Map of the World by Zheng Jie

After the introductory class for Academic English class II, All of us were asked to draw a map of the world. There were no additional requirements, and limitations. I suppose to start drawing very quickly, but my pen stopped at least 30 seconds. It is not only because I am generally not good at drawing, but also because I do not know what was the world map usually looked like. Finally, I used last 10 seconds just draw some circles and rectangles to represent continents. As soon as I walked around the classroom, I found some similarities and differences according to other students drawing.

For the similarities, firstly, most of us drew countries and continents as the main content. Also, we tend to drew countries which we are familiar with, such as the country we came from, countries we are interested in or had been to more detail. Following, all of us drew the map of the world in two dimensions, we put world in oblong shape. On the other hand, there are 2 differences from the drawings. The first difference is that our centre lines are different. Some put Japan in the middle but some of us were not. In addition, it seemed that some students really know about the world, their drawings were very specific and detailed even for the small islands. In addition, some of us attached each country’s name in order to make their drawings much clear and easy to understand. 

Carrying on, all of us started to think about what was missing from the drawings we drew. “There were no timeline on the drawings, there were no North Pole and South Pole”, students spoke out what they have found from drawings. Then, we were told to draw another map of the world and also walked around to see others drawings. I realized that everyone’s drawing changed slightly after listened to the suggestions from our classmates. Compare with the previous drawings, I classified them into 3 groups. The first group people drew the similar drawings from the first one, however, they take the suggestions from other students and drew the second drawing based on their first drawing and seemed to be more perfectly. Secondary, a number of students like me drew a completely new drawing of the world. There was no connection between neither first drawing nor suggestions written on the blackboard. Thirdly, a small group of students left a blank piece of paper.

To conclude, what I have learned from the first drawing were that all of us came from different countries, backgrounds, cultures and a diversity of the education systems we have result in the different kinds of drawing in the class. However, our drawings were alike in general. Although we are generally different, it is better if we can still believe that we are all the same. It is nature and normal if we have distinct ideas, to understand and respect the differences is essential and necessary. Also, I started to think that the world is much bigger than I used to imagine, I know nothing about the world and surroundings. From the second picture, I thought it showed the character and personality. It showed how each individual digests new things and in what way they show off it. I am not confident with the understanding of second drawing. Hopefully I will find out and know more about my classmates gradually throughout this term.   

Zheng Jie

Map Drawing Exercise Afterthoughts by Wooju

When we had to draw the map within a  few minutes, it was really hard to draw whole map in time. So I just focused on drawing one part where it was familiar to me. After I finished drawing and compared with other people, I realized that there were differences on how to draw the world map. Before we compared our drawings, I thought that everyone drew the map in a similar fashion. However, I was wrong. There are many differences among our drawings. And after we compared our maps with other people and was told to draw the map again, I found that there were many common facts amongst of us. Through this activity, I realized that there were differences and similarities among of us, not only the result of drawings but also how to draw and where to draw. 

The difference is that everyone drew the map differently and they focused drawing different part of the world. Such as some people drew Pacific Ocean in the middle of the map others drew Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the map and the other drew North Pole in the middle of the map. Also, some people were drawing one part with many details; others were drawing the whole world very simple way with lack of details. I think the reason for these results was because everyone had different education style, different background and they saw different map of the world. Because the world maps used in different countries are quite different, such as globe, pacific based map, Atlantic based map and Oceania based map. I was of no exception to this activity. I drew the part of the world which is familiar with me and which I saw a lot of times through the map where East Asia is,

The similarity of their drawing was when they saw others drawing first and after that we should draw again. At that time they included many information and details from other classmates. Most people drew the map in a 2d manner. Since I mentioned that when second drawing I felt like most people drew the map similarly. Also every one gathered other people's idea and added to their drawing. In my case I also focused on drawing my home country, South Korea, and near my country. And in second drawing, I also accepted other people's idea and I added other parts of the world easily. When we drew second time, many people accepted other people's drawing points and if they forgot some place to draw, they added that place when they drew the map second. I also changed my drawing when I was drawing the second map. 

According to these reasons, I found that there should be difference among everyone because of individual's background, which means their culture, where they educated from and way they think and focus on. Also I found the reason for similarity that we are accepting other people's opinion easily and they are. Because after we saw our drawings and when we have to draw the map again, most people's drawing was quite similar. 
While I was chosen to say about the first drawing, I thought about this activity and I was curious about why people draw the map in same way in second time. In first time we were drew the map own way but 
we could draw different way, but why most people want to draw the map in common way? 

