Who am I as a learner

1. Who am I as a learner?

1.1 Introduction”How can we learn best? How can we learn in the most effective way ?” I believe it is a question that every learner doubt about. ” In the fast-changing world, if you can’t learn,unlearn and relearn, you’re lost(Stoll, Fink & Earl, 2003, P.xv).” Learning is a lifelong process in which using the right way to learn is the pre-requisite. Therefore, to recognize the best learning preference of myself, I had taken three tests to analyze who I am as a learner. The three tests results would be used as implication of my learning preferences and also provided some guidance as to improve myself. In the second part, I had chosen two career which I would also justify the two choices according to the test results and the improvement could make from above in order to fit in the career.1.2 Questionnaires

In order to search out the means that are most suitable for my learning, I have completed three tests, namely VARK, Myers-Briggs and Belbin test. These three tests not only helped to examine the best learning style for myself, they also highlighted some important roles that I have been playing in a team and some roles that I didn’t realized or neglected.

1.2.1 VARK questionnaire

Test resultVARK is referring to visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic respectively. It is used to test people’s learning preference.

According to the result, I am a multimodal learner which means either visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic are suitable for my learning.

Among the four aspects in the VARK test, I had the highest score in read/write aspect. Ever since secondary school, I like to write my own notes instead of only reading text book or revising teacher’s handout. I rather like to take my own notes in a notebook while reading as I found this can enhance my memory of the subject. For instance, I studied history in my certificate examination and there are many dates and events that we need to memorize, just like the second world war, there are numerous dates we must remember. To aid myself to memorize all the dates in a more systematic and easier way, I like to draw a timeline when revising history and it did help me to have a clear picture on the sequence of the events.

Looking back at my 2 years Higher Diploma course, I found I learnt best also by read/write plus aural. Since Higher Diploma had a completely different teaching method when compare to secondary school, as teachers are mainly distributing hangouts which are mainly key points of topic and they will illustrate the key points verbally. Regarding to VARK result, I found I enjoy much to attend lecture and write down what the lecturers said in handouts and turn all the key ideas that I had written down into my own notes during revision. There were module about consumer behavior in higher diploma course which there were many theories included. Usually there were only the framework of the theory in the notes given by lecturer like the decision making process of consumer and consumer motivation and I like to write down the elaborations and examples illustrated by lecturer. According to Felder and Soloman(no date), they stated that “verbal learners get more out of words – written and spoken explanations.” I found by attending lecture, it enabled me to get the idea of the topic and by written down the illustration given by lecturers could stimulate myself during revision and  is a good way to recall my memory after long period of time.

I believe my learning style is a multimodal one as stated by VARK test and the combination of read, visual and aural could help me to achieve the best of my learning.

According to Calvert School, “Kinesthetic learners learn best by moving bodies and activating their muscles(2007, P.2).” The VARK result has accurately reflected my current learning style as I didn’t get much body movement when learning and I would prefer more to learn by read,visual and aural. The VARK result suggest that I can work well from doing though this is not the most preferable way. Moreover, Fleming(2009) suggested that kinesthetic type are referred to real experience or real practice and applications.

Family and friends comment

From the opinions of my mother, she thinks that I use quite a lot of “visual” when studying. By her observation, I often use mind maps and graphs as summary when revising. Ms. Angel Lam, my high school teacher who has teach me for over 5 years in geography, commented me as a student who are systematic and learn fast. By her observation, she said that I always written down many notes during lessons like the examples given and I was able to use the examples when doing the home works or examination.Kringle, who are my classmates and group mates in higher diploma course, noted that I am a h3 at read and write as I could read very fast and usually I was the one who finish reading the article given by the lecturers, not only reading the article but I as well can mark down the key points.

