Reflection 1
Sunday, Feb 04, 2024
Blogging for ELT
In English Language Teaching, blogging is very important since it gives language learners a dynamic platform to practice their language abilities in a real-world setting. A blog can serve as a community, which greatly facilitates students' learning. Specifically, regular writing tasks help students improve their language skills as well as their critical thinking and communication abilities. Blogging allows students to communicate ideas, exchange experiences, and interact with others, thus fostering creativity (Downes, 2004). Additionally, it promotes a feeling of community because it allows students to engage in interactive learning through comments on each other's posts (Sattar, 2015). Moreover, I think that blogging may encourage independence by letting students take charge of their language learning process.
As claimed by British Council, there are three types of blogs: the tutor blog, the class blog, and the learner blog, each of which has its own functions in the classroom. The tutor blog aims to keep students informed of assignments and reminders, with limited focus on interaction. The class blog attaches great importance to peer and teacher-student interaction, allowing both the teacher and students to write. The learner blog is the students' own personal space to share their own ideas and pieces of writing. For me, the class blog is the most practical one, which I can easily create and moderate. I used Wix.com to design an online space for my class blog. The tool allows both my students and me to create and interact with posts. The audience of my blog is pretty small, being only students from my class in order to guarantee my students' privacy and keep their work inaccessible from the outside.
Hence, I believe the blog I created can pave the way for the exchange of original ideas within the class, and in the long run, can help my students learn effectively.
In the sharing session, there was one very interesting question raised: "Who is blogging suitable for?". I believe that blogging can create a conducive learning environment in my teaching context, as all of my students are computer-literate young adults. In addition to this, our classrooms are all well equipped, with good Internet connection, computers, and projectors, so we can easily access the blog in the classroom if needed.
In conclusion, the first module of "Internet in Language Teaching" has offered us students the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with blogging, a very new yet interesting concept. After the module, I have gained valuable insights into how I can create and manage a blog to optimize my students' learning experiences.
British Council. (n.d.). Blogging for ELT.
Downes, S. (2004). Educational Blogging. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 14-26.
Sattar, S. (2015). Learning via blogging: The ESL/EFL perspective. GSTF Journal on Education. https://doi.org/10.5176/2345-7163_3.1.63
I think that you have a very detailed and analysis of the content of this module. After I read your post, I can easily recall the things we learned. Regarding the question you mentioned, I believe that we should also consider the language level of our students if we decided to use blogs, as I think low level student can hardly post anything on the blog. Anyway, I hope to see you make use of blogging in your class in the future!
Trả lờiXóaAlso your blog looks really nice! (I forgot to add that)
XóaYour reflection does help me recall what I have learned in the module and I really appreciate about it.
Trả lờiXóaAbout your concerns, I agree with Hoàn that age and language level of students should be considered. For young learners, I think that the blog can be created for parents so that they can guide their children based on the instructions and materials posted on the blog.
Thanks for your reflection! I have recalled most of the day's lesson.
Trả lờiXóaPersonally, I would prefer to run a Tutor Blog because I want to have some control over my blog. Because blogs are public, unlike Facebook groups, bad actors may come and post inappropriate topics on the blog. This is certainly dangerous to students, especially young ones.