Updating my Personal Learning Environment…

Hello everyone!

As I said at the end of the first semester, reflecting on your own PLE is really important because it makes you think about the way you learn and by thinking about your learning structures, you can realize if the method you are using is good or if it can be improved and developed.

• Has something changed during the second semester in the organisation of my English learning?
  
  

Definitely yes!!!

I still think that grammar and vocabulary exercises, listening practice, reading texts aloud, doing translations are the basic tools if you want to learn a language. But they’re not enough… This is why I would add and consider other categories for my PLE.
First of all the Web source can be really useful since everyday it gives us new tools that can help us learn a language: not only can we find articles to read, exercises to do, but also it gives us the possibility to communicate with real people who live far from us. This is what we have done until few weeks ago through Skype: speaking with the American students of Dickinson College has been amazing. In a few hours I learnt new words, new expressions and I could practise both my language skills (mainly speaking and listening skills) and my intercultural competence (I found out many interesting aspects of American culture). In this way my English knowledge has improved a lot.
Plus, I now want to dedicate much time to the informal, personal and individual learning: I think that relationships and friendships are the best way to learn a language and I’m sure that the easiest way of improving a language is by doing something amusing and interesting like chatting with foreign friends, listening to music and watching films in English.

My first PLE consisted of a mindmap divided into 4 main groups called HOW, WHERE, WHO and GATHERING INFORMATION. I would keep them as they are, but I would add some subgroups to the ‘Informal Tools’ section: the use of Skype, Facebook and Messenger that give you the chance to keep in touch with your foreign friends from all over the world and tandem meetings in order to practise your English language and compare your culture with that of other people.

REFLECTING ON MY INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

Hi guys!!!

We have already spoken about intercultural competence... Almost two months ago, at the beginning of the second semester, we dealt with the Yoga Form, a form to examine the development of our intercultural communicative competence (ICC).

• What has changed thanks to our exchange?

Well, first of all I have to say that it was not easy to answer to the questionnaires... But all those questions and examples to provide made me reflect a lot on my improvements and I found it very useful.

As far as my language skills are concerned, I think that I made many improvements. In order to do my final project I had the chance to read and write a lot... That's why I feel more fluent and confident with some grammar structures, plus I learned many useful words, such as 'political platform', 'parking lot', 'to run for office', 'stay permit', 'to reckon', 'mind that', 'to trip', 'to get kicked out' (in a soccer match), 'to recruit'.

However, what makes me really happy is the improvement of my listening and oral skills in general! I enjoyed speaking with Allyson and Ugo both because I could test my level of oral English and because of the topics we discussed... And this leads me into the next aspect to consider: the development of my intercultural competence. I learned a lot of new things about American culture: from the most general aspects (daily routine, students' life, educational system) to more complex topics (terrorism, politics, immigration). Besides, I developed my knowledge about my own culture: in order to answer to the questions from the American guys I had to gather information and in this way I discovered and re-considered Italian culture.

So... Everything was really useful and enjoyable... I do hope I'll be able to keep in touch with these new friends of mine and you all!

C U!!!

thinking about the final project...

Hello everyone!!!
This course is nearly finished and now we need to concentrate on our final projects.
I really like the idea of discussing a topic concerning the differences between Italian and American culture...Unfortunately we haven't decided the subject yet.
As a group we are thinking about the following subjects:
1. Religion
2. Sport
3. Death penalty
We agreed on the fact that they are equally interesting...now we are only waiting for Ugo's opinion, and then we'll start working hard on the project!!
We reckon the easier way to communicate between us and Ugo will be skype and e-mails, whilst between the three of us it will be talking face to face.
We will know how to build our project only when we'll know the subject so...the next time u'll find out what it will be!!!
See u!!!

IMMIGRATION

Last semester I attended an interesting course called “Geografia della popolazione” and one of the most interesting subject it was based on was ‘immigration in Italy’. Therefore, thanks to this course I think I have a good knowledge of this issue.

First of all, immigration is still a relatively new phenomenon for Italy (it received the largest flows of immigration during the 1980’s) because it’s a country that in the past had seen mostly emigration.

The current situation regarding immigration is rather difficult to handle, especially illegal immigration… Italy attracts an illegal immigration which is greater than that of other countries not only due to its frontier, which is quite extensive with respect to its total surface area, but also – and primarily – because of its large underground economy. The singular expansion of the sector of domestic and personal services and the diffusion of small business facilitate the growth of an illegal workforce.

