Professional Development Training

On Friday 28th October I offered professional development training to my colleagues on using Blogs for teaching writing (or at least for encouraging Ss to write) in their own classrooms. One of my colleagues has since introduced her class to writing with Blogs. Her URL is www.parkin-dodd-standing.blogspot.com . In discussion with me she raised an interesting point; that some of her students don't want anyone to be able to read their blogs. We'll have to look at the settings and see if it is possible to block accessibility. But, should the teacher have access? It's something that I hadn't considered before... the idea of privacy in a public forum.

Some of the other trainees who took part in the session have got blogsites at:
www.bizbiz3.blogspot.com
www.wendythink.blogspot.com
www.galespot.blogspot.com
www.mokkosu.blogspot.com

There were seven trainees in all who took part, but a number has suggested that they wouldn't mind if it was offered again as they weren't able to be there but would have liked to have been.

Other students

Some of my morning class students have come to me wanting more writing practice. Of course, in a business like this the 'cry' of so many teachers is that we do not have sufficient time to be able to meet the needs of students one-on-one. However, I have told these students that they can extend themselves in writing by using a blog, and that I will provide feedback as I can, along with the other students in my afternoon class.

Good on them for being proactive and motivated. I applaud them, and will do my best to help them with their writing to the best of my ability (within the constraints of time).
www.jasonsim81.blogspot.com
www.jhoandnorys.blogspot.com
www.mesho0o.blogspot.com

More student blog sites

With this class I first discussed the reason for keeping a journal or diary. The students were very good and came up with all or most of the reasons that I had anticipated.... namely, to preserve the memory of a time or series of events, to share your experiences with family or other interested readers, to practice writing fluency, and to watch writing progress.

I then gave them three team reading activities using excerpts from a journal that I had kept from an experience I had had overseas. We discussed what the writer had described, and compared it in a class discussion with the students' experiences.

The theme for the week was food, so I suggested that the students began their first entry on food in NZ (we are not renowned for our food specialities!) A fascinating discussion ensued, and this provided impetus for setting up a blog and writing. My instructions to the students were to go and look at other student blog sites before designing their own, but they didn't bother to look at other sites; they were too keen to set up their own and begin writing!

Here are the blog sites of this particular class.

www.fredbf.blogspot.com
www.hamiltonlife2005.blogspot.com
www.chikafavorite.blogspot.com
www.cnbenlu.blogspot.com
www.yukakonagata.blogspot.com
www.genteel0.blogspot.com
www.uvsjordan.blogspot.com
www.jeonjaeyeol.blogspot.com
www.beginsomethingwithme.blogspot.com
www.sunnys-dream.blogspot.com
www.koreagood.blogspot.com
www.gorgeouskate.blogspot.com

Ss who have now left the course.
http://www.janis-jottings.blogspot.com/
http://www.kimyw703.blogspot.com/
http://www.thanyapha.blogspot.com/
http://www.mic-student.blogspot.com/
http://www.momotutsu.blogspot.com/
www.sanaesays.blogspot.com
www.braziliankiwi.blogspot.com
www.janet-luo.blogspot.com
www.akiko-life-in-nz.blogspot.com
www.majedalsinan.blogspot.com
www.kimminah.blogspot.com
www.nana-ilets.blogspot.com
www.tsumagari.blogspot.com
www.ji-ij.blogspot.com
www.show-zone.blogspot.com
www.ohoooooh.blogspot.com
www.yujunishappy.blogspot.com
www.choco-by-the-kiwi.blogspot.com
http://www.hiperz.blogspot.com/

Making class newspapers

I have been frantically searching the web looking for a newspaper template that I might be able to use with my students in the CALL class. In my search I found the following page. This page is interesting because it sets out the Ss' task totally from go to finish. If we are eventually to be running mixed mode delivery with students doing a lot of their work from their homes or centres off site, pages like this are not unlikely.

http://www.inside.iskl.edu.my/i-bay/academics/ms/childlabour/child_labour_webquest_present.htm

Using Wikis

Recently I have introduced the class to wikis. A wiki, as most people know, is an editable website. The most famous wiki is Wikipedia, which is an encyclopaedia written for everyone and anyone by anyone and everyone. Accuracy is maintained by the scrutiny of the users.