Kim Wooju

What I’ve learnt from world map writing, and comparing the differences and similarities of our way of thinking towards the world map by Kohei

About the differences:

First, the class presented many types of world map. The one I drew was very sketchy, without North and South Pole, just small islands, and almost only peninsulas.

One of the maps I realised concentrated mostly on South East Asia, with names of the countries. In contrast, the other map was drawn centralised on Far East Asia, with the island Takeshima, which is also named Dokto island in Korean. Furthermore I found out that a map was drawn in Lambert projection, another alternative way to draw a map. I mean, what we thought is important when we draw maps can be very different from others. That makes the differences in our map drawing. E.g. those who drew crude world maps just wanted finish drawing the maps with all the continents in time. There are also some people who drew maps which focused on a particular area, with small islands and specific shapes of the continent or area. I think that they wanted to draw a more detailed map. As for me, it was interesting to look at others’ maps because I could find some individual features in our map drawings.

About the similarities:

There were the two primary similarities that I found out. First, the very common similarity that I realised was that we all drew our maps with North Pole on top and South Pole below. Secondly, almost all of us drew maps which centred our home country. I wondered why we drew the map that way. The answer is: Because it’s our individual idea. The maps we drew are the maps we are really used to. Since childhood, we’ve seen the maps on TV shows, newspapers, textbooks, and we were taught that the way of map drawing is the correct way. Therefore, when we were told to draw a map, we drew it in a way in which our home country being centre, north side facing up. Another similarity was that all of us drew our maps in Mercator projection during the first draft of map drawing. I thought that this may be the most popular way of map drawing and we’ve also learnt maps that are drawn in Mercator projection.

First try of map drawing and second try showed some differences. We reconsidered our maps and consulted others’ ideas to make better maps. During my second try I added North Pole and South Pole, Japan and New Zealand in my map. I drew both North Pole and South pole in references to my classmates’ idea. Others also drew better maps in references to each other’s idea. Then I thought, “having a discussion and sharing ideas are very important at university”. When I was in high school, students were just told to follow what the teachers say, without any discussion. So the experience of map drawing impressed me very well. I felt that I’m really becoming to be like a university student. I wish I could speak better in English, so much so that I can join in to discussions. I’ll study harder to have discussions in English.

Kohei

Map Drawing for Academic English by Young Ah

I would like to give my own observation from the class of the 13^th of April, titled by ‘Map of the World’ in Academic English Class. Everyone in the class was asked to draw the pictures of the map of the world. It was very interesting to see how our own cultural backgrounds actually affect to the pictures, reflecting each one’s uniqueness and lives. What I noticed from the observation is the three important main points.

Firstly, each person perceives based on his view about the country. Sometimes people exaggerated their own country. I saw one drawing where was extremely huge as Australian continent. For me, I drew Korea with small islands but I could not finish the Japan’s one. It can be interpreted as there is likely to happen that we have a different view of the same problem. For example, one government may not agree with an argument or does not take it seriously made by other government, because they see the one their own perspectives.

Secondly, we are living in the 21^st century when globalization becomes one of the important concepts for us. Especially, western culture has spread to the world widely. Even we are from all different country, almost everyone drew similar pictures. We put northern hemisphere up and East at the right. It was quite interesting to see our images of the world have already been decided by one of the cartographers. We do not use the one made by Chinese cartographer anymore, rarely using reversed maps, but use the established one by Ptolemy which includes Western Hemisphere bias.

Lastly, the environment also influences the perspectives of the world. Japan was existed in everyone’s drawings. That is because, now we are living in Japan so it became the relevant place for all of us.

Furthermore, people can learn and influence each other. After finishing our own observations, we had a chance to share these. Someone pointed out we missed the time line, the sea and some continents including North Pole. The other person wondered why we have only drawn the map in two dimensional since we were only asked to draw map, not the dimensional. It could be three-dimensional. I thought it was very good observation since I never imagined in that way. So second round, there was a slight change of the maps. People put more details which we missed from last one but learnt from others.

   In conclusion, I could see the reflection of our perspectives of the world from the maps that we drew. We are living in the modern world where ‘western’ is the major of the society. Also, each single person’s ranges of view can be very narrow and it usually begins from their country. However, the cognition of world can be restructured by interacting each other and changes of environments.

To be honest, I was wondering about the reason of doing this at first time. Now I understand it as I have been taking this class through few weeks so far. Even from this tiny thing, such as drawing pictures of the map, we understand these tiny things show us that who we are. Area study is not only about learning the world, but it is also the opportunities to know you with more understandings.

Kim Young Ah

Observation and Analysis of Map Drawing Exercise by Timothy

This post is with regards to the exercise of drawing a map of the world during Academic English a few weeks ago.

