Elisa's blog

The mindmap of my Personal Learning Environment at the end of the second semester

2008-05-27T21:18:00.004+02:00

As far as the mindmap of my personal learning environment is concerned, I think that at the end of the second semester something has to be added. All the tools I listed in the first semester are still and will always be part of my life because I consider them extremely useful. However, I would add a new category: intercultural learning and experience. I could improve my intercultural competence during the second semester and now I must say that it is essential for my language learning process. Skype exchange, forums, travelling abroad are the best ways to improve it. As I wrote in the questionnaire, I still have to improve my ability to cope with communicating in a different language with a different culture because in my opinion to interpret people’s reactions a face-to-face communication is necessary. I hope to travel in the future and to have more direct contacts with native speakers. Sometimes you learn more if you experience directly and see with your eyes foreign countries.

Finally, I have to tell a curious episode. A friend of mine who lives in London wrote a comment on my blog suggesting me to include in my mindmap a tool which is becoming popular in UK: social network. Well, this suggestion arouse my curiosity and in the future I would like to know and experience this tool to see if it might really be useful for my language and intercultural learning.

I will always update my mindmap. This course taught me that reflection is what makes you mature and succeed in your career.

Assessment of intercultural competence

2008-05-12T22:13:00.008+02:00

During this semester I had the possibility to improve my intercultural competence. I couldn't skype a lot because I was supposed to do the Poznan exchange, but I had the opportunity to learn many things about American elections creating the wiki page with my peers and about working women doing the wiki final project.

As far as knowledge is concerned, working on US elections I could learn the life and the political platform of McCain, Obama and Hillary Clinton and compare them with those of Berlusconi and Veltroni. Through the analysis of their speeches I could see how American politicians present their political platforms to the audience. To write a concise, easy to read section on McCain I read many sources of information, which helped me improving both my writing and critical skills: on the Web you find a lot of information, but you must select only what really meets your purposes.

During the course I had to communicate with American students using a forum. Apart from the cultural differences between the two countries, I found it a good resource to see how native speakers write in their own language, thus self-assessing my style.

As regards the final project, the topic my group had to deal with was 'Women at work' and I had to concentrate on 'working women rights' and the parallel section 'Diritti delle donne lavoratrici'. It had been not so easy to choose the subtopics because we had to decide with Chiara and, as you know, it is difficult to work with people who are not physically near you. However, at the end we were able to develop and create our wiki page, which I hope that my Italian peers will appreciate. Doing Skype with Chiara I could improve my listening skills becoming more familiar with the American pronunciation and learn more things about working women in The United States, such as the fact that Maternity leave is unpaid and usually granted for 6 weeks. Reading the Web sources I could improve both my reading and writing skills, learning how native speakers use punctuation, especially semi-colons.

I learned many words belonging to the political field, such as caucus, super-delegate, primaries, political convention, to be debarred from rights, to pass a low and others concerning women, i.e. c-section and Maternity leave.

I really appreciated the activities of this semester. I found them very useful because I think that learning a language is not enough to achieve a good English level, culture plays a leading role in your learning process. Furthermore, all the tasks helped me to mature. Now I'm able to do more effective researches on the Web and to write in English and in Italian more clearly and logically avoiding run-on sentences which create confusion and make the text difficult to read.

All the discussed topics aroused my interest. I could learn many things about immigration and American college life as well. In my opinion living together with other university students is a wonderful experience because it can help you to mature and to cope with life itself.

I'm very interested in other people's customs and traditions: they allow us to develop a critical view on Italian habits and maybe to improve your life. I hope to travel in the future and to improve my knowledge of foreign culture.

To conclude, I must say that I still have to improve my ability to cope with communicating in a different language with a different culture because in my opinion to interpret people's reactions a face-to-face communication is necessary. It allows you to see gestures and facial expressions, which sometimes tell you more than just an online distant conversation.

It has been a useful and wonderful year, which I will always remember not only from a knowledge point of view, but also, and above all, for a maturating experience.

