among my comrades to get their comments on it. Not to forget the TGC capabilities learned in this project:

Lifelong Learning

- Similar to project one, I learn about analysing and synthesising information collected but it is in a more critical way for this time because I had to work on a totally different topic which appeared unfamiliar to me, which was businesses.

Discipline Specific Knowledge

- Format of a standard research report with proper written language and citation method were done correctly.

Citizenship and Global Perspectives

- I am now able to understand different forms of opinion in the similar working industry from different perspectives and values in our community.

Sri Aruloli Thirumurugan Visit

Penang Hill Hindu Temple, one of the oldest temple in Penang. I grabbed the chance to get there during my weekend spent with my sisters in Penang. It was a pleasure seeing all the colourful Hinduism features that I rarely even notice before. Check them out!