Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes

Campbell, Aaron (2003). Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes. Ryukoku University (Seta, Japan), Retrieved 04/04/2009, from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Campbell-Weblogs.html


This article is about the use of weblogs in ESL classes. The writer of this paper is Aaron Patric Campbell. Mr. Campbell is a blogger too. His intention of writing this paper is to introduce ways of using Weblogs in teaching ESL, to define Weblogs, and to show different kinds of weblogs in teaching ESL. He also mentions available information about software used in weblogs.
According to Mr. Campbell weblogs “ can be thought of as an online journal that an individual can continuously update with his or her own words, ideas, and thoughts through software that enables one to easily do so” ( Campbell, 2003, Ryukoku University Seta, Japan) , he think that anyone with basic computer skill can mange to use weblogs. He think weblogs are very effective in term of creates both a record of learning and a resource for others. Mr. Campbell explains three types of weblogs that can be used in ESL classes:
the first one is the tutor blog, this one can help the teacher to provides reading assignment to his students, to discover English weblogs, to use online conversation, to provide many links to encourage the students to be self- directed learners, and finally, to make course materials available to the students such as syllabus
The second one is the Learner Blog; this one can be run by group or individual learner. The third one is the Class Blog which is helpful for many teachers and students because it has been used as toll for classroom discussion, facilitating languages project, international classroom to share ideas and experiences, and finally as good toll for writing and reading in order to obtain feedback from peers.
Mr. Campbell said there are much software in the market, there for our preference should match our needs. Mr. Campbell concluded his paper by encouraging linguistics to use weblogs because it is easy and effective in teaching and learning languages.
I visited Mr. Campbell’s weblog. I think his weblog is powerful, well organized, and has a visitors from all over the world. You can see the strength of his paper when you see his weblog. However, I think the only weakness of this paper; he did say any thing about the role of weblog in teaching culture, which is a crucial in teaching foreign languages.