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

Photo Source

How to save time with a feed aggregator

So, we learned how to use a feed aggregator, and in particular Bloglines.

What can I say about it? I didn’t find it very difficult to use probably because now I feel a little bit more self-confident since my knowledge on web 2.0 and blogs is growing. However, like everything we did before this, I ignored the existence of such a tool. It is really a useful and well-organized tool for everybody using Internet because our lives are so frantic that it becomes essential to save as much time as possible!

I looked for some American and English on-line newspapers like L.A.Times and The Times. However, what I found really interesting as far as my language learning purposes are concerned were the BBC radio programs. I think they can be very useful for me but also for you. Indeed, the web-page called “BBC Learning English” contains useful materials for any English learner and in particular I listened to a program called “Business Language To Go: Part 1” which can be useful for our homework for Professor Taylor, too. It is the first episode of a set of recordings called Business Language, and it talks about job interviews.

Have a look at it, or better listen to it!
That’s all for now!

Hear from you soon :-)
Chiara

Photo Source

New tools for my old English!

So, this blog is going to be my personal learning environment and I hope it will be!! Indeed, Thursday we marked our comments to the post published in 'bloggingenglish' and I realized that I had done my usual boring mistakes. So I really hope to improve my written English thanks to this new tool, too.

Last week I wrote down my next language learning targets. The main points were: to achieve more self-confidence as far as oral language is concerned, to be more careful in writing and to widen my vocabulary. I wrote down that I will devote some time to achieving these targets. I usually read in English as much as possible to improve my lexicon and I'll go on doing it. Furthermore, I now and then watch movies and TV series in English; this surely is a good exercise to practice but with greater frequency, at least three times a week I suppose.
Honestly, I have to say that last week I didn't do everything I wrote on my learning target sheet. I completed my reading of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", which I found very interesting. This book is enough easy to read and in the same breath involving thanks to the sudden events coming one after the other. I recommend it to you if you wish doing a light and easy reading! On the other hand, I didn't watch any movie in English; however, this week I'm going to practice a little bit more.
Unfortunately, while I was surfing the Net I didn't found anything that might help me achieving my learning targets. I felt overwhelmed by the vastness of the blogosphere and for this reason I didn't find anything interesting as far as language learning is concerned. I suppose I need to look for a blog containing podcasts to download, for example British or American radio programs.
As you might have understood, I'm not very familiar with these tools! For this reason feel free to suggest me anything useful. I think I need to be updated!!
See you next week and have a nice week-end!
:-) Chiara

Photo Source

Welcome!

Hello everyone!!
So, here we are! :-) This is my very first message in my very first blog!
Welcome everyone, I hope I won't let you cry with my blog (this is why I chose to name it 'My Onion Sauce'!).
Have a nice day!

;-) Chiara

Photo Source