Hi guys!!!!! So, the first semester is over, let's have our break!!!!!!!
I WISH EVERYBODY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW 2008!!!!!!!!!

My own way of learning

Hi girls!

I’m so sorry for being late with my PLE but I tried more than one time to download the Free Mind software onto my computer with no positive results, an error message would always appear on the screen.:(

What’s more, I don’t have my digital camera here in Padua and I have to wait for a friend of mine to borrow me hers. I hope to attach the picture of my mind map till tomorrow evening!

Anyway, I will describe it to you so that, for the moment, you can imagine how it looks like. I chose four categories for my PLE: people, places, context, actions.

Under the category people I put foreign friends, Erasmus students, professors, tandem peers, tourists. I often chat with my foreign friends in English even if they are not native speakers. For example, I usually meet my Egyptian friend online and we have long conversation on msn.

There are many Erasmus students here in Padua; it happens to me that sometimes I meet them in a bar or in the square (some of them are my roommate friends) and enjoy my free time exchanging my experiences with them.

Regarding tandem peers I had three tandem peers during my past three years University course, one of which was a Californian girl. I think that the tandem project may be a really useful resource for learning the second language as it gives the possibility to learn with a native speaker.

I wasn’t sure whether to put or not ‘tourists’ under this category but after I realized that they contribute to create my learning environment, too. Every time I find a tourist asking me for some information in the street I can check how much I have learned about my second language and how able I am to react immediately to someone else’s requests.

Then, professors obviously come to occupy this category as they followed and still follows my learning project.

As far as places are concerned I split them into virtual and real. During our course with prof. Guth we could realize that the virtual world is going almost to substitute the real world for the great quantity of information the former can offer to us.

I divided the category ‘context’ into formal and informal. These are larger categories because they contain different tools and various ways of gathering information in the second language. Sometimes there is no clear difference between the elements of the two categories so that an overlapping occurs. For example, I use e-mails most often in an informal context but it happened to me to have used the same tool in a more formal working context. The same happens with blogs, while my is a more informal blog there are blogs on the net which are written by high learned people and where you can find materials regarding specific fields, like language learning, medicine, environment, etc.

I chose to call the forth category ‘actions’. These includes everything I do in order to improve my second language (reading, writing, memorizing, taking notes, etc.). The two most useful for me are ‘giving feedback’ and ‘writing post-it’. I think that giving feedback together with receiving them may be a very efficient way to learn from our mistakes and to test how much are we able to correct others’ mistakes.

When I come in touch with a new word, I use to write it down on a post-it and to attach it on the board above my writing table. After a week or two I check if I have learned that word and if the result is positive I throw the post-it away, otherwise I leave it attached there until I don’t memorize it.

I think that building a mindmap of our PLE can be useful to organize our own learning. I must admit that it wasn’t a simple task to do because there were many things I wanted to enclose there but can’t find the appropriate category for them.

I hope you’ll enjoy it…

Bye bye

RELIABLE OR NOT RELIABLE?

Hi everybody!!!!! Just to let you know that I'm exhausted because I've been sitting in front of the pc since two hours and at the end of my work all my post content disappeared. Wow great, I'm very lucky today!!!!! So, let's begin it for the second time... No technological tool to comment about this time....:( Anyway, I think that evaluating an online source is very important since we are always faced with a huge quantity of information and can’t expect all of them to be reliable.

