Here I am again! 

I didn't manage to make a link to my map, but I managed to put it directly in my post. So, this is my map!

Our university path is over... : )

Hi everybody! 

This is my last post and you know what? I'm HAPPY!!! Sorry for saying this, I know I should write I'm really sad and so on, but, as I'm an honest person, I cannot hide my real feelings. ; ) The truth is I was tired of writing posts and of dealines. Please don't misunderstand me: I think the work we did in this second and last semester with Sarah was extremely useful 'coz we discovered tools that are gonna help us a lot in using the Internet from now on; I was just tired of working so hard every week. So, now it's over and I can relax a little bit before starting studying seriously for my exams, which unfortunately are coming really soon. : (

About the map on my personal learning environment, I have nothing really important to say. It was easy to build my map, as I'm pretty aware of the tools I use and of the people who help me in my learning process. Come on, we're all aware of them, we're students of the second year of specialistica. I bet that everybody feel like we grew a lot during these university years. We became responsible and mature. During our first university year we were a bit disoriented, we followed our teachers' instructions without being aware of what they were doing for us, but now I guess everybody exactly know what our teachers expect from us and the reasons why they decide to teach us this instead of that. Am I wrong? 

So, what can I say? I'm a bit sad if I think that my "university path" is over, but I'm excited if I think that, somehow, my "real" life is gonna begin soon! I'm not talking about my map, I know, this is a kind of reflective post on my university life... never mind! ; )

Just one last thing: I'm not able to put the link to show you my map, but I'm gonna work on this for the rest of the day. I'm gonna manage it, that's for sure! So, later I'm gonna write another post with the link...    

Internet: let's read the leaflet before using it!

My dear Godness, we can never relax! Today in class we talked about the risks using the Internet. A lot of things came out, such as the risk to run into unwanted material or to infringe the copyright. Problems, always problems... life's hard! ; )

What can I say about this topic? Well, certainly the Internet is a great discover 'coz it really improved our lives. Thanks to the Internet, we can get information quickly, we can talk with friends in real time and we can share our documents. Nowadays everyone, especially young people, can use a computer 'coz everything works thanks to technology. I personally don't like technology so much, but it's part of the world I'm living in, so I started to use it to keep me updated. In the end, I have to say it's extremely useful.

Of course, like all things in life, the Internet can be good or bad, depending on the way we use it. At the moment, almost everyone is addicted to the most famous social network in the world: Facebook. I'm completely addicted to it: I enter it almost every day and I enjoy it a lot. I upload pictures, I make some funny quizzes, I chat with people, I read info about other people in their profiles. My dad hates to see me using Facebook, but I'm convinced there's nothing bad about it. It's true that it's a waste of time and that most times I enter it just for fun, but it's also true it helps me keep in touch with foreign friends and with friends I don't see very often. What's more, we, Facebook users, can decide whether a person can become our "friend" or not, it's not that everybody can see our profile or pictures. It's up to us, we decide who our friends are. Personally, my friends on Facebook are the people I know, I don't accept "friends" I don't know.

As I said before, all depends on how we use the Internet tools we know. If we're honest and aware of the fact that it's better not to put too personal info on the web (such as our address and our telephone number) and that we can't trust everything we find on it (like some advertising that tells you you won a car 'coz you're the thousandth user), we're on the right track! I'm not so ingenuous, I already knew I have to pay attention to the things I do using the Internet.

In my opinion, the only thing we can do is taking the Internet seriously, avoiding to do something that can "damage" ourselves. Avoiding the Internet is really stupid, we'd better learn to use it properly.

Wanna know what the most stressful work ever is?

Seriously, guys, dunno how Sarah can know so many things about computers and the Internet. She makes us discover new things every week! : 0  (surprised expression)

As everybody knows, I don't like technology too much, but I have to admit that if someone explains me how to use it properly, it's not that bad.  ; ) 

For example, Google.docs... this is another great tool! It is the simplest way to work together on a document. The thing I appreciated the most about it was that we could change the document we were all working on all together. Last semester we used wiki, and, despite the fact I liked that experience, I have to say it was stressful to wait for my classmates editing it before editing it on my own. Google.docs lets me avoid this stress, and it's great! 

