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What is a blog? Reasons for using a blog in language learning

This blog was created as an assignment for ICT applied to ELT subject at UTN in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

What is a blog?

A blog is an online journal or diary. It consists of a chronological lists of entries  or posts. These entries can contain text, photographs and links ot other web pages.


Blogs in ELT


Michael Thomas stated,"Blogosphere is an authentic community of social interaction through discourse writing"(Thomas, 2008, p.279) Weblogs were mainly created to link together pages on the web that the weblog author considered interesting or noteworthy. Weblogs offer many opportunities to language teachers because they are easy to set up and operate and can be an effective way of communicating with learners outside lesson time. They also allow the learner the opportunity to do extra work, so the use of technology can consolidate and extend the classroom work, an ideal blended- learning approach.

User-Friendly Technology: Fortunately for teachers, blogs are very easy to use. They require minimum technical knowledge and are quickly and easily created and maintained. Students will find them convenient and accessible via home or any other computer.

Educational Benefits of Blogs: In addition to providing teachers with an excellent tool for communicating with students, there are numerous educational benefits of blogs.

Blogs are:

• Highly motivating to students, especially those who otherwise might not become participants in classrooms.
• Excellent opportunities for students to read and write.
• Effective forums for collaboration and discussion.
• Blogs allow students to comment on blog entries, thereby creating an online community around a common topic, interest or person.
• Using a blog can establish good practices of learner autonomy. Learners have to be proactive in accessing the information you have posted to the blog and following the links to online resources.

I firmly believe this tool allows for social interaction as well as facilitating learning in a web-based environment. Students will be able to use their own creativity and share and contribute ideas and their work. It is like bringing the outside world into the classroom. Students will find another way of learning.

Valeria

Reference list:

Thomas, Michael.(2008) Handbook of Resarch on Web 2.0 and Second Language Learning. Nagoya,  Japan:IGI Global.
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