Podcasting the net

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Our English learning is a very long process on which converge various experiences.

We are constructing our knowledge step by step and we are perfectly aware of the importance of listening in this process.

So, this week, we had to surf the net in order to chase up some sites, containing podcasts useful for improving our listening abilities.
I would like to let you know what my issues are.



http://englishcaster.com/

Among the web sites I found, this is my favourite one because of the various possibilities it can offer to an English learner.

This site helps you to select the most suitable podcast for your needs, according to specific contents, kinds of English, levels, target ages and target nationalities.
And if you want to learn English in a fun way, you can listen to songs or watch entertaining videos. The authors of the site update frequently the podcasts and chose everyday one new word you may add to your virtual vocabulary.

Furthermore, once you visit the site, you can exploit the useful links it provides and go on with your learning process by yourself. This is one of the reasons which urges me to suggest you this site.

This is not a static collection of web pages, this is a dynamic way for learning English.
And if you get bored with it, you might use it as a sort of search-engine, taking you to other stimulating resources.


http://www.voanews.com/

This site is quite interesting because it gives the readers the opportunity of listening to the main world news and reading them, so they can find out if they have all understood and check new terms on the dictionary.

In addition, this site provides the readers a large number of recordings they can listen to improve their listening abilities, concerning different topics such as education, health and medicine, human interests, politics and much more.

This is something more than a simple newspaper, because you can easily read the news you are interested in and deepen their topic with a click on one of the numerous links.

Concerning podcasts, the site selected six recordings of discussions on different topics and interviews.
Some of them are thought up for English learners, so they are made easier, but I believe that with a certain effort and practice, they could understand all the recordings.


http://librivox.org/

Libri Vox is a community podcast that allows you to automatically download audio books to your computer. You can visit the on line catalogue and download all the files you want or you can find brand new audio books every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a poem on Sunday.

The peculiarity of this site is that you can also read a few chapters of a book and send them to Libri Vox; in doing so, you create your own podcasts and you improve your reading abilities.

The purpose of this open source site is that of building a network made up of a great number of free audio books which everybody can read without paying for them.

I think that Libri Vox could represent a different way of learning English because you can improve your vocabulary, learn how to change the tone of your voice in order to speak English more naturally and check your pronunciation.


http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/

I decided to put this site into my favourites because it is very similar to the previous one.
So, if you enjoyed Libri Vox, go and visit Audio Books for free.

Comparing the two sites, I would like to add that this second one has a clearer menu which facilitate the selection of a book. It includes three main categories (fiction, children, non-fiction) made up of different types of books, such as comedies, adventures, poetry, memories and much more.

Furthermore, this site uses a state-of-the-art technology: it enables you to download audio books directly in video-dvd format rather than in mp3 and provides filters for limiting the outcomes of your selections.

I chose this site because I love books and I feel that they are fundamental for improving the knowledge of a language.
They allow you to experiment and recognize different language features (formal, informal, narrative, descriptive language, etc.) you can use in conversation in order to express yourself in a more appropriate way.


I hope you’ll enjoy the sites I selected.

See you soon, guys.

Francesca



http://odeo.com/audio/2347807/view
link suggested by Sarah, our teacher.


I love podcasts but my computer doesn't agree with me.
I mean that my computer is old-fashioned, out-of-date and "spiteful".
I promise you I'll try to record an audio message, but I'm not sure about the result.
If I don't achieve my purpose, I'll let you know my impressions on the world of podcasts just by writing them on my post. This is the only thing I can do.

Please, forgive me! :(

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Genre of web sites

2 WEB SITES SELECTED BY ME THIS WEEK.

FIRST: 50 TOOLS WHICH CAN HELP YOU IN WRITING

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/fifty-50-tools-which-can-help-you-in-writing.html


AUDIENCE I think the audience of this site could be all those who want to improve their writing in English

PURPOSE This site wants its audience to get out important information in order to write better. It is a community discourse because of a link which allows you to join the community created by the main site (which is http://www.lifehack.com/ ), and the presence of a specific section for comments and a forum. Furthermore, the fact that this site provides a complete archive of the previous posts and let the visitors subscribe even by e-mail, demonstrates that it wishes to widen the community.
However, you are not forced to subscribe to get information, because this site is open to everybody.

LANGUAGE FEATURES This site achieves its purpose in two ways: firstly, it deals with writing as a whole, dividing it up in 50 problem situations you might face when you start a paper, secondly, it provides hyperlinks for every situation. The hyperlink consists in a heading which sums up the problem and let the visitor see exactly what he is looking for: he has just to click on it, without reading the entire text.

The informal language used by the site indicates that the author believes that everyone can write in an accurate manner; for this reason, he decided to give clear instructions that a wide public can easily understand.