Moreover, government policy has never been effective: Italy doesn’t have any proper legislation for immigrants, refugees or asylum-seekers. The Turco-Napolitano Act (1998) and the Bossi-Fini Act (2002) have been the most important attempts to face the problem but not only they were not able to solve the situation but also they have encouraged illegal flows, given that more effort has been given to legalising foreigners already present in Italy, than in encouraging legal flows.

Unfortunately, the situation is not helped by the information provided by the mass-media that often point out only the negative aspects of immigration: all immigrants are criminal; they want to steal everything they can… The result is a great discrimination towards all of them, especially if Albanian and Rumanian.

And what about the legal part of immigrants? I think that they are not protected as they should be: they pay taxes contributing to progress of our country but they don’t have the same rights of Italian citizens.

As I said in my reflection on intercultural competence, there is a current increasing need to be able to deal effectively and appropriately with diversity, whether ethnic, racial, religious, or cultural.
Finally, I really hope that the new government will be able to choose the right options for the eradication of this problem.

If you want to gather much information you can take a look at CARITAS website.

SKYPE AGAIN!

Last Tuesday I spent an enjoyable hour speaking with Alessia, Martina and Allyson about political issues.

We asked Allyson basically two questions:

• Hillary and Obama are the main candidates for elections in the USA. Do you think that the fact of being a woman and a black leader can influence the voters’ choice more than their political platforms?
  

According to Allyson the answer is definitely affirmative. Since the possibility to have a black leader or a woman as president is a great achievement for America, many people, especially women and the black communities, are voting for one of them. Allyson thinks that both of them can really give something more to politics because they can offer different perspectives on a large number of issues and especially Obama is an open-minded person. But do they have enough experience to rule the country?!

• Among the different issues of the political campaign which is the most important and that the Americans care of?
  “The decision of the army withdrawal from Iraq is definitely a central theme in the political campaign.” said Allyson to us.

Then she asked us some questions about the candidates who are running for the new office in Italy and the main differences between Berlusconi’s and Veltroni’s programs. She told us she heard that Berlusconi has a high probability to win again, although most of the Italians she knows do not like him… Well, we have only to wait for Monday night!!

Besides politics, we dealt with other topics such as the organisation of healthcare system in America and the lessons Allyson had in those days. She told us that she watched “Il Caimano”, another interesting movie about Italian politicians!

What else can I add on my reflection?! Yeah, Skype is a wonderful means of communication and our American peers are really nice… Talking about topics such as politics, immigration, healthcare system is very useful to develop our intercultural competence and to improve our linguistic skills!

POLITICS: elections in 2008

Last Tuesday together with Martina, Valentina and Allyson, I took part in an interesting discussion about American and Italian elections. Also this time the topic of the conversation was very difficult but it helped me a lot to understand how the electoral system in Italy and in America works and how different they are.
Allyson explained us that the American electoral system consists of two kinds of vote: the popular and the electoral vote. This latter seems to be much more important than the popular because if a candidate doesn’t win the popular vote but wins the electoral, they are elected… Is this democracy?!
In Italy there are many problems concerning the electoral system too. The main reason is due to the fact that there are a lot of parties and the electors find it very difficult to properly follow every political program… And therefore the result is that most of the people feel confused and uncertain.
Moreover, we discussed about the three videos "Menomale che Silvio c’è", "I’m PD-Si può fare", "Obama Girl" and we all agreed saying that there’s something pathetic in them… We all are rather pessimistic towards our politicians and we think that both electoral systems (American and Italian) should be reformed in order to be more effective.

As far as the cultural topic we will focus on in our final project, I’d like to deal with the situation of women in politics and in everyday life… Is it true that American women only think of their career and independence? What are the opportunities women have in the society they live in? What are their needs? Observing that in Italian society, especially in some jobs, women are still discrimated, I’d like to find out if American women suffer the same condition.

C u on Tuesday, have a good weekend!

YOGA form_intercultural competence

Hello guys!!!

Let's speak about intercultural competence!

