Why Weblogs in ESL Classroom?


I believe that blogging serves a lot of beneficial experiences to the students. As English teachers, we have to furnish our students with the newest technology in communicating; hence we cannot afford to close one eye to the importance of blogging. Weblogs have the potential to be the latest tool for teaching of language and it provides new way to access authentic reading and writing skills. It is not only exciting for the teachers but also gives students good reasons to enjoy reading and writing.

Here are some of the reasons why I feel it is encouraged to use blogs as a language teaching tool:

1. To provide a real audience to student writing. Normally only the language teacher will read the student writing but through weblogs students will be able to experience real audience who, apart from their teacher, may include their peers, students from other states and may even be anybody from other countries around the world.

2. Student collaboration. Student can easily read each others’ work as they are link to one another. This encourages them to learn from their peers and see the different styles of writing and approaches to assignments. Hence, they share learning experiences on the web without being familiar with web publishing.

3. Help students to realise that writing is an ongoing process. By writing and updating their blogs, students will learn to appreciate that writing is indeed an ongoing process but with the added bonus of an interactive audience, authentically communicative.

4. Writing blogs is less formal and less threatening. Research has shown that people behave differently when communicating online compared to a face-to-face situation. Therefore, students will be able to write freely and without self-consciousness. Students who are shy in class will be able to find their voice when given the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings in the weblogs. The notion of anonymity can be a major help for the students to cut down their anxiety and gradually develops their confidence in writing.

5. As an online portfolio of student written work. Students gained a lot of benefits by having a portfolio of their work. They can easily return to previous work and evaluate the progress they have made during the course.

6. To provide extra reading practice to the students. Students will not only read their blogs everyday but they also tend to read others’ as well and respond to their reading. Besides reading the blogs, students too will have the chance to read more related articles in the links and sites suggested by their teacher.

7. Help develop critical thinking skills. Since the students are exposed to various resources and diverse viewpoints this may indirectly develop their critical thinking skills.

To all my students who have enjoyed blogging, keep up your good work and keep writing.

Popular posts from this blog

"the traveller"

Image
for i am only a traveller finding my way among the streets of your new town, i have other places to go to. i shall someday work out a map of this city and traverse it on foot, someday. for i am only a traveller, and cannot stay longer where there is no home. take my love while you can, take my hatred, take my weathered hand if you will, for i shall have no home here, among the dull buildings where the heart cannot stay. for i am only a traveller on my way, to somewhere further than here. this is the city that broke my heart, that stole my feelings from me; this is the city that took away my love, that told me i must go away. i must go somewhere. somewhere, where they can know me; can recognise that i am a man. some night when the city is asleep i’ll walk out quietly along your cruel streets through the suburban edge and into the dawn forests. somewhere, perhaps near where the sun rises, i can sit down, and sometimes perhaps, i can tell myself, here i am a man. ~Muhammad Haji Salleh~ Mu
Read more

Malaysian Heritage

Image
Dr Jaya was absolutely right. Staying in Melaka is definitely not boring at all. There are a lot of things to do, many things to see and many historical places to visit. I had a great time spending my weekends there. Since I decided not to go back to KL during weekends, I made plans with Zurina and Wazir to visit some of the beautiful places here. Melaka is a nice place to visit. I love watching the sunset at Klebang beach, window shopping at Mahkota Parade, eating “mee hoon basah” at the RR stall near our home, driving round the Melaka city at night with my friends, dinner at Anjung Batu…simply love the “ikan bakar”…ohhh so many things to tell and to share with. During one of the weekends, my friends and I visited one of the most popular attractions in Melaka that is the Taman Mini Malaysia. It is situated approximately 16 killometres from the city. The complex displays the actual size of the beautiful traditional crafted house from the 13 states in Malaysia. What is unique about Tama
Read more