I first met the difficulty of evaluating a website when I had to write my paper for the University degree. I wrote it all in English and it was about Tandem learning so my whole bibliography laws in English. At the beginning I was discouraged by the fact that I couldn’t find the author of a great number of articles which gave me important ideas on the topic of my interest. The were often articles published online but without a precise origin, which might have been for example a well-known newspaper or organization. Then, my supervisor suggested me some tips to follow for a good research and step by step, after a hard work I got it.
I, myself, usually concentrate the attention on the title of an online source to see if it may meet my content needs. But, I soon realized that most of the time titles are there to catch readers’ attention and in the end they don’t satisfy your expectations.
The author is undoubtedly an important element for judging an online source. Many times this may be anonymous or may not appear so, as suggested in the articles I read, it is useful to investigate what we know about the organization which might have substituted the author. In this way we may test the credibility of the source. Furthermore, an aid is offered usually by the small word ‘edu’ which appears together with the URL and identifies the sponsoring institution as an educational institution. This is especially useful when we are supposed to do an academic research and the data must obviously be of extreme credibility.
I usually tend to believe to newspapers articles and online news, when I’m supposed to make a research. But, reading the articles suggested, I realized that also here we must pay attention on the quality of information given. Sometimes, newspapers can be very one-sided and try to persuade people with their own truth with no acknowledgements of others viewpoints.
A thing I leave out when judging an online source is the date. I make a mistake here because it is fundamental to know when the site was last updated in order to avoid to take out very old pieces of information.
In the end I would mention the look of the source. In my opinion the structure, the content, the context, completeness and accuracy of information has undoubtedly a great role in evaluating a web source. It is surely more reliable a source containing a list of references or citations that look as if they will lead you to related material that would be good sources. In this way you have a further proof of the seriousness and credibility of the content proposed.
On the other side, when I have to evaluate a source which is not related with academic writing, let’s imagine YouTube videos I click on just for fun, I particularly pay attention on peer rating. The stars showing people’s preferences for a video or another are really not to be left out if we don’t want to waste our time in watching nonsense.

In the end I would say that in our information age, where we are bombard by an enormous number of information we should be critical and know how to sift them in the more appropriate way in order to meet our purposes.

So relaxing!!!!!!!!!

YouTube:the largest online videosharing tool

Hi guys!

So, what about YouTube, a mattter which is on everyone's mouth nowadays? First I should say that, luckily, this time I 'm not in front of a completely new too; I watched videos on YouTube many times. However, I must admit I was never concerned with forums which might be opened in YouTube and which contain people's ideas about different videos. Doing the activity we were supposed to, commenting the three videos I realized that YouTube is also an important mean for discussion. I read on wikipedia that in 2006 YouTube was hosting about 6.1. million videos and had about 500.000 user accounts. That's really incredible how an online tool can be shared by a huge number of people, isn't it?

I think that the role of YouTube has increased over the years as it is used for many different purposes, from political propaganda to education, just to mention some of them, and it is not a mere videosharing tool. I 'd rather see it as space where people can express themselves in a freerer way or can show their skills in a particular matter (for example a young boy band). Moreover, YouTube helps people to experiment their abilities in doing videos of every kind. Sometimes the videos may become too exagerated in the sense that too often there are videos concerning young people at school who are abusing of their peers. However, I think that YouTube can be another useful mean for my English language learning. I visited the TeacherTube site and saw that there are some interesting videos on English learning. Unfortunately,as it often happens to me when I'm using YouTube, I could not hear most of the videos because of a buffering problem.
That's it for the moment. Hoping to get more familiar with the matter I'll get you up to date.

HELPFUL PODCASTS and my impressions about

• http://www.esl-lab.com/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business/index.shtml
• http://www.eslpod.com/website/index.php#

The first is really a helpful site because it offers a possibility to listen at different kind of conversation and at different levels of difficulty. There are many exercises related comprehension. The site is easy to manage because the different kinds of conversation are divided into topics so that you may easily chose the topic which is of your interest and in which you know you must improve, for example learning more vocabulary.

The second is a BBC section which offers good opportunities to learn the English of the business. It contains different exercises requiring specific business words, useful tips for getting a job and moreover you may learn how to negotiate with a member working with you avoiding to be impolite.

The third is a site for students like us who learn English as a second language. Thus, I contains different kind of listening exercises but this tie the conversation are more easy to follow. The speakers talk in a more relaxed way and stress every single word in order to be understood by the audience.

In my opinion all these sites are useful for an English learner because practising the listening skill is the best way to come familiar with the correct pronunciation of the language. Moreover, listening is a good way to improve our vocabulary and to start to be more fluent in our second language.

