What a del.icio.us discovery!

Like every week, this week I discovered a new computer tool. I’m talking about del.icio.us., a social bookmarking service which everyone can join to save his/her bookmarks. At a first sight one can argue that it is like saving one’s bookmarks on the computer at home, but it is not like this! Indeed, using del.icio.us you can search for your bookmarks from whatever place you are. You simply have to connect to the Internet. Moreover, you can create a network of users which share their bookmarks. What's interesting is that you can do a research to find out useful materials through the bookmarks saved by other users. Furthermore, users tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen index terms, exactly called 'tags'.

The second step of my discovery was beginning to search for some material. I searched for websites or blogs talking about language learning. Therefore, I typed in the tag box key words like: ‘esl’, ‘learning’, and ‘material’. And I found some interesting websites which I think can be useful for us all. I would like to suggest you in particular two of them. The Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL), an excellent on-line guide providing explanation paragraphs and exercises in order to achieve a good level in English writing. And BBC LearningEnligsh, website which includes: quizzes; exercises on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation; general and business English; and much more besides.

Have a look at them and let me know what you think about them!

As my third step I had a look at Ilaria's bookmark Slang O' The Day. It is a website where you can learn new slang expressions not only in English but in other languages as well. A new slang expression is introduced every day: its definition is given, as well as its origin and an example. The website is very simple and synthetic. Nevertheless, I think it is interesting for an esl learner since slang expressions usually aren't taught at school.

That's all for now!

I hope to hear from you soon,

:-) Chiara

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