Reflections on the skype exchange

2008-04-16T23:20:00.003+02:00

Today we were asked to decide the topic for the final project together with our American peer, Chiara Olivi. It has been quite difficult because we suggested four different topics. In particular, Elena Vivian suggested abortion because it is a hot topic and causes a bit of upset in Italy and she wanted to compare different aspects between Italy and America, such as the methods of abortion which are legalized in the two countries, the laws which rule and prevent it, the trend of abortion rates in Italy and in the USA and the influence of religion on this matter. Silvia Nicolini wanted to discuss the difficulties that immigrants face when they have to apply for a job in Italy and in America, whereas Silvia Lovato suggested women’s issue because often women are paid less than men, scarcely involved in politics and the equality between sexes is not always guaranteed even in the USA. Finally, I chose music because especially in America there is a variety of genres which reflects the country’s multi-ethnic population and it would be a good idea to compare them with Italian classical music analysing their origins as well.
As far as immigrants and their exploitation at work are concerned, Chiara Olivi told that people coming from South America, especially from Mexico are discriminated. She liked all the four topics, but she was much more interested in women’s issue. As a consequence, we decided to develop a specific aspect of this wide topic: WOMEN AT WORK. In particular, an outline for our final project might be the following:

· Working mothers and housewives (Elena Vivian)
· Working mothers (rights) (Elisa Caramori)
· Women in politics (Silvia Lovato)
· Immigrant women (Silvia Nicolini)

At the beginning we decided to develop WOMEN’S ISSUE and Chiara told us that she would have liked to focus on healthcare and abortion, but given that it was a much wider topic we changed it and we sent to her an e-mail saying that we chose a more specific one, asking her if she likes it and what aspect she would like to discuss.
While waiting for Chiara’s e-mail, we will do researches on the 4 aspects listed above by Monday in order to start working on our project as soon as possible. We hope to do a good and interesting work!

Immigration in Italy

2008-04-12T00:01:00.001+02:00

Immigration is quite a recent phenomenon in Italy. A country of emigration for many years, it is facing nowadays new cultural and political problems regarding the current big social change.
Immigrants arrived in Italy during the 70s and, in particular, the country saw an increasing number of foreign people during the 80s. The immigrants in Italy come from various countries with different customs, traditions and history. As a consequence there are not few ethnic groups prevailing as in the rest of Europe, but there are people coming from almost every area of Maghreb, Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey etc…
Italy started to develop strategies and to draft laws regarding this issue not many years ago (during the 70s and the second half of the 80s), but the policies didn’t concern the needs and above all the rights of the people coming from a different country. Only at the end of 1986 was drafted the first law on immigration, when the necessity of a greater state intervention in this field was perceived. An important progress was made with the law of the 28th February 1990 because the ‘fixed presence’ of immigrants living and working in Italy was accepted. Furthermore, they saw the attribution of rights not only related to work, but also to the more general personal sphere. Significant innovations were introduced by the law drafted in 1998, such as the ‘carta di soggiorno’, a document which allows the permanent stay in Italy with a legal residence permit. Recently the sensibility towards immigrants has increased; they are no longer considered only workers, but people who want to build their lives in our country and so they need both cultural and social assistance. However, the entrance of immigrants is not so easy nowadays because the so called Bossi-Fini law, drafted in 2002, has made the acquisition of the so called ‘carte di soggiorno’ even more difficult.
From a social point of view, nowadays immigrants are part of our society and the issue is not how many rights they should have, but the kind of coexistence we should build with them. In Italy there are many children of immigrants, born in our country or living here since their childhood. These belong to the so called ‘second-generation’ of immigrants. All of them share the same social and economic wishes, they would like to succeed in Italy, but they still have to face many problems, such as the language. Furthermore, it is not easy for them to give up their cultural habits because their parents are still bound to the traditions and habits of their place of origin, and that is why many unhappy events often happen.
We should create new organizations to help them to face the new reality, from a linguistic point of view as well and, if their stay becomes permanent, we should extend to them more of our rights to make them feel more integrated in the Italian society.

A cultural topic for the final project: MUSIC

2008-04-10T22:02:00.003+02:00

The topic I would like to focus on for the final project is music. I think that it reflects the traditions and the history of a country, that is why I would like to know the differences between American and Italian music.
In particular, I find it interesting to know what kind of genres are most popular in the two countries and in which areas as well, the reasons of their success and the social identities they reflect. I know that in America there are many genres, such as country, hip hop, rap, jazz, rock which reflect the country’s multi-ethnic population; this aspect enables us to make connections with immigration. Moreover, I would be curious to know in which occasions the different genres are played and compare the results with the holidays and the festivities in Italy.
In Italy classical music is very popular, maybe because many Italian personalities made and still make excellent work on that genre (Verdi, Pavarotti, Bocelli). Is classical music popular in America as well?Why?
Music expresses the characteristics of a country, its history, and through an accurate analysis of the words we can understand the thoughts, the habits and the opinions of the people as well.
In my opinion it might be an interesting topic because it enables us to explore different aspects of a country and make both good comparisons with and reflections on Italy and America.

