My new introduction

Dear students, thank you very much for the great comments and questions. I tried to included all the information that you asked, but if there is more you would like to know, ask in the comment area.
Also, let me know if this time it is more complete. Here it goes:

My name is Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Júnior and most people call me Ronaldo. Actually, only my family and friends who know me since I was a kid call me Júnior - probably because they call my father Ronaldo. I was born in Brasília and have been living here for all my life, 26 years, and really don't like it when people say there is nothing to do in Brasília. Even though most people say I'm too young to be married, I'm glad to say that I found my soul mate almost 9 years ago and we have been married (but with no children yet) for 3 years and 9 months now.

I have never lived abroad and I am very proud to say that all English I know was learned in Brasília, actually at Casa Thomas Jefferson, where I have been teaching for the past 8 years. Before teaching here, I also taught for 2 years in two other English schools in Brasília (yes, I started working very early!). Even though I have always liked technology (like most boys), I got more involved with technology in language teaching 5 years ago, when I took my first online course about this.

I graduated from high school in Military School and then I entered UnB to study TESOL - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I finished my master's in Applied Linguistics at UnB last year and am now taking a PhD in Linguistics also at UnB. Both my master's and my doctorate research is about pronunciation, another passion of mine in my profession.

I kind of started teaching by accident. When I was in high school I wanted to be a professional musician, but my parents kept telling how difficult the life of a musician is (as if teachers got a lot of money...lol), and so I had a plan: I decided to start teaching English to get some pocket money until my music could support me, but then guess what? I fell in love with the language classroom and never wanted to leave it! Now, besides teaching, I'm also aiming at becoming a Second Language Acquisition researcher, writer and presenter (pretty ambitious, huh?)

In my free time I'm usually involved with music, sport and now photography (I've just finished a course!). I started studying music when I was 9 years old and I can play the saxophone, the guitar and a little bit of the drums. Also, I have conducted a youth choir at my church for many years (about 6, I guess). Listening, I enjoy most styles, but I would say my favorites are jazz, soul and Christian. About sports, I used to play volleyball for Military School's team in high school, but two years ago I got crazy about cycling, and now, whenever I can, I go cycling. I'm also getting more and more involved with photography now and you can see my beginning work on my flickr.

Of course, like most people, I also like traveling, and the picture I posted in my first introduction was taken during a trip to New York City, which was in April of last year. I went there to attend and present at an international convention for English teachers, but I certainly found some time to get to know the city; after all, who can resist the temptations of the city that never sleeps? My favorite places there were Times Square, Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. I have never lived abroad, but I beliee this could be a great experience not only for the language but especially for the cultural experience. My trips abroad have only been to Miami, Orlando, New York and Buenos Aires and my favorite one was definitely New York!

As I already mentioned, I love technology. I would say my favorite gadget at this moment is my ipod. Since I am a musician, you can imagine how much fun I have been having with this toy. I also truly believe in the power of e-learning, but I don't think the internet or e-learning will be able to completely replace face-to-face teaching or flesh and bone teachers. I think e-learning is supposed to complement, to be a plus, just like you guys are doing: complementing your knowledge of English with this writing program. Imagine a kid studying everything only through computers, without interacting with other kids? (S)He wouldn't learn the social and moral aspects of life as well as being in contact with other people.

Well, that's it for now. I'm sure we'll learn more from each other little by little. Here is another picture of myself:

So, was this introduction better than the first one?

A little bit about your instructor

Hello again, guys! Here is a little introduction about myself:

My name is Ronaldo, I live in Brasília, and I teach English. This is a recent picture of mine. I like technology very much.

That's it.

In the comments area, write what you think about my introduction. You can use the following questions to help you:

• Is my introduction complete? If so, what extra information do you think would be relevant? If not, what else would you like to know about me?
• How could my introduction be better connected?
• Do you think the picture plays an important role in an online introduction? Why (not)?
  

Welcome, Practical Writing Students!

Hello students and welcome to our blog!

A blog is a place where the author writes posts - like the one you are reading - and visitors leave comments. We will use this blog - http://practicalwriting.blogspot.com (remember not to include www.) - to exchange ideas about writing and to do some tasks to better prepare you for your writing activities.

In order to comment, all you have to do is click the "# comments" link right after the post:


In the next window, you type your comment in the text window, proofread your message, sign your message and hit the "publish your comment button". If you use gmail or orkut, this means you already have a google account, so you can sign using "google/blogger" identity, but if you don't have a google account, you can choose the "name/url" identity and write your name before publishing your comment. Finally, if you want to receive the following comments on that post in your email, don't forget to check the "email follow-up comments to your email" before publishing:

Most important of all, don't be afraid! If you have any questions or make mistakes, I'm here to help you.

