17^th December, 2010

Dear peers and tutors:

During the course of the semester in EAP lessons, I have been able to acquire a vast amount of knowledge and skills. In fact, I have experienced many different feelings on course work. There have been times when  I felt overwhelmed with assignments, worried that I did something incorrect, or even stressed thinking I would not finish something on time. Overall, I can now state that I have learned to adapt a better sense of organization to my learning habits. 

Throughout this semester I have had the opportunity to develop my skills in the writing process that includes drafting, individual writing consultations, generation of ideas, gathering of data and topics as well as peer papers evaluation. As Johns and Swales (1990) state “a discourse community is composed of a minimum number of expert members and a frequently larger number of apprentice members who operate on the basis of implicit  public goals” (as cited by Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p. 12). Thus it has been through peer editing that an emerging discourse community started to take form during our present course of studies. It is in this mode in which these valuable achievements have become true. That is why, I am grateful to my peer editor Marina Valek who has always shown   great predisposition to share her principles and knowledge with me giving way to a valuable friendship built in spite of long distances. Besides, I have had the satisfaction of having been asked by another colleague, Claudia Hernández, to be her peer editor. I would also like to thank her for having trusted in me.

In this portfolio all those pieces of academic writing I have done throughout the present semester have been included, namely, all my integrative assignments, mid-term test as well as blog entries. 

Yours sincerely,

                                        Maria Fernanda Walter

References

                                                               

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Unit 1: Building up a Community of Teachers and Prospective Researchers. Retrieved  December 2010, from  http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=6856