News about US and Italian elections...

2008-03-29T11:05:00.002+01:00

This week I kept reading the sources of information about the US and the Italian political elections. In particular, I read the news on The New York Times, Le Figaro, Giornale and Il Corriere della Sera.
The Italian elections are drawing near and the debate between Berlusconi and Veltroni is getting even more heated on a number of issues. Some articles say that Berlusconi is still the favourite, but at the same time he has lost credibility even if he continues criticizing the policy of the Left saying that Italy supports him and he will win in April. Furthermore, he adds that if he wins, three-quarters of the ministers will be women. This is particularly interesting if we want to make a comparison between America, where Hillary is one of the nominees of the Presidential elections and Italy: in both countries women are attaining success in politics.
As far as the US elections are concerned, a lot of news says that Obama and Hillary contradict each other in a number of issues and this might risk the unity of their party. Mr Obama is still seen as the presidential candidate most likely to unite the country (60%), followed by McCain (58%). A strange interview reveals that the Democrats might vote for McCain if their candidate isn’t the nominee and this is particularly true if the conservative Republican will be matched to Barack Obama, even if a comment on this news made by a Democrat says that it is a ridiculous reason because a vote for McCain is a vote for a third Bush term. Finally, McCain criticizes the government’s actions to solve the mortage crisis, which are supported by the Democrats, saying that “no assistance should be given to speculators”.

US and Italian elections discussed in three different newspapers: The new York Times, Il Giornale and Le Figaro.

2008-03-15T22:04:00.005+01:00

I’ve been following the news about the Italian and the US elections for four days in three different online newspapers: The New York Times, Le Figaro and Il Giornale.
Before analysing the differences and the similarities in the way the news is presented on these three different sources, I find it appropriate to consider what kind of news the three newspapers have published about the elections during these four days.

The New York Times
March 12, 2008
News about US elections
‘AFL-CIO Briefing Book attacks McCain’: The factions which support Hillary and Obama attack McCain policies, arguing that ‘he would take away workers’rights and reduce their standards of living’.
‘McCain returns to New Hampshire’: New Hampshire is the state which launched McCain’s presidential campaigns, but he is aware of the fact that in November it would not be easy to win. This article reports an important statement of McCain which explains his return to this state: ‘I think it’s important for politics in America for the voters to feel that they can be in touch with politicians as well as politicians being in touch with people’.
March 13, 2008
News about US elections
‘Racial issue bubbles up again for Democrats’: Geraldine Ferraro resigns because of her statements against Obama.
‘Unions unveil McCain attack’: Senator McCain is attacked on economic issues.
March 14, 2008
News about US elections
‘Free-spirited wanderer who set Obama’s path’: Obama’s mother is reminded and several aspects of his life are discussed.
‘Obama denounces his Pastor’s statements as ‘inflammatory’: Obama criticizes Mr Wright’s statements about racism and America.
‘McCain’s London fund raiser’: McCain plans a foreign trip which will serve as a promotion of his foreign policy credentials.
‘McCain says he worries about preelections Iraq attacks’: McCain fear terrorist attacks in November which would tip the election against him.

As it can be seen, no news about the Italian elections has been published during these days, probably because of cultural reasons: Americans might focus their attention on themselves and on the countries which are still part of the political problems of USA, such as Iran and Iraq. However, I looked for some articles concerning Berlusconi and I found one whose title is ‘Berlusconi’s long shadow casts a chill over Italian politics’, which dates back to 02/02/2008. It contains a big photo presenting Berlusconi in Naples and tells not only how he is considered in Italy, but also reports some complaints against him presenting a list of his most criticized slogans (‘I’m the Jesus Christ of politics’, ‘I sacrifice myself for anyone’).

