English Composition 1 (ENGL 0101) at UoPeople

English Composition 1 (ENGL 0101) is mostly used as a means to test the English proficiency of foreign students at the UoPeople. Even though I have nearly 14 years of schooling in North America, I decided to go ahead and study it to get an idea of UoPeople, which I’m glad that I did. It’s a fun course, and you read stories each week, learn about writing paragraphs, sentences and essays, reading with clarity, grammar, and most importantly, APA citations. Do make sure you master APA citations in this course as it’s an integral part of all your future studies at the UoPeople.

The Graded Quizzes were very easy. Most of the questions come from the material you learn in the non-Graded Quizzes and APA documents they provide you. So, make sure you do all your non-Graded Quizzes and read all the lecture notes. 

The Final Exam was like TOEFL or IELTS. I remember in my brick-and-mortar university years; I helped a Spanish international student who used to live on the first floor of the apartment I rented with his TOEFL exam. It all just came back to me. Life is all about connecting the dots, after all. We connect one thing to another, and it, in turn, helps us succeed. Anyway, the Final Exam did come to me as a surprise. I didn’t expect it to be like that. However, I adapted quickly to it and ended up getting an A in the course. One of the fundamental theories of evolution is that we as species need to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances if we are to survive. I fully believe that concept applies to various aspects of our lives, like exams. 

For the Final Exam, you go to the Oxford website to do the exam. The website isn’t user-friendly; at least when I took the exam, it wasn’t. You can prepare for the Final Exam in advance by doing sample tests of Oxford exams like HERE. I've already established that the Final Exam was basically like a TOEFL or IELTS exam. It tests your grammar and hearing skills of the English language. It's composed of multiple-choice questions and fill-in-the-blanks. Make sure your computer has good audio as it'll play the audio twice only before you can answer the audio questions.  

When the Final Exam finishes, there would be the main Oxford page and then the pop-up. The exam is conducted in the pop-up. Once you complete the exam in the pop-up before or in the allotted time and then close it, the main Oxford page would time out. Don't panic! The exam gets successfully accepted by the Oxford system. 

The Final Exam review quiz the university provides is a waste of time, in my opinion, as the Final Exam has a different format than it. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. You should definitely do it as it’ll help you master your grammar, especially if English isn’t your first language. 

English Composition was also the first course I got the taste of unfair peer assessment in. I love writing, and I wrote like 500 words instead of 250 for an assignment, which was the minimum required. When an assignment says you should write a minimum of these many words, that doesn’t mean you can’t write more than that. Unfortunately, the student who assessed one of my assignments graded me poorly because I wrote more words. It took me 3 emails and 3 weeks to get hold of my instructor to correct it, which shows she obviously wasn’t very accessible. It was also the same time I learned through Facebook that instructors are volunteers at UoPeople, and they don’t get paid for their contribution to the school even though you pay an assessment fee to study at the school, which is a kinda strange concept in my view. My instructor was pretty awesome, though, apart from her inaccessibility. She tried her best to post on the Discussion Forum each week and provided constructive feedback on Learning Journals. 

Anyway, English Composition 1 is an excellent course, in my stance, and it helped me a great deal in learning about APA citations and how UoPeople worked. In my previous degree, the school used MLA. The course load is also very minimal. It’s the only course the university will let you take standalone before assigning you more the next term, given that you do well on it.