Ronaldo

My new Introduction

Dear students, thank you very much for the great comments and questions. There weren't so many questions, so I have included more information than you asked, just in case you get a little curious... Let me know if this time it is more complete, and ask me questions if you want to know anything else. Here it goes:

My name is Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Júnior and most people call me Ronaldo. Actually, only my family and friends who know me since I was a kid call me Júnior - probably because they call my father Ronaldo. I was born in Brasília and have been living here for all my life, 26 years, and really don't like it when people say there is nothing to do in Brasília. Even though most people say I'm too young to be married, I'm glad to say that I found my soul mate almost 9 years ago and we have been married (but with no children yet) for 3 years and a half now.

I have never lived abroad and I am very proud to say that all English I know was learned in Brasília, actually at Casa Thomas Jefferson, where I have been teaching for the past 7 years and a half. Before teaching here, I also taught for 2 years in two other English schools in Brasília (yes, I started working very early!). Even though I have always liked technology (like most boys), I got more involved with technology in language teaching 5 years ago, when I took my first online course about this.

I graduated from high school in Military School and then I entered UnB to study TESOL - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I finished my master's in Applied Linguistics at UnB last year and am now taking a PhD in Linguistics also at UnB.

I kind of started teaching by accident. When I was in high school I wanted to be a professional musician, but my parents kept telling how difficult the life of a musician is (as if teachers got a lot of money...lol), and so I had a plan: I decided to start teaching English to get some pocket money until my music could support me, but then guess what? I fell in love with the language classroom and never wanted to leave it!

In my free time I'm usually involved with music, sport and now photography (I've just begun a course!). I started studying music when I was 9 years old and I can play the saxophone, the guitar and a little bit of the drums. Also, I have been conducting a youth choir at my church for many years (about 6, I guess). Listening, I enjoy most styles, but I would say my favorites are jazz and soul. About sports, I used to play volleyball for Military School's team in high school, but two years ago I got crazy about cycling, and now, whenever I can, I go cycling.

Of course, like most people, I also like traveling, and the picture I posted in my first introduction was taken during a trip to New York City, which was in April of last year. I went there to attend and present at an international convention for English teachers, but I certainly found some time to get to know the city; after all, who can resist the temptations of the city that never sleeps? My favorite places there were Times Square, Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. I have never lived abroad, but I beliee this could be a great experience not only for the language but especially for the cultural experience. My trips abroad have only been to Miami, Orlando, New York and Buenos Aires and my favorite one was definitely New York!

As I already mentioned, I love technology. I would say my favorite gadget at this moment is my brand new ipod. Since I am a musician, you can imagine how much fun I have been having with my new toy. I also truly believe in the power of e-learning, but I don't think the internet or e-learning will be able to completely replace face-to-face teaching or flesh and bone teachers. I think e-learning is supposed to complement, to be a plus, just like you guys are doing: complementing your knowledge of English with this writing program. Imagine a kid studying everything only through computers, without interacting with other kids? (S)He wouldn't learn the social and moral aspects of life as well as being in contact with other people.

Well, that's it for now. I'm sure we'll learn more from each other little by little. Here is another picture of myself:

So, was this introduction better than the first one?

A little bit about your instructor

Hello again, guys! Here is a little introduction about myself:

My name is Ronaldo, I live in Brasília, and I teach English. This is a recent picture of mine. I like technology very much.

That's it.

In the comments area, write what you think about my introduction. You can use the following questions to help you:

• Is my introduction complete? If so, what extra information do you think would be relevant? If not, what else would you like to know about me?
• How could my introduction be better connected?
• Do you think the picture plays an important role in an online introduction? Why (not)?
  

Welcome, Practical Writing students!

Hello students and welcome to our blog!

A blog is a place where the author writes posts - like the one you are reading - and visitors leave comments. We will use this blog - http://practicalwriting.blogspot.com (remember not to include www.) - to exchange ideas about writing and to do some tasks to better prepare you for your writing activities.

In order to comment, all you have to do is click the "# comments" link right after the post:


In the next window, you type your comment in the text window, proofread your message, sign your message and hit the "publish your comment button". If you use gmail or orkut, this means you already have a google account, so you can sign using "google/blogger" identity, but if you don't have a google account, you can choose the "name/url" identity and write your name before publishing your comment. Finally, if you want to receive the following comments on that post in your email, don't forget to check the "email follow-up comments to your email" before publishing:

Most important of all, don't be afraid! If you have any questions or make mistakes, I'm here to help you.