Le Figaro
March 12, 2008
News about US elections
‘Barack Obama remporte le Mississippi’: this article talks about Obama’s political success in Mississippi.
News about Italian elections
‘Prodi s’efface de la scène politique’
March 13, 2008
News about US elections
‘Nouveau coup dur pour le camp Clinton’ : this article refers to Geraldine Ferraro statements against Obama.
March 14, 2008
News about US elections
‘Les cinq erreurs d’Hillary’: this article refers to the bad strategies adopted by Hillary in her campaign.

Since my group (group 1) analyses the candidates on the right, I was curious to know what kind of news has been published about McCain. I found one article dating back to 03/06/2008, whose title is ‘McCain ne resisterait ni à Obama, ni à Clinton’. What is interesting in this article are the two reasons, which, according to ABC News, would cause the failure of McCain: Bush’s support and his age.
This newspaper presents a dossier which is completely dedicated to the US elections; therefore it is easier to find news about this topic than on the other newspapers’ websites. Furthermore, it doesn’t omit the news about Italian politics, probably because France is an European country and thus more involved in Italian political problems.

Il Giornale
March 12, 2008
News about US elections
‘USA, in Mississippi Obama straripante’: this article talks about Obama’s success in Mississippi’.
News about Italian elections
‘Berlusconi: antifascista la nostra identità politica, ecco i candidati del PDL’: Berlusconi presents the candidates of his party and some aspects of his political platform.
March 13, 2008
News about Italian elections
‘Berlusconi: vittoria impossibile per il PD. Politiche, ecco tutti i candidati del PDL’: Berlusconi continues to attack his rivals and presents all the candidates of his party.
‘Pil, Berlusconi: “eredità difficile”: Berlusconi tells that the economic growth will be difficult considering the heritage of the previous government.
‘Berlusconi: convinceremo gli indecisi’: Berlusconi expresses his firm belief to win.
News about US elections
‘USA, razzismo nelle urne. Tra i democratici è rissa’: this article is about Geraldine Ferraro’s statements against Obama.
‘Ipotesi Romney per McCain’: Mitt Romney is said to be the candidate for the president’s assistant.
March 15, 2008
News about Italian elections
‘Libano, il Cavaliere: “Nuove regole di ingaggio': this article is about the disputes of the PDL with PD on the military forces in the Middle East.

As it can be seen from the large number of news about Berlusconi and PDL at first page, Il Giornale is clearly a partial newspaper. Furthermore, there are many big photos of Berlusconi, all of them portraying him with a triumphant smile. It is interesting to note that this Italian newspaper, unlike The New York Times, doesn’t ignore news about US politics probably because of cultural reasons: Italy might be more interested in other countries' issues.

Since all the three newspapers contain the same news about Geraldine A. Ferraro’s resignation, I find it interesting to analyse the way it is presented by il Giornale, The New York Times and Le Figaro.
All the three articles are at front page and have a big image showing Obama (Il Giornale, The New York Times) and Geraldine Ferraro (Le Figaro). Il Giornale and Le Figaro’s article are the same length, whereas the one on The New York Times is longer. Furthermore, both The New York Times and Le Figaro have a subtitle: Clinton, Obama have each used race, sex against the other; Après avoir pronouncé des propos controversies sur la couleur d’Obama, Geraldine Ferraro a demissionné de ses functions de chargée des finances de la campagne. Hillary Clinton s’est confondue en excuses. As far as the content is concerned, the three newspapers present the same news both with differences and similarities. All the three report what Geraldine Ferraro said about Obama more or less with the same words (“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position”). If we analyse the differences, we will notice that Il Giornale adds that blacks don’t allow any comment regarding race, even if racial segregation finished many years ago, Le Figaro, after the central news, reminds a similar event happened to Jesse Jackson in 1988 and finally The New York Times’ article contains two final paragraphs: “unavoidable subtexts” and “using sex, race against each other”. To conclude, the words used are almost always formal in all the articles.

Political elections in the United States and in Italy: McCain and PDL

2008-03-09T10:35:00.027+01:00

I don’t know a lot about politics and I don’t follow it regularly, but I liked watching McCain and Berlusconi presenting their political platforms to the audience because I could perceive the differences and the similarities between the two candidates living in different countries.

Listening to them, I discovered many words and expressions which clearly show not only what are their main objectives, but also reveal something about their personality and their strategies adopted to success.

