thoughts & flowers

Dublin, Sep 2008

2008-09-16T02:45:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!

I came back from Dublin two days ago.

Wonderful capital, great people, good pubs, live Irish music every night, pints of Guinness.......but unortunarely a rainy weather. I cannot have everything, I suppose!

I spent a week in Dublin to make research for my thesis. I consulted many books of the Berkeley library inside the Trinity college. It was amazing! The atmosphere of the college is completely different compared to Italian Universities.

After three days, all spent in doing photocopies, I visited the town: Temple Bar, the Castle, the National Museum, the National Library, Christ Church, St. Patrick Cathedral, St. Stephen Green, Oscar Wilde's house, the Guinness storehouse. I also visited a little seaside village and fortunately there there were few tourists. I enjoyed a little bit the real heart of Irland. There were only me and the seals swimming near the lighthouse.

Great experience!

Intercultural competence ICC

2008-05-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Now it's time to reflect upon this exciting intercultural experience we have had in the past two months: in other words our skype exchange.

Assessing myself is not an easy task. It needs a lot of awareness and objectivity. However, I feel that I gained some new competences. During this period I felt myself like a sponge, but this experience was not merely an exchange of information, it was more like a dive into a new culture. I improved my writing and reading skills, thanks to our wiki page project, and my listening too. Sometimes our American peer spoke fast and so it was a good training for us.

What I appreciated most of our exchange is the fact that it aroused my curiosity about various aspects of the other culture: music, movies, politics, immigration, university life, etc. I learnt how to be more well disposed towards other cultures. I realized that my opinions are influenced by my culture and that people of other cultures may have different opinions. I'm able to accept these differences and I'm always curious to know different points of view. For example I feel not offended if what the majority of foreigners know about Italy is mafia. I know this is merely a stereotype. I had many stereotypes about Americans too and during the exchange I tried to understand if they are true. For example one of the first things I asked to my American peer was: 'Is your life in the university campus as we see it on tv and movies?'. Of course not. So, I think I became more conscious of my own perspective and I think that my position is a good one because I can help people, who don't have the same awerness, to approach and understand other cultures.

I also developed my ability of changing perspective. I mean, during the course I started to look at my culture from American perspective. I realized that after we discussed about politics (Italian and American) I started to see Italian politics from a different point of view. I think American and foreigners are more objective about our politics than we are. If we read some foreigners newspapers the world seems to go in the opposite direction compared to Italian politics.

I also learnt how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. First of all I use Web 2.0 tools like del.icio.us and then I try to compare my information with my foreigner peer to have a more informal exchange of opinions.

The most interesting thing about the wiki project was that we had the possibility to choose as a group a topic and to develop it exchanging opinions, ideas, sources, etc. This aspect of working in groups was fantastic, it makes me appreciate more and more our course.

To give you an idea of my self assessment have a look to this link.

I want to tank you all my peers (American and Italian) and our teacher because I had the opportunity to make this unforgettable experience.

I want to conclude my post with a quotation taken from our wiki page:
'In short someone with some degree of intercultural competence is someone who is able to see relationships between different cultures - both internal and external to a society - and is able to mediate, that is interpret each in terms of the other, either for themselves or for other people. It is also someone who has a critical or analytical understanding of (parts of) their own and other cultures - someone who is conscious of their own perspective, of the way in which their thinking is culturally determined, rather than believing that their understanding and perspective is natural'.

Skype 5 Final Project

2008-04-19T00:53:00.000-07:00

Second step of our final project:
Choose the topic for your final project together with your American peer and your Italian peers.

