No, not another blog nobody reads ..: :-)

When I discovered NING a few days ago, I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed especially by the networking possibilities on here and spontaneous friendship offers, for which I am very grateful.
I cannot blog here, but at least I would like to share from time to time (for those who care) what we are doing in our corner of SL.

The most important project we are working on this time is the Festival of Languages on Belle Isle. On the occasion of "European Day of Languages", which has been celebrated on Sept. 26 every year since 2001, we want to organise this Festival of Languages with information about Europe, the diversity of European languages and cultures, European SL residents and SL communities ... We think this will be a great place and event to meet for language teachers, students, everybody interested in languages, to talk shop, to learn about new islands added in the last months and maintained by European SL communities.

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Comment by ddeubel on August 30, 2007 at 6:38pm: Martina,

I read it!

Do you have a link or more info. about the Festival of languages?

Also, please let others know about the EFL ning.
http://eflclassroom.ning.com

Vibrant community of EFL educators from across the globe.Maybe you could join and tell us about SL. I am a neophyte but would love to know more about how it can foster second language acquisition.

Cheers,

David

Comment by Lisa Stevens on August 31, 2007 at 3:45pm: And so did I!!

Please tell us more about your Festival of languages.

My school, Whitehouse Common will be celebrating EDL too and it would be good to see what others are doing on the day!
http://www.whitehousecommon.org.uk/

Lisa xx

Comment by Martina Schubert on September 2, 2007 at 7:43am: Thank you, Lisa and David, for your friendly comments. :-)

We plan to organise this Festival of Languages in SecondLife and will make a video. You can see it here later.

Concerning David's question: SecondLife as a virtual world in 3D can be a nice add-on for language learning. With voice, one can contact native speakers in other parts of the (real) world and so-to-say "try one's language knowledge" on them. Yesterday, for instance, I was in the newly opened virtual Moscow, and many of the SL Moscow residents even do not speak English! Imagine the possibilities! Europeans join SecondLife, eager to learn English. And Americans as English native speakers get the possibilities to make friends with Europeans and practice their knowledge of a European language! With voice, with text chat - and by travelling to other interesting virtual places. (See the photos of Moscow I am going to add in a few minutes.)

Regarding Lisa's question: We will hold this event entirely in SecondLife, but if all goes well - knock on wood :-) - we will make at least one video to show you some impressions of the day. We invite literally everybody with interest in the topic: language learners, language teachers in SL (who can promote their classes this way), owners of European SL communities and islands. With voice samples spoken by native speakers, with slideshows, country information, links for travelling to SL islands, virtual give-aways (well, it is Second Life! :-)) ... Parts of the events will be streamed to a website the link of which I will tell you later. - And of course I look forward to hearing more about your EDL! :-)

Comment by Lisa Stevens on September 8, 2007 at 3:56pm: How exciting! Please keep me informed - I'll poist some of the pictures and details of what we do on our school website and on my page.
Bis bald, Lisa xx
(I'm going to learn German this year so need to practice!!)

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