Ronaldo

A Memorable Trip - by Nina Liakos

I’ve always had difficulty pinning down my favorite things. My favorite book? Depends on when you ask me. (Fiction or nonfiction? At what time of my life? One book or a series of related books? What are the criteria, anyway?) It’s the same with my favorite movie. (I have a lot of those.) I guess I could say J. S. Bach is my favorite composer, but I could never narrow his work down to one favorite piece. I have a lot of favorite songs, foods, places, authors, etc. I have traveled a good bit in my life, both in the United States and in Western Europe; I have been to China and visited the former Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, I can’t identify one trip I have taken that I could say was the best one—so I will write instead about a memorable trip I took in March, 2007 to Seattle, Washington.

I teach English to speakers of other languages at the University of Maryland, which is located in College Park, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. For many years, I have been a member of an international organization called TESOL: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Every spring, TESOLers gather for their annual convention. TESOL conventions are usually held in the United States (because the organization got its start here), but even so, they are expensive affairs (plane fare, hotel, conference fees, meals) and often require arranging for a substitute teacher to take my classes, so I have not attended many conventions. In 2007, however, I was given the opportunity to attend the TESOL Convention because my school, the Maryland English Institute, paid for everything except meals. I jumped at the chance to go.

I was especially excited about attending the 2007 convention because in 2006, I had become involved in a fantastic online Community of Practice, the Webheads in Action, and many Webheads were planning to attend that convention. Being there would give me the opportunity to meet many of my online friends face to face for the first time.

On Tuesday, March 21, I got up at 3:15 in the morning. My “Super Shuttle” (a van which transports people to and from the three Washington area airports) picked me up at 4:00 and took me to the airport, where I flew in the smallest jet I had ever seen (only three seats across the entire plane) to Saint Louis, where I caught a normal-sized jet to Seattle. I arrived in Seattle at 2:10 Eastern Standard Time, but as the west coast of the United States is three hours behind the east coast, it was only 11:10 Pacific Standard Time. It then took me three hours to get to my hotel! Most of that was spent standing in a very long line to buy my bus ticket.

I had no specific meetings planned with any of my Webhead friends, and I did not encounter any of them that day, so I wandered down to the famous Pike Street Market, where I took some pictures and bought a present for my daughter: a tiny owl figurine that looks like Harry Potter’s owl Hedwig as a baby.



In the evening, I attended a Pre-Convention Institute on program planning and evaluation with my colleague from MEI.

The next day, I went directly to the Electronic Village, which is the special part of the Convention dedicated to Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). I volunteered as a “greeter”—the person who stands at the door and directs people to where they want to go. That is where I began to meet the Webheads! It was so much fun finally meeting the people I had been studying with, chatting with, and learning from for over a year. That evening and the following two evenings as well, I went to dinner with Webheads from the United States, Brazil, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Portugal, France, Australia, Argentina, Taiwan, Japan, and Tajikistan! We had so much fun. You can see this in our faces.

After dinner, we would all congregate at The Elephant and Castle, a friendly bar located in my hotel until the wee hours of the morning. I astonished myself, because normally I get sleepy very early, and I am usually in bed by 10 or 11 at home, but in Seattle I somehow managed to stay wide awake until 1:00 or 2:00 every night! In between these joyous Webhead dinners, we were all attending sessions all day at the Convention. Somehow, I did not feel tired.

People began leaving Seattle Friday night and Saturday morning. My colleague and I had to attend an all-day workshop on program accreditation, and by the time it was over at 3 p.m., almost everyone was gone. But I still had another social obligation to fulfill. A former colleague who had opened her own language school (and then hired me to teach there part-time) had moved to Washington State with her family about a year before, and I went to visit her and have dinner at her lovely home near Microsoft headquarters, where her husband now works. It was a lovely ending to a wonderful week. When they drove me back to my hotel that evening, I finally got to see (from a distance) Seattle’s famous Space Needle, and I realized that it had been very near the Convention Center all along! I had just been too busy to go and visit it.

The next day, I was up very early again (4 a.m.) for my flight back home. This time my colleague and I flew together. We changed planes in Dallas, where there was a delay, and I did not get home until 9:30 at night. As you can imagine, I was really tired—but I had to get up at 6:00 the next morning to go to work!

My trip to Seattle was truly a special one for me—not because of the city itself or even because of the TESOL Convention, but because of the precious time I spent with my far-flung Webhead friends.

