Finally my PLE!

Sorry! I'm terribly late! I must confess I forgot to post my PLE :-(
However, here it is... As you can see it has 5 branches. The first one is the FORMAL LEARNING, because it was formal the way in which first I got in touch with English, when at the Kindergarten the teacher tought me the numbers. Obviously she tought me through plays, but it was always a formal learning! This branch includes everithing related with school and university.
Then I created a cathegory called TRAINING, here there is everything I do with the aim of improving my English, this branch is connected with the previous one because often these activities must be done for school or university.
The cathegory TOOLS includes dictionaries, grammar books and others means I use when I have some doubts.
The last 2 branches are maybe the most important because here I wrote what I do using English, but not with the aim of improving it or because I'm forced to do it, just for fun. In FREE TIME there are: books, tv, chat, dvd, music, surfing the net, but above all travelling abroad and meeting people. I wrote also another cathegory: WORK. I'm not working at the moment, but I had an interesting (and unfotunately brief) experience as interpreter in an international exposition. In that case I spoke English mainly with non native speakers or with other interpreters, but it was usefull as well!

Ok, since in 2 days it's Christmas, I wish you to spend a good day full of relatives and presents!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I love cartoons!

Judging on line sources

Hi everybody,
till now I've never thought about how I judge a web site or other kind of sources, but reading the websites suggested by Sarah I've realized that actually I do it.

Naturally it's up to what I need; first of all I look at the url, in particular at the last letters that compose it, for istance: gov., edu., etc... Here you can learn how to know more about a site by its url. Than I look at the date, because usually I look for updated data, so I have to be sure that they are recent... That's all, I don't do anything more, or better, I keep away from the site that want to sell you something, I don't believe in their good faith!
But I think that from now on I will pay attention to the author too. In this site you can find some good tips to discover something about the author of a site, even if not in all serches it's essential to have news about the author's life.
As for search engine I usually use Google, for a first search, and when I'm not satisfied (as often happen!) I do an advanced search.
And you? How do you judge your searches?

YouTube

First of all I have to say that yesterday I posted a video, but when I went to my blog and see it, it had disappeared!...I don't know why, sometimes technology plays some tricks on me! However, I'll post it next time I go to the lab.

I enjoyed doing this e-tivity! Watching videos is very helpful in English learning because in addition to audio there are also images and the movements of the mouth that help you in understanding.

There are interesting videos that besides helping you in your English skills, can make you reflect on some cultural aspects of the country from which they come. For example the sense of humour, the way of being satirical...In an almost standardized world luckily these aspects continue to be different.

YouTube is a powerful tool. Its power consists in the fact that you can show everything you want, and everybody can see it. Naturally this is a positive aspect if everyone used this power for good purposes, but unfortunately there are always dumb people who shares offensive videos...maybe they want to show the world how stupid they are!

Podcasts 2

Sorry! Yesterday I forgot to post the links to visit the websites I found!
Here they are: first website, podcasts on business English and audiobooks.
Now you can visit them! Sorry for my distraction!

Podcasts

Hi guys! For me this e-tivity was a bit more difficult than the previous one. Surely podcasts are very, very useful in learning a foreign language, but I don't know if I will be able to take full advantage of them. By looking for podcasts I lost a lot of time because before saving them I wanted to listen to them, but I couldn't since I would have needed a lot of time (where I live I can't have a high speed connection). Finding a podcast (a free one), downloading it and loading it on my Mp3 player is a time demanding process. As I'm lazy and everything I do, I do slowly, I think I won't do it very often... However I can always listen to them from my pc, but in this case which is the advantage of podcasts if I cannot carry them with me?... Maybe I could do it when I'm on holidays and I have more time to spend in front of pc! ;-p

I chose 3 websites with podcasts (as I said, unfortunately I couldn't listen to none of them).

• The first one has many podcasts dealing with different tpoics, it's a ELS website, so there are exercises on the audiofiles as well.
• The second website reguards business English for English learning students. Each podcast is a lesson on a specific aspect of business English.
• The third one (in my opinion the most original) collectsaudiofiles of entire books, or somechapters read by normal readers (not the authors) and everything is free!

DELICIOUS

Hi group A!

Del.icio.us is...delicious! I really like it because it is a very useful tool.

I got crazy when I had to look for something on the web using Google! I remember the hours spent surfing the net looking for something really useful for my searches. On the contrary using del.icio.us you always find what you are looking for! (This post looks like an advertisement!)

I visited some websites of your favourites, I enjoyed doing the grammar exercises, but what I liked most were the listening exercises found out by Anna; I saved that site on my favourites! Thanks!

HALLOWEEN

Should Halloween be celebrated in Italy too? Why not!

I didn't attend the lesson yesterday, so I couldn't take part in the debate, however I think there's nothing wrong in celebrate Halloween! Someone could say that it isn't a tradition of ours, some people don't even know the meaning, but, do you think that everybody knows and feels the deep meaning of everything we celebrate? I don't think so, even if we talk about our traditions! Nowadays, in almost every feast we take only the commercial side, so why can't we adopt halloween too? It's an occasion for dressing up, for organizing different parties...I don't see anything wrong in it, even if we haven't celtic origins.

About bloglines

It's a good idea to use this web site to organize the blogs I have to visit as well as the sites I like most. It's well organized because it helps me not to waste my time and click only where there are updated news or posts.

Futhermore, for the first time I hadn't any difficulty doing this e-tivity! Wow! Actually my computer properly worked, so everything resulted easier!

AFTER TWO WEEKS...

Hi!
After two weeks of blogging I can say that...finally I know something about BLOGS! Maybe It's a little bit strange that before starting this English course I didn't know anything about this huge world, but that's the truth! As I told you once, I'm not a "technological-girl", in the sense that I'm lazy for anything regarding technologies, I heard talking about "blogs" but I never asked myself what they were!
However, now that I know what they are, I like them! Above all because there are blogs about anything!! Now my blog is very poor, but I promise I'll do my best make it better!

As for the way this system can help me to improve my English, I don't know...The language used in blogs is obviously different from that I learned at school, for this reason I think it could be useful to attend blogs, read them...Even if the best way to get better in a foreing language would be to live abroad, at least for a certain period, but since for the moment I'm here, I do as much as I can!

Bye!

Welcome!

Hi everybody! Why have I chosen this image? It's easy! First of all because I love Golden Retriever. My golden retriever is eight years old, he is a part of my daily life and obviously he's a member of the family, who never makes me angry! Sometime I think that he understands me better than many other people...perhaps it's because I am too complicated!
But there is also another reason: the sea. I love the sea and everything connected to it because water is my natural element! I like swimming or just watching the movement of the waves...for me it is the most relaxing thing in the world! One day I would like to learn diving, buying a house on the beach and live there: that's my dream!
I am not fond of technology, therefore I surf the net only when I need a piece of information that I cannot find anywhere else, or to check my e mail: that's why these are the web sites I click most.

http://www.libero.it/
http://www.lettere.unipd.it/
http://www.google.com/

That's all for now! Bye!