It seemed to me a quite simple task but it turned out to be a very difficult decision to come to. The group are changed and now I’m with Alberto, Alice, Martina and Kelsey. You couldn’t imagine how difficult it was to choose a topic on which everybody agree. We started with Alberto’s proposal to develop the idea of ‘American dream’. Fantastic, exciting! Everybody agree…wow! No, not everybody. Our teacher was very doubtful about this topic because it has little to do with Italian culture. After half an hour of talk we had to start again our discussion in order to find a new topic, but this time things were more difficult. We discussed about immigration, music, health care but none of these topics was really appealing. In the end we chose to compare American college university life with Italian college life. I noticed that there is at least another group that will develop our topic but I think we will compare different aspects of American and Italian college life. We decided to focus on funny aspects like papiri, feste di laurea, goliardia etc.
This Skype session was really packed, but it worked as well. So, we decided to continue to talk in five each week. Probably next time we have to give Kelsey more chances to speak in Italian. I think she felt a bit overwhelmed by Italian people talking in English and she didn’t practice Italian to much this time. We decided to use del.icio.us to exchange useful websites and to use our blogs and our wiki page to communicate.

Immigration

2008-04-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

The current law that governs immigration in Italy is called ‘Legge Bossi-Fini’; once known as ‘Testo Unico’ and then ‘Legge Turco-Napolitano’. All these names depend on the various changes made by different governments to the original law. You can find a clear summary of that law in the article of La Repubblica. If you want more information you can also visit the web site of the Italian ‘Ministero dell’Interno’ or this link to wikipedia, which is very clear. At the end of 2006 the immigrants who lived regularly in Italy were 3.000.000, 5% of the Italian population (59.131.000 ca). Most of the immigrants come from Albania, Romania, Morocco, Cina and Ucraina. All these countries are outside the European Union.

In Italy immigration is a quite recent phenomenon compared to other countries. We appear very distrustful of foreigners but not of all of them; especially of those people coming from east Europe. We tend to associate them with criminals. Our behaviour is probably connected with what we read on newspapers, but I think there’s something else which is connected with the difficulty to accept a new multi-cultural society. We are not ready. Not yet. The only explanation I can find is that, as I said before, immigration in Italy is a recent phenomenon. We are not born in a mixed culture like the US and we haven’t been educated to live within cultural diversities. I’m also convinced of the fact that Italy tends to have a very short memory. We don’t remember that in 1920s our country was a land of emigration and we as Italians have been for a long time emigrants.

Skype 4

2008-04-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

This time we talked with Kelsey. Unfortunately during the weekend we didn’t have the possibility to skype at home as I had anticipated in my previous Skype post. This week we talked about coming election in America and Italy again. Our American peers created a wonderful and very accurate wiki page about both Italian and American candidates with the basic points of their platforms, their strategies of communication, their key words, speeches and gestures and so on. We had a look to this wiki page and then we thought about the issues we would like to know more about.

These are the questions thought by our group with both the answers that Brian Albanese gave to Alessia and those that Kelsey gave to me and Alberto:

Group 2:

1. Compared to the two Italian political programs, don't you think that the American ones completely differ from each other?

Brian told us that our assumption was not groundless at all and that the party system in the Unites States is a bit too extreme. Nowadays, it has really become hard to choose between the two main parties and there are no intermediate positions available. Hilary's and Obama's political programs are of course much more similar to one another but if we go and read Mc Cain's, we will find out that his objectives are completely different (especially with reference to the issue of the war in Iraq). So, it is very difficult to feel truly represented by any of the two main parties because they're so extreme and the opinions that people in America have formed on certain issues may be completely different from the ones of the main candidates. He thinks that here in Italy maybe we can have much more choices given the amount of little parties and intermediate positions. (Alessia)

2. Do you think that the question of the troops on Iraq could affect your vote more than other issues such as 'health care' and environmental concerns?