The wiki that these students have been working on is called "Living Successfully in NZ" and can be viewed at: Student Wiki

Rationale:
Collaboration. I wanted the students to develop their negotiation skills. Their brief was to come up with a document that gave advice to new visitors to NZ about living in NZ. They had to decide themselves what topics might be included, and in teams who was responsible for the different information in different parts of the wiki. You will find that although the students have written about various aspects of NZ life, they haven't yet quite mastered the language of giving advice. Much of the information is simply factual.

Writing to be read: I wanted the students to have an outlet for writing other than producing an exercise for the teacher. This document is live, and can be read by anyone who is sufficiently interested to go there and by each other. There is nothing secret about writing in this forum. Therefore there the added incentive (although very slight) to encourage the students to think about their accuracy, about what they are saying... and about what they mean, because you (the reader) are not likely to be as understanding and patient as I... their teacher.

Students' blog sites

I have just introduced another class of 13 students to the possibilty of improving their English by keeping blog diaries. What really amazed me was how they "took to it like the proverbial ducks to water". Only one of the students in the group had a blog (in Korean), yet the rest of them seemed to understand (almost instinctively) how they worked and their potential.

The students looked at a blog from a previous class, before starting their own. They saw that it is possible to store pictures with commentaries, which is what some of them did in their first entry... I don't even know how to do that! I also noticed that in some cases they were quite happy to express negative emotions. They don't get much of a chance to do this, so I'm pleased that they feel free to do so here.

Here is a list of the webpages from the class.
www.cool79.blogspot.com
www.vanessaliu.blogspot.com
www.cherrisakura.blogspot.com
www.farxiho.blogspot.com
www.specialyac.blogspot.com
www.haofengzhu.blogspot.com
www.michikowada.blogspot.com
www.tomokofeeling.blogspot.com
www.vincenthe.blogspot.com
www.ritalan.blogspot.com
www.plutoking.blogspot.com
www.loloha.blogspot.com
www.mubyaclau.blogspot.com
www.ktoony.blogspot.com

Cautious language

The ability to use cautious language when writing demonstrates that a language student is maturing in his or her ability to manipulate ideas and words with more skill. It is a mark of an inexperienced or lower level student that statements and opinions are expressed in the strongest terms. This lessens the quality and authority of their writing by opening it to challenge from the reader.

In class we analysed a piece of text for evidence of cautious language. The predominant method modifying the strength of a statement is by using modals. There are a number of other language features that can be used for this purpose as well, (such as verb clauses, adjectives/adverbs, and noun phrases). We then did some sentence exercises, which we modified some statements from informal to formal, and from inappropriately strong to more moderate.

I have frequently found that students can complete exercises correctly, but they don't always find it as easy to transfer there knowledge into their own writing, so as an exercise I asked the students to write a paragraph in which they showed that they could use the cautious language that I had taught them in class.

For each nationality I discussed in class the reasons that certain things happened. For my Chinese students I asked them to discuss the reasons why there are now less students coming to NZ to study English than there were a few years ago. For other nationalities we discussed the reasons that there are more students choosing to study English in NZ.

For those of you who might be interested to see the results of this exercise you can click on the links below and read the students ideas.

http://okhranaxp.blogspot.com
http://hehediary.blogspot.com
http://bannsuan.blogspot.com

New Zealand weather

The first task that I have given the students to complete is to reflect on New Zealand's weather. Being an island nation we have varied weather patterns, even over the course of one day. Many of our students here come from mainland China, meaning that they have experienced very different weather, and notice particularly our weather when they arrive. However, we have students from all over the world, whose perspective on our weather is equally valid.

I am looking for richness of vocabulary, so I'm expecting the students to use whatever resources they have at their disposal, (including me) to augment their lexicon.

For those of you who may be interested in the success (or otherwise) of this exercise you can check out the blogs of two of my students.

http://okhranaxp.blogspot.com
http://hehediary.blogspot.com

Introduction

I'm a teacher (of English) at the University of Waikato Language Institute in New Zealand, and this site is a test site for using blogs to teach writing skills. The idea is that the students maintain a journal of their thoughts and experiences while over here in New Zealand. Writing on a regular basis must help them to improve fluency (if not grammar and vocabulary), and the fact that their musings are live should impact on accuracy. Hopefully, the possibility that you may be reading will add rigour to their proof-reading.