1.2.2 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MMDI)

Test result

There are a total of 16 personality types in the Myers-Briggs personality test. It is a combination of Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving. Each of the fourth representing the following dimension : how much they involve in social interaction,  how they perceive source of information or insight, how they make decision and how they interact with outer world.(Gonzale & Saner, 2009, P.7)

Appendix B.2

I have the highest score in ENFJ personality type which referring that I have a preference in Extroversion, Intuition, Feeling and Judging. Extraversion is related to social interaction,  Fuller (2005, P.1) summarized that “ENFJs are wearing h3 feelings in the outer world and as well proclaim their opinions and convictions.”

According to the Myers-Briggs test report, extrovert feeling is on the first priority for ENFJ personality type. Isachsen and Berens noted that “ENFJs like to lend a helping hand in improving and enhancing the overall environment(1988, P.9).” ENFJ type personality is mainly focusing on the outer world and wish to reach harmony among people.

Team Technology(2009) illustrated that social, expressive, action before thoughts, interactive and outward are the characteristics of Extraversion.

The test result was well reflected about my personality. I am sensitive to the others emotion. I am one of the teacher in the Sunday school and Issac fellowship in The Church of christ in China Cheung Chau Church for over 3 years and I am mainly teaching kids age from kindergarten to grade 3. When holding activities with them, I could easily find out kids who are shy or not enjoy much in games. Usually when I spot out kids who are seem not enjoy in the atmosphere, I would talk to them and give them encouragement. In certain cases, for kids who are really shy, i found that holding their hands and play the game with them is an effective method to make them involve more in the group. On the other hand, I like social activities like gathering, parties as I found myself comfortable in those activities and I enjoy meeting new people in these activities. Therefore, during summer holidays, I usually will enroll different courses like Japanese class or I would enroll the join church activities to meet more new friends. Last year, I had joint a camp named “I Love Hong Kong Macau” in which there are church mates from east asian countries like Taiwan, Cambodia and Singapore. That was a very valuable experience as I could meet people with different cultural backgrounds and nationality.

Rather than hiding all my feelings in bottom of my heart, I tend to express my feelings. No matter what circumstances I am facing, I like to share my feelings with my friends and families as I found I feel better only by speaking out what is in my heart. I share almost everything in my life with my friends no matter it is happy, sad or angry. Whenever I have things that bother me like arguments with family, I will find my friends and talk about that. Then I will feel better after I tell them my feelings. I also like to express my own thinking when with group of people. For instance, during the high school life, we always need to have meetings in sports group. I always like to tell the other committee members of what I think towards the ideas the others suggested and I would voice out my own ideas as well. 

The Myers-Briggs personality test report noted that Extraversion and Feeling are the most important trait in ENFJ personality(Appendix). Feeling means that people are more feeling oriented when making decision(Gonzale & Saner, 2009, P.7). Whenever I need to make decision, how I feel towards the matter is always of my top concern instead of thinking what should be the best alternative. Some people may quickly sort out the best alternative when making decision but I would also consider my feeling . If I do not want like the best alternative, I would try another option.

Weakness

Intuition was more preferred when I receive information or insight. Hogan & Champagne described intuitive person “may be a tendency to make error of fact(no date, P.7).”  It is true that intuition is not reliable when making important decision. Looking for facts or real evidences are vital before any decision should be drawn. I found I have tendency to trust the feeling instead of the fact. This had lead to a pre-mature decision making and make myself to draw to conclusion easily.

Friends and family comment

Jacqueline, my best friend ever since secondary school, commented me as a very good listener and she loves to share everything with me. She said I am very easy to get along with and  she feels very comfortable when being with me. She thought that I am the ‘carer’ in my peer group as I pay a lot of attention to my peers.  As well, I  always be the one to talk with whoever need someone to talk with.

On the other hand, Jasmine, my elder sister, pointed that I over rely on intuition. It is mainly because by her observation, she could see that when making decision, I usually trust more on my intuition than looking for the facts. One of the examples is that when purchasing for electrical products, I usually trust the brand name and if my intuition think the brand is no good and I would never purchase that brand of product. However, it turned out that the brand suggested by my sister had a better performance than the brand I trust.