The words used clearly reveal what are the platforms of the politicians. Berlusconi insists on reinforcing national security, helping families, creating growth and increasing job applications. In particular, in order to help families he promises to reduce taxation and to give a bonus for every new baby and to hinder illegal immigrants he wants to earmark funds for the police force. Finally, he supports a Christian society which believes in the family founded by the love between a man and a woman. As far as McCain is concerned, he believes that the best way to encourage economic growth is to cut government spending sharply enough to reduce the budget deficit while lowering taxes at the same time. As regards illegal immigrants and homosexuals, he appears more tolerant than Berlusconi because he supports a temporary program to professionally help the formers and although he contrasts marriages, he encourages civil unions between the letters. What is really common in his speeches is the war against terrorism, which the United States and its allies must win in order to create a peaceful world.
Some expressions used by the two politicians can help us understanding how they behave to be very successful. One of the main strengths of Berlusconi’s political success is his strong dislike for the Left, as it can be seen by the catch phrase of his party (“La sinistra ha messo in ginocchio l’Italia e noi diciamo rialzati Italia”) and by the constant reference he makes to the negative policy of the previous government. He presents his policy involving the audience by often using the first person plural (“We are here because we want…”, “We all want to…”, “We all believe in the same values”) and kind words, which at the same time remind his program (“Thank you all”, “A big and tender embrace to all the Italians who love freedom”). On the other hand, McCain seems to be less self-confident than Berlusconi because he doesn’t hide his limits, for example when he speaks about the war against terrorism (“I do believe we can succeed, not we succeed”) or when he makes some deprecating comments about his background (“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should”). Furthermore, unlike Berlusconi, he gives the audience leave to speak and he answers to questions.
As I have written, there are many differences between Berlusconi and McCain. The United States and Italy adopt a different electoral system and perhaps this can influence the way the two politicians interact with the audience. Moreover, if we analyse their lives, we will notice that McCain had been prisoner of war whereas Berlusconi entrepreneur; two different pasts which probably have affected their policy and their attitudes.

Marry Christmas! :-)

2007-12-25T19:40:00.000+01:00

Best wishes for Christmas :-)

The mindmap of my Personal Learning Environment

2007-12-05T22:39:00.000+01:00

Hi everybody!
Below you can see the mindmap of my Personal Learning Environment. I divided it into 6 different areas: gathering information, people, informal and formal language learning, free time and experiences.

Gathering information
I usually search for information on Google, Del.icio.us and sometimes on Wikipedia when I need to find precise contents, whereas I prefer going to a library when I need more theoretical sources. Having many friends who study at University it’s a good resource! I mean, sometimes it happens that you have doubts and a piece of advice given by someone you trust can be very helpful. Furthermore, a good practice is to check bibliographies because they can help you to find information which better meet your needs.

People
Professors and teachers are the most reliable sources of information, the people who can teach you many things and obviously the most important ‘points of reference’ for your learning process. However, students and pen friends can help you develop oral skills and improve your vocabulary because you can communicate with them in a lot of contexts.

Formal language learning
Formal language learning is essential but you need to integrate it with informal learning. Books, grammar books, specialized journals, lessons and academic websites are fundamental because they offer you good materials, but since they belong to ‘imposed sources’ it is necessary that you take advantage of something that interests you.

Informal language learning
Watching TV, listening to podcasts and talking with native speakers give you the opportunity of using foreign languages when you have finished your studies as well. We all know how important it is to continue to speak and hear a foreign language, otherwise you tend to forget it!

Free time
Your free time can become productive if you listen to foreign songs or if you watch films trying to understand words. Travelling abroad is a wonderful experience, but at the same time you can learn a lot about the culture of a foreign country.

Experiences
Erasmus projects and tandem learning are the best occasions to get in contact with a different country. However, if you have already finished your studies I think that a job like ‘language assistant’ can give you many opportunities to practice foreign languages in many different contexts, such as answering the telephone, writing letters, speaking with foreign people and often travelling as well.

To build your mindmap of your PLE is a useful activity because it allows you to reflect on what you do and will do to learn and improve your language skills. If you compare your PLE with those of your peers you can see the differencies and obtain other suggestions which you might find interesting and useful during your career.