He did so by means of:

1. colloquial sentences such as:

• Wanna learn more
• The semicolon is what we called in driver education a "rolling stop." More muscular than the comma, it is most useful for dividing and organizing big chunks of information.
  Not here. I prefer tools, not rules.
  Scrape away these crustaceans during revision, and the ship of your prose will glide toward meaning with efficient speed and grace

2. direct questions

3. phrasal verbs

4. contractions

5. imperative forms such as:

• Click here
• Check out,

6. figurative language such as:

• Like a barricade in the middle of a street, the parenthesis forces the reader to drive around
• The comma is a signal to keep going -- but with caution; the semicolon is a speed bump; the parenthetical expression is a barricade; the colon announces a crossroads; the dash is a tree branch in the road

7. present tenses

8. both state and action verbs

Even the layout serves author’s purpose. Every link takes to a page, divided into different paragraphs according to topics, with an evident heading in bold and a few examples for each problem tackled. Sometimes, the author needs to quote some of his colleagues (he is probably trying to seem more professional) or to highlight pieces of information by shifting their position or font.

SECOND: -DR. GRAMMAR- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

http://www.drgrammar.org/faqs/

AUDIENCE In my opinion the audience is quite wide, it includes all those who don’t want to make grammar errors in English (that is everybody, me, too)
However, James HiDuke (professor at the University of Northern Iowa) alias Dr. Grammar, seems to have focused on specific categories of people, but he does not rule out the possibility that his public might be wider.
These are his proper words:
if a) you are a student, faculty member or staff member of an educational institution (K-12, junior college, college or university); b) you are a United States federal, state or local government employee; or c) your use of the information is exclusively at home for non-commercial purposes. If you do not meet the requirements for free use of the information, you may make a request to…

PURPOSE In my opinion, the purpose of this site is answering grammar questions in order to let people improve their English knowledge and write and speak in a correct way.
This site provides only a few extracts of an English grammar. All this extracts had been selected personally by the “doctor” because he found them to be very useful to avoid common mistakes.

At once, I was sure that there wasn’t a community discourse in this site because of the lack of a forum or a section for comments. But, going on with my analysis, I found out that every time a person sends a question to the professor or click on a link to check a rule, she/he becomes part a community because she/he comes into contact with a shared universe.

LANGUAGE FEATURES Language is quite informal, but it is not as colloquial as the previous site. Dr. Grammar chose specific words coming from an online grammar; for this reason, the language is quite accurate and includes terms that an English learner can easily recognize.
The professor succeeded in stressing information and facilitating the reading by means of particular tags, such as warning, rule, example.

I think that the informal language used in this site is fundamental for reaching a wider public and creating a sort of community. On the other hand, the fact that the definitions given contain a mixture of formal (look at the definiton of grammar, for example) and informal language, increases the reliability of the site. I will be more explicit: students may appreciate this site because they find it very similar to their grammars but also clearer.
However, as far as graphics is concerned, the site shows some gaps. The hyperlinks (external and internal) are very scarce and this interfers with the reading because if you want to check a rule, you must scroll through the entire document. The fonts are fewer and the layout is rather static and old-fashioned.


OBSERVATIONS ON THE GENRE OF WEB SITES

During this week, we had to reflect upon the definition of genre. According to Sarah, I understood that genre is mainly linked to author’s purposes and the main instrument he/she has at his/her disposal to achieve them is language.

I’m perfectly convinced that language plays a vital role in communicative process. As a matter of fact, an informal or colloquial language can allow people to join a community creating a sense of belonging. On the other hand, a formal or technical language could make difficult to share information and compromise the reading of a text. In doing so, the language creates a sort of barrier between the author and his/her readers which can be both an obstacle to communication and an incentive to it. I have used the word “incentive” because I think that communication can also be selective, I’m thinking, for example, to a scientific community whose main purpose is research.
The members of this community use a particular kind of language that is one of the conditions for having a share in it: it is not open to everybody, but only to a specific group and adressed to a specific target.

I think that this genre has two main features: language and graphics.
Graphics plays an important role because of the visual impact of the Web.
This feature is particularly developed in blogs and web sites rather than narrative papers because of the many possibilities offered by technology.
When we read a book, we love loosing ourselves among words stream, but when we are surfing the Net, we don’t want to waste our time with unnecessary links. Where is the difference?Reading on line is much more difficult, so a well-thought out graphics is needed.

Now, I would like to go on talking about language.
In my opinion, web sites genre has not a specific kind of language.
What is really important is to chose a language which helps communication, it can be formal, informal or a mixture of them. As a matter of fact, one of the peculiar characteristic of blogs is the intersection of the public and private (see Into the blogosphere: home).