Preliminary observations of the drawings made by our classmates allowed me to make certain conclusions. Many similarities were found. Firstly, I observed that everyone's general outline of the world is similar where major continents are present and in their correct locations. Continents like Asia, Australia, North America, South America, Europe and Africa are present in most of the drawings. Next, I observed that everyone had Japan placed on their maps. This could be due to the fact that we are all currently in Japan, thus the awareness of our current location. Lastly, I noticed that everyone drew the map with the north pole in the top and south pole in the bottom as depicted in most standardized maps.

However, despite the many similarities, there were also certain differences. First, I noticed that there was a map with triangles, circles and rectangles used to symbolize the different continents. This was quite interesting as I have never thought that the continents actually resembled certain basic shapes. Next, some maps had the oceans of the world annotated, depicting the locations of these oceans. I think this is a very good observation as people tend to take landforms into considerations but not the ocean. A side-note, the oceans make up almost 75% of our lovely planet so it is of great importance. Lastly, I noticed that some individuals had the Aleutian Islands in their maps which actually pleasantly surprised me. The Aleutian Islands hold a great importance to human history as it was the land bridge between Russia and North America during the previous Ice Age where the early humans actually used it to cross the Pacific Ocean and populated North America. This held great significance to me as I learned it during high school in Singapore from a tutor who was of great influence to my growth and maturity.

Upon closer inspection and analysis, I realized that I've learned something from this simple exercise. I realized that despite having been taught with the standardized world map, the resultant interpretation and representation of the ideas we've learned is actually very different in different people. Some may have similar ideas, however others can have largely differing views with regards to an issue. In this case, the map drawing exercise showed me that even hard facts around us can be interpreted differently. As such, it is important to be able to present and express your ideas as close as possible to the truth of the matter.

Another observation I made was that people's ideas can be influenced to change by another person or a group of individuals. One such example is when we were told to draw the map again, some of my classmates actually presented a much different map as compared to their first drawing. In their new maps, I noticed that certain features were adopted from the maps of others and placed into their own ones. This made me come to this conclusion: Everybody will develop ideas on their own. However, these ideas may change or get altered according to external inputs. The end result could be a much better idea, or a loss in originality.

In conclusion, I am very intrigued by the overall intent of this exercise. Maybe there was an intent, maybe there wasn't. Ultimately, as long as I've learned something from this exercise, I am contented. Have you learned something?

Timothy See

About Map Drawing Exercise by Mizuki

In my second Academic English class in April, we had to draw a world map in our class. When I told to do so, I was really confused and I did not think deeply and I just drew my own image of map. After all classmates finished drawing own map, we looked at friends’ maps. For second time, nobody had same map as previous one. By observing my friends’ maps, I found three things that are; the centered country was different, each maps showed different personalities and how it is important to learn from others.

Firstly, each map had different centered country. I was not surprised about everyone centered different country. Every time when I go to overseas, my mom and I find and look at map of visited country; therefore I knew each country has different views of map. Each classmate came from different countries; Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, China and Hong-Kong, and everyone have different back ground. Some classmates may have used to map because may they are using map a lot in the class. Or some may have lived in States so they are used to it. For me it was easy to draw a map that is Japan is centered, because in my high school classroom, there was a world map and when I got bored, I usually watched it. Each map actually showed each person’s background so it was quite interesting for me.

Secondly, each map showed my classmates’ personalities. There were big map covers whole page of notebook, or small map, shapes were different such as square, round and three dimension. Also there was up-side-down map. There were either very good drawings and had countries borders too or geographically strange map. Many unique personalities were shown on each map, so it was fun to watch. Moreover, by drawing map with seeing anything, I could realize about myself. I did not know much about world. It is because I could draw Asian countries but not African countries, Europe and Middle East Asia parts.

Thirdly, everyone has ability to adopt or accept new things and tried it to make better. We made world map twice. When we finish drawing first map, we looked each other’s map and we studied what the differences and similarities are compared to own map. For second time we drew map and observed every ones’ map, nobody had same map that they drew in first time. We adopt new map to what we thought good. I remember I thought it is really important to understand each other’s because everyone has different ideas and each one is correct. We cannot ignore differences and should listen to or watch things more carefully and should learn from other viewpoints.

In conclusion, by doing map drawing exercise I learned that everyone has different background, such as what we are used to and which country they came from. I could learn my friends’ personality which are who wrote big map, I think they are dynamic, who wrote accurate map is may have personality and I could know about my lacking ability. Furthermore, looking and observing friends’ maps I noticed everyone has different image for the single word “map”. It was really interesting and I realized that is important to accept and adopt new ideas rather than deny and focus on just own thoughts.

