Mid-term paper

Hello everyone!
Before taking these few days off for Easter break, I would like to discuss about the mid-term paper I got back from Sarah two weeks ago.
I had a look at my peers’ works as well, so that I could get a general idea of what people thought about this course.

As regards the content, I was not surprised at all to read that all of us were satisfied and happy with what we did during the first semester. We all wrote more or less the same things and defined this course as informal and thought-provoking…Something pretty different from what we had been used to.

From the point of view of language, the papers were quite different from each other. Some of us used a more formal, some others a more colloquial style.
Although we all have a “bachelor degree” in English and should all be more or less at the same level, I noticed that there are quite big differences among the students.
I am neither a teacher nor a native speaker of English, so it is not my intention to judge anyone, but I must say some papers were much more accurate than others. Some people really came up with original reflections and went deeper into the matters, while others were a little bit superficial and the language was not always appropriate. What’s more, I had the impression that someone concentrated too much on the description of the ”e-tivities” and did not pay enough attention to the learning process (as we were supposed to do).

However, I realized that most of us made the same kind of language mistakes. We still have some difficulties with punctuation and verb tenses. In her comments Sarah often pointed out that we tend to mix verb tenses (simple past and present perfect); for me, after 13 years studying English is still hard to get these two tenses right since we do not have the same distinction in Italian.
In my paper there was also a lack of connectors, whereas some students used them either too often or in the wrong place (i.e.: ‘Moreover’ at the beginning of a new paragraph). In my first posts I used too many connectors, now I have tried to ‘reduce’ them but maybe I am exaggerating too much ;-) I will try to get better in this sense.
Another thing I noticed is that many of us misspell words sometimes. In my paper there are no spelling mistakes just because I always use a spell-checker (even when I am writing in Italian) and I would suggest that my peers should do the same. We all know that English spelling is not a piece of cake (I was also sure it was ’partecipation’ instead of ’participation’ :-/…); thank goodness, technology can help us avoid silly mistakes :-)

On the one hand, I think in my paper there are some mistakes I could (and should) have avoid:

• The repetition of the subject when it is the same in two coordinate sentences (I was told a million times about it…)
• The use of ‘consistent’ instead of ‘significant’ (I should have checked its meaning and thought it might have been a ‘false friend’)
• The use of wrong prepositions (you should always look them up as they can be really different from Italian)

On the other hand, I realized there are things which are not so straight-forward. For instance, although I studied all possible grammar rules about it, I am still not sure about the difference between ’also’ and ’even’. I mean, I do know there is a difference between the two and I think I have understood it, nonetheless when I write the choice does not come so naturally.
The same happens with prepositions sometimes: for example, ’to expect something FROM someone’ and ’to expect something OF someone’ are both possible…I read some sentences and I noticed they are slightly different, however this difference is almost imperceptible to my ’non-native speaker’ ear.
Let’s hope watching films and talking with my Skype-peer and other foreign friends will help me get better from time to time.

Last but not least, I would really like to thank my peers for providing me feedback. They gave me a lot of useful tips and good pieces of advice…Without their help my paper would have been much worse, that’s for sure!

OK, that was long enough ;-)

Happy Easter to everyone!!!!

BYE