Now, about the references Sarah and Francesca Helm used for their book... what a mess to correct them! My God, this was the most stressful work EVER!! At a certain point my classmates and I were really desperate... my dear Godness, we had to check every reference paying attention to the kind of reference it was. If the reference was an online interview, we shouldn't put the publisher, if it was a book we should write the date, and so on... thanks God we finished this E-tivity! I didn't like this work AT ALL! But I have to do it for my next dissertation : ( , so I guess it's better to be prepared!  

No, citing is not easy at all!

I knew that writing is a hard task, but now I found out that citing is even worse! Oh my God, did you take a look at the websites Sarah provided us about the APA and MLA styles? Well, Americans take the matter of citing seriously. Wow, I'm surprised. : 0   I mean, I knew that there were some rules about citing, and I actually followed them in writing my BA thesis, but I didn't know there were different styles to do it and strict rules like the ones I just read. Ok, let's take a deep breath and start comparing the APA and the MLA styles, focusing on what I already knew and on what I didn't know at all. Let's see if my BA thesis is a complete disaster! ; )

The APA style is most used to cite sources within the social sciences. It gives you suggestions about footnotes, references and in-text citations. It gives you guidelines about the general layout and the structure of the text, that is, what the text should look like and the sections that it should have. Ok, I already knew these rules. The thing that strucked me the most was reading all the rules about the in-text citations. It's true that I already knew the majority of these rules, such as capitalizing proper nouns including initials, capitalizing all words that are four letters long and italicizing the titles of longer works. It's also true that I didn't know that shorter titles shouldn't be italicized and that the first word after a dash or colon should be capitalized. About the short and long quotations, I already knew that the long ones should be in a free-standing block in typewritten lines, omitting quotation marks. I knew that writing the page number in the in-text references is suggested, too. So, ok, I was quite prepared!

  

The MLA style focuses on the way in which references should be written. The MLA style requires that you provide brief parenthetical references directly in the text identifying the exact part of each work that is quoted or on which the ideas of your work are based. I didn't know this rule, in my BA thesis I just put the general references in the footnotes. The MLA style requires that you provide an alphabetical list of "Works Cited" at the end of the paper, too. The general format required by this style is the same I used in my BA thesis. About the material found online, I have to admit that in my BA thesis I didn't put too much attention in citing the websites in which I found the information I used. I just put a section called "Sitography" at the end of my paper, without specifying the information I found in each of them. One thing I liked about the MLA style is that it suggests you write "Works Consulted", "Works Cited" or "Annotated Works Cited" instead of "Bibliography" 'coz they're more specific. A thing that I didn't like about the MLA style is that it suggests you underline instead of using italics in writing the titles of the works you use. I personally think that using italics is more elegant than underlining, but maybe it's because using italics is part of the Italian way of writing. So, this time I was not so prepared...

To sum up, I can say that I was aware of the majority of the rules I read, but of course I didn't know all of them and the ones I knew were not so fixed in my mind. If I re-read my BA thesis, anyway, I can say it's not that bad regarding quotations. It lacks regarding the abstract and the "sitography", but I'm gonna follow the new rules I learnt in the next dissertation. Well, following all these rules is not easy at all, it seems a BIG effort to me, but I guess that complaining isn't going to change the situation... ; )

Readable, clear, concise, interesting, simple...what else??

Writing is a hard task, if you wanna do it in a proper way. It's not just a matter of putting on a piece of paper your thoughts, you have to organize your ideas and put them in a logical order, otherwise your reader isn't going to understand anything. This is true not only if you're writing an academic paper, but also if you're writing a blog post. 

An example of a well-written paper is the article I found, which is called "Motivation and Second Language Acquisition", by R.C. Gardner, University of Western Ontario. I have to point out I changed the article 'coz the previous one is not available online any more. Don't worry, this article is even more interesting than the other one. As you can easily get from the title of this new article, Gardner talks about the role of motivation in second language acquisition, distinguishing two types of motivations, language learning motivation and classroom motivation. 