Actually, the issue of the war in Iraq DOES play a fundamental role in the next political elections and of course the fact that Americans have to decide if they are against or in favor of the war is deemed to have an effect on their vote for one of the two parties; in other words, if you are against you are more likely to vote for Hilary or Obama, if you're in favor you would rather prefer Mc Cain (I've put it in a rather simple way but of course things may also be a bit more complicated). Anyway, Brian is keen to point out that environmental problems actually represent a very pressing issue too! Maybe, (to us) it was not clear enough, but many countries in America are nowadays really trying to take the right steps in order to solve the problem of global warming, to reduce gas emissions and to find alternative energy resources, which should be cleaner but also cheaper. (Alessia)

Kelsey said that the problem of American troops on Iraq is a fundamental point of this electoral campaign. People feel this issue as more important even of other issues such as health care or environmental proposals. Talking about the war on Iraq Alberto noticed how American soldiers are very young and if on one hand he was shocked of this fact, on the other for Kelsey this thing was quite normal and provoked no particular reactions.

3. Do you think that Clinton's and Obama's campaigns are more concerned with gender and race than mere political issues?

The possibility to have a Black leader or a woman as president is surely a great achievement for America. According to Brian, both of them can really give something more to politics because they can offer different perspectives on a large number of issues. Unfortunately, there has also been a lot of brainwashing from TV and that has contributed to turn the elections in a sort of gender or race struggle. Hence, many people still ask themselves whether these two candidates may have enough experience to rule the country, overlooking the great changes that their election can eventually cause. (Alessia)

Kelsey said that Clinton’s and Obama’s electoral campaigns are not concerned with gender and race. The only difference she noticed is that Obama is younger than Clinton and he could give a different and new image to the U.S.A..

Final Project

2008-04-06T05:44:00.000-07:00

This week we are going to talk about our final project. I think that working in group could be a very funny experience but we have to find a topic on which everybody agree. I suppose we’re not obliged to choose among the cultural aspects on which we focused in class. We can drew our attention to a wider range of aspects.

Among the topics we discussed in class and with the Americans, the one I appreciated most is ‘immigration’. As Alessia said we can compare American and Italian immigration policies. Our two cultures had and have a completely different approach towards immigrants. It would be interesting to focus our attention on immigration laws, on how strict are the controls on immigration etc. I think things are changing rapidly in those years thanks to globalisation and new countries joining the European Union. So as a consequence of those facts are controls on immigration more flexible? Or we have to deal with the fear of terrorism and crimes? How do people react to this situation?

Skype 3

2008-04-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

This time I talked with Michelle Mercogliano. She has Italian origins; her father arrived in America when he was 7 years old. She has come to Italy several times to visit her relatives in Naples.

We talked about American and Italian voting systems. We realised that unfortunately Michelle, like a lot of other young American people of her age, does not know much about this topic. She is 18 years old and she is going to vote for the first time in November. She thinks that in her country there is a proportional system but she doesn't know that there is also another voting system used in other countries of the US.

Then we talked about the Italian politics. Michelle didn't understand why Italians seem to 'hate' Berlusconi, but they continue to vote him. She got this impression after watching Nanni Moretti's movie 'Il Caimano'. I explained her that in Italy we don't vote directly for the Prime Minister. We elect the members of the Parliament and then it's the President of the Republic who choose the right person among the Magiority. Or at least this is what our system is supposed to be.

This morning I also received an e-mail from Kelsey Taylor, the American peer with whom I talked during my first Skype exchange. She apologized because the last two times she was absent and she asked to Skype together during this week end. Probably we are going to talk togethr on Saturday. I appreciate a lot her way of showing her interest in our Skype exchange.

Developing intercultural competence ICC

2008-03-29T03:21:00.000-07:00

First of all I asked myself what’s the meaning of ‘intercultural competence’. Does it refer only to the correct use of a language? I mean a grammatical correct use? Of course not. I think it’s not only a matter of a second language proficiency. A cross cultural preparation also includes a range of other abilities connected with the awareness and knowledge of the other culture.

When you start studying a second language you also start to discover another culture, different from yours. It’s not an immediate goal that you achieve in a very short time. Intercultural competence is a developmental process which in my opinion takes ages and it’s different from one person to another because it depends on everyone’s experiences. Certainly someone who plunged in a certain cultural context developed the capacity to deal more appropriately with the other culture and with the field she/he chose.