Bye,
Elisa

Judging online sources: criteria and reflections

2007-11-30T10:55:00.000+01:00

Searching for information on the Web, we always come across much information and that is why we must evaluate all the resources found by search engines. To distinguish between reliable sources and unreliable ones I’ve always used the following criteria:
1. I read the annotations below the websites provided by the search engine to see if the content of the source corresponds to what I’m searching for.
2. I usually ask myself who is the author of the source because if he is influential or famous I consider him and his work more trustworthy.
3. I look at the first date of publishing and at other possible reviews.
4. I look at the layout of the webpage to check if the information is well structured and to see if other links are provided.
5. I quickly browse the entire page to get an idea of its contents.

As far as books are concerned, I feel more confident of the contents because they are published and carefully examined. To find out the information I’m interested in I’ve often used the following criteria:
• I search for information about the author if I don’t know him and I check the publishing date.
• I browse the table of contents to get a general idea of the book and see if it can satisfy my informative needs.
• I look at the bibliography to see if the author’s quotations are reliable.

I usually prefer books if I need to find general and theoretical information and websites to search for more specific and precise sources.

Reading the tips provided by the University of Essex, Purdue’s Online Writing Lab and San Diego State University, I noticed some good suggestions to evaluate sources of information. For instance, the tips I consider very useful are:
• the use of specialized source engines like ‘Google scholar’, which are said to be very precise (University of Essex).
• To check the domain of the url to see if the webpage is hosted on an educational, goverment, organization or commercial site (University of Essex).
• To check if there is a bibliography (University of Essex).
• To check if the author is listed with adresses (San Diego State University).
• To check if the provided information is authentic, unique or copied and see who is the intended audience of the source (San Diego State University).

However, I think that it is not necessary to check if the site is part of a permanent organization, do you agree?

Let me know what criteria you follow to evaluate sources and your reflections on the suggestions provided by the three websites.
See you soon,
Elisa

YouTube: a world of videos

2007-11-22T19:37:00.000+01:00

Hello everybody!
Searching for an interesting video in YouTube, I chose the following because it really drew my attention... I’ve always wanted to find a way to do difficult multiplications mentally (without using the calculator!!!) and this video explains an interesting and easy trick to improve our mathematical reasoning ;-)

Be human calculator

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=rf3_36a9MWc

YouTube is a tool which allow people to share their videos. It surely includes some good materials (I saw many video about learning, cartoons, funny things, music and films, entertainments), but bad videos as well. If you search for something you are interesting in on the Web, you must always be critical and careful: you can find something which is worth reading and useful for your studies and other things more superficial and counterproductive. However, watching videos you have the advantage of seeing what you are listening to and in this way you might follow and understand the explanations provided by the videos you choose. Do you think that videos are better than podcasts? In my opinion both of them are useful, but images and written words help you to fix in your memory much information: visual memory plays an important role in your language learning!
Furthermore, YouTube offers videos about various subjects giving the possibility of watching only what you are interested in whenever you want: this confirms its superiority to the TV. Do you agree?
Let me know what you think about the video I chose!
See you soon,
Elisa

...Podcasts...

2007-11-15T22:07:00.000+01:00

Hello everybody!
The world of podcasts is really huge! I couldn’t imagine that it was possible to listen to everything you are interested in, to give you an example I found many podcasts about Chinese. Furthermore, what is really useful is that you can download them onto your mp3 player and listen to them in the train or in the bus every morning when your are going to university or simply at evening sitting on your sofa... You relax but at the same time you learn something new because instead of listening to the music you listen to native speakers’ dialogues. What a nice way of improving your English!
Searching the Web, I found two interesting podcasts about ESL lessons and one about business English; all three are very useful for improving not only your listening but also your vocabulary skills.
Searching the website 'English as a Second Language Podcast' I found the following podcasts:

ESLpodcast319 ‘Being under stress'

It is about a dialogue between two people, one of whom is having problems because he is under stress. At the beginning the two people speak slowly, then there are the explanations of the whole dialogue especially of the most difficult and idiomatic words and finally you can listen to it at a normal speed. For instance, some useful word explanations are:

Something is acting up: something is not working correctly; you can use this verb to talk about a machine, for example: ‘my car is acting up again’, or about a young person, i.e. a child who causes problems.

to be worn out: it is a way of saying that you are very tired, exhausted.

dog-eat-dog: this expression means very competitive, agressive, i.e 'this is a dog-eat-dog business' means that there is a lot of competition.

a breather: a rest, a break.