The web sites I have examined are only one of the various branches, composing this genre.
I believe they are part of the branch of education, English education, in particular.
They have more or less the same aim: teaching English to a wider public and make them improve their knowledge.

To sum up, it is very difficult to classify web sites genre.
When you want to talk about it, you have to consider the context the site is referring to and the aim of the author. Genre is variable because web sites types evolve rapidly and it is shaped by the feelings of the single person who is writing. So, perhaps, it is better to divide this genre in different classes, such as education, science, sport, diaries, etc. If you look at the definition of genre, you will find that is relating to text type.
A diary is a definite genre different from business letters, scientific papers, argumentative essays, but we can define a blog also as a diary, or better as an electronic diary.
So, what’s its correct genre?

Reflect upon it and let me know what your remarks are.

Francesca

Exploring Social Bookmarking

Hello everybody!

This week we have explored the fantastic world of del.icio.us and become familiar with terms such as social bookmarking, tags and sharing sites.

I must admit that I like it better than Technorati because, if you choose specific and precise tags, you can find exactly what you are looking for, without wasting your time and energy on the web.

Furthermore, I think it is a selective instrument to expand on the topics you are interested in and an efficient way for discovering web sites that, for some reasons, are suggested by different people.
As a consequence, you join to a bigger community and you enjoy sharing your favourite sites with all its members. At the same time, when you are examining the sites selected by the community, you must have a critical eye.

You haven’t to take them as gospel truth or think their content is complete; you must consider them as a starting point for developing your knowledge that means you can also distance yourself from them.

Now, I would like to comment the web sites selected by my classmates, trying to highlight the importance they could have in our English learning at university and after university.

Lara

Among the sites she suggested, I chose http:// http://www.bbc.co.uk/ because it contains a complete learning program including reading, writing and listening exercises. In addition, it allows readers to check their pronunciation and gives them the opportunity to learn English in an amusing way.
As a matter of fact, they can have a good time by answering quizzes, listening pop songs or playing with words. This site can be an incentive for students who have studied English for years.
I think it can be seen as a precious resource for extending our knowledge of a specific field such as sport, science and much more.

Isabella

http://www.esl-lab.com/
I believe that this is the ideal site for students who wish to polish up their linguistic level.
I appreciated above all the division in different sections according to the difficulty of every listening and the wide range of situations presented: calls, rentals, reservations, travels, etc.
You can learn some usual expressions for each situation, put them into practice and enrich your vocabulary.
I would like also to indicate two important links with this web site: Everyday Language and Discussion, Accent Training to Help You Speak Naturally. I think they could be very useful to test our pronunciation and to speak English much more fluently.

Alice

http://www.cyberjournalist.net/
I really enjoyed your choice. The fact that there is a debate on a bloggers’Code of Ethics points out that the blogosphere is becoming more and more wide and, for this reason, it needs to be regulated or regularized.
In my opinion, it is precisely this that distinguishes blogs from journalism: the lack of a Code of Ethics. Blogs must be free. Journalism must respect some specific rules concerning impartiality, truth of the matter, formal language.
I think that many rules listed in the Code are quite naïve. During these weeks of course I have learned that all blogs should be submitted to a particular restriction which is called “etiquette”.
Don’t you think it is enough for the poor bloggers?

Daniela

http://view.byu.edu/
I chose this site because I consider it to be one of the easiest and quickest ways of finding words and grammar rules. I highly appreciated the possibility of making a comparison between registers in order to notice the frequency of each verb or term. I believe that if you are writing about a specific topic or you want to use a language understandable to a wide public, this is an efficient tool for checking your vocabulary. I think it will be very interesting for our course. As a matter of fact, I’m going to use it so as to avoid some mistakes and to write in a much more accurate manner. I also enjoyed the three minute guided tour. It gave me an overview of the wide range of possibilities this site offers.

Valentina

http://writingenglish.wordpress.com/2006/08/24/when-you-can%E2%80%99t-get-started-writing/

I love this web site. I’m perfectly convinced that the beginning of a piece of writing is always difficult because it can compromise your whole paper. When you start writing, you must consider many elements: your aim, the person to whom your paper is addressed, the style and the impressions you want to convey. The beginning of a paper is the first channel you can use to get in touch with someone who if she/he does not like it, can interrupt his/her reading.
According to this site, everybody can write in a correct way, the important is to relax and try to do your best. Step n. 10, in particular, caught my attention. Sometimes you spend too time on a paper, so your brain is too tired to keep on working; but if you stop for some minutes and clear your mind, then you’ll express yourself in words more naturally.