When I have to assess myself I find always difficulties. Especially this time is difficult because I have to judge the process of my intercultural competence that is always in progress. For example during this course I feel that my competences changed a lot thanks to our conversations in class about culture and foreign traditions and thanks also to the Skype exchange.

Assessing myself with the YOGA form was not an easy task, but it can be useful to set myself new goals. Unfortunately I had to skip some parts because they don’t apply to my experience. What surprised me most was that within the five dimensions of the ICC (intercultural competence) there is what is called Attitude (the other four dimensions are Awareness, Knowledge, Language Proficiency and Skills). I tend to skip this aspect because it seems obvious to me. However, after the YOGA form I realised that it’s a really fundamental characteristic that is required by someone who study languages. If someone has not ‘Attitude’ towards another culture or language, can he/she achieve this dimension? I don’t know. Probably the answer is no.

2nd Exchange

2008-03-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

Our second Skype exchange was a funny and strange experience. This time I was supposed to talk alone with my American peer Kelsey. Unfortunately she wasn’t there and so I joined Alberto’s conversation. He was talking with Leah Barreras, a girl of Mexican origin. We talked about the years of lead in Italy. What she knew of our ‘70s came from some Italian movies she saw. However, she ignored who the Brigate Rosse are or what happened to Aldo Moro. Then we focused our conversation on international terrorism and the problem of immigration after September 11. According to what Leah said it seems that there’s no great difference in the approach of Americans towards immigrants after that terrorist attack. Mmm, I’m a bit sceptical about this point. Then we ran to Bush’s policy and the Iraqi war and finally we discussed about American and Italian coming elections.

When I said that this time I had a lot of fun I was not referring to the topics of the conversation but to the strange dynamic of our talk. During the first half an hour we were supposed to chat with Leah because in the same class room there was another lesson taking place. We explained the problem to our peer but she continued to talk instead of chatting. You must believe me when I say that it’s almost impossible to keep in silence when someone is talking to you or to answer him/her by writing. That new form of communication we experienced was really funny but at the same time it was also a bit difficult to keep it going on. Furthermore, it was really frustrating to listen Leah talking and we couldn’t answer in the same way. I realised that I find speaking much more interesting than chatting. The whole thing ended up in a strange experience with Alberto and me making a lot of noise and with Sarah who scolded and silenced us every two seconds. If you want to read the transcription of our conversation have a look to Alberto’s blog.

Happy Easter

2008-03-22T03:41:00.000-07:00

Elections

2008-03-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

In a few months both Italy and America will have elections. Italy has a different electoral system compared to the American one. Or at least it should be different. In America they have presidential elections; in Italy we are supposed to elect our Parliament and not directly our Prime Minister. However, the last two or tree Italian elections seems to go against Italian Costitution. Consider our coming elections. We know precisely who is going to be our future Prime Minister. They have decided for us. Berlusconi or Veltroni? That is the question! We are so good at doing such sort of things and make them appear normal and ordinary things.
Il progetto di riforma costituzionale del 2005 e il referendum del 25/26 giugno 2006:
Il Parlamento italiano aveva approvato una rilevante modifica delle disposizioni dell'attuale Costituzione (una cinquantina di articoli furono modificati da tale legge). Qualora tale riforma fosse entrata in vigore, si sarebbe prospettata la nascita di una Repubblica federale con un esecutivo nettamente più forte. Tra le principali disposizioni di tale (fallita) riforma costituzionale si possono citare in modo non esaustivo le seguenti:
Sostituzione del Presidente del Consiglio dei ministri, adottando la versione del sistema parlamentare detta premierato, con un Primo ministro che verrebbe designato direttamente dagli elettori.