Generally speaking, Gardner is really clear in the whole article. He provides many schemes of what he's explaining and he often points out what he's gonna say and demonstrate. For example, at the beginning of his article he says: "In this vein, I intend to direct my attention to the following four points:

a. Two motivational constructs

b. Stages of language acquisition

c. Cultural and educational contexts

d. Results from Spain". 

By reading this scheme, the reader is ready from the very beginning to follow Gardner's flow of ideas, which is really logical. In fact, there is an intro, a body and a conclusion. The intro is the abstract, which briefly explains what the research consists of and the conclusions it drew. The body consists of four brief paragraphs with a title each, and the conclusion is the last paragraph. This clear structure makes the article readable and easy to get. The reader is able to follow Gardner's discourse without getting lost in his thoughts. Moreover, Gardner uses a simple language and short sentences, which help the reader not to get bored. For example, when he has to explain what the initial stage in second language acquisition is, he simply says: "The initial stage is Elemental. In this stage the individual is learning the basics of the language, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciations, etc. (what Lambert would term the vocabulary cluster). We see this in the development of one’s first language when the toddler learns new words, begins to put words together, mispronounces some words but corrects them later, etc... With the second language student, we see the same process when initial vocabulary is learned, equivalents with the first language are recognized, simple declarative sentences are memorized,etc." As you can notice, the explanation is easy to understand, with no specific terms. The text is cohesive, too. For example, after analysing the four stages in language acquisition, Gardner says that "This analysis is not meant to be definitive as to the stages of language acquisition, but it does serve to highlight what is meant by “learning” the language, and to emphasize that it has different meanings at different stages of the learning process." The word "this" is pointing back to what he explains before. About the audience, I think this article is written for students 'coz, as I said before, it's really simple and readable.

Well, certainly our blog posts should be like this. I mean, of course a blog post has to be concise, but it should be cohesive, logical and clear as a well-written academic article. I think writing a good blog post isn't as easy as people think. On the contrary, it's more difficult to write a good blog post than a good article 'coz you have to say something interesting in few sentences, but you still have to pay attention to the structure of the text you're writing. A blog post has to have an intro, a body and a conclusion, too, just like an article, but it has to be more concise. This is not easy at all!

Big brother is watching you!

"If you don't tell whose work it is, you are pretending the work is your own. This pretending is called 'plagiarism,' and it is just like cheating. It's not fair. It's not nice. It isn't OK. It's stealing." 

(Simpson, 2005, p. 180)

Hey, this is not plagiarism, I put the reference! ; ) I started with this sentence 'coz I think that it clearly and briefly explains what plagiarism is. Yeah, it's stealing, that's bad. Plagiarism has to be avoided.

Plagiarism... I have to admit I didn't care too much about it in the past. I often put some sentences I found on the web or in books in my papers pretending they were mine. I thought it was pretty normal and that it was not so bad, but now I know I have to feel ashamed... as an excuse, I can say that Italian people in general don't care much about plagiarism, but I know this isn't a good reason not to respect IPR. ; ) ; ) Probably Italian people like cheating, as Sarah said. No, I don't think this is the reason, I think we're just not informed, just a bit ingenuous. ; )

 

However, as Sarah explained us, IPR are really important to Americans. American students committing plagiarism can be expelled from university and American workers can loose their job. This sounds incredible to me, but I have to admit that copying material that it isn't ours it's irresponsible and not respectful to the person who created it. Plagiarism is a really serious issue.

I found lots of websites of different American universities talking about plagiarism. I saved some websites in delicious, especially those that give suggestions and tips in order to avoid plagiarism, which isn't so easy as we can think, the reason being we have to pay attention to anything. Even a picture can be protected by copyright! 

So, what can we, poor Italian students, do? Well, it's better to use our own material, and, if we'd like to take other people's material, we have to check if it's public domain or if there are some restrictions to use it. In every case, if we use other people's material, we have to put the reference! Pay attention guys, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!!!

