ESL Free writing with blogs!

This semester I’m trying a new experiment with my class. Instead of writing journals like last semester, students will write blogs.

The main purpose of this activity is to get students involved in free writing. Free writing means that students try to write down their ideas quickly, without worrying about using the dictionary to check spelling and grammar. The value of the activity is that it can develop writing FLUENCY, which essentially means that students can write at greater speeds.

The main value of writing a blog versus a journal is that students can easily share their blogs with their friends and family overseas, add photos to enrich their writing, and the blogs are less likely to be lost or damaged than a paper journal. Students must write in their journals at least once per week and given my deep sense of egalitarianism, I shall endeavour to do the same!