What seems to emerge in our questionnaires is that both Americans and Italians are discouraged by politicians. What Italian and American politicians seem to have in common is corruption. But if Americans have such an idea of politics why do they have such an enormous campaign machine? It looks like a show and people seem to be really involved in caucuses and primaries. I'm really interested in knowing the opinion of my American peer.

Cultural differences

2008-03-07T01:27:00.000-08:00

The fact that I'm doing an exchange with an American student make me think about cultural differences between America and Italy. The first thing that comes to my mind is the theme of the death penalty. I'm curious to ask my American peer what she thinks about it. More or less I agree with the following opinion:

Padova-Dickinson Xchange

2008-03-07T01:10:00.000-08:00

This semester started with a wonderful activity: an exchange with American students. We introduced ourselves to the Americans writing a presentation on a Wiki page and they do the same. Wiki is a web page that we are aloud to edit, so it seems a work in progress where we add step by step our activities. There you can find also information about exchanges taking place between Padova and other foreign universities.

My first impression is that this exchange works. WOW! Hopefully this time the American students seem more interested in communicating with us compared with the students of the first semester. They study Italian so they are really motivated in talking with us.

It is the first time I use Skype and I have to admit it’s a surprisingly simple tool to use. It’s amazing how easy is to communicate with a person who is not – to use a euphemism – just round the corner.
Kelsey, my American peer, is very nice. During our first call we were supposed to talk about American and Italian education systems. But it is funny how the conversation developed in a different direction. It was the first time we talked together (Kelsey, Alberto and me) so we tried to know each others better asking questions about our interests and spare time. I was a bit envious because Kelsey has been to Italy, whereas I’ve never been to America. She visited Florence and she wants to come back soon and spend some time in Rome.

What I learnt from Kelsey is that we have a quite wrong idea of American colleges. Life in a college is not like that depicted in American movies: parties, brotherhoods and so on. We also talked about public and private universities. They exist both in America and generally the private ones are considered of higher quality compared with public universities. However, there are a lot of exceptions.

To conclude I found this first experience really amazing and I’m ready to talk again with my American peer. What I can reproach myself for is the fact that talking in three seems a bit unnatural to me. So I tended to listen instead of joining the conversation. May be this happened because it was the first time I used Skype. I’m sure next time would be better.

Men's A Cappella

2007-12-24T07:38:00.000-08:00

Have a nice Christmas!

Personal Learning Environment

2007-12-09T04:56:00.000-08:00

This is the most difficult activity I’ve ever dealt with during this course. I realized that it’s not so easy to develop a mindmap of a Personal Learning Environment (PLE). It took me a lot of time to think about how I learn and in what context.

First of all I made a list of all the different activities and tools I use making no difference between formal or informal learning. As I now know the 80% of our learning is informal. The majority of our improvements take place outside the classroom. This is the reason why developing a mindmap of my PLE has overturned to be fundamental in order to organize a lifelong informal learning process. I tried to focus my attention on the tools and activities I’m using in an informal context. Then I thought about Web 2.0 tools we’re using in our University English course judging which can be useful for my English learning outside that formal context.

I wasn’t really convinced of the reliability of my first mindmap. The simple division between formal and informal context wasn’t coherent enough. I was looking for a clearer and more specific categorization. I thought that my European Language Portfolio could help me to find the categories I needed. Since my first year of English learning I have been thought to identify what kind of activity I was doing (e.g. listening exercises, reading exercises etc.). So I asked myself if I could use the same categorization for my PLE. The answer was yes. I divided my mindmap in 4 macro groups called Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing. I put in those groups all the tools and activities I found in origin.

I’m convinced that my mindmap will work very well. In my opinion it’s very important to understand which tool you can use if you want to improve a particular language skill.

Judging Online Sources (E-tivity 8)

2007-11-30T07:08:00.000-08:00

Using the Net I feel a little bit uncomfortable because when I search information I’m overwhelmed by it. This almost limitless amount of information can have both pros and cons. In the Net you can find everything you want but can you trust all information you come across?