P.S. The only thing I didn't get too much is why Italians don't care about IPR. Nobody check if the material we're using it's ours or not. Well, it's a matter of being honest or not, ok, I'm not gonna cheat any more, this is a promise! : ) 

I finally gave up...

Hi there!

Ok, I definitely gave up in trying to change the template of my blog. I tried everything my classmates suggested me do, but nothing worked. So, let's enjoy my blog as it is. : (

I forgot...

Sorry, I forgot to say it was easy to answer some questions, such as "who was the researcher?" or "what was the goal of the research?", whereas it was quite hard to answer some questions like "what kind of study was it and how was data collected?". The fact is that some data are clearly written, while some others are in the middle of the abstract and you have to identify them in the discourse. 

The questions I answered about the research articles are really similar to the ones posed in e-tivity 5 'coz they all establish some criteria in order to understand if a website is reliable or not. 

About the way to keep track of the sources I find, I guess I can save the websites I found in Delicious, right? ; ) 

Ok, that's all for now! 

Is it rubbish??

Hi everybody!!

So, we were supposed to search for a reliable research article, right? I have to admit it was not an easy task, the reason being that some websites seemed reliable at the beginning, but after trying to answer the questions that Sarah gave us I found out they weren't. Sometimes I could answer only to 3 or 4 questions, which I guess it's not enough. The conclusion is that now I'm aware of the fact that surfing in the Web is not as funny as I thought. Just kidding!!! Seriously, now I know that there are some criteria to use if we want to take advantage of the information we find, and this is a great discover 'coz we're gonna loose less time with our next researches. The thing that I like most is that simply reading the abstract we can understand if reading the whole article is worth or not. 

So, first of all, I went to Google Scholar, as we were required to find a research article. I surfed a bit before finding a good one, but then I managed to find an article that I consider reliable. You can find it here: http://slr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/199

As you can see, the date of the research, that is, 2005, is immediately written. Then there's the title of the article and the name of the researcher, which is Silvina Montrul. It's written she belongs to  the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. You can see that her e-mail address is written, too. Then the abstract begins. I like it 'coz I find it short and straight to the point. The goal of the research is immediately pointed out: it's the comparison between the linguistic knowledge of adult second language (L2) learners, who learned the L2 after puberty, and the potential "eroded" first language (L1) grammars of adult early bilinguals who were exposed to the target language since birth and learnt the other language simultaneously, or early in childhood (before age 5). The findings of the research are clearly explained, too. The author writes "I make two main claims: (1) that the L1 grammar of bilingual [...] resembles the incomplete [...] grammars typical of intermediate and advanced stages in L2 acquisition; and (2) that [...] early bilinguals are better than the L2 learners, probably due to exposure to primary linguistic input early in childhood." The author explains the way in which she carried out her research, that is, how she collected data, explaining she conducted it with English-speaking L2 learners and English-dominant Spanish heritage living in the USA (small scale). She adds she discussed "how input, use and age may explain differences and similarities in the linguistic attainment of the two groups." As you can notice, I answered almost all the questions Sarah provided us. I couldn't say if the research was short or long term and if there were reservations or limitations on the research 'coz the writer didn't mention them, but I think that this is a good and reliable article as well. If you have the chance, take a look at it and tell me your opinion about it!

Technology I HATE you!

Mmmm... I downloaded Internet Explorer 8, but still, I'm not able to modify the HTML. Ok, I'm not fond of technology... no, actually, I hate it, but I thought I could manage to change the layout of my blog... no... : (   Sooooooooo sad! I need help!! Tomorrow I'm gonna ask someone!

HTML I hate you!

Uff... I'm angry!!! Like Sara, I can't modify the HTML of my blog 'coz I'm not using Internet Explorer 8. : ( : ( I'm gonna try to download it right now 'coz I really hate my blog, it's just plain! If I'm not gonna succeed, I'm gonna ask Sarah what I'm supposed to do. Let's try... 

The Internet: this big stranger...

Here we go again. Hello everybody!!