Improvement

After the past experiences, I found that sometimes I am rigid and only trust my intuition. Hence, I should learn to think twice before action. Focus think twice before making decision is what I should do to avoid making some avoidable mistakes in the future. It is important for me to learn to be more careful and thoughtful so that I could make a balance between my intuition but at the same time not to neglect the real fact.

1.2.3 Belbin Self Perception Inventory Test

Test resultI was quite surprised with the test result. I had a higher score in Plant(PL), Resource Investigator(RI) and Shaper(SH) yet my least preferred roles are Monitor Evaluator(ME), Teamworker(TW) and Specialist(SP). (Appendix B.3)

”Plant(PL) is the source of creative and original ideas of the team(Belbin, 1981).” As one of the teachers in the Issac fellowship, we will have meetings every two months to set the theme and activities for the coming months. I always give different ideas on the themes of fellowship, in the last December meeting which we need to discuss about the theme about coming year. In view of the popularity of farming games in a social networking website, I had suggested a award program in which the ideas comes from that farming game. The program aim is to award good morality and every time when kids achieve good conduct, we will award them a new type of food stickers to place on their own farm on the blackboard. This program had run successfully in the past few months and are able to let the kids to understand the importance of good moral.  I also actively come up with different ideas in high school as we had many different  events responsible for. In the last year of high school life, our class wanted to prepare a gift for the class teacher yet the classmates could not think of anything that are meaningful and could get all the classmates to involved in preparation of the gift.  I proposed the idea of making a album which we sticked our school life photos with   a  few thankful words to our teacher , the idea was accepted by the classmates and my teacher was very delighted when received the gift. 

Belbin described Shaper(SH) as ” challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure(Appendix B.3).” I had the highest score in role of Shaper and it is not really a surprising result for me. I am capable to work in a dynamic environment. I had a half year internship in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong and after the internship I work as a part time guest service officer there. Hotel industry is a dynamic industry which we face people with different backgrounds, nationalities, languages and expectations. As a guest service officer, I needed to handle different guest enquiries, make bookings for spa treatments and sometimes also needed to show the guest around to introduce all the hotel facilities. Different guests have their own expectations to the hotel and therefore it is important to find out their needs and to satisfy them. It is actually quite stressful to work in hotel industry but I could handle it quite well and I got a remarkable appraisal in the internship.

However, I was quite surprised in the role of Teamworker which I had the lowest scores. Belbin(1981) defined teamworkers as “resolves conflicts, promotes spirit, and serves as a sort of peacemaker.” Although the lowest score only represent it is the least preferred role, I actually love to work with people and I am a person who care the others a lot.

I was the class representative in high school and my responsibility is to hold meetings and organize events like annual performance and graduation dinner. Since classmates always had different opinion in meetings, arguments happened all the time. Not only as the representative but also as a friend of them, I tried to bring them together and to let them calm down so that they could really listen to each others suggestions.

Belbin test result only rated Co-ordinator as manageable role for me. It was a bit amazed. It is because I enjoy a lot in organizing events as a co-ordinator. I am the head of committee in my F.5,F.7 and higher diploma graduation dinner, I like the process of organizing the events such as meeting with event sales, delegating work to committee members and distributing jobs. I found being a co-ordinator is a very challenging role and I treasure the experience of being in this role.

Weakness

I had a low score in Monitor Evaluator(ME). A Monitor Evaluator had a clear mind to see all the exist alternatives and can make judgement accurately. Yet, as from the result of the Myers-Briggs test, I rely quick heavily on my intuition, sometimes I couldn’t make judgement accurately and to list all the possible options before making decision. More importantly, sometimes, I will judge people or things from my intuition or the previous image that in my mind. That is another reason I am not a good monitor evaluator as my perceived thinking had affected my judgement.