I think that podcasts are another useful tool for our language learning. I often go to the BBC site and watch and listen to the daily news. Sometimes I find them difficult to follow but after an amount of time I get more familiar with it. However, I must admit that I never thought about uploading a podcast onto my mp3 player; maybe, it is because I use the mp3 just for pleasure, for example when I travel alone by train I love listening to the music. I know that listening, for example to the BBC news, would be a good way to be always in touch with the second language but I prefer to practice my listening on the pc.

Comments on my peers' websites

Hi girls,

I went through your websites and chose some which are really interesting for me.
The audio archive of English accents posted by Cristina seems to be useful as you can find different pronunciation of the same language, English. Sometimesit happens that I find myseself in troubles when listening to an America mother tongue as his pronunciation is rather different from that learned by me during my period of studying. I think taht it is also important to get familiar with the English spoken by the Indian community in London. I'm saying this because when I were in London last year I had some difficulties in understanding the Indian people who worked in various public places. So, in my opinion, it is important to know the correct pronunciation of an English speaker but it is also fundamental to get familiar with the varieties of the second language we learn.

I found interesting Elena's choice on the English punctuation. Ii is not something new for me but I still have some difficulties with the punctuation in my second language. It's a good site because it explains in simple words the fundamental differences between the punctuation and it gives essential example for each point. Last year we worked a lot in order to improve our use of the English punctuation and to avoid creating misunderstandings in the text. As the Italian punctuation is quite different from the English it may be useful for me to have this site in my Bookmarking for the time I will meet some dubts on the matter.

I liked Valeria's Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Web because I often test myself on the comprehension of texts. The site offers a wide range of texts to listen at and a number of exercises related to them. In my opinion doing exercises like these is a good way to improve our vocabulary and to learn hOw are expressions used in a conversation. Many times I misunderstand what people say in their conversaion because I'm not used to follow a conversation carried out by two English native speakers; the flow of the conversation together with the rhythm appears to sound strange to me.

Elisa's website about phrasal verbs and preposition is really useful to learn something more on the mattter. I must admit that I still have lacks about these objects of study; I usully have doubts with prepositions and whether do I have to use one or another. However, I think that this is a part of grammar which causes difficulties and doubts in any language. I had the same problem with the German language when found myself in front of a choice between the great number of preposition which caracterizes that language. Phrasal verbs are another part of the English grammar which I still partly miss in my knowledge of the second language. In my opinion they are very important as they allow you to convey the correct meaning you need just in few words. The problem is to remember them and not to mix up their meaning, as they are often very similar.
In the end I should say that this site may be very useful to learn more about preposition and phrasal verbs (how are they used in a sentence) since it is full of excercises on the matter.
I appreciate to learn grammar through exercises than through theory as I think it is a more efficient way to remember particularities of the second language.

My impressions for Bookmarking

Hi my peers,
I just finished navigating the Web in order to find some interesting sites to show you. As we all know the Web is huge and it takes time to find what you are searching for. However, Bookmarking is really a good way of sharing sites of personal interests with other people and of storing them for the time we'll need them. I noticed that the most shared websites are really the most interesting and fascinating as they often contain the strangest information. I realized that there are many blogs shared by people all over the world where profound discussions on various topics are taken forward (for example the article about the Italian government against the use of blogs).

About Halloween

Navigating the Web I found out many information about Halloween.

First of all, I must admit my ignorance as I always thought that the holiday has its origins in America. Then I discovered that it has simply become an Americanization over the years. So, it is a good example of how a culture can be influenced by another culture, such as in this particular case where it happens the substitution of the Celtic culture with American culture.

The ancient Irish called the festival "Samhain", which is now the Gaelic word for the month of November, although in recent times the Hallowe'en is celebrated on October 31st. The word Hallowe'en is of Scottish origin, and comes from "Hallows Evening".

The sacrifice marked the end of the final harvest period of late summer and the move into the winter season, with the storage of provisions and readying for cold months ahead. It was believed that the gap between the living world and the spirit world was at it's weakest and interaction between these worlds was easiest at this point in the ancient calendar.

