PLE is our last task to complete before Christmas Holidays and I must admit that it will be good not to have to work on my computer for a while! I'm not good at creating mindmaps and I had never thought I could make one about my learning environment. What Sarah said last week made me reflect on the fact that if we don't continue to use everyday what we learn we will forget many things. As long as we are students we keep on practicing but after our final degree we'll have to keep on learning in some different ways.
These are the steps that took me to my PLE map's creation:
- First, I thought of my experiences with English language outside school and university. So, I started to think in what occasions I had to put in practice what I learnt in theory. My thesis on translation helped me reflecting on many aspects of English and Italian and part of my work consisted in suggesting my translation of a filmscript. Secondly, I thought of some situations in which I had to speak English in a foreign country, using it as a "contact language" between different cultures. A similar experience was to teach Italian to a Thai girl who has lived near my house for some time. Last but not least, I put the achievement of a Cambridge certificate.
- Then come all the sources from which I have been gathering information: school, university, teachers, websites, conferences and so on.
- An important part of my learning environent is made by all the things that allow me to learn something enjoying myself because when you learn this way it is easier for you to remember things. Watching TV series and films in English are two of the things I like most.
- The last part of my map represents the importance of sharing information because when you share you create a sort of virtuous circle. Nevertheless is always important to remember that information has to be filtered.
When our experience at university is over, we'll have to keep on learning using as many devices as possible and we'll have to try to enlarge our PLE, otherwise we'll lose many of the things and skills we have been learning so far.
