Blogging and Micro blogging in ESL/EFL classrooms

Teaching English to ESL students is very challenging. The English language classroom has always been associated with competencies, such as grammar, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic competencies, which are practiced through classroom tasks and activities. However, ESL/EFL learners need an authentic chance to use English as a tool of communication. Usually, this latter is not provided in traditional classrooms. So the technology comes to provide opportunities for the students to integrate new ideas with prior knowledge, to make meaning and enable learning through reflection. Blogs and micro blogs have specific pedagogical roles in language learning.

 

 Will Richardson, the author of the highly read blogs refers to the blogs as spaces to share experience, exchange knowledge and achieve communicative competence. We can find people who are passionate about the same things we are. The blogs are more than journaling or writing diaries. They can link and provide more learning, more investigation and more evaluation. Blogging takes some energy and needs intellectual involvement. It trains the learners to think critically and share their ideas in an interesting learning framework. Additionally, Micro blogging tools enable users to post short messages that are distributed within their community. They are also used as active learning tools in ESL/EFL classrooms. For example, twitter can be used as an colloquial communicative tool, where the students exchange short massages using the target language. Blogging and Micro blogging tools can be used safely, securely and easily. As an ESL/EFL teacher, I am ready to implement blogging, Micro blogging and any other tools that motivate my learners’ creativity and improve their language proficiency skills.

As a TEFL professional, I really like the ideas of blogging and twitting. I think our students belong to the digital generation and they are interested in exploring the world through their knowledge, rather than just being passive receptors. Consequently, I can adapt these tools in different learners with different age groups, based on their needs and the course objectives. I can use blogging and twitter in any school that has a computer lab. I think that language lab classes may be very useful to facilitate the students’ learning and develop their proficiency level. In the schools, we can ask the computer teacher to help the learners to solve the technical problems. Additionally, the blogging assignments may be good to develop the students’ reading and writing skills. For example, it would be interesting to create a digital book club by posting a reading article and asking the learners to read it and write some comments. This can be evaluated according to a classroom rubric, which can be only for reading comprehension or for writing accuracy and fluency. Some other tasks can be created by using the twitter. For example, the teacher asks the students to twit each other using past tense verbs, proverbs, or idioms. Finally, I think we need to practice these tools to overcome all the challenges that we may face. Learners may also have some technical problems at home which may prohibit them from doing their homework. As a result, it would be better to do most of the assignments in the language lab classes.

 

 

 I want to provide opportunities for my learners to reflect on their learning and do some interesting writings. Moreover, I think using these tools to create an extensive reading community can be very helpful for my students. We can read educational posts and have a discussion, based on the information presented in the post. I believe that the learners are more interested to read and write in spaces, where they are free of the classroom limitations. Finally, we should practice blog if we want to use it. There is free blogging software available for everyone such as; blogger.com or audblog.com. I want my students to build a community where they can interact with each other, share their ideas and have a lifelong learning.