Mizuki

Do you folks know how a world map looks like? By Jasmine

Simple question: Do you folks know how a world map looks like?

I gave a solid yes.

Simple instruction: Okay, draw it out on a piece of paper.

I gave a strike-dumbest face, with an amplified big “huh?” nailed on my head. The instruction totally caught me off guard.

For some unknown reasons, the moment I took out my pencil and paper to begin my drawing, the image of the world map, which I thought it should be, quirked from vivid to blurry— like a camera’s rangefinder suddenly loses its focus. We had a couple of minutes to draft out the map, but most of us wasted half of the time thinking how to start it off. How the brain works is it tried to retrieve certain memories buried deep down in the storage. But apparently it had some problems with the retrieval; the “tip of the tongue” phenomenon. The brain will then start reconstructing on how exactly a world map should look like. Unfortunately, the brain tends to retrieve false memories sometimes. So you can’t really blame some people for having Australia bigger than Africa. It doesn't apply to everyone, just the majority.

There are some forms of psychological thoughts when one is asked to do something for the first time and asked again, to do it for a second time. Sometimes when one cannot figure out how to refactor certain things, they put it off and figure out how to do it right the second time; the state of mind sheers from “trying” to “doing”, and doing it right. Some people achieved it. Some need more push. Some just tried a little too hard.

There was an interval between the first and second round of map drawing. Another simple instruction: Walk around and “look” at other people’s drawings. 


Certainly, each individual ramified into different thoughts on their peers’ work. Most people did observations, or rather, palpable observations.

The word “look” was emphasized and quotation-marked; to “look” at things doesn’t mean you only do observations. Many of us, intentionally or not, incept into commentaries, questionings, comparing, or even start generating a new piece of drawing in the head during the process of “looking”. In other words, peer pressure plays a weighty role to determine the outcome of the second round of drawing.

Some people are confident with themselves but most are not. The confident ones think that when certain things are done right, they will never “change” it again. This explains why there was not much of a difference between their first and second draft. A little more details were rendered, however, on the second draft to make their drawing more complete.

“Looking” is also about information gathering. For most people, by looking at other’s drawing, they built up from what was lacked in the first round and implemented it on their second drawing. For people who tried a little too hard, they either snapped and shut off, or resort into overdoing it. The whole brain system sometimes paralyzed when it drops into the “information overwhelmed” mode—the backfire effect.

Even though peer pressure plays an important role to the outcome of our drawings, the key role often relies on individual habits, which include intentions, experiences and self-perceptions. E.g. Most of the Japanese started off their map by drawing their own country first. Why is it so? Because they are brought up to read/draw the map the way it is. You can’t expect a Singaporean to do the same; the map might end up as big as a baseball field.

Interestingly, even though the whole class was given the same instruction on what to do, different people with different thoughts, produces different result. Some people just never fail to amaze me. 


J-asmine-G

World Map Assessment by Nachika

During our earlier classes of Academic English, we have participated in an activity of drawing the world map. The procedure of the activity was to draw the map then, observing works of the others and drawing the map again. Through the activity I have noticed an interesting feature; no map was the same.

A famous German physicist, Albert Einstein stated that “Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience.”*1 Through our life all of us have seen the map and should have done some learning about it. Then why have all the maps differed? The answer is simple: we have experienced a different type of education.

The type of education each took will give an influence to where the center of the map will be. As I observed through the works of others, I could guess where each is from since they have drawn their home country in the center. This unique feature relates back to our educational background. At school we are taught with certain set of standard such as your home country being in the middle of map. Having diversity of people in our class, it is hard to say which standard we should base on. From this result I can state that what each think as the “common,” or the “standard” is a standard just for you and not for the others.

During our second trial of drawing, I also saw an interesting result. I saw many maps getting more details and shapes which looked like scribbles started to look more like a map. We were capable of drawing a better map on the second trial since, we got ideas from others; this situation is often seen in the scenes of education. We face new ideas through reading other’s work and the work will not mean anything unless we cannot place in any values to it. We should take in the knowledge given the writer and blend it with our own experience so that we can use it as our own idea.

After we have drawn the map we discovered that we have some mistakes in our works produced. Albert Einstein has also stated that “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” *2  I believe what Einstein says fit in any situation we face upon and how we should be thinking. Mistake is not a failure but a step to success, no result will be produced without trying. Since we have tried in drawing a map we were able to learn what we were missing and through these mistakes, we were able to increase our knowledge.

Through the activity of the map making, we were able to see many interesting features and differences in how each other think. The more we tried, the more it got better and probably it will get better as we kept trying. We can state that the differences in the maps are due to different experiences we have had and the differences are not mistakes but, a feature of uniqueness. 