Improvement

As the same as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I was weak in making judgement as I rely too much on intuition. It is not a wise choice to only trust my own feelings and senses. As if in my future career, I believe in a management level, it is important not to blind with the old feelings or image in mind. Therefore, I believe I should really learn to think of facts before action so that less errors would make. I think I should learn to take away to old perception or intuition when making judgment so that a more fair decision could be make.

Friends and family comment

Iris who are one of the graduation dinner committee members of higher diploma course, agreed that I am a good co-ordinator as I am able to take care of everything well and are able to delegate works to different people. She commented I am a confident leader when holding meetings and leading the committee, all in all, the graduation dinner was a great success. One significant point that she mentioned is that I rely on my intuition again when we chose the venue for the event. As the budget is the great concern, we had to find venue which our classmates are affordable. I would tend not to search for those ‘perceived to be more expensive hotel’, however, it turn out some 5 stars hotel are also in our affordable range. She suggested that I should try not to judge by intuition but facts.

2. Implication for career choice

2.1 Lifelong learning

“Lifelong learning is a beautifully simple idea(Field, 2006, p.1).” ” It has to be an ongoing process – a life long activity that people engage and re-engage in continually in order to improve their understanding and develop new knowledge and skills(Sutherland & Crowther, 2006, P.4).” Foreign languages and technology are important for me to learn lifelong. Not only because of work, I believe all these skills are vital for us to survive in this dynamic society.

Foreign languages like Spanish and Japanese, are getting more popular nowadays. With the effect of globalization, people we meet everyday come from places all over the world. Since I would like to devoted in hospitality and tourism industry, I think language skills are essential. Speaking only our mother language or English is never enough if we work in service industry. Spanish has the second largest speakers in the world(Lewis, 2009). Therefore, I am preparing to enroll language courses to learn Spanish as it’s popularity is just behind Chinese and this reflected it’s importance. I had learnt Japanese for 2 years when I was in middle school.  During the time I work in Grand Hyatt, I found there are quite a lot of chances to meet guests from Japan. From my experience, the Japanese guests would be delighted if you could speak Japanese even it is not fluent. Hence, I would also like to further enhance my Japanese so that I could communicate with them better next time when I meet them again. I am going to enroll the hotel communication Japanese course organized by Nikkei Japanese Language School. My aim is to attain the Level 1 (highest) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test which is the most efficient qualification of Japanese around the world. In a long term, I would like to take some counseling courses like the introduction to counseling organized by HKU Space as I believe I would enter the management level later in my career. It is necessary to learn how to handle different emotions and how to give proper counseling to the others.

2.2 Transferrable Skills

Training Agency defined transferrable skills as ” the generic capabilities which allow people to succeed in a wide range of different tasks and jobs(1990, P.5).” Assiter(1995, P.14) summarized the core transferrable skills that suggested by the National Curriculum Council(1990) are problem solving, communication, personal skills, I.T and foreign language competences. To start with, school and workplace had enabled me to develop a set of transferrable skills for me. They are initiative, flexibility, planning and organizing, oral presentation, listening, independence and work in team.

I had work as sales associate in Lane Crawford before and currently work as part time guest service officer in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. This two jobs are both customer-oriented and had given me valuable chances to train up my skills in initiative, oral presentation, independence and work in team.  It is very important to take initiative when working customer related jobs. Instead of waiting for customers to ask for help, we should take our initiative to ask the customers if they need any help. A good oral presentation is also essential in serving customer, I always need to give introduction of the hotel to guest and a good oral presentation would give them good impression to the hotel. Meanwhile, I also needed to introduce different kind of spa treatments to the guest, how to persuade them to try the treatments in a short time is crucial as guest were not patient to listen. Therefore, this job also trained me the presentation skills. It is as well a rather independent job as a guest service officer in hotel, we have to face many guests a day and usually the front desk has guests waiting while only 3-4 staffs are around. When facing problems, I have to tackle it myself as my colleagues may not be able to help me every time. It is a very good opportunity to train me how to work independently, be more decisive and be flexible. 

