del.icio.us: store and share wherever you are!

Hellooo!
I started to use del.icio.us last Wednesday and I soon found out it’s a very useful tool! I was in the lab at LAIF and I was trying to find some technical French words concerning the textile industry: not an easy search! Luckily, using del.icio.us I found a glossary that really simplified my work. And I saved the URL of that webpage so if in the future I need to translate the same kind of text I won’t waste time on the Internet looking for something that can help me! In addition, I saved the URL of two online dictionaries. I think they can be useful for you too, especially if you need to find technical terms.

Having a look at the bookmarks saved by my blog peers, I noticed that we have almost the same interests. That’s way I think the network we created on del.icio.us will be really useful! For example, both Arianna and I are interested in current English usage: Arianna saved a website about English idiomatic expressions and I saved Slang O’ The Day, a website about slang words. Then all of the girls in my group saved at least one website that can help us to practice our listening skills. Arianna’s www.elllo.org offers a wide range of listening activities and I noted that the people who record the audio files are not necessarily American on British: there are many people from other countries. In this way we can learn to listen to people speaking English with an unusual accent. Chiara saved a website about listening activities, too. As far as this website is concerned, does anybody know how we can download the podcasts and save them on my computer? Martina highlighted a website dealing with the main grammar rules. I read the pages about sentence fragments and run-ons: have a look at them, you’ll find a definition and some useful examples.

Speak to you soon,

Ilaria.

(photo source)

And finally I discovered the TITLE!!!

Reading the corrections concerning e-tivity 3, I noticed that I didn’t write a title for my posts!!! Eh eh I don’t know why, but I didn’t notice the space in which we can put the title of a new post!
And now I wonder how many things are waiting for me to discover them! :-)

(photo source)

I do like Bloglines!!! I think feeds aggregators are a brilliant invention! They are a very useful way to make the most of my time, because in this way I can easily find everything I’m interesting in, without wasting time. I only need to open a single window, on which I can see what’s new on the web pages I usually visit. Last Thursday, I added the feeds of Blogging English, Arianna’s blog and Chiara’s blog. Then I had a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/ , I clicked on the orange button on the right side and I read the information about news feeds from the BBC. I subscribed to feeds concerning entertainment stories, the latest news from the world and from the UK. It was so easy! And now I can open Bloglines, see the title and read a short summary about the latest stories from BBC and choose to watch the video that interests me the most. I recommend the feeds from BBC to everyone, because I think we can use them to improve our listening and reading skills.

Ilaria.

Hi!!! I’m ready to write my first reflective blogging post! The topic is “my next language learning targets”. I think setting some targets is really useful because it allows me to focus on something in particular and work on it, instead of wasting time trying to do one million things at the same time! As I wrote last week, my targets for this 2nd semester are essentially three: I’d like to enlarge my vocabulary and improve my writing and communicative skills. I firmly believe that writing posts on my blog will help me to achieve my language targets. First of all, reading what my classmates write on their blogs I can learn new words; I’ve just read a new expression on Elena’s blog: smash hit, I’ve searched it on my dictionary and now I know its meaning! Then, writing on a blog I learn to be not only concise and accurate, but also spontaneous. And being accurate is certainly useful when you have to explain some complicated concepts in an academic essay, while spontaneity is a quality that is precious in a conversation with other people. I find it difficult to interact with other people because I can’t speak in a spontaneous way and I’ve always to reflect on the words I should use or not. In a post I don’t have to write complex sentences like in any other written text; I am required to be clear and straightforward as I should be in a spoken conversation.
As regards what I’ve done during this week, I’ve to say that I’ve been pretty busy with lessons, blogs and academic papers! And I’m trying to do my best, especially taking note of every new word I read or I hear while I’m in class, surfing the Net or simply listening to music! Do you know what an Oxford comma is? I didn’t know it before listening to a song by Vampire Weekend, whose title is Oxford comma: it aroused my curiosity and so I used Google to find the meaning. Anyway, the meaning of the title doesn’t help me to understand the sense of the song which is still quite obscure!!! :-)

That's all for now!

Ilaria.

Welcome to my brand new blog!

This is my first experience with blogging! I think creating a personal blog is really funny, but it is also difficult: there are millions of interesting blogs in the blogosphere and creating one that can catch people's attention is a very hard work! Anyway, I'll do my best because it's a great opportunity to improve my computer skills and to write in English combining accuracy with spontaneity. And I'm sure you will help me leaving many comments on my posts!!! ;-)