Daniele

http://www.word2word.com/coursead.html
Free language on line courses
This site has a lot in common with the sites chosen by the whole group.
I think that it can be useful for people who have not enough time to attend an English course but also for those (like us) who need to test their linguistic level, to look some words up in the online dictionary, etc.
However, the main difference between this site and the other sites we selected concerns translation activities. I believe that a forum for translators is a brilliant idea: they can confer with each other before translating a word and checking the recurrence of some terms in a specific field by means of this tool.
I really appreciated the links concerning Internet Language Software and Language Chat Sites. The first one presents a practical instrument which could help us when we are writing our blogs, while the second one is very interesting for people who want to chat in a safer and more efficient way.

To conclude I would like to sum up the experience of this week with a sentence taken from this last site suggested by Daniele: “(Word2Word is pleased to provide) these links in the hope of all people developing a better understanding of others through the use of language”.

What do you think about?

Communication is once more the aim of an activity exploiting the web: social bookmarking.



See you soon!

Francesca

It's a blog world - Magicesca -

Hello everybody!

Welcome to "It's a blog world", the first indipendent blog edited by Francesca.

I'm studying Languages at the University of Padova and this is an "experiment" that was born during the English course of the second year of Specialistica.

I live in a small village near Verona and I love writing, especially poems, but if you want to learn more about me, go to http://www.bloggingenglish1.blogspot.com/ and read my presentation carefully.
I’m trying to create an original blog and I think that repetitions are highly tedious.
Do you agree with me?

I don’t know how to start this new blog… two photos could help me.

The first photo is of my family including also my boyfriend, my sister-in-law and my grandmother and the second one is of my friends and me when I graduated.
I believe that in order to know better a person you must be able to classify her according to a specific context and here is mine.

I must admit that during the first two weeks of blogging a lot of questions came to my mind.
I’ll try to answer to some of them. Help me if you can!

First question: what a blog is?
Surfing the net I found many possible answers but none of them really satisfied me.

• A typical blog combines text, images, links to other blogs, web pages

  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

  
  And what’s the difference between blogs and web sites or hypertexts?
  
• A blog is a personal diary, a daily pulpit, a collaborative space. It is whatever you want it to be

  www.blogger.com/tour_start.g
  

  I understand it could be one thing and its direct opposite
  
• A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and web links

  www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/
  

  To keep the reading simple the presentation of events must follow an order which is not necessarily chronological!
  
• It is posted online and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs
  

  www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp

  
  Too rough definition

I will try to let you know my personal opinion even if I’m perfectly aware that a blog is a global universe on which people of different ages and habits converge. So, it’s difficult to give an accurate definition of it.

I thing a blog is an interchangeable entity; it can be a free collection of thoughts (something like a diary) or a discussion in progress on one or more topics.
It is a particular web space in which the blogger may express himself, a new and cheaper way to explore the net in contrast with big web sites because it focuses on people.

Second question: What’s the aim of a blogger?

In my opinion, the main purpose of a blogger is communication.
There are many ways to achieve it:

Style and language
The style is essential to distinguish one blog to the others but the important is that the readers can understand what the blogger is writing. So the language must be comprehensible and target-oriented.

Layout and creative devices
The structure is very important (logical order of topics on the page) and could determinate the success of a blog.
I believe that a blog must entertain the readers not only by means of its contents, but also by means of the photos, links or music used to embellish it.

The interaction with readers (e.g. with a section for comments)
When you receive comments, you have to answer to them because that indicates that you payed attention to the others’opinions and you are self-critical enough.

Third question: Can this experience influence my english learning?

Now I say YES.

At the beginning I was totally concentrated on avoiding language mistakes and, as a consequence, I chose only simple linguistic patterns and structures. Then I decided to risk more and to say more.

I feel that I’m gradually improving my language knowledge for two main reasons:

• I’m interested in the arguments and to say something different I have to find new terms on the dictionary, enriching my vocabulary.
  
• I’m learning a lot from my classmates. I think they are good at English and their pieces of writing can help me in my learning process. I must confess that they stimulate me to do my best in the tasks because of a healthy comparison and to reflect upon what they are saying.
  

I believe that the blogging activities are able to satisfy the three parts of a language learning: reading, writing, speaking (concerning comments in class). In addition, they allow students to take a look at a non academic language: the everyday English which is, in my opinion, more useful for work.

The first two weeks of blogging have been strenuous but rewarding: you had to develop your computer abilities and show your language knowledge (which is taken for granted, at this level).
The tasks had to be promptly executed and you was to organize your time.

Now I have my own blog and I can say whatever I want, always respecting the etiquette. This is the result of my long work.

:) Let me have your comments about. :)

Francesca

(all the photos come from my personal albums)