In my high school life, I had a lot of occasions that enable me to be an organizer of events. They were precious experience for me to learn how to plan and organize an event effectively and efficiently. Let’s take my graduation dinner in higher diploma as example, we only have less than a month to prepare the whole event. From looking at the venue to the design of the gifts, we had spent only about 2 weeks time to get everything done. After this event, I found planning is very important as effective planning can make the whole event run smoothly. At the same time, as a chairperson, active listening is also plays a prominent part. I had to listen different committee member’s opinions and to make a balance between different ideas to determine which one is the best for us.

2.3 Justify the chosen career choiceI had explored two careers that are suitable for my work preferences. The first one is a entry level career in Four Seasons Hotel as guest relations officer and the second one is a middle level post in Sheraton Hotel as sales manager – corporate.As a fresh graduate in the coming year, I believe it is suitable for me to start with entry level post. As listed in the job advertisement, Four Seasons Hotel is looking for applicants who are willing to work shift, have good communication skills, can work well in team and have service passion. With my experiences as part time in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, I can prove I have the abilities that they are looking for. I have many chances to get in touch with foreigners in Grand Hyatt, this had provided a very good channel for me to practice my oral English. Sometimes I even needed to communicate with guest coming from China which enable me to practice my Putonghua. I planned to take the ITELS in the coming year as to prove my english qualification and make it more persuasive during interview. Moreover, as I am not very proficient in Putonghua, I will take a Putonghua course next year so that I can speak Putonghua more fluently.

Graduated from bachelor degree would not be the end of my learning life. I have planned to take up a part time master degree on Business Administration in the second year of working life. Not only having great interest in customer service, I also interested to work in business field like events management or sales and marketing.  I enjoy the process of planning an event and holding a successful event could bring me huge satisfaction. I would like to seek some part time event planning assistant job by the time I study the master degree. This could help me to gain more experience before I actually apply the related job after graduation. The event manager of George P. Johnson Company Hong Kong required degree related field in business; 2 years experience; outgoing, independent and enthusiastic in events; h3 organization and excellent communication skills and h3 problem solving and creative thinking.  With the further study on business administration in master degree and the experience gained from job, I believe I would be capable to handle this job.As mentioned in the Belbin test, I have a preferred role as Shaper(SH) and Plant(PL)who are challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure and as well creative and imaginative. The position as event manager would face a lot of uncertainties as there are a very keen competitions, it is as well needed to be creative, I believe this is a job that suitable for my personality.

3.ConclusionThis project had enabled me to discover more about myself. I was very surprised with some of the test results and they are a very good reminder to me to improve myself on my weakness like relying too heavy on intuition. This project also aids me to understand what are my strengths so that I could utilize them more in my future study and my career. I really have a great passion to work in customer service industry which an extraversion personality and works well under pressure are definitely a must. I trust my personality would well suit in customer oriented career. However, when talking about decision making, I still need more training and to be more thoughtful.

Part B – An investigation on the economic impacts of hosting Olympic

Games : case of Sydney 2000 & Athens 2004

Abstract

Events can always bring considerable impacts in terms of economic to the host organizations, mega events like Olympics could even impact the whole host city and the host country. To be an event planner is an interesting and challenging job that the author would like to work in the future, this job is also an ideal career for the author. In which, to be an event planner, budget control is important. Therefore, this project will use Olympics, the most renowned mega event in the world, to assess its economic impact to the host city and country. The commonly used input – output model would be used to investigate how the Olympic Games could impact the host city’s economy in different aspects like tourism and the infrastructure on host city.After the study, it is found that there are possibility that staging the Olympic Games could bring negative economic effect to the host city and country. This is highly depend on whether the host city had a careful assessment before bidding the Game, a detail planning on staging the Games and also how to leverage tourism from the Olympic Games.Keywords : Olympic Games, input – output analysis, economic impact, tourism