Last lesson Sarah asked us to tell her the criteria we use to judge the websites we find during our Internet researches. In other words, why do we consider a website reliable and useful? Well, we listed all our criteria and I think we did a good job. We took a look at some websites where there are some suggestions about surfing on the Web that other universities (e.g. the University of Essex) make for their students, and there was nothing really relevant to add to our list. We're smart, guys! ; ) 

Sarah made us discover some other tools we can use to "filter" information on the Internet, too, such as Google Blogs, Google Books and Google Scholar. We searched for "personal learning environment" in the 3 of them, and I have to admit it was very interesting 'coz we really could find what we were looking for in reliable sources. Google blogs is similar to Technorati, as it searches tags in blogs on the Internet. It was funny 'coz I found an American teacher's blog and, reading a bit through it, I got she's doing exactly the same that Sarah is doing with us with her students. I mean, her students are required to have a blog and write posts regularly and so on. I guess it's because American teachers are really aware of the importance of the Internet nowadays and are trying to help their students be updated with the new technological devices. Google Books is again really helpful 'coz even if we can't download books, we can at least read their abstracts and some pages of them to see if we're interested in buying them. Google Scholar is specific 'coz it searches tags in online academic texts that is really useful in our case, as we're University students. The thing that strucked me the most is that there are a lot of free online texts available on the Web, it's not that we have to pay for everything. Good to know! Finding the site we're looking for and finding out it's not free is annoying, isn't it? 

I took a look at the sites that Sarah provided us, too, that is, http://e-language.wikispaces.com/ and http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/Siemens and now I can say I agree with her, not all wikis are Wikipedia. Wikipedia isn't reliable in most cases, but these 2 websites seem to be reliable. I mean, their graphics is good, there is no advertisement, they're clear and well-structured, and, more importantly, it's immediately written what we're gonna find reading them. Sarah said this is a criteria we can use to jugde a website positively so I can say these 2 websites are reliable. 

What's more? I think I can conclude saying that every lesson is a discover! This course is helping me a lot understand the Internet better, and I think the things I'm learning now are gonna be extremely useful in writing my thesis. Good job, Sarah! : ) 

Efforts to improve

Hey, Sara and Anna! 

As you can see, I'm trying to improve my blog...I'm just at the beginning, but I hope you'll like it better than before! 

Have a nice evening and see you tomorrow!! : )

Anna and Sara: good job!

Hello!!

Today it's raining, and I feel a bit nervous... isn't it Spring? Come on, weather! : (

Anyway, as I promised yesterday, I took a look at Anna's favourite websites and I noticed she searched something about languages and travelling as Sara and I did. What is different is that she searched something about Russia. At the beginning I was surprised, but then I thought that maybe it's just because she studies Russian at university... I have no idea, I'm gonna ask her explanations about it. I visited the websites she found about Russia, 'cause I was very curious about it, and I found the one which is called "English Russia" extremely funny! For example, in this website you can see the ID of the oldest Russian woman (who is 130!) followed by some pictures of her taken when she was younger. The curious thing is that she looked like an old woman even in the past! ; ) 

Then, I noticed that Sara added some websites to our network, and I visited the one about cruise ship jobs. I was attracted by it because I'd like to work on a cruise ship after my next graduation.I have to say I really liked this website, because it's well organized and easy to read. 

To sum up, I think my classmates did a good job, because the websites they found are funny and interesting!  

Social bookmarking: Sara, we have the same tastes!

Hi there, here I am again! 

Well, we started a new adventure, that is, the social bookmarking. Let's immediately say that every time Sarah says "Ok, today we're gonna learn something new" I'm afraid, because, as I said a lot of times, I'm helpless at using technology. I must admit that going to class helps me a lot, because if I need help I know that someone's gonna answer my questions, but I still feel a bit uncomfortable with these new tools. Anyway, I don't give up, don't worry!!! Never give up! I'm gonna become a blog (and various tools) expert! ; )

Talking about social bookmarking, I found out it's an easy way to store and share my favourite websites and blogs online instead of on my computer, as I don't have my computer 24 hours a day with me. I think this tool is extremely useful, especially because, as I was required, I created a network with my group (and some other classmates) so that I can easily see what their favourite websites are. This means that I don't waste time to do my own search if I see that my classmates searched the same topic I wanted to, because I know that they first did the search and they chose the sites I can see. 