Sometimes I choose one web site instead of another without knowing precisely what are the criteria of my decision. Usually this happens when I surf the Net to find relaxing or funny things. When I deal with a more ‘serious’ matter I pay more attention to my choices. These are the criteria I apply when I make judgements about web sites:

1. Find the author of the web site.
2. Why is this information provided here?
3. Find when the site was last updated.
4. Judge the style of the web site. Is the information exhaustive?
5. If you use del.icio.us read other people’s descriptions of the site.

Reading the suggestions that other Universities made for students I found new useful criteria. It’s a good thing to start your research with a precise idea of what kind of information are you looking for and which sources are likely to be most useful to you. It’s important to understand if the site follows a particular view point and excludes others. If the information has been copied from other sources make sure that there’s a bibliography somewhere in the site.

For more information have a look at these sites:
How to evaluate sources on the web
Evaluating web sites
Judging sources

Italian Memory

2007-11-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I watched many videos about stereotypes on YouTube. It’s very funny how foreigners imitate Italians. It was like I expected. When I ask my foreign friends how they see Italians they always repeat me these words: pizza, spaghetti, mandolino, mafia. I realised that I needed more information about this organisation called mafia, this Italian phenomenon. I tried to use YouTube to find some information. I wonder if our generation have an idea of the tragic events that occurred in Italy 15 years ago, in 1992. It’s extremely important to know our recent history. I think something has changed but there are still writers like Saviano who has to live under escort. Nowadays public opinion has a great influence and if we give importance to these news and facts things can change. Like a great man once said: ‘Mafia is a human phenomenon and as a human phenomenon it has a beginning and an end.’
I invite you to watch these videos. In the first one you can see some shocking photos but this kind of reportage had been broadcasted on Italian national television. So I decided to put it on my blog.

YouTube (E-tivity 7)

2007-11-24T08:18:00.000-08:00

YouTube is a video sharing tool among the web 2.0 tools we’re experiencing during our English course. YouTube is known and used all over the world. The problem is how people use it. On this web site you can find every kind of videos. Some are really clever like the one we watched about iRack. Others are funny like the one about languages interpreter. But you have to pay attention because there are some others which are stupid or vulgar. Current events showed us how young students put stupid or offensive videos on YouTube. So I want to repeat that the important thing is how you use this tool and what are you looking for.

I like to show you this funny video which is strictly connected with stereotypes. The title is ‘French learning English’ and it’s performed by a well known actor.

I’m doubtful about the use of YouTube for my English language learning. I looked for something connected with ESL/EFL learning. I found videos of English lessons that cannot be really useful for us. The only interesting thing I found is a video which explains how to write an essay.

Even if I don’t think YouTube can be of real interest for our language learning, I admit that it’s a great tool that can be used for other purposes. You could say what you want through a video without censorship. Certainly you have to keep in mind a certain ethics and a sense of respect for other people. From this point of view YouTube seems to me a very democratic tool.

Podcasts (E-tivity 6)

2007-11-18T01:44:00.000-08:00

Strange but true! Last week we talked about podcasts and this topic was a little familiar to me. I came across podcasts thanks to my friends. Some of them regularly download audio files onto their mp3 players. They suggested me that this tool could be useful for my listening improvements in English but I didn’t have much trust in them. I was a bit doubtful about its usefulness. Usually I try to improve my listening skills through web sites that provide video and audio files. Certainly this strategy depends on the use of a computer and I need free time to spend in front of it. This week surfing the Net and looking for podcasts I understood how to optimize the use of my time and at the same time how to improve my English.

Firstly I came across podcasts on the BBC web site. I chose immediately this url: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/globalnews/. I like keeping abreast of current news from all over the world. Regularly I read or listen BBC news but sometimes I don’t have much time. Thanks to podcasts I can download the BBC World Service news programme. It lasts up to 30 minutes and it’s updated twice a day. In this web site there are BBC radio stations as well. I can quickly download their podcasts on my mp3 player and listen to radio programmes at the bus stop, while I’m going to University...

