Sunday, March 25, 2007

Thank you

Thanks from the fledgling webhead in the group. Meeting you all was a wonderful experience and really made an impact on me. There was a real sense of community that was otherwise difficult to find in such a large conference. Your warmth and enthusiasm inspire me to continue on the blogging path, and I hope to start work with wikis soon and to try to find out more about blikis.

The pace of the conference has finally caught up with me; I got home a little before midnight last night. Today I am definitely in slow mode.

Looking forward to meeting up with you again in the future, although it probably will not be NY next year. I'll be off to TESL Canada in the metropolis of Moncton, NB, in May, and two trips to the east coast within two months, will be a little tricky to pull off. So I'm looking forward to Denver!

Warm wishes to all of you from still snowy Edmonton,

Veronica

7 comments:

Nina Lyulkun said...

Dear Veronica,

Enjoy your exploring blogging and wiki. It's an amazing technology and tools.

Stay in touch. Hoping to hear from you again soon.

Love,
Nina Lyulkun

Anonymous said...

Hugs Veronica. It was a pleasure to meet you and I hope you can make it to Brazil one day. Now you know someone who can show you around.

Nina Liakos said...

What's a bliki?
I'm glad you got home OK! I hope you can take some days to rest up from the frenzy of last week.
Loved meeting you f2f!
Nina

Veronica Baig said...

Apparently a bliki is something that is supposed to combine the best of both blogs and wikis. I haven't had the time to investigate further as yet.

There's no peace for the wicked here--I had to plunge straight back into work. There is the ever present marking that comes in on my e-mail and the fact that I'm making a presentation on Wednesday in Athabasca with a colleague on Accent Reduction--we're using Elluminate to broadcast the presentation to
those who can't attend the live version. At this rather late moment, I'm struggling to download IPA fonts so that I can read the presentation--but my computer isn't cooperating, so instead of a schwa, I see a hand holding a pencil; I also have a hand giving a Victory sign and a pretty flower. If I don't get this fixed, it should make for an interesting presentation!

I hope your Saturday meeting proved useful and that you're all ready to move ahead with accreditation.

Veronica

Dennis said...

Hi, Veronica--and everyone.

It was a pleasure to get to know you a bit via this wonderful blog, Veronica!

I'm sure your presentation went well--despite the interesting graphics that were appearing instead of schwas and edhs and other IPA characters. Since accent reduction is an area I've been interested in for quite some time, I'd love to see it. Was a recording made?

All the best from Phoenix, AZ--

Dennis

Veronica Baig said...

Hi Dennis:

The only reason I was involved in a presentation on Accent Reduction was because the main presenter did not want to do this on her own. It definitely was not because of my British accent that is still very evident even after 38 years in Canada!

Here's the link to the presentation--you will have to choose the right one from the menu:
http://www.athabascau.ca/research/lunch-n-learn.html

For you, and anyone else who is interested, you will probably need to download the appropriate software to use Elluminate. Send me an e-mail (veronica@athabascau.ca) and I will send you the necessary links.

Veronica

Unknown said...

hi veronica

I am an spanish native speaker that has been living in canada for 5 years now.

I was googling about ways to reduce my accent and one of the results was a link to your blog.

I downloaded your presentation but i havent been able to find the right programs to play it.

So I just wanted to ask u one question and i hope u can take time to answer it. My question is: if we adult immigrants get a hearing aid that will improve the quality of their listening, is it possible that we will be able to listen to some sounds of english native speakers that we were not able to distinguish before and therefore we will be able to reduce our accent in an easier way?

i once read somewhere that adults are not able to really listen to some sounds in english and that was one of the reasons we had an accent (because if you cant hear it how could you ever be able to repeat it).

I am thinking of getting a hearing aid (even though my audiology tests say that my levels of listeing are average with other people in their beginning 30, as it is my case) to speed up the process of getting rid of my accent.

If you have an answer to my question (hearing aids to improve my listening and thus me being able to pronounce words better)or you dont really know the answer, still i would like to thank you for your help

Roberto