An interesting thing is that I found out that my classmates and I really have the same tastes. I took a look at Sara's favourite websites, and I noticed that she searched the same things I searched. In fact, she saved some websites about job offers, about vacations and about Padua. I was a bit surprised, because I really searched the same things! To tell the truth, she searched a lot about music, too, but I didn't, maybe because I listen to every kind of music as I don't have favourite singers or groups. Anyway, I really like the sites she found about the job offers, which is exactly the same I saved, and I liked the one she saved about vacations, which helps you find flights, book hotels and rent a car. 

Tomorrow I'm gonna make a post about Anna's favourite website!

Take care! : )

A lot of work needs to be done...

Hey guys, this is a brief post reflecting about what I'm doing in my blog. 

I'm really trying to follow Sarah's instructions. In fact, I'm trying to write not really long posts and I'm trying to make them readable by writing short paragraphs with only one idea each. I highlight the key words for each paragraph, too, in order to clarify what the main idea is. 

I know I still have to do a lot of work, because, for example, I didn't put links or colours in my posts, and the paragraphs don't have the same length, but I'm trying to do my best. 

What do you think about it? Feel free to leave any comments you'd like to. : )

Are we gonna loose YouTube?

Guys, did you read the articles about the disappearance of some videos on YouTube that Sarah provided us? I did, but it was not a surprise. In fact, I heard about this story through television and newspapers. To sum up what's happening, some videos on YouTube, both official and produced by amateurs, disappeared because of copyright problems. The fact is that Warner wants to be paid for its copyrighted works. 

Let's say I don't blame neither YouTube nor the record label, in this case Warner. Nowadays technology is widely spread all over the world and we use it for every reason. If we have to search for a piece of information, we just turn the computer on and open Google. If we want to have fun, we turn the computer on and we start to play in "Pet Society" on Facebook, or we just chat. Technology is an extremely important part of our life at the moment, and it's going to become worse and worse (or better and better? It depends on how much you like it!). Well, I don't love technology, but I'm aware of the fact that it's very useful and that it improves our lives a lot from some specific point of views. For example, it really simplifies our lives with mailing. What is important is to organize it, in order to avoid problems. Technology has to follow some rules, otherwise it's going to become impossible to use it properly and someone's going to abuse of it. Actually, it's already happening. 

In this particular case, I share the disappointment because of the disappearance of some videos on Youtube, which I regularly use and which is one of my favourite tools, but I understand Warner's rights. It's not that everybody can do anything, rules have to be established and followed. I think that the only solution is that Warner and YouTube come to an agreement about the money that the latter should pay to the former to use its material. I personally think they should hurry up, otherwise the users are going to loose a lot of good material that should be protected (some videos on YouYube are soooo funny!). 

About the block of YouTube in China, I just think it's outrageous. China is trying to hide what's happening in Tibet, and the rest of the world lets this happen! I have no words to explain the shame I feel. I feel helpless about this situation and the people who can do something about it (the politicians) do nothing! I can't believe it's happening... what a shame! And the fact China said its governement is not afraid of the Internet but it's the opposite is a further demonstration (the first one was the block of YouTube) of the fact China's government fears the Internet a lot. It's important to be aware of the Tibet's situation, and it's important to do something! But we all know that politicians are going to do nothing, as usual. 

Bloglines: I feel lost alone!

HI EVERYBODY! Or should I say "Hi Sara and Anna" (the names of the two girls of my group)? 

First of all, I have to apologize for having neglecting my poor blog. Last Thursday I missed the lesson because of some family problems and I didn't check our course blog. I'm sooo sorry!

Actually, I'm sorry and upset, because it seems that missing a Sarah's lesson is missing a loooot of work! In fact, I tried to figure out what you did in class and I found out you discovered a new tool, that is, bloglines. I must admit (sorry for using "must", Sarah, but professor Falinski said that this is a fixed expression) I was starting to become desperate. If you're wondering about the reason, let's say I hate technology so that it's very difficult for me to become confident with new tools alone. 