ESLpodcast279 ‘Saying goodbye’

It is about the different way of ‘saying goodbye’ to somebody that you know. The following is a list of some useful expressions:

I’d better be going: I need to go now, I should leave now.

To run into each other/ someone: to see the other person almost by accident.

To catch up: to talk about all of the things you have done since the last time you met a person.

This two podcasts are structured in the same way. I didn’t find difficulties in undestanding them because they give a lot of good explanations.
On the other hand, the website 'business English podcasts for professionals on the move' provides many activities for business English students, which are very useful for improving listening, vocabulary and language skills in a specialized business context. I listened to the podcast ‘Telephoning:leaving a message’, which explains how to take and leave a telephone message professionally, giving both a bad and a good example. You learn that a professional phone has 4 parts: the greetings (you can say: ‘Hello', 'Hi', 'Good morning/ afternoon'), the company’s name (you need just the company name or the name of the dipartement,i.e sales), the answerer's name (this is...), the offer to help ('How can I help you?' 'What can I do for you?'). Moreover, you learn how to say that someone is unavailable (i.e. 'Sorry, Mrs is on a meeting now, would you like to leave a message?'). At the end of the dialogues you are asked to answer some questions, which make you reflect on the content.

I really enjoyed listening to the podcasts, let me know what you think about them.

See you soon,

Elisa ;-)

Del.icio.us and social bookmarking

2007-11-13T10:41:00.000+01:00

Hello everybody! How are you?
Last week we explored a very useful tool: social bookmarking. As Sarah told us, it gives the possibility to store our favourite websites online and to share them with other people who have similar interests. What an excellent resource for our studies! Furthermore, Del.icio.us gives you not only the titles of the websites, but also short notes which allow you to know their contents. In this way you can immediately decide if a website interests you or not; you don’t need to visit all of them. I had never heard of del.icio.us before and I used to search the Web using GOOGLE, but this search engine gives you many websites which may or may not interest you and your resources might become really complicated and confusing. Using the new tool, we can also create our personal network of people who share our same interests.
This week we were asked to search Del.icio.us in order to find 5 websites concerning English learning, listening, teaching, blogging… The websites that I chose are:

English Language Listening Lab Online (ELLLO): it includes about 1000 listening activities which deal with various topics. Students can listen to them free via internet and learn many new idioms and words thanks to the different activities offered.
English for specific purposes: it is the world online journal about English for specific purposes for teachers. It includes the articles of many teachers who tell their experiences in ESP teaching.
How to use English punctuation correctly: it explains the correct use of English punctuation.
British National Corpus: it contains a collection of 100 million written and spoken words and it gives the opportunity to find the frequencies and the concordances of words in different registers not only considering the whole corpus but also searching in parts of it.
ESL lesson plans and materials for communicative English lessons: it is addressed to teachers who want to find useful materials for communicative English lessons in classroom.

The members of my group chose some interesting websites: I noticed that Sara chose ‘How to use English punctuation correctly’ as well and that 9 websites concern grammar, 5 listening activities, 2 vocabulary exercises and explanations and 2 dictionaries online. They are all extremely useful for our studies, but the following drew my attention:

English Pronouncing dictionary with instant sound free online (Sara): it gives you the correct pronunciation of words.
Listening Lab (Anna): ‘you can listen to everyday conversations and improve your listening skills.’
Common errors in English (Nicola): you can find the list of the 2008 common errors in English usage and their grammar explanations.
Cambridge Dictionaries online (Davide): a useful monolingual dictionary online which gives you the opportunity to listen to every words and to avoid typical mistakes.

I would also include another nice website chosen by Nicola, which I consider very useful when you write since by making a fight between two words you can see which one is the most used in English:

Google fight

I really enjoyed Del.icio.us and social bookmarking,
See you soon
Elisa

Should Halloween be imported to and celebrated in Italy or not?

