PREFACE
Hi there!
How many of you have experienced using blogs for your classes? Nowadays, cellphones and using different apps have become common among students. Interestingly and logically, it happens that students are impressed and excited when they see their teachers are technologically up-to-date! One way is using weblogs. Basically, weblogs can be used as a subsidiary means of making and keeping the students more interested by providing online extra materials and activities. They are also used as a shared space to share comments and assignments. Weblogs are even co-authored by both the teacher and students to make the job even more interactive. We would be very happy to hear your stories on using weblogs for your English classes. Let us know about your creative class!
(azimi.hz@gmail.com)
QUOTABLE QUOTES
Every time there’s a new tool, whether it’s Internet or cell phones or anything else, all these things can be used for good or evil. Technology is neutral; it depends on how it’s used.
Rick Smolan
The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.
Bill Gates
The Internet is just another experiment showing us more sides of us.
Frank Ocean
Dear Internet: You are very good at spreading rumors. Truth is more valuable and much harder to come by.
Mark Frost
The Internet, in general, I find troubling. The anonymity has made us all meaner and dumber. This thing that was supposed to bring us closer together, I see it doing the opposite.
Aaron Sorkin
NO COMMENT!
TEACHING TIPS: BLOGGING FOR ELT
What is a blog?
A blog (short for weblog) is a frequently updated website that often resembles an online journal. It’s so easy to create and update a blog - it requires only basic access to the Internet, and a minimum of technical know-how. Because of this, it is one of the easiest ways to publish student writing on the WWW. It’s almost as easy as sending an email. Nowadays, blogs can also display photos and some people are using them with audio and even video, but this article will concentrate on the basics, showing how a simple text-based blog can be used to great effect with your English language learners.
Types of blogs used in language teaching
We can think of three types of blogs for use with language classes:
- The Tutor Blog is run by the teacher of a class. The content of this type of blog can be limited to syllabus, course information, homework, assignments, etc. Or the teacher may choose to write about his or her life, sharing reflections about the local culture, target culture and language to stimulate online and in-class discussion. In this type of blog, students are normally restricted to being able to write comments to the teacher’s posts.
- The Class Blog is a shared space, with teacher and students being able to write to the main area. It is best used as a collaborative discussion space, an extra-curricular extension of the classroom. Students can be encouraged to reflect in more depth, in writing, on themes touched upon in class. Students are given a greater sense of freedom and involvement than with the tutor blog.
- The Learner Blog is the third type of blog and it requires more time and effort from the teacher to both set up and moderate, but is probably the most rewarding. It involves giving each student an individual blog. The benefit of this is that this becomes the student’s own personal online space. Students can be encouraged to write frequently about what interests them, and can post comments on other students’ blogs.
Of course, teachers who decide to use blogs often use a combination of Tutor or Class blog and Learner blogs, with hyperlinks connecting them.
Why blog?
So, why should you blog with your students? There are many reasons why you may choose to use weblogs with students. One of the best reasons is to provide a real audience for student writing. Usually, the teacher is the only person who reads student writing, and the focus of this reading is usually on form, not content. With weblogs, students can find themselves writing for a real audience that, apart from the teacher, may include their peers, students from other classes, or even other countries, their parents, and potentially anyone with access to the Internet.Here are some other reasons for using blogs:
- To provide extra reading practice for students. This reading can be produced by the teacher, other students in the same class, or, in the case of comments posted to a blog, by people from all over the world.
- As online student learner journals that can be read by their peers. The value of using learner journals has been well documented. Usually they are private channels between teacher and student. Using a blog as a learner journal can increase the audience.
- To guide students to online resources appropriate for their level. The Internet has a bewildering array of resources that are potentially useful for your students. The problem is finding and directing your learners to them. For this reason, you can use your tutor blog as a portal for your learners.
- To increase the sense of community in a class. A class blog can help foster a feeling of community between the members of a class, especially if learners are sharing information about themselves and their interests, and are responding to what other students are writing.
- To encourage shy students to participate. There is evidence to suggest that students who are quiet in class can find their voice when given the opportunity to express themselves in a blog.
- To stimulate out-of-class discussion.A blog can be an ideal space for pre-class or post-class discussion. And what students write about in the blog can also be used to promote discussion in class.
- To encourage a process-writing approach. Because students are writing for publication, they are usually more concerned about getting things right, and usually understand the value of rewriting more than if the only audience for their written work is the teacher.
- As an online portfolio of student written work. There is much to be gained from students keeping a portfolio of their work. One example is the ease at which learners can return to previous written work and evaluate the progress they have made during a course.
- To help build a closer relationship between students in large classes. Sometimes students in large classes can spend all year studying with the same people without getting to know them well. A blog is another tool that can help bring students together.