The reason why I chose to attend “Foreign Languages” at University was not only the will to improve my English skills but also I liked the idea of getting to know other cultures, travelling or working abroad in international contexts. After many courses based basically on the improvement of English linguistic skills, I’m happy to deal with a concrete exercise, that is the exchange with students in the United States, to develop my intercultural competence. Well, I have to say that it is quite hard to become familiar with any culture you did not grow up into. Even if you spend some time abroad, your idea of the country you are living in will always be influenced either positively or negatively by your own culture.
Reading and reflecting on the document “Developing Intercultural Competence” was really interesting. It made me think of the current increasing need to be able to deal effectively and appropriately with diversity, whether ethnic, racial, religious, or cultural. We can simply think about the difficulties of some immigrants to fit in our society: insensitivity and mistrust are the main attitudes towards them. Is it right?
This is why I’d like to focus our attention on some fundamental traits pointed out by this document: respect, empathy, flexibility, patience, interest, curiosity, openness, motivation, a sense of humour, tolerance for ambiguity and a willingness to suspend judgement. I think we should remember all these words when we come into contact with people of different culture.

The YOGA (Your Objectives, Guidelines, and Assessment) form is definitely a useful tool to critically examine the development of our intercultural communicative competence (ICC).
It helped me to consider aspects I hadn’t previously considered such as the importance of ‘awareness’ (especially of my own culture) and the level of willingness to interact with members of the host culture I demonstrate.
The hardest part about it is the fact that it’s a self-assessment and I found it very difficult to rate myself! Anyway, I think that so far my intercultural competence is not very developed but through our exchange and experiences abroad I hope to become a multicultural specialist!

C u in class!

XCHANGE_second meeting

Hello everybody!

I’m here to tell you something about my second Skype meeting. I have to say that I’m a little bit unlucky with technological stuff… Also this time I had problems with the connection: I could hear Allyson and Martina talking but they couldn’t hear my voice.
This is definitely the main reason why for the first half an hour I only practised my listening skill… They spoke about some words we had to discuss on the forum and Allyson wanted to know something more about the meaning of the word ‘raccomandato’… It’s so difficult to explain something that is obvious for you and your culture without finding the right translation for that word, isn’t it?!
Later, when I was able to take part in the conversation, we talked about terrorism, the movie "Buongiorno, notte" and the attack at the Twin Towers in 2001… Allyson told us how she spent that day but I hope to ask her something more, especially about her feelings and fear towards these events.
Reflecting on these two Skype meetings, I want to point out that talking in three is not easy, I mean that it’s difficult to control the turns of the conversation… And moreover, I tend to listen rather than speaking…
Anyway, I’ll try to make it work better next time!

C u soon and Happy Easter to everybody!!!

Terrorism

The discussion on the wiki of this week was really interesting but difficult as we had to talk about subjects such as "Gli anni di Piombo" and terrorism... But it has been useful as I had the opportunity to reflect on an important part of the Italian history and to remember it and its victims. I think it’s necessary to know our recent history in order to make things change and improve.
I haven’t seen the film "Buongiorno, notte" yet but I’ve taken a look at some videos on YouTube and I’m going to watch it soon. Here is a small scene…the soundtrack taken from "The great gig in the sky" by the Pink Floyd is amazing and makes these images even more dramatic.

2nd semester...Padova-Dickinson exchange

Welcome back my dear blogging mates!!!

The second semester has just started and I feel really motivated and curious about all the activities we are going to do… Unfortunately I can’t attend the lessons on Monday because of a course at the Chamber of Commerce but I can take part in the Skype exchange.

Last Tuesday we had the first meeting with the American students and, as usual, I had some technical difficulties… I was able to contact Martina and Allyson after half an hour because my microphone didn’t work! Anyway, in the end we were able to have a general chat about ourselves and about Italian and American educational systems.

I had never used Skype before and in spite of my technical problems I think it’s amazing! By using chats, e-mails or blog posts you can’t realize that the other person really exists while through Skype you can hear the voice, you can see him/her talking to you… It’s so exciting! I’m sure this exchange will be very useful in order to improve both my intercultural competence and my language skills… I’m really optimistic and that’s why I look forward to hearing from Allyson and Martina soon!

Bye!!

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone!

Working with you has been a useful and funny experience... Thank you for this first semester together and...

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Happy holidays,

c u next year!!

