Ways to use blogs in language teaching:

After investing some focus on creating a blog and discussing its benefits in language teaching, I think it's time now to think how to use it; the issue that I've been thinking throughout the previous days. From reading some materials, the discussion taken place here in Nicenet and my own reflection, I can state now some ways on how I intend to use blogging.
* Project work: the students would carry their project on collaboratively. As a teacher, this allows you to observe the learners' work in progress and how each member of the group participates in the project. It would help you know who has done what and when. Doing projects in a blog would also help you guide you students and give them feedback in time. Your students wouldn't need to wait until they meet you in class to hand their production in or to get feedback. This could be done at any time.
* Assignments/Homework: I can post on the blog tasks that my students have to do. By doing so, you push them get to the blog on a regular basis especially if they know they are seriously required to do the homework. Another advantage is that you save time in class for other activities. Homework correction could also be carried out in the blog by giving feedback and encouraging peer correction. Here, there is a risk of discouraging students but, I think, to escape this, the teacher may keep a list of common mistakes and post them to the blog without referring to the students who have done them. If a feedback is recommended to a particular learner, I'd rather react by sending an email or correct him/her face-to-face.
* Thematic discussions: discussing topics on blogs is an excellent approach especially if the English curriculum is theme-based. Discussions could be stimulated in the blog where all the learners take part exposing their ideas freely. The role of the teacher is to provoke discussions, encourage the students to participate and keep the discussions on the thread.
* E-portfolio: Every student would get a blog as a portfolio. This would facilitate assessment as it helps you have a clear idea about the work of the students and it is not demanding.
* Practice with the four skills: A blog could be a fertile land for developing language skills either separated or integrated.
- Reading: The teacher post texts for the students to read and related comprehension exercises.
- Writing: The blog could be a room to practice all types and forms of writing. The teacher might focus on process writing, productive writing or informal writing while discussion and commenting…
- Speaking: The blog could be used to project audios and videos done by the students. Instead of doing it in the classroom, a student or a group of students would be asked to make a record of them giving a presentation or making an interview and upload it to the blog. Their peers should be prompted to respond by asking them to make summaries, give opinion, ask the presenters questions and so on.
- Listening/watching: The teacher might upload audios and videos with listening comprehension or “watching” comprehension tasks. Note that the materials could be done by the students themselves.
* Games: I don’t know if the blog would support installing certain interactive games. Something I have to discover! But there are games that are very simple to display such as crossword puzzles, riddles… Remember that games are so much motivating to all types of learners.
Here is another point I'd like to add to the list above.
* Webquest: It is an inquiry-oriented task format. the students could be asked questions that they have to answer, but they have to do many readings through moving from a hyperlink to another till they get the answer to the question. The inquiry might be adjusted to the level of the students, but the answer should not be somehow challenging by making the learners move from a link to another and read and read. For further reading about webquest, I suggest the link: www.webquest.org