Where to start
There are lots of sites where you can set up a blog for free, but perhaps the best known and one of the most reliable and simple blogging tools to use with students is Blogger (http://blogger.com). Also, famous Iranian sites include:
1. https://persianblog.ir/
2. http://mihanblog.com/
3. http://www.blogsky.com/
4. http://www.blogfa.com/
It takes only fifteen minutes from setting up an account to publishing the first post using this valuable tool.The teacher sets up the tutor blog or a class blog. With a class blog, students will need to be invited to participate by e-mail. Learner blog accounts can either be set up beforehand by the teacher, or done at the same time with a whole class in a computer room. The former gives the teacher more control over student accounts, but some advantages of the latter is that learners are given more choice (of username, design of the blog, etc) and a greater sense of ‘ownership’ of their new virtual writing space.
Keeping students interested
Many teachers who start to use blogs find out quickly that the novelty factor is enough to create student interest in starting to use them. However, blogs work best when learners get into the habit of using them. If learners are not encouraged to post to their blogs frequently, then they can quickly be abandoned. A failed experiment. Here, the teacher in the role of facilitator is vital for maintaining student interest. Here are some ideas about how this can be done:
- Respond to student posts quickly, writing a short comment related to the content. Ask questions about what the learner writes to create stimulus for writing.
- Students should be actively encouraged to read and respond (through the commenting feature of the blog) to their classmates.
- Writing to the blog could be required, and it may form part of the class assessment. Students should be encouraged to post their writing homework on the blog instead of only giving it to the teacher.
Some ideas for activities
- Mystery guest. Invite another teacher or someone from another school or country as a mystery guest to your blog. Ask the students to engage him or her in dialogue and guess their identity.
- Project work. A blog is an ideal space for developing a project, especially if the project is a shared one between several classes or even classes in different countries.
- International link-ups. Contact another educational establishment to see if they are interested in a joint blogging project. Students can write about their lives, culture, interests, etc, and be encouraged to read about the other class and respond by writing comments.
- Photoblog. If you plan on using photographs in your blog, there are lots of tools available to help you. Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) makes publishing photographs to blogs easy. If you want to make photographs central to the blog, however, it is better to use a blogging tool such as Buzznet (http://www.buzznet.com), which is a photo publishing tool and blog rolled into one.
Pitfalls to watch out for
- Unwanted comments. To avoid unwanted comments, you can always restrict comments to people in the class or to registered bloggers.
- Correction. It is difficult to use a blog for correcting students. Student written work can always be corrected before being posted to the blog, or you can do class correction sessions using work published in the blogs.
- Privacy. By their very nature, most blogs are public. Anyone with access to the Web can find and read a blog, and write comments (if this feature has been turned on). If privacy is an issue, then you will be better off using a blogging tool that allows different levels of access rights. Live Journal http://www.livejournal.com is a good choice, and is particularly popular with teenagers. Live Journal allows the setting up of a closed community, which could be restricted to the members of a class or to a wider circle including other classes, parents, etc.
Well! Good Luck!
JOKES
1
Teacher: Tell me a sentence that starts with an “I”.
Student: I is the....
Teacher: Stop! Never put ‘is’ after an “I”. Always put ‘am’ after an “I”.
Student: OK. I am the ninth letter of the alphabet!
2
A man receives a phone call from his doctor.
The doctor says, “I have some good news and some bad news.”
The man says, “OK, give me the good news first.”
The doctor says, “The good news is, you have 24 hours to live.”
The man replies, “Oh no! If that’s the good news, then what’s the bad news?”
The doctor says, “The bad news is, I forgot to call you yesterday!”
3
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?!
4
My boss is so unpopular even his own shadow refuses to follow him!
5
Patient: Doctor, I think that I’ve been bitten by a vampire.
Doctor: Drink this glass of water.
Patient: Will it make me better?
Doctor: No, but I’ll be able to see if your neck leaks!
FUNNY RIDDLES
1. What teaches without
talking?
2.What has many keys but
can’t open any doors?
3. What walks all day on its
head?
4. What can’t be used until it’s broken?
5. What belongs to you but others use it
more than you do?
(Check below for the answers.)
CROSSWORDS:
COMPUTERS AND INTERNET
ACROSS
1. the part of computer that you look at
5. instructions for a computer to follow
7. a type of communication systems that sends messages via internet
8. a person who is always using the net online
10. a person who uses the Internet
13. the imaginary place where electronic messages, etc. exist while they are being sent between computers
14. Encode computer data
DOWN
1. (making a) copy of a file, program, etc.
3. a person who secretly finds a way of looking at and /or changing infomation on somebody else’s computer without permission
4. an area on the Internet where people can communicate with each other
6. on the Internet
8. computer programs
9. a portable personal computer
11. Someone who is specilist in the practice of a science
12. data structure
References:
Quotable Quotes: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/internet
Caricature: https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/w/web_log.asp
Teaching Tips: https://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/teachers/staff-room/teaching-articles/blogging-elt
Jokes: http://iteslj.org/c/jokes-short.html
Funny Riddles: http://eslmobi.com/3i/a_riddles.htm
Crossword: https://busyteacher.org/15932-computers-and-internet-crossword-puzzle.html
Answers to the Funny Riddles:
1. A book!
2. A piano!
3. A nail in a horseshoe!
4. An egg!
5. Your name!