Personal Learning Environment

Hello Group D!
Well, it was quite strange to think about my way of learning… I mean… When you have to study something you just do it without worrying too much about the method you use. However, reflecting on PLE I realized that it’s very important to know how to organize your own learning. This is true especially for language students: we have to practise and practise otherwise we forget; we have to pay attention to any kind of ‘input’ in order to make improvements and to keep on learning in an effective way. That’s why I find some activities really useful for my English learning: grammar and vocabulary exercises; listening practice; reading texts aloud; doing translations.
When I want to learn a new word or expression I write it down on my notebook, I check its use in the dictionary and I fix it in my memory linking it to some examples.
Of course, it’s important to attend lessons, to take part in discussions suggested by professors, and to speak with your colleagues at university.
Finally, making comparisons between my work and my peers’ one is very helpful: you can learn from mistakes and you can appreciate other styles of writing and different ideas... Very stimulating!

I’m sorry…My picture is not very good… However, I divided my mindmap in 4 macro groups called HOW, WHERE, WHO and GATHERING INFORMATION.

I hope u are able to read something!

Bye bye

Laura

web sources

Hi everybody!
In this post I'm going to discuss sources of information and how they should be evaluated.
We should always evaluate a source of information whether it comes from the web or from a newspaper or a book…we should find out more information in order to understand if the document is reliable or not. This is why sometimes I just think books are much easier and much more trustworthy than pages that are available on the web. Anyway as nowadays the role of Internet in the field of politics, economics, news, literature and basically in every area of interest is becoming more and more important and used by anyone, we should set some criteria to follow when doing our research on the web.

Personally whenever I use the internet to researching a piece of writing such as an essay I always follow several golden rules. Firstly only trust a source if it has come from a recognised and reputed source such as an E-Journal or electronic library. Secondly, when using sources that have been taken from online newspapers make sure that the story has been printed in paper form by a national or regional paper. The final rule is to take any other sources that you find on the internet “with a pinch of salt” i.e. don’t believe everything you read and most certainly don’t base your entire essay around unverified sources. These criteria are fundamental for me, but they definitely need to be combined with the advice I found on the web pages of some Universities.

I hope you find my post useful!

See u!

YouTube

Hi everybody!

The world of YouTube is really huge! Exploring this new tool and searching for something interesting I realized that it provides videos for any purpose: you can watch videos about music, world news, travel or just have fun and relax thanks to many funny sketches. Moreover, YouTube can be useful to learn something new about a specific topic and for our English language learning too!!! The potential of this tool is that watching videos you have the advantage of seeing what you are listening to and better following the development of videos… Actually I think that images and written words are the best way to fix in your memory much information and this is really helpful in learning!
Another great feature of YouTube is that anyone can upload their own material and share them with other surfers. You can comment on those videos you find interesting and rate them so that the maker of the video can improve or update it.
YouTube is simply fantastic!!



This is the video I chose: Cat Stevens singing “Peace Train” during a live concert in 1976. It’s a song against war… It’s sad but hopeful.
Listening to a song can be a good way to improve our listening skills and learn new words… Do you agree?

I look forward to hearing from you!

C u!
Laura

Podcast

Hi guys!
My impressions on the e-tivity of this week are good again… Podcasts are another very useful tool on the Web and another new thing for me! I had never heard of them before but while surfing the Net, exploring and searching for them on Google and del.icio.us I understood what they are used for and how they can help us learn English. The extraordinary thing is that podcasts can be downloaded onto personal computers and mp3 players (I've already filled my IPod with podcasts in English!) so that we can listen to or watch the podcast whenever and wherever we want to.
I spent a lot of time listening to conversations, English lessons online, interviews and in the end… I was done in! But I really enjoyed myself learning new words and expressions… Through this kind of technology we can improve our skills and have fun at the same time… Cool!

These are the podcasts I chose… hope you’ll enjoy them!

• http://www.betteratenglish.com/

This website is really well done! It consists of different podcasts levels: intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced. In the first two you can listen to two guys speaking about funny and easy topics such as food habits, television, superstition… The third one is more difficult because it especially focuses on specific subjects like English business.
Of course you can also download the transcripts of the conversations… So you can’t get lost!

• http://www.oculture.com/

I had already chosen this website in a previous e-tivity because it’s very useful and you can find everything you are interested in! On the right side of the main page there is a section called Podcast Library… There are many and many texts and different topics to listen to: audiobooks, news, music, science… It's fantastic! Go have a look!