Nachika

*1 Quote from Albert Einstein, #9,

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/03/10-amazing-lessons-albert-einstein.html

*2 Quote from Albert Einstein, #5,

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/03/10-amazing-lessons-albert-einstein.html

World Map Observations by Nami

In the earlier week of Academic EnglishⅡ class, Professor Tan made us draw the world map twice. After we drew the first map, we briefly looked at the others and discussed about the differences, then drew the second one. We all drew totally differently at the second time although we had the same time limit with the first time, one minute. There seemed to be reasons for this fact and some interesting observations about what we drew. I would like to discuss about it here.

The reason why we drew it differently is because we had gotten the ideas from the map of others drew. We shared our geographical knowledge, so the second time, some added continents or islands they forgot to draw on the first and some added name of places to make it more detailed. Thus, we made our second maps better than the first ones.

I wondered why our second maps are so different from each other's. For the first time, it is pretty easy to notice why. Each of us has different level of knowledge of the world map. Some have almost perfect image of the world map in their head but others, like me, picture it unclearly. This difference of intellect between us students caused the variety of the first world map. Then why second? Why is it still pretty different even though each of us took the additional information to make own map better? There are, in my opinion, two reasons for this. One is that our class is so global. Second reason is our individual sense of the world is different from each other.

First, because we did not come from a same country nor do we have same educational back grounds. We come from diverse countries such as China, Korea, Singapore, the Philippines and others, so therefore we are educated differently. Each country has their own way to educate kids. We tend to draw our own country as a center of the map. We always see the map which has our country at the middle and think this is the normal, common and standard map in the world. There is no right or wrong answer for this so we did not change which country to put on the middle.

And secondly, I would say this is because each one of us has our own different taste. Most of us drew world map in Equirectangular Projection which the shape of map is rectangle. But there are some other projections such as Mollweide projection or Conic Projection.  I saw couple of our class mates draw maps in one of those projections; that is circular shape and not rectangle. It was pretty surprising and interesting to see and this fact made me observe that the difference between us is not only because the first reason, our diverse home countries. The drawing skills are also different individually. The image, you have in your head, maybe cannot be showed up by your drawing skill. Thus, our varieties of sense of art made our map look so different. 

So those two reasons that I observed show you our tastes and sense are different not only by country to country but also by person to person. It cannot be changed by getting the information or knowledge from others but the background or experience you had does.

Nami Ikeda

Many Ways of Thinking by Lilia

In the second class of Academic English 2, we were all told to draw a world map, without looking at anything, in one minute. Then, we were told to walk around the room and look at how the other people drew their maps. Finally, we were told to draw another map.

When we started drawing the map, everyone was a little confused because we didn't get the point (at least I didn't). It was the first time for me to draw a map just from memory. I drew the main continents with Japan in the middle, the North and South Poles, and no islands like Indonesia or Cuba. When I started drawing, I felt pretty sure that everyone would draw it like me. But once I went around and looked at the others, I saw that theirs were totally different. Some had it upside down, some had it really detailed, and most of them had their home country at the center of the map. So even when their home country was a small island they drew it bigger and more clearly, which is what most people would do because that is the country they know best.

            This made me think a lot. I was used to drawing the type of map I drew because that is the way it is most commonly done in japan, where I have lived for 18 years. But it was different for others. For example, a girl from Indonesia, which is an archipelago that I couldn't even begin to draw because I didn't know the accurate shape and position, had her country in perfect details. And most everybody had drawn Japan, even though it is a small island. This showed that we normally draw the countries we are related to on the map correctly.

            The second time we drew the map, a lot of us drew it differently. The people who couldn't finish the map the first time because they had it so detailed were able to finish it this time around. Some drew the small islands that they had forgotten before.  And because of concentrating on the little islands, some people actually forgot to draw the North and South poles that they had put on the previous map (that was me). Some people changed the center of the map. Seeing all that, I learned how easily people can be influenced and come to have a different point of view by just looking at a different idea.

            I thought by doing this assignment, I got a good idea that there are many ways of looking at things and the way we look at things is based on the knowledge we have. Also, people have a tendency to relate everything to their own life or background. And also our ideas can be altered just because of some one else’s idea, whether it is better or not. We can actually forget our own idea so easily because we start to concentrate on others opinions. I don't think this is a bad thing as long as you can keep your own idea in mind. It is necessary and important to think in different ways and combine others ideas with your own. This can even maybe lead you to a perfect answer. In conclusion, any kind of matter or idea can be changed and maybe even improved by discussing it and sharing it.

Lilia Yamakawa