Languagelab.com Blog

Abbreviations and Acronyms Part 1 – FYI

Sometimes when people are typing very quickly, they like to use ways to make the words shorter. We do this in English all the time.
In this blog I’ll try and show you the most common abbreviations and acronyms teachers and students sometimes use when they are in their
Languagelab English class

What’s an abbreviation,?

An abbreviation is when you make a word smaller. We do this in English all the time.
I’d like a drink = I would like a drink
I’m hungry
Although we use this a lot in standard English, people who type in the ‘chat box’ often use abbreviations.
How r u? = How are you?
C U soon = See you soon.
Ur welcome = you’re welcome
This isn’t good English really, but people use it a lot.

What are Acronyms?
An acronym is a word that is made from the first letters from other words. These are used a lot in English.
UN – United Nations

USA- United States of America
WHO – World Health Organization
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

These are also used in languagelab. Many students and teachers use them so they can explain things very quickly.
Below is a list of the most important ones. If you know any more, write them down at the bottom of this blog in the big box that says ‘comment’.

Next week: Acronyms Part 2: Emoticons

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Using your inventory to learn English
To get the most out of your English classes at languagelab you need to know how to use your inventory. Your English teacher will often give you notecards you need to read or objects you need to wear or use. In this blog, I will help you find things in your inventory, create new folders and change the names of notecards and items.

Finding things.
Your teacher will often give you notecards in English class; these are really useful and important. They help you read information, discuss things with other students and explain your homework. When you take these you automatically save them.
First, open your inventory by clicking on the ‘my stuff’ button at the top right of your screen. Type the word in the search box at the top of your inventory, or click the ‘recent items’ tab where you should be able to see all your recent objects and notecards.

Keeping things in order
To keep your notecards in order you could put them in a new folder. To make a folder open your inventory and right click the top, then choose ‘create new folder’. You can now give this a name, for example ‘Important English Grammar’. You can drag and drop items into folders.

Changing Names – Renaming
Sometimes your teacher will ask you to fill in a notecard and save it, this might be part of a listening activity or a discussion, it might even be a grammar quiz. To remember which notecard it is, you can easily change the name. Find the item in your inventory and right click on it, now choose ‘rename’ from the menu. You can now write any new name you wish.

Giving other people objects and notecards
To give someone else a notecard, open your inventory, find the object and then drag and drop it on the person. This will give someone an item or notecard from your inventory.

Next week: Maps and Landmarks, finding your English Class

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How you look affects how you learn
Having an avatar that looks good makes you feel better. It makes you feel better and it helps the other students and teacher
respond to you well.
There might also be times when your languagelab teacher will ask you to wear something. This might be for fun or it might
be to take part in a role-play or an activity where you need to look differently. I sometimes ask my students to wear ‘word’
hats to answer questions or different jackets to pretend they are shop keepers.
Please don’t come to class naked or in a bikini, even in the virtual world other people can get offended.

How to change your clothes
In Language Lab you can make your avatar look like anything you want. This is what I did to myself in just a few minutes.
You can get loads of clothes in the two language lab clothing shops either Banana fashions or at Periwinkles

Everything is free and Donatella is on hand to give you some advice about what looks good.

How to save your appearance

Once you are happy with what you are wearing you can save it. Right click on yourself and you will see a circle menu,
choose ‘appearance’. You should see a next box like the one below, click ‘save as’, and you can save the clothes you are
wearing as a folder. Now you can drag that folder onto your avatar to change your appearance.

1. Put a sock in it.
2. Pull your socks up.
3. Keep your shirt on
4. Keep your mouth zipped
5. Put on your thinking cap

Next week:
Keeping your inventory in shape.

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Sounds Good – Using Sound in the Classroom

Listen, hear, eavesdrop,, heed,

To get the best out of your English classes at languagelab.com you need to be able to use and change the sound. Today’s blog will help you listen to your teacher as well as the other students in your class. We’ll learn how to mute and control the sounds you hear when you are in lessons and interacting with other students and your teacher.

To set things up yourself click Edit > preferences > voice chat. Push ‘device settings’ and you can change where you sound comes from (input) and where you hear it from (output). You can also change how loud you will sound to other people in class. Please make sure that your speakers are turned off when you are in class, this make a terrible noise called feedback which everyone can hear. If you are having very big sound problems then there are languagelab helpers who can give you some advice.

Listening to the teacher and other students Your teacher will often ask you to talk to other students in your class. This might be in pairs or in small groups. This is really important and gives all students the chance to practise speaking a lot. When you are talking to another student or students you can ‘mute’ all the other members of the class you are not talking to. There are two ways you can ‘mute’ another students. Click on the ‘nearby’ button at the bottom right of your screen and select mute for each person. (right)

1. I was all ears
2. I heard it through the grapevine
3. You could hear a pin drop
4. I couldn’t hear myself think

Next week: Clothes: How does what you look like help you learn English?

Look, see,
watch, peep,
peer, stare,
glance, gaze,
behold…

When students first come to Languagelab, I realised that poor camera control was an obstacle for learning effectively.
It is important to be able to read information and look at objects provided by the teacher. You need to look at signs, vocabulary
items or pictures and be able to change quickly so you are looking again at the people in the class or someone you are talking to.
This really helps you be present in the class. And because it is Second Life it also means that you can look round corners, up in
the sky and even through walls! How do we do this?

• If you hold down the ‘ALT’ key at right of your keyboard you’ll see that your mouse arrow becomes a cross.
  Now you can focus on different objects by clicking on them and holding down the ‘ALT’ key. You can zoom in or out
  with the mouse wheel. This is great for reading anything in class, even writing that is very small.
• For even more control, hold down ‘CTRL’ and ‘ALT’ as well as your left mouse button. This will lock onto an object. As you move your mouse around, you can see it from any angle,
• Just move your avatar with the arrow keys to get back to a normal view.

• Click in the ‘advanced’ menu at the top of your screen and then click ‘Disable Camera Constraints’. Using the ALT and CTRL buttons while holding your left mouse key should let you zoom in on objects far away.

Now you can … Zoom in .. Zoom out .. Zoom in .. Zoom out.

Next week, I will be looking at how to use sound for learning English. Talk to you then.

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