• http://www.englishthroughstories.com/scripts/scripts.html

This website is for learners of English who are looking for fun or a relaxing way to improve their listening skills. Each weekly podcast is an episode of a drama or "soap opera" with romance, mistery and sometimes... murder! Join the fun today and improve your English at the same time!

That's all for now!
C u!

Social Bookmarking!

WOW! Every week we discover something new: first the blogosphere, then how to develop our blog, the use of feed aggregators and now social bookmarking…
Also this time I had to spend some hours in front of my computer to understand what the purpose of this e-tivity was and to explore the new website del.icio.us but in the end it was a real pleasure!
I think that social bookmarking is the most useful tool we’ve seen up to now for our English language learning and searches: we can easily look for everything we are interested in! It’s great! I appreciate the ‘social’ aspect of this e-tivity… I like the idea of sharing my favourite websites and blogs with other people, especially with you! Moreover, the short description we gave to each website is very useful and important because in this way we can immediately know their topic and structure.
I really enjoyed searching for the web pages to add to my bookmarks and exploring the websites selected by my peers… We all primarily chose sites related to English learning and looked for tags such as English learning, bloggingenglish, listening activities, English literature and so on...
I found the site suggested by Alberto very interesting and funny. It provides slang expressions and gives their definitions, examples and origins... A large number of them is very strange but I think this site can be useful if you want to know informal words and colloquial language.
Thanks to the blogosphere we can learn English online... That's why I had a look at Englisch-hilfen site chosen by Cla83: we can learn rules, do exercises, tests or just have fun playing games.
Another website I found helpful is about writing phrases for commercial letters suggested by Claudiatri. Here we find expressions related to technical and specific commercial language. How to begin and to end a letter is no longer a problem!
Among the websites chosen by Alessandra I took a look at Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary site; it provides definitions and pronunciations of many words.
I always had difficulties in listening activities... Now I can improve my skills thanks to the interesting website suggested by Serena: I explored VOAnews site and I listened to some audio files and radio transcripts... They can really help me! Moreover, I can learn something more about current events... Fantastic!

Well, social bookmarking is great... It's like creating our own online bookshelf, isn’t it?

That’s all for now,

C u soon!

Bye bye
Laura

Bloglines

Hello GROUP D!
I am Laura, a new member in your group…I just visited your blogs…they are all really nice!!!

As far as the use of Bloglines is concerned I can only thank Sarah for having put the video with the directions… I can’t attend the lessons in the lab on Wednesdays because of other lessons in the same hours and when I read in our blog the explanation of what feeds and feed aggregators were, I got into a panic! Only after having checked out the video the things got easier and easier!
Thanks to Bloglines we can immediately know on a single page if our peers’ blogs have been updated! It’s fantastic! This kind of technology allows us to organize information in a good and nice way…that’s why I think it’s a very useful and time-saving tool… This is very important for me because my computer is old and the Internet connection is really slow!

Also this time we have learnt something interesting and new…thank you Bloglines, thank you Sarah!

Halloween

Should Halloween be imported to and celebrated in Italy? Absolutely not!
I read Claudia’s answer and I completely agree with her.
This tradition belongs to Anglo-Saxon people and to Americans… I can’t understand the reasons why Italian should celebrate it. We have Carnival in February as occasion to dress up and have fun… Unfortunately the consumer society of today influences our choices and our life-style... By now every holiday or cultural tradition are matter of business and in this way we risk forgetting the real meanings behind them. 

I think we all should appreciate more our Italian traditions!
C u soon!

Hey guys, if you like Tom Hanks I've already came up with his blog...it's really funny!

my first two weeks of blogging

It's completely new and really strange for me to have this virtual space… I’ve never used a blog before and, to be honest, I didn’t know almost anything about it! During the preparation of the first e-tivity I was really scared not to be able to find the right picture, the right comment…I’m always so worried about making mistakes! But now, after two weeks of blogging I understood how a blog works and I think that once you have started sending the first posts it gets easier and easier!
First of all, a blog is a very useful tool to develop your ideas, thoughts, opinions and to share them with other people: you can express your creativity and use your own style…it’s fantastic!
Moreover, through interaction we can improve our reading and writing skills in English…this is very important for me because I think my English vocabulary is not very extensive and in this way I can learn and learn, but we all have to pay attention to possible mistakes!