Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Lifelong education

It's our last year at university, at the end of which nothing is really certain.. Indeed, we have expectations, plans and dreams, but our future still waits for us to give it a proper and personal shape.
Yet, there's only one thing we ca be sure of: we'll never stop learning. Our education can not stop at the end of our university experience: we'll still need to become more mature, improve our skills and knowledge, widen our horizons...
To understand the value of our future learning it's necessary to become aware of the path we have been walking so far. Especially as far as language learning is concerned, I've tried to think of all the ways in which I've been improving my language skills during these years. Then, taking Sarah's and Martina's mindmaps as a model, I've developed my own PLE map. As you can notice, it's a very simple map. It focuses on three main aspects of learning: gathering information, storing and sharing information and people involved in the learning process.

Despite the simplicity of my PLE there's one point which in my opinion is quite interesting: developing my own map I realized that, among the formal opportunities to learn a language, giving private lessons plays an important role in the improvement of linguistic skills. It may sound a paradox but I'm convinced that if you really want to teach something you need to make sure you actually know what you are talking about! This is not only the case of English lessons to Italian children, but also of Italian lessons to foreign people: as they don't know Italian at all (they all come from Sub-saharian Africa), English is for me a fundamental vehicle to teach them the basic elements of my language. This gives me the chance to deepen my knowlegde of English, as well as that of my mother tongue. Giving private lessons of music in London has been for me a further and extraordinary way to improve my language skills: teaching music in English was not only amusing but also extremely useful to get to know and use specific words and expressions. In general, teaching can be a wonderful experience we, as teachers, can take advantage of in order to develop our own abilities...this is something we should always keep in mind, since it proves that education never ends...

see y..

Hi girls!!!
I'm writing to you all to apologize because this week I won't be able to do our next e-tivity, since I'll be off to work..in Spain! I'm leaving tomorrow with the orchestra I'm working with (I'm a violinist..) and I'll be back at the end of the week. I'll try to answer your posts as soon as possible, anyway..

Have fun!

Marta

Do You/Tube?

As usual, the Web is full of new tools we can make use of for our purposes: YouTube is one of them! I must admit I felt almost overwhelmed by the huge amount of videos you can find on it: and, as usual, what is difficult is to filter and select what is actual useful to you..

Surfing YouTube I realized that this tool offers videos for any purpose: if you want to be informed on what's going on in the world, or if you want to learn something new about a particular subject, or if you just want to relax and have fun...in YouTube you can find all this! Moreover, what's great in YouTube (and in all the other tools we've discovered so far) is that anyone can upload their own materials and share them with the rest of the Net-explorers.

Can YouTube be useful to improve our English? I definetely think so: you just need to sort out the right stuff from this huge cosmos of information and you'll then have the chance to watch and listen to any kind of videos.. They don't necessarily have to have a pedagogical purpose, because you can learn even from funny stories.. Indeed, I would say that you can learn things better by having fun!

YouTube is not only useful to learn a language, but also to share impressions and ideas on topics you consider to be important... That's why, surfing TeacherTube, I've chosen to add a video on racism to my personal blog. I was quite struck by this video because it speaks directly to our soul trying to rouse our reaction on this still actual problem. I think that watching videos of this kind can make us think about urgent matters and, possibly, stand up against them.

video by cirnbarnsley

I'm not on strike, though..

Dear all... I'm sorry I can not complete e-tivity 6 (looking for pods on the Web..) untill Monday afternoon, since I don't have any broadband connection.. I'm afraid you'll have to wait till that moment (I'll do the e-tivity in the lab)..

So, see you on Monday! Have a nice weekend!

Marta

Pods, pods and again pods..

...Well, after having spent several hours surfing the Net, I think now I know a bit more about podcasts... One the one hand, I do believe pods can be useful tools to improve my English: as I don't have the chance to look at the speakers' body language, I'm somehow "forced" to listen to the audio file very carefully in order to understand its content. Moreover, some pods I've come across actually explain you how to do something, f.i. how to solve some everyday problems in an English-speaking context, or how to improve your grammar: thus, listening to them is actually like taking part to an English lesson...

On the other hand, however, there's some disadvantge, since looking for interesting and usuful pods is very time-demanding... how can you enjoy listening to pods if you've spent hours and hours searching the Web?! I think you can get so nervous that, at the end of your search, you'll be too exhausted to listen to your audio file carefully and take advantage from it! Now that I've saved some pods among my bookmarks, I hope things will be easier! :-)

About the pods I've come across... I must admit I'm not very familiar with business English, but I do believe that, one day or another, I'll need it for my job.. That's why I was quite happy to find a website which helps you improve your business English thorugh pods. In this website you can find podcasts on different topics (advertising, recruitment, sales, telephoning..) which are created to help people at any level of English learn new vocabulary, expressions, idioms and structures from the world of business.. Each pod focuses on a specific difficulty non-native speakers can encounter and tries to provide the tools to ride over it. It's worth listening to it!

Everybody knows English is a tricky language, because its grammar, despite seeming quite simple, can easily become troublesome and make you feel insicure! For example, do you remember the difference between the verb "to lie" and "to lay"?! I always get confused.. So, if you need some tips on grammar rules, have a look at this website: Grammar girl's pods explain grammar rules in a nice and clear way.

English as a second language podcast seems to be a very popular website among English students, that's why I've chosen to add it to my bookmarks.. ESL is actually a quite interesting website which gives you the chance to listen to conversations and discussions in English. In my opinion, the pods in this website are quite different from the ones I've found on the Net: while pods generally deal with specific language problems (grammar, specific English structures or registers..), these pods deal with more "wide" topics, from books to music, from shopping to daily life, which are presented in the form of discussions and conversations. This gives these pods a very natural and colloquial air, which goes beyond the usual English lesson and lets you explore the real world of American culture and customs.

Autumn on a bookmark..

photo by ingirogiro