Self-knowledge and the internet: 3 lessons wrap-up

We did three lessons that focused on learning about yourself, particularly

Learning style
Psychological type
Career Interest

These three lessons had several components.
First, you and your partner discussed some questions, such as:

Learning Style: What kind of study method was effective for you?
Psychological Type: What personality type is best?
Career Interest: What kind of careers are you interested in?

and you wrote some answers, such as

Learning Style
My partner’s answer: preparing and review
My answer: listening and speaking

Psychological Type
My partner’s answer: She thinks positive thinking is best.
My answer: I think there is no best; they are all needed.

Career Interest
My partner’s answer: travel or trading business
My answer: education or art

We are trying to practice reading, speaking, listening, and writing, as well as vocabulary and grammar. I think you can do all of these in this task. After discussing these questions and writing your answers, there was an online survey, or questionnaire, that you had to read, understand, and answer by selecting a response. The questionnaire was usually in English, but in one case was in Japanese. Completing the questionnaire gave you a result, such as

Learning Style: The result of the questionnaires could tell you whether you
are a Visual learner, Auditory Learner, Kinaesthetic (Physical) or other type of
learner. Then, you could read recommendations about what kind of learning
techniques usually work best for people who have the same way of learning that
you have.

Psychological Type: The questionnaire was a Jungian, Keirsey, or
Myers-Briggs type questionnaire that would identify your personality type from
among 16 different types based on the way you think, feel, relate to other
people, express yourself, and so on. This can be used to match you to certain
kinds of work, and even identify who would be a good marriage partner!

Career Interest: The results give you your RIASEC code, or Holland code,
that tells you which of 6 different kinds of work you are probably best suited
for (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or
Conventional). Some people get results which are a combination of 2 or
three of these letters. You could then see a list of jobs which match your type,
and some movies about the jobs.

All of these types of self-knowledge can be very useful. Look at what may happen if you do not understand your self.

Learning Style
If you do not understand your own best way to learn, you will not be able to
memorize or learn new things. You may get bad grades and start to think that you
are stupid.

Psychological Type
If you do not understand your own psychological profile, you may try to
change into a person that you are not. You may marry someone who is not really
compatible, too, for example.

Career Interest
If you do not what jobs are right for you, you may try to do something
which is not suitable for you, and may not like it. Then, you will have to quit
in a few years and start over in a new career.

Finally, you have been asked to write about what you found. I said that you should be able to write about 150 words on each topic. In order to evaluate your performance on these tasks, I need to have your written work for the questions with your partner, and you short written report. You written report shows me that you worked on discussing and answering the questions, that you tried the questionnaire, that you interpreted the results, that you thought about the results, that you tried to relate the results to your prior experiences, and that you were able to write a little about the whole process in English. Naturally, when you write this, you might also refer to the answers to the questions that you did with your partner.

The written reports that I have received in the past have not been very good.
• Some have been too short. (Please write more.)
• Some are very rough machine translations. (Please write human translations, not machine translations. We do not need any student or employee to make machine translations.)
• Some have just copied the results text from the computer onto the paper. This does not show any evidence of thinking about the results. In other words, you could copy Italian or Spanish results from the computer onto a paper, too, without understanding or thinking about anything. Copying has no meaning and no value. Write ABOUT your results. Do not simply COPY your results.

I will provide an example of what I think your report might look like, for each of the three tasks.

Learning Style

I am interested in learning style, because I have seen that people can learn in different ways. When I meet someone who is good at English, I try to find out how they learned English. There are many different replies. Some people said that they learned from NHK broadcasts on the radio or TV. Other people said that they learned when they traveled, lived, or studied abroad. Other people learned by exchanging letters with a pen friend. Some people learned English by reading lots of books. I realized that there are many ways to learn a language.

When I began studying Spanish, at university, I couldn’t keep up, and I was getting a D. I quit Spanish, and later, when I studied Japanese, I realized that I needed to memorize kanji, vocabulary, and grammar by making word cards. The questionnaires for learning style told me different results at different times. Sometimes it told me that I am a Kinaesthetic learner. Another one said I was Visual. I think that I love language and playing word games, too. It could be that there are more than 3 or 4 learning styles, and that I am good at using 2 or 3 of them. I think I am able to use different learning styles at different times to match what I am learning. For example, sometimes I memorize a phone number by the sound the numbers make in Japanese, sometimes I think of pattern my fingers make when they push the buttons, and sometimes I hear the phone number or see it written in space. I hope that I can continue to learn, and get better at remembering students’ names! (278 words)

Psychological Type

I took the Keirsey temperament sorter and the Humanmetrics Jung test. On the Keirsey test, I have had several different results since I first took it about 4 years ago. I have had the results of Mastermind (iNTj), Architect (iNTp), and Healer (iNFp). These results are matched to Eisenhower, Einstein, and Princess Diana. If I average those different results, the result is INTP. Also, when I take the Humanmetrics Jung test, I also get INTP. However, the “T” part is only 1% strong. Of the four basic types, this means I am a Rational, not Artisan or Guardian. I am close to Idealist, too. The Idealist type includes “Teacher” and “Healer”. I think this result is correct. I feel farthest from the Guardian, because the Guardian trusts the government and authority, and I do not; the Guardian likes business, and I do not; and the Guardian likes safety, security, and physical work, and I like to take a chance. INTPs are precise, and often go into linguistics. This matches me! The INTPs include many philosophers, scientists and people I admire, such as Jung, Midori Ito, Tiger Woods, Rick Moranis, and Isaac Newton. They say INTP feeling tends to be all or none. INTPs love mathematics, language games, computer systems, and any complex system. The description at http://typelogic.com/intp.html sounds a lot like me. (222 words)

Career Interest

I took the career interest quiz. Sometimes I get different results when I take these quizzes. After taking several different ones at different times, I notice that I usually get Investigative jobs. These are jobs like scientist or detective. I think it matches me, because I have always been interested in the FBI and science. I also get Social as my second result. This matches my true feelings, because I think it would be great to work as a doctor or a nurse or teacher or something that helps people in some way. I do not like to think of trying to sell things to people or make them spend money, but I like to try to help somebody. I also sometimes get high results for artistic and realistic work. I like art a lot, and I like to express myself with some kind of art or music. I also think it is sometimes good to work with real physical things, and use my hands. It can be refreshing, but I don’t like to do it all the time. (179 words)

My writing was 150-300 words. In your case, try for 100-150 words. The 3 reports altogether should be about 300-450 words. Do not copy or use straight machine translation. (You are a human.)