Barry Bakin's Blog

From LiteracyTentWiki

Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 17:23:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Bakin, Barry" <barry.bakin@lausd.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-technology@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:3652] RE: Using blogs in the classroom

I have just started a blog for my classroom at http://www.pacoimaesl.blogspot.com/ My intention was twofold. I wanted to create a way for students to maintain contact with me and interact with the rest of the class even if they can't attend on a particular day (or several days or even weeks) and also provide a forum for extra writing and grammar practice for all of the students. This semester in particular, it seems like I had more than the usual number of students who told me that they couldn't attend anymore because their schedule had changed or their children were on vacation or they had found a new job. I am hoping that those with an internet connection can continue to participate in some fashion so that if their schedules revert back or their children return to school before the semester ends, they'll still feel tied in to the class and will return without waiting for a new semester to begin. Our public library system has free internet access so it's also possible that students who don't have internet access at home can go to the library if they can't come to class.

I've only been doing this since May so there really isn't much there yet but you can see the basic structure. At first, I had the students post their responses as comments to the blog. Then, I realized that subsequent students would see all the previous corrected answers and wouldn't gain as much benefit from doing the practices themselves. I then decided that each student should have their own blog. This of course meant that they would all have to create a blog adding another layer of complexity to the whole exercise. To date, a handle of students have done that, and of that group, one or two are more active in actually reading the exercises and posting responses. You can see the students' blogs by clicking on the links at the right. The interactive aspect of students writing and my giving them suggestions seems to be working well and isn't much more time-consuming then when I had them print out their writing and I took pen to paper and handed it back.

Some issues to consider that I've become aware of as I looked at others using blogs for ESL. 1. I haven't run into this myself yet, but undesirable content can get posted to blogs and a "next blog" button that is a feature on at least eblogger can bring a student to undesirable blogs at a click. There are ways to work around this. A discussion about this issue can be found at http://www.weblogg-ed.com/newsItems/departments/weblogTech (Will Richardson's blog). 2. The photos that are posted on my blog were all of adult students who signed photo releases (a requirement of our district for any work posted on the Internet). Taking photos and getting students to sign photo releases can be quite time-consuming. 3. It occurs to me that the blogs themselves probably need releases and I'm going to have to go back and get the students to sign them now!

Cathryn Crosby of Ohio State University has put up some notes at http://esl.osu.edu/staff/bloch/weblog/ which discuss a complete workshop presented at TESOL 2005 (the international conference for the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages professional organization) and has a list of ESL/EFL blogs included. Check out http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/ for one such ESL/EFL blog.

Another blog that I think is most relevant and was one of the inspirations for the activities I have chosen to do with my students is http://ourenglishclass2.blogspot.com/ out of Sydney, Australia.

I haven't yet decided if I will continue to incorporate blogging in subsequent semesters. It takes quite a bit of time to get each student to the point of creating their own blog and being able to post responses, and while I think it is a great extra tool for language learning, I've also not been able to do much of the other non-internet based projects that I have always done with my classes because of the time taken away from them (using Word, PowerPoint, Paint or Excel for language practice).

Finally, searching on google using terms like "blog for esl" or "esl blogs" will bring you lots of links to explore.

Barry Bakin
ESL Teacher Adviser, Division of Adult and Career Education,
Los Angeles Unified School District
ESL Teacher
Pacoima Skills Center
Division of Adult and Career Education,
Los Angeles Unified School District