THE FCE BLOG by Claudia Ceraso

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Dear Student,

Welcome to your FCE site on the Web. This space has been conceived as a means of enlarging your knowledge base of every aspect of the FCE exam as well as a complement to our class work. I hope you find this a useful companion in your study time and look forward to your contributions to it!

In this site you will find different sections to help you in different aspects of learning English at an advanced level. You may use this page throughout the course to find what you need to succeed in your exam. After classwork this may be your starting point to link you to the best the web has to offer you as well as a path to become a more autonomous language learner.

Some of the highlights in this site will include answers to the following:

About the FCE
  • What is the Cambridge First Certificate Exam?
  • When can I sit for the exam?
  • How do I know if I am prepared for it?
About your course
  • Where to get extra practice: AACI's libraries and Learning Land.
  • Which dictionaries are the most useful?
  • What if you miss a class?
About you
  • Students samples of classroom work and homework
  • Progress assessment
  • Your questions and suggestions for this site
I will be updating these pages regularly and your comments are more than welcome. Hope you enjoy this site and come back often.

Till next time!

Claudia Ceraso

FCE Teacher at AACI
www.aaci.org.ar
Buenos Aires
Argentina

posted by Claudia Ceraso at March 18, 2006

4 Comments:

  • Blog Manifesto

    You are all invited to browse and write on our own blog.
    http://aacifceclaudiaceraso.blogspot.com/

    What is this?
    First things first: It is not homework.
    That clarified let me state the purpose. It is twofold.

    Internet is a powerful learning tool when used wisely. There is plenty of useful stuff to read, although there is lot of rubbish too. It can be a time consuming task as well and then we end up throwing our attempt away. And when you do find something worth going back to, we get thrilled for one day and then we have no trace to find the site back again. It is also lonely when you can't share what you found or you realise there is more you can do in that site but you need help. So let's share our internet journeys and see what good comes out of all this.

    On the other hand, we all want to succeed in the exam. Personally, I would like you to pass with merit. That requires time and effort outside the class. Sharing exercises and tips for studying will no doubt increase our chances of getting better. Again, having a meeting point for our ideas will be empowering.

    Finally, I would like you to grasp the concept that this is a free writing space. We are constantly learning rules about how to organise our thoughts within articles, stories, and letters of application. Lack of practice can make us feel a bit trapped among so many rules -does and don'ts. When all of that is so new and so very much bound by the codes of a different culture, writing becomes all work and no play. I believe it is also important to try writing in a more personal way for your own non-academic purposes. So this will be a neutral territory in your path to develop your own style in English.

    Blog Postings
    Rules of the game to bear in mind when writing comments:

    1- English, only English. Much richer than emoticons.
    2- Every comment must be signed. No anonymous contributions, please. When you click to make a comment, choose the option “other” so as to sign it.
    3- The teacher will retain a moderator role and a right to delete postings which do not fulfil these rules. If you would like something deleted, just say so (in class or by mail will be OK). There is an option for me to screen comments before publication. I am not using this because I have no intention of censoring anyone.
    4- Humorous comments are better when directed to ourselves, not others.
    5- A note on plagiarism. If you are quoting from another site, please copy & paste the link you got the information from. It is a question of respect. Otherwise we are stealing, pure and simple.
    6- Please do not ask me to correct the grammar or style in your postings, I won’t. (You may do so in class - sure) In the real world, you just do not go about telling people they are wrong. It’s rather out of line.

    Headings
    I have the intention of keeping sections a little organised under appropriate headings. This is for all of us to go back and re-read something fast. It is quite annoying to browse endlessly for something interesting you once read and not find it. The headings will appear as links on the right grey bar. So let’s try to include comments related to the headings. These subtitles are by no means the only ones we will have. I am looking forward to your suggestions for other sections. Just do so anywhere you feel comfortable and then I will open a separate posting to continue there.

    By the way, I am no expert in this. I am just learning. I haven’t got the faintest idea about html and the like. I see beautiful things on other weblogs, but I still do not have a clue how to embellish mine. I am willing to learn, though. Any idea of how to do things better will always be welcomed with a broad smile.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At 1:09 pm  

  • For Claudia: this is the link for the blog site that I told you, so you might get some new "design ideas" for ours: http://www.dosmundos2006.blogspot.com. By!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At 3:06 pm  

  • I think that this idea is great, a good way to have a personal approach to the First Certificate. A new brand face of methodology!

    Guillermo

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At 2:34 pm  

  • All the way from Beijing.... specially to Claudia, but also to all of you who are sweating & swotting towards the exam...

    CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

    Wishing you all the best,

    Connie Baques

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At 10:50 pm  

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