Hi!
I've just finished enjoying the activities Sarah suggested us to do using youtube sources. They were really interesting, funny and absolutely useful! How much it is possible to learn from a song or a short video...I think that youtube can be a wonderful indrect source of language learning!
As far as comedy on youtube is concerned, the video about translation is definitely funny! I laughed watching it really a lot although I'm not an English native speaker! I think that this video moves from English stereotipes about foreign people speaking English and shows how British people and culture perceive the fact that their language is spoken by people from all over the world. Watching the video I would say that they laught a lot!
Let's move to the music scene and talk about my experience singing the refrain of This is the Life...oh, that was practically impossible! I needed to hear the song at list 4 times before being able to sing it correctly...but if I had to repeat the refrain now I'd have difficulties in remembering it and repeatig it so quickly!
Anyway, in the end it was a very useful activity to learn some new words and a new song!
I appreciated the activities linked to the song of the Coldplay because I learned new words and reflected on the use of verbs and rhymes. In my opinion Viva la Vida is a song about the concept of power and all its implications. It is the story of an old king who looks back at his glorious past and reflects on his experiences, he realises that his power was vain and that there were revolutionary people who wanted to kill him...Power as something vain (it was as a castle built on the sand and salt) and power as a ciclical entity: once a king or a person looses it, there is always someone ready to take his place. Accorsing to this idea, this song may have political meanings and be addressed to those powerful people who can be considered the kings of the world.
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Anna, I couldn't find your email so...here's what I wrote to the others:
RispondiEliminaDear all,
This part of the email is to all of you. First of all, thanks to everyone for accompanying me in this journey through English and the Web. I understand that it’s different from what you were used to doing at University, but I can only hope that it proved to be useful in the end. This is my last year of teaching for a few years so I, like you, feel both relief and a bit of sadness Three years ago I was ‘told’ I would have to reduce my hours at Engineering and do the laurea specialistica at Lingue. I was not pleased at the time, but was ‘forced’ to do it. Three years down the road, I can say it has been a wonderful experience. You all have different reasons for being at University, but what is clear is your desire to learn and that is extremely important in life. So I am happy I have had the opportunity to work with you.
Grades? This is what you are all really interested in, right? ;-) Well, here’s some insight into my grading. As you all saw, I keep track of everything, participation, blog posts, comments, etc. so you’re final grade is a mix of these and the mid-semester grade most of you got. Know that I’m a believer in not ‘regalare i voti’. I know you all did a lot for these 3 CFU, but I also had to consider our ‘C1’ goal when assigning grades. As always, I’m open to dialogue if you don’t understand your grade. And, I’m pleased to say, this semester nobody is less than a 27 (last semester we had 23s!).
30 – I think you’ve more or less achieved a C1 level (though know you need to work more on accuracy!) and you participated actively and were extremely motivated.
29 - You participated actively and were very interested and just need that little extra bit of work on accuracy to reach a real C1.
28 - You participated actively either in class or online (not necessarily both) and were very interested and still need to work on accuracy to reach a real C1.
27 - You participated actively either in class or online (not necessarily both) and were interested but still need to work on accuracy to reach a real C1.
I have sent your grades to Prof. Taylor and she will average them with her grade and register them in your libretto. As a CEL I can’t register grades ;-)
Best to all for a great summer – and life!
Sarah
Your grade: 29
P.S.I only had you for one semester, but you demostrated interest, motivation and patience with the group chaos! Thank you