Anyway, I read Sarah's instruction and I read what you wrote about bloglines. I also watched the video that Sarah provided us which was supposed to explain to the students who were absent what to do with bloglines. The result is that I think I got the usefulness of this tool, but I'm not totally sure of it. What I know now is that bloglines is an Internet database that you create of your favourite blogs. You wrote that this tool is a good way to reduce the time and effort to check websites for updates. In fact, if I'm not wrong, subscribing to bloglines.com means receiving updates from the websites you indicate as your favourite. Am I right? Anyway, I'll ask someone to help me with this tool during the next lesson. For the moment I joined the community of bloglines, and they told me they will send me a confirmation of the registration by e-mail. I'll see. 

Well, the conclusion is that loosing a Sarah's lesson is awful, I feel lost alone! : ( 

Reflective blogging post... a (not too much) serious post...

Well, I'm supposed to reflect on my learning process through blogging. I guess it's easier to say than to do... ; ) Let's say that I'm at the very beginning of my experience with blogs and honestly I'm still a bit confused. That's the reason why it's quite complicated to say if anything I found in the blogosphere until now might help me achieve my targets. Anyway, I think that reading blogs about different topics is useful because at least I can learn new vocabulary. Hopefully things will become clearer soon so that I'll say more about the usefulness of the activity I'm doing. For the moment, I can say that my next language learning targets are to become more fluent in speaking and to improve my listening skills. Of course I'd like to improve my poor vocabulary, too. This is my last University year, which means this is my last possibility to make my English become really good. I must admit I feel ashamed when someone calls me "doctor", because I don't feel like I'm at the top of my University career and I'm not proud to say it. So, the only thing I can do is doing my best to change this situation. Right? Good.  : ) Now that I established my next goals and that I promised to try to turn to them, I can say that during the past weeks I did almost nothing to achieve them. Hihi! ; ) The fact is that I don't have enough time... no, this is a bad excuse. : ( Seriously, I always promise to myself to watch an English movie, to read an English book, to listen to an English radio or to study some grammar rules I forgot, because I'm convinced that the self-learning is important, but then I have to attend other lessons, I have to work, I go out etc. The result is that I forget my good intentions. Fortunately, I'm attending this course and professor Taylor's course so that I can practise my oral English by participating in class, my written English by doing the homework I'm supposed to do and my listening skills by paying attention to what my teachers are saying. I know it's not enough. It's true that at this point of my University career English should be my whole life. ; ) I'll try to apply myself more, I promise! Well, the more I do the better is for me, right? Anyway, it's never enough. One of my favourite maxim is "you can always do better"!

Can this "blog adventure" improve my English??

Well, I've never thought about having a personal blog... I think the main reason is that having a blog is not really common here in Italy... not yet, at least. Maybe it'll become fashionable in few months, like Facebook. To be honest, there's another reason why I've never thought about creating a blog, but it's more personal... you know, I already have msn, Facebook and of course the mail address. I daily spend a lot of time checking all of them, and I sometimes feel like I'm loosing my time (especially when I should study but before starting I access to facebook "just for a moment" and then I realize that I waste 3 hours of the little time I have).
Anyway, now I HAVE to create my own blog, so it's not my fault, at least! Hihi, just kidding! Seriously, I think this can be a great experience, for many reasons. First of all, I can learn something more about the Internet, which is really huge. Then, I can have my personal space in which I can put anything I like (I could notice that a blog has more functions and gadgets than Facebook). Last but not least, I can learn a lot about colloquial English. The fact is that I've always studied formal English at school, and now I'm required to write in academic English (God, please help me!), but none of the teachers I had focused on making me become an expert of colloquial English expressions! ; ) That's why I think that I'll enjoy this experience a lot and that it can be useful for me. I mean, I have to be able to write a good essay (no problem, I love writing), but I firmly believe I have to be able to talk to foreign people of my age without seeming ridicolous, too. Both formal and informal styles are important.
So, let's start this new adventure! Have fun everybody!! : )