ELL-Strategies+-+Blogging

Strategies for Using Blogs in the ELL Environment
With the use of blogging, ELL students are provided the opportunity to “reflect, comment, question, and review progress.” Blogging also has the power to "unleash learning and communication." It is suggested to set up an environment that offers, “significant feedback and input from the teacher." There is also the option of having students provide feedback to each other. Feedback could include one thing that student found positive about the post, one thing that their peer could work on or improve, and also sharing a personal story that relates to the post.
 * Blogging:**

The teacher must also explain the benefit of blogging so that it sets a purpose for the writing tool. One of the biggest advantages of blogging is that it provides English Language Learner students with the opportunity to practice their writing and communication skills. It could be a place for the student to share his/her thoughts through the use of any English that they know. Blogs also allow English Language Learners to share their “voice” with other students in the classroom. The ELL student has more think time to process the translation of words from their native language to English through a blog rather than with verbal communication. Blogging helps ELL students with their English grammar as well as language development, which includes forming whole sentences.

The blogs should be “structured around a series of specific activities or topics.” The teacher can develop tutor, learner, and/or class blogs – each with a specific purpose and goal. The teacher should also consider providing students with sentence starters. This will get each student thinking about different areas to talk about in regards to their topic.

The __tutor blog__ can be set up where students practice reading a few sentences each day reviewing key words and phrases from previous lessons. Students could reply in audio format recording their oral reading of the sentences.

The __learner blog__ is where writing practice can be the focal point. An audio blog could be listened to and then students respond via text. The audio blog prompt could originate from another classmate. Students need to respond to the prompt through writing. Another idea is that the teacher could provide sentences with errors in them (i.e. verb tense, sentence structure) and the students need to correct errors in the sentences. Students may even be required to explain //why// they are errors.

The __class blog__ can be set up where students freely interact with one another through audio and text. This can be set up to be a student forum to discuss topics they choose (in the learning language). This is another way for English Language Learners to develop stronger relationships with their peers by communicating about topics that they share an interest in. The class blog could be assigned as a weekly homework assignment so that students can stay connected even outside of school.

Blogging offers many varying facets students and teachers can choose from to enhance language acquisition. It is also important to remember that strategies intended to enhance student learning can also introduce new issues. ELL students may have a weak background in using computers and the technology capabilities they can offer. Keyboarding, mouse manipulation, and program navigation may also be drawbacks in using computers. Teachers with ELL students need to take these issues into account and plan for instruction with them in mind.

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