Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
In order to avoid beeing like the man in the picture. I want to start with a short step
I have decided to create a class blog for a specific group of students in my country as part of my research project. I am doing a masters in ELT and Multimedia, so I want to try the blog with these students and see how they can benefit from it. I chose this specific group, because they just started learning English last year and they have shown a poor level of achievement. I hope that through the implementation of blogging during a period of time, they will be more motivated to learn the language and also that this practice help them improve their academic performance.
As this is the first time they will do something like this, I am going to start and administer the blog. The topics we will talk about will be related to the syllabus. I do not intend to teach them grammar or vocab, but to provide some space where they can feel free to express their feelings and opinions. I will add links related to places where they can revise the grammar and vocabulary they are learning in the classroom and do exercises. This experience with bloggin4educators has certainly given me the chance to explore very interesting and useful links I have found while visiting my partners and tutors´ blogs.
The students in this project will spend one hour a week in a lab, but I expect them to be so engaged in the project that they will keep writing comments and trying things out in their free time. I do not want students to be evaluated for their posts, not during this first stage, because I want to see how motivating this activity can be and the best way of finding out is to make them feel free to visit the blog whenever they want.
I know for sure that I will embed some widgets, but I have not decided which ones yet. I know I have to make it very visually attractive and include video and songs, always with a pedagogical focus that do not spoil the fun, of course.
I hope I can keep in contact with many of you, to receive suggestions and continue learning.
1 comment:
Dear Consuelo,
You have thought it out very carefully and you have set yourself achievable goals. That's great. I think it is a great idea to start with a group that hasn't been doing well in the previous period. I absolutely agree with you that you shouldn't teach them grammar or vocabulary in the blog, but use it to motivate them to write and think in English.
I am going to blog with my students for the first time too and I am a bit nervous about it. At first I made grand plans, I was going to blog with every single group I had, but now I believe I will only choose one group as well.
I hope it works
Natasa
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