My New Introduction

Dear students, thank you very much for the great comments and questions. There weren't so many questions, so I have included more information than you asked, just in case you get a little curious... Let me know if this time it is more complete, and ask me questions if you want to know anything else. Here it goes:

My name is Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Júnior and most people call me Ronaldo. Actually, only my family and friends who know me since I was a kid call me Júnior - probably because they call my father Ronaldo. I was born in Brasília and have been living here for all my life, 26 years, and really don't like it when people say there is nothing to do in Brasília. Even though most people say I'm too young to be married, I'm glad to say that I found my soul mate almost 8 years ago and we have been married (but with no children yet) for 3 years now.

I have never lived abroad and I am very proud to say that all English I know was learned in Brasília, actually at Casa Thomas Jefferson, where I have been teaching for the past 7 years. Before teaching here, I also taught for 2 years in two other English schools in Brasília (yes, I started working very early!). Even though I have always liked technology (like most boys), I got more involved with technology in language teaching 4 years ago, when I took my first online course about this.

I graduated from high school in Military School and then I entered UnB to study TESOL - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I finished me master's in Applied Linguistics at UnB last year and am now taking a PhD in Linguistics also at UnB.

I kind of started teaching by accident. When I was in high school I wanted to be a professional musician, but my parents kept telling how difficult the life of a musician is (as if teachers got a lot of money...lol), and so I had a plan: I decided to start teaching English to get some pocket money until my music could support me, but then guess what? I fell in love with the language classroom and never wanted to leave it!

In my free time I'm usually involved with music, sport and now photography (I've just begun a course!). I started studying music when I was 9 years old and I can play the saxophone, the guitar and a little bit of the drums. Also, I have been conducting a youth choir at my church for many years (about 6, I guess). Listening, I enjoy most styles, but I would say my favorites are jazz and soul. About sports, I used to play volleyball for Military School's team in high school, but two years ago I got crazy about cycling, and now, whenever I can, I go cycling.

Of course, like most people, I also like traveling, and the picture I posted in my first introduction was taken during a trip to New York City, which was in April of last year. I went there to attend and present at an international convention for English teachers, but I certainly found some time to get to know the city; after all, who can resist the temptations of the city that never sleeps? My favorite places there were Times Square, Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. I have never lived abroad, but I beliee this could be a great experience not only for the language but especially for the cultural experience. My trips abroad have only been to Miami, Orlando, New York and Buenos Aires and my favorite one was definitely New York!

As I already mentioned, I love technology. I would say my favorite gadget at this moment is my brand new ipod. Since I am a musician, you can imagine how much fun I have been having with my new toy. I also truly believe in the power of e-learning, but I don't think the internet or e-learning will be able to completely replace face-to-face teaching or flesh and bone teachers. I think e-learning is supposed to complement, to be a plus, just like you guys are doing: complementing your knowledge of English with this writing program. Imagine a kid studying everything only through computers, without interacting with other kids? (S)He wouldn't learn the social and moral aspects of life as well as being in contact with other people.

Well, that's it for now. I'm sure we'll learn more from each other little by little. Here is another picture of myself:

So, was this introduction better than the first one?

A little bit about your instructor

Hello again, guys! Here is a little introduction about myself:

My name is Ronaldo, I live in Brasília, and I teach English. This is a recent picture of mine. I like technology very much.

That's it.

In the comments area, write what you think about my introduction. You can use the following questions to help you:

• Is my introduction complete? If so, what extra information do you think would be relevant? If not, what else would you like to know about me?
• How could my introduction be better connected?
• Do you think the picture plays an important role in an online introduction? Why (not)?
  

Welcome, Practical Writing Students!

Hello students and welcome to our blog!

A blog is a place where the author writes posts - like the one you are reading - and visitors leave comments. We will use this blog - http://practicalwriting.blogspot.com (remember not to include www.) - to exchange ideas about writing and to do some tasks to better prepare you for your writing activities.

In order to comment, all you have to do is click the "# comments" link right after the post:


In the next window, you type your comment in the text window, proofread your message, sign your message and hit the "publish your comment button". If you use gmail or orkut, this means you already have a google account, so you can sign using "google/blogger" identity, but if you don't have a google account, you can choose the "name/url" identity and write your name before publishing your comment. Finally, if you want to receive the following comments on that post in your email, don't forget to check the "email follow-up comments to your email" before publishing:

Most important of all, don't be afraid! If you have any questions or make mistakes, I'm here to help you.

Ronaldo