ESL 114 was a very interesting class with a wonderful teacher and pleasing students. It was a pleasure to be in this class both because of its good atmosphere and useful information. Attending this class was like a remedy against all those engineering classes that made me feel unwell or nauseous. Therefore, it was a very good idea to attend the class afternoon and recover from that bad condition. Without doubt I have to say that it was a very helpful class for me. During this semester I have learned many things like the correct use of the articles, construction of well-structured sentences, and finding appropriate information for the essay. And the right use of them has a crucial importance in writing a good essay.
The correct use of the articles is important because of the abundant use of them in an essay. The usage of articles was always a burden for me. Why English do have to use these articles? There are many other languages like Russian, Turkish, and Arabic that are perfect without using these articles. But still, I had to face it and learn how to use them both in my speech and in my essays. I have noticed that it is hard even for the Native Americans to explain the usage of a particular article. Since they use the articles intuitively since their birth they have never thought about this issue and probably never will, unless they are becoming an English teacher. But I wouldn’t say that it is impossible to learn the articles. Our teacher did her best to teach us the basic principles. Tutoring sessions with a teaching assistant was very helpful as well. And to say the truth, articles aren’t that bad at all. It is just a matter of time to get to know them well.
Well-structured sentences are very critical in writing a good essay. It is very important not to have fragments or run-on sentences while writing an essay. Because of the inappropriately constructed sentence a reader might not comprehend the right idea of the sentence. And I should say that I was little confused with the construction of sentences in the beginning. I had problems with fused sentences, also known as run-on sentences. This type of problem usually occurs when two or more independent sentences fused in one sentence without any punctuation marks. And I also had some problems with the usage of comma in separating dependent clauses. But after a while I was able to fully understand and use them in a grammatically correct way. That was not so hard as with the articles.
And the last, finding appropriate information for the essay is also very critical to support the ideas mentioned in an essay. It would be very hard to strengthen the points mentioned in the essay without good supporting details. These details can be summarized from the obtained information and used in a proper way whether to support or contradict the statement. I have begun browsing databases since the first day of the class and often used databases like Academic Search Premier, Lexis-Nexis Academic, etc. It was a little difficult to find proper information for the essay but after hours of research and help of the advisers I was finally able to handle it. One can find very interesting articles related to one’s topic and use them as a supporting example, fact, or statement.
To conclude, I really enjoyed the ESL 114 class. It was a really productive class. I have learned a lot of useful information. And this is the only class where the teacher cares about her students by entertaining sweet candies and tasty cookies to the students. I really did like this class. In this class the students should have felt themselves like being at home.

My home city

There are many eye-catching cities in my country. And one of them is my home city Semey. The town was founded in 1718 by merchants who built seven tents in an empty place. “Semipalatinsk” which in Russian language means “Seven tents” was the name for this place; afterward it was changed to “Semey”. Later, it became a big trade center, so this city has a great history. At the time when it was formed, the town was occupied mostly by intellectuals. Therefore, there are many museums, theaters and public libraries. And if I had a chance to be a representative of my city and present my city to a visitor, I would show everything I could.

First of all, I would take the visitor to our old gate, the entrance to the town, which was a part of the fortress in the past. The Gate was built in 1773 under the direction of an engineer-captain Andreev I.G. After 300 years the gate and the high-angle gun are the only things left in a modern city. The ball bullets, next to the gun, are packed together in the same position as it was 300 years ago. And I was always asking to myself “Did anyone ever shoot from this gun?” Well, I don’t think that it was simply to decorate the gates.

The next place which I would show to the visitor is our huge bridge. Since our town is divided by a wide river called “Irtish”, our modern construction joins together two separate lands. It was built in 2000 by Japanese IHI Corporation and Turkish Alarco Alsim company. It has the same design as The Golden Bridge in San Francisco, except the fact that our bridge is wider. In the one end of the bridge, there is an embankment which is always crowded with walking people. On the other end of the bridge, there is a big aqua-park which is always crowded with joyful children. Moreover, from this bridge, the island, where different types of animals collected from all over the world, could be seen. This beautiful sight is worth seeing.

Also the City History Museum would be very interesting to the visitor because he/she would be able to become familiar with a variety of traditional clothes, ceremonies and food. For example, "Nauryz" festival marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the new year. "Beshparmak" is a very popular dish which consists of boiled meat and small pieces of pastry. There is also a description of many traditional games, musical instruments, etc. And as a part of the tradition, it is obligatory to give the national clothing as a present for the guests, so the visitor would have a good memory about the visit and the city.

In conclusion, there are many captivating places in my town. If I had a chance to present my town for the visitor, I would need at least one year to show him/her all the engrossing sights.