My second choice is The VOA web site. There I can find radio transcripts and audio files. At this stage I think it’s very important for my improvements to find the right tools. Sometimes it isn’t so easy because I tend to choose the easier things and to indulge on my level of advanced learner. Now it’s time to expand our knowledge of English and American culture. For this reason I chose this web site: http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/the-making-of-a-nation.cfm. I can receive every week an audio file about American national history. If I want to know more about a culture it’s fundamental to know his past and history.

The third web site I chose is very funny. The url is http://storynory.com/. It is thought for children because you can download stories for kids. It can be useful for three reasons:
1. Stories for kids use a particular language and vocabulary which is very interesting and funny for me to learn.
2. You can expand your knowledge of the traditional stories for American or English kids. In Italy the most famous story for children is Pinocchio. Which are American traditional stories?
3. Kids’ stories are part of a culture as well. You can learn new aspects of a culture because these stories usually have their origins in ancient times.

Social Bookmarking (E-tivity 5)

2007-11-13T05:15:00.000-08:00

The first week I created my blog and it was like a moon landing. A little step for humanity, a great feat for me. Then we experienced the blogosphere, a tangled world based on sharing things. Bloglines seemed to put my head in order. Finally came del.icio.us. Unfortunately I had no idea of what it was and how I could benefit from this tool. I had never heard of it before.

1. First of all del.icio.us can change your old way of storing your favourite web sites and blogs by using another web site and not your browser.

2. It helps you not only to store but also to share your favourite web sites and blogs.

3. When I’m not using my computer I found very tedious to write the url of a web site on a piece of paper. If you save an url on del.icio.us you have access to it by using any computer.

This system is called social bookmarking and it has many pros. Your bookmark can benefit other people because it’s public. Your peers can see what you choose and vice versa. In a few weeks you can produce a network of useful web sites. Del.icio.us can help you with your searches. Using other tools like google you find a huge number of results which is very difficult to manage. Del.icio.us can also make your life easier because when you store something you have to write a description of the web site and this help people to know if it can be useful for their searches.

Thanks to the network I have an easy access to my peers’ choices. They chose web sites that concerns language learning and tools that might improve our skills. I found online dictionary, English grammars and listening exercises. What struck me most was a web site chosen by Laura. It concerns famous quotations from important authors. I put this site into my favourite ones because when I found a quotation in English newspapers or books I want to know the person who has been quoted and what the quotation means. This makes my comprehension clearer.

Halloween (writing for speaking)

2007-11-04T02:52:00.000-08:00

Should Halloween be imported to and celebrated in Italy or not?
Halloween is an Anglo-Saxon tradition. It had started long before the Romans occupied Celtic territory. It has its origin in an ancient Gaelic festival. It was a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture. How many of us know the origin and the real meaning of this tradition? I’m sure very few people know these things. So there is no reason to celebrate something that means nothing for the majority of us.

Surfing in the net I found that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world. The reason why costumes were worn in ancient times is that it was an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them. Clearly Halloween has pagan origins. On the contrary in Italy the most important celebrations are strictly linked with Christian religion. We celebrate All Saints' Day the 1st November and All Souls' Day the 2nd. Because it has such a current religious meaning for us it has no sense to celebrate a pagan tradition like Halloween.

Some Italian people have already started to celebrate Halloween, especially children. Certainly they enjoy themselves with traditional activities like trick-or-treating, costumes parties and Jack-o’-lanterns. It’s funny to carve pumpkins into silly or scary faces and lit them with a candle inside. Again I’m convinced Italian people have no idea of the real meaning of these symbols. It’s simply another business imported from other countries to create a more consumer society.