2007-11-03T15:27:00.000+01:00

Before discussing if Halloween should or should not be imported to and celebrated in Italy, I find it useful to tell something about its origins.
Halloween grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. The word 'Halloween' comes from a contracted corruption of 'All Hallows Eve', the 1 st of November, 'All Hollows Day' (or 'All Saints Day')( 'The History and customs of Halloween'). Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the traditions to North America in the nineteenth century. As regards customs, people dress up during this day: the Celts thought they had to protect themselves from ghosts and goblins; 'one story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year (History and customs of Halloween). Another way to scare evil spirits is to use pumpkins, originally called 'Jack-o-lantern' : Irish people used turnips to create them, but when they went to live in America they couldn't find enough turnips and for this reason they started to use pumpkins instead. Other typical customs are: Trick or treating, bobbing for apples and telling stories about ghosts.
In my opinion, there is no reasons to stop the importation to and the celebration of Halloween in Italy. The only thing that I don't accept is the business created around this event; I mean, shop windows are all dressed with fancy dresses, pumkins, everything which can scare during the night of this day. Furthermore, discos are open, pubs usually organize parties... don't you think that instead of celebrating Halloween people search for profits? Of course this has become the problem of every celebration, for instance the same thing happens at Christmas. I think that many people who celebrate Halloween don't know the reason and the origin of this event, they only know that they have to dress up following the models suggested by media. To conclude I would say that Halloween is a nice event, but it should be celebrated together with its cultural traditions and not imported just to make good profits.

See you soon,

Elisa

Feeds and feed aggregators

2007-11-03T14:06:00.000+01:00

Hello everybody!

I've just finished creating the playlists of the websites and the blogs I subscribed to. What a time consuming job creating the playlists of all the groups! Furthermore, I subscribed to 'The Times' and in the future exploring the web I will surely add other useful websites. Anyway, I realized that the bloglines aggregator is a very useful tool because you have the possibility to see all the latest news published on your favourite websites at the same time on your screen and this means that you don't have to look at each websites to see new information.

I'm sure that in this way it will be easier for us to comment on our peers' posts... do you agree?

As far as I am concerned, I didn't find problems subscribing the blogs of my peers, my favourite websites and creating playlists, probably because I attended the lesson on Wednesday, but the people who didn't attend probably had difficulties using this new tool and spent much more time doing e-tivity 4. Do you think that it is easier to do e-tivities attending the lessons? In my opinion if you attend your task will be easier.

See you on Monday,

Have a nice week-end

Elisa

Blogs and language learning

2007-10-25T17:56:00.000+02:00

Hello Everybody!!
Blogs are new for me. At the beginning it was quite difficult to cope with e-tivities, but then everything became clearer and I can say that I enjoy e-learning. I have learned a lot from these two weeks of blogging; before I only knew what a blog is and I couldn’t imagine how important it is in learning English. Searching for blogs you realize that you have a world in front of you: people of different nationalities write in English about their lives, their experiences, their thoughts and you can read and comment them.
Blogs are useful to understand the differencies between formal and informal English and the context in which these two varieties appear. I noticed, for instance, that people tend to use informal English when they write about their personal experiences, however, when their blogs deal with more serious issues (religion, education, linguistics, racism...) formal English prevails. You can obviously improve your vocabulary and at the same time your writing skills because you get in contact with the language used by native speakers, and this is a resource that books are not always able to offer. Furthermore, you can share ideas, post comments, all activities that help you to learn a lot from the others because they enable you to compare and improve your work.

my welcome message

2007-10-17T15:12:00.000+02:00

Hello everybody!!

This photo shows my favourite breed of dogs: Yorkshire Terrier. I’ve chosen this picture because the dog in the photo looks like my little ‘Willy’ (this is the name of my dog).I love animals because I think that they enrich one’s life. In particular, Yorkshire Terriers are very clever, affectionate and lovable: if you have never had a dog belonging to this breed, it will be probably difficult to imagine what kind of things he is able to do.

As far as my experience is concerned, I can say that a dog can soften people’s characters and above all help to forget everyday problems. He is lively, playful and if you live alone, you can enjoy his company because he becomes a real member of your family.This photo reminds me my home and all my affections which I miss because during the week I live in Padua.

The three websited that I often use are:

http://www.google.com/

http://www.lettere.unipd.it

http://www.gazzettino.it/

The first website is very useful because it helps me with my studies when I need to do some researches about something which I don't know or I don't understand properly. It can also be useful to search images of your interest.

The second one is part of my everyday life and its importance is extremely clear without any detailed explanations.

Finally, the third one is important for me because it is where I read daily news about the world and my city during the week when I don't have the possibility of watching TV.