This blog is great!

Hello, teachers! My name is Rosa Alcaro, I'm from Catanzaro. I teach at secondary school and I am a contract professor at the University of Catanzaro and University of Calabria. I know I'm very late, but I have had a lot of problems with Explorer in the last weeks. I'm particularly interested in ESP/EAP and CLIL. This is my first experience on a blog and I find this Tesol blog really great! I'm sure it would be exciting and useful! I 'll have the opportunity to exchange ideas and opinions with all of you! Thank you very much Anna Franca, for your invitation...

Thanks Paola!

Thanks for breaking the blog ice, Paola and showing us that it's quite user-friendly to create a blog. l've posted a comment to your blog...
Let's keep the blogroll ( upper left hand corner) going.

Paola'a blog

Dear everyone,

I have created it! What fun!

http://learnteachexperiment.blogspot.com/

Looking forward to your comments

Love :-)

Paola

A quick reminder

In case you already haven't done so, don't forget to go to
http://attendr.com/tesolcop to know where we are in the real world and:
a. join attendees list;
b. edit your profile;
c. upload your photo;
d. mark who you already know;
e. mark who you would like to know.
Thanks!

Ready to go??

Why not start our own blogs to use with our ESL students??
Here is what you do:
Go to https://www.blogger.com/start
Click on “Create Your Blog Now”.
If you already have a google or gmail account, sign in on the page that opens with that account name (if it is the one you want to use for your blog). You can always create a new google or gmail account for your blog if you prefer.
Once you sign in (or create) a google or gmail account, you will be asked forthe “Display Name” for your account. This is just how you will appear whenlogged into the blog.
You also need to click the box to accept the terms and conditions.On the next screen, you will need a title for the blog. (i.e., ESP for Law, Mary's Travel Diary).
Then you will need a blog address. Have some backup names ready because your blog address may already be taken. Click on check availability to see.
On the next screen you will be asked to choose a template. Don't worry about this too much. You can change templates later if you want to.
Click on the template you want. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click“Continue.”Now you can start posting. Your blog is ready for your first posting.
When you have created your blog, please post a message on the TESOL CoP Blog adding your blog address. We would all like to take a look at what you have created.
Looking forward to checking out the blogs.

Non-verbal communication2

I saw the video Antonietta mentioned in her post and read Anna Franca and Paola's comments. I agree with them: we often miss our students' non-verbal messages, but one of the reasons might be that we have so many students in our classes...You can't possibly 'see' what 25/26 children are telling you with their eyes, or bodies - unless most of them are 'shouting out' the same thing (which may happen, and sometimes happens). Yet, it's also a question of what you choose to look for or not look for when you are with them and you're trying to help them learning something new: if you focus too much on what you are doing as a teacher, you have very little chance to get some useful hint of what is happening to your students.
Anyway, what mostly impressed me in the video was the part about virtual communication.
I was a tutor online last year (and I've been practising a lot of virtual communication: skype, MSN, e-mails, chats, fora) and I'm sure there's some kind of particular 'non-verbal communication' even when you use written words to communicate... I can't really explain -at the moment - how it works, yet after some time you've been 'reading' a person's messages, you become able to 'feel' how she/he's feeling, what's going on: confidence, disappointment, uneasiness, enthusiasm... You can feel it.

And...as regards our students, most of them hate writing the so-called "temi di italiano" but, at the same time, write wonderful involving thoughtful 'things' on their personal blogs. Almost 'correct', from a linguistic point of view, too...

Very, very late... Going to bed
'Night
Dani

Blogs in Plain English

How interesting! Thanks for the link.
Hi guys!
I'm new to the list. I've been teaching English for quite a few years now, fist at school and then at Uni level. I'm interested in New Technologies, although I feel a little bit left behind at the moment (too many new things have come out recently, including blogs).
I hope to learn lots of new things from you all.
Take care,
Emy