Hallowe'en was also viewed as a time when evil spirits, the devil and witches were at their most powerful.

In ancient Ireland, Hallowe'en came close to the feast of St. Columba and it was traditional for some people to go from door-to-door collecting bread, money, eggs, nuts and apples. It was felt that these offerings gave protection against bad luck. Nowadays, this practice is known as "Trick or Treat", with the household which gives the least offering liable to have a "trick" carried out against it.

Personally I hate this holiday and I have never been used to celebrate it. In Italy it has become a fashion to celebrate it as people are all worried about their disguise for the night they are going to have a party in one of the discoteques all around.

I think that it's mainly a question of consumerism which makes sellers to earn a lot of money thanks to the numbers of gadgets they sell for Holloween.

Anyway, I don't feel about criticizig those celebrating the holyday because it depends on our culture how we approach it.

About Bloglines

Hi, my peers!

I'll just give you in brief my opinions about Bloglines. Obviously, I haven't heard about it before and this means another new tool for my blogging experience. I can say that it's nice to have all my peers' post under control so that I don't need to open each blog to know what's new inside.

Furthermore, feeds are useful when one wants to be updated for example on BBC news, so that clicking on the RSS of the news site you can achieve your purpose.

In the end, I would say that a feed aggregator is a good mean which allows us to spend less time on the net when we have to comment on our peers' blogs and, at the same time, it's effective from the point of view of updated information it gives us.

my opinions about blogs

Hi,
I 'm here again writing on my first blog of my life...Thinking better about it, it's really wonderful to have a private corner where I can write whatever I want and how I feel.

What can I say about the first two weeks of blogging?
First, I must admit that I had some difficulties at the beginning of the course and that everything appeared to me to be too hard, taking a lot of my time to complete the activities. I remember the first day when Prof. Guth spoke us about blogs, blogs' etiquettes, etc. and asked us to give a brief presentation about ourselves adding a picture from flickr.."and here starts complications", was my first thought when, after a number of attempts, the picture didn't appear on my screen. Soon I realized it was not so difficult as it seemed and when I posted my presentation with a beautiful picture of a sunflower I was satisfied, at all. However, very unexpectedly I noticed that I liked to write feedbacks to my peers (especially to the members of my group) and received them. That's why I think that blogging is a very good way to learn how to interact with people using the second language. In my opinion, interaction in the language we study is an important part of our whole knowledge we have in that language: grammar and literature are not to be left out, obviously, but I think that learning a language only in 'theory', without practicing it in real contexts, may be very unuseful.

Till now, at the university, I was always supposed to study grammar and translation and in this way worked just with the formal side of the English language. But, I think that, while studying a language, one should also be aware of the more informal side of it, which emerges exactly from blogs.
So, I see the blog first as a private corner where I write whatever I feel, second as virtual a place for communication. I would like to compare it to a square, for example, where I meet my friends and change with them my ideas on different topics.
However, a blog can be something more, it can be a place where one need to share his culture and his experiences with other people, so I would compare it to a small encyclopedia written by our own.

These are my impressions after the first two weeks of blogging. Maybe, when I'll more expert in the field (hope so!!!) I'll change some ideas about it and surely get you updated.

LIKE A SUNFLOWER

Hi everybody

Let's start my blog with just some brief clues about my personality:

The beautiful picture you see above represents my favourite flower.
As it is well-known this particular variety of flower needs sun to grow up and for this reason it appears in summer yellowing the landscape all around. Its strong yellow colour brings me joyfulness and vitality and I would like people, especially my closest friends to see me like a sunflower: I'm full of energy especially when the sun is shining above my head.

When it's raining outside and I'm laying in my bed, quite upset because of the bad weather, I use to glance at the vase of sunflowers which I have on the table in my room and start wandering about my next summer days.

As you might have noticed I hate winter and extremely love summer so that everything reminding me of hot summer days makes me feel better...above all, sunflowers...