Section 1 : Introduction

1.1 Reason for choosing the topicOlympic Games is one of the most well-known sporting event all over the world. Preuss described Olympic as “the biggest, most prestigious and peaceful multi sport event ( 2004, P.1)”, every four years, the city which host the Olympic Games would gain the global interest. Not only gaining global interest, Olympic games could bring millions of currency by tourism, broadcasting, souvenirs and even ticketing (Appendix D.1) to the host country.The importance on economic aspects had been discussed by different scholars, there were many types of models which used to access the impacts on different Olympic Games like the input-output analysis and multiplier effects. Therefore, investigation on how the Olympic Games impacted on the host country had been worthwhile.1.2 State the objectivesThe objectives of this study included the investigation on how staging the Olympic Games had affected a country in economic aspects in different phrase by using input-output model and to analyze of important aspects that contributed to positive economic impacts to host country.

1.3 Outline of sectionFirst, the history of Olympic Games would be introduced briefly and then there would be analysis on three models which were used to examine the economic impacts. After the comparison among the three models, the most suitable one would be chosen and would be applied into the two case : Sydney 2000 Olympics and Athens 2004 Olympics. It would then followed by a discussion on factors that could aid to host successful Olympic Games with positive economic impacts.

Section 2 : History of the Olympic Games

Olympic games was originated from Olympia in Greece in 776BC(Nostos, 2000). It was founded by the son of god Zeus, Hercules, in order to the celebrate his father great skills (Plowden and Jones, 1995). Olympic Games was the oldest Greece festival and it is a competition which only male in Greece were qualified and with a much shorter time (Young, 2004; Golden, 1998). The winner of Ancient Olympic Games would awarded an olive wreath (Appendix D.2) which is a symbol of victory(Plowden and Jones, 1995; Swaddling, 2000).The Ancient Olympic Games was ended in A.D 393 after the Roman Empire conquered Greece. The Olympic Games was first continued since the conquer in 146 BC, not until the emperor Theodosius I. He ended the Ancient Olympic Games due to reason that it was with pagan nature as he was a Christian (Linde, 2007).The modern Olympic Games was restored by a French aristocrat named Baron Pierre de Coubertin (Plowden and Jones, 1995; Pelle, 2004). Coubertin believed that Olympic Games should be a event for people from all over the world and to compete on an equal basis, he believed it is a game to promote world peace (Linde, 2007). He had present his idea to restore the Olympic Games to Athletic Sports Union in 1892 and the idea was accepted. The first modern Olympic Games was then held in Athens, Greece in 1896. In the same year, Coubertin also founded the International Olympic Committee (Plowden and Jones, 1995).The first modern Olympic Games was staged in Athens in 1896 with athletes from 14 nations competing for 43 sporting events. There were only 241 athletes and no volunteers. Noted that only males were allowed to participate in the first modern Olympic, women were first appeared in the second modern Olympic – Paris 1900, there were 22 women participants (Olympics.org, 2009) Until today, the size of Olympic games was getting larger and larger, the most recent Olympic Games which staged in Beijing in 2008, had 204 nations competing for 302 sporting events. There were 10,942 number of athletes and 70,000 volunteers participated (Olympics.org, 2009).

Section 3 : Literature Review

“One of the main impacts the Olympic Games assumed to have on their host cities is in terms of the short- and long-term economic impact of the event on the flow of tourists into the city (Roche, 2000, P.140).” This section reviews on the literature related to economic impacts on Olympic games.

Since

Hosting Olympic games had long been perceived as a way to boost economy for host city and in general, there are perception that Olympic will always be beneficial, in terms of economically, to the host city. 3.1Define the economic impact studyAccording to Crompton et al (2001), the conceptual rationale for undertaking economic impact of an event was as follow:Figure 1 The concep