During the first session of the Web-based ELT seminar, we were asked whether we worked with computers and the internet in our English lessons at school. After thinking about that for a while, I realised that, although my former school already had a quite good computer room, we didn’t work there a lot. From time to time, we were supposed to do some research, e.g. on Shakespeare, online but most of the time we spent our lessons traditionally in the classroom. I however can’t really say that I would have liked to work in the computer room more often because the english lessons were alright. Having said that we didn’t use the internet a lot, of course neither the teacher nor the pupils had a blog dedicated to the contents of the english lessons.
Blogs in school?
I must admit that I’ve never heard anything about blogs in schools before the first session of this seminar. Thinking about it, I can imagine that pupils can have a lot of fun with blogs and using them in school lessons, particularly in english lessons, might be a good way to combine their interest for web-communties and using the english language.
Potential and risks
Especially in the Oberstufe, pupils are often asked to write texts in English, both in exams and as a homework. When they do so for homework, for most of them it often takes time to create an accurate and correct text. The more work they put in it, the more disappointed most of them are when the teacher does not find the time to read and comment on the written pieces. Using blogs does not give the teacher more time to read the texts but it widens the public exposure of the texts, as pupils can read each other’s posts and comment on them. In addition to this, blogs probably are more interesting for pupils than their traditional text book and exercise book.
At the same time, this could also be a potential drawback. In the beginning, most of the pupils will be quite excited about working online and being able to read each other’s posts. But like any new thing, blogs may run the risk of losing their charm after some time. This is where the teacher comes into play: He should always have the function as a moderator who keeps in the background most of the time but still controls what is going on on the platform and keeps the system running. This can be done, for example, by posting his own comments and new tasks that can be worked on online.
Be aware
There are of course more aspects that should be considered when working with an online-platform . Before introducing blogs to learners, the teacher should familiarise himself with the potentials and risks to make sure that blogs will enrich and not complicate the english lessons.