One last thing is that Halloween is celebrated in United Kingdom, United States, Ireland and Canada. My question is : “Do we belong to the same culture?”. More or less we are all part of what we call Occident. We share some beliefs, values, habits, symbols but there are still some differences within our culture. This is not a weakness for us. We have to defend our differences even if we recognise we are part of the same culture.

Feeds and feed aggregators ( E-tivity 4 )

2007-11-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

This new experience with the feed aggregator Bloglines is very useful. Last week I discovered what feed aggregators are. I assure you that Bloglines made my life easier for different reasons:

1. It is a time-saving solution. If I have to check my peers’ blogs I don’t waste my time by writing their blog addresses each time. I can go to each others’ blog using our feed aggregator.

2. It is useful because you receive the last things posted in the blogs you subscribed. Then if you want you can go to their blogs by clicking on the name of the blogs.

3. Playlists are interesting because you can organise the blogs or sites you subscribed into groups and you can see the last time they had been updated.

4. I subscribed to my favourite web-sites and now I can read the last news in an easier way. When things are quite simple I'm highly motivated in using computers and technology.

I appreciate this course a lot because what we are learning is not exclusively thought to pass our exam and improve our knowledge of English. Certainly I’m going to use my blog and Bloglines after this course. It’s fantastic!

Blogs and language learning

2007-10-21T23:59:00.000-07:00
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This course is completely new for me. I’ve never used a blog before. I’ve just read a couple of them in the Net but really never sent a comment or even better created my own blog. I was a little scared of this new thing because I’m still not very confident with computers and technology in general. But after two weeks I’m satisfied with the use of a blog in our course. The first week I was getting into a panic because all seemed to me very difficult, but it was merely a question of time. One hour was not enough to do the e-tivity or simply to understand how to do it. Now with two hour time things seems easier. I can enjoy my lesson.

A blog is a very useful tool in order to improve my writing skills. It is a good method because I have the possibility to concentrate on what I write and at the same time to read how other people write. In this way I can find and correct some of my mistakes or other people’s mistakes. I can learn some new expressions and compare my work with others. It is a sort of self- evaluation after which you set yourself new goals. A blog can help you to improve your reading skills as well. As I said before, you can learn a lot of new things from other people and you take only the positive and useful things they teach you. Another advantage of using a blog is the fact that you communicate with other people, it is not merely an exercise of reading and finding mistakes in other people’s works. It’s more like an exchange of ideas and thoughts. Sometimes it is difficult to express yourself, but don’t be afraid.

Welcome to my blog

2007-10-17T05:53:00.000-07:00

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Hello everybody and welcome to my blog! Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm Serena Santi and here there are some thoughts that could help you to know more about my personality. Enjoy reading it and please remember to write a comment suggesting me whatever you want.
I chose the picture above because it’s so poetic, isn’t it? It represents a landscape with no human presence. I love peaceful and natural places like this. It’s the perfect place I could ever imagine to have a rest after a full day of study, lessons, train delays etc. This image and my home, they both make me feel the same sensation of calm. After a stressful day I need some time for myself, just to recover my strength after a busy day. During the day I’m an hyperactive person, I have a lot of interests, I attend lessons, I have a job, I meet friends at the university, but when I come back in the evening I feel a comforting sensation. This picture shows another aspect of my character. I’m not afraid of loneliness. I think people are always in a hurry and they aren’t able to appreciate the moments they spend alone or to contemplate a landscape like that. I’m convinced that spending time alone can help each of us to be more aware of ourselves.

My favourite websites:

http://www.google.it/
This web site is absolutely the site I use most frequently. All I need to found is there. It gives me always an answer. This is so reassuring. Of course you have to pay attention to the web sites that google suggests you but what I prefer is the fact that all depends on you, on what you choose. I like to compare this web site to a springboard from which you can dive into a sea of possible choices and new information.

news.bbc.co.uk/
I think it’s very important to know how things are going on in the world every day and so I love to read news on the bbc web site. It’s very well organised and its layout is very engaging. It’s also a useful tool that helps me to improve my reading and my listening.