Education Commons^™

Learning Language And Vocabulary In Dialogue With The Real Audience: Exploring Young Writers’ Authentic Writing And Language Learning Experiences, Ewa Mcgrail, J. Patrick Mcgrail, Alicja Rieger

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

Purpose: To explore the potential of conversations with an authentic audience through blogging for enriching in the young writers the understanding of the communicative function of writing, specifically language and vocabulary use.

Design: We situate our work in a language acquisition model of language learning where learners develop linguistic competence in the process of speaking and using the language (Krashen, 1988; Tomasello, 2005). We also believe that language learning benefits from formal instruction (Krashen, 1988). As such, in our work, we likened engaging in blogging to learning a language (here, more broadly conceived as learning to write) through both natural …

Voices From The Classroom: Elementary Students’ Perceptions Of Blogging, Ewa Mcgrail, Ann Davis

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

Blogging appears to be a promising instructional strategy which may provide solutions to some of the challenges in traditional writing instruction; however, few studies explore elementary students’ views on blogging. This qualitative case study gives elementary students voice as it examines their perceptions of blogging and their views of themselves as writers, readers, and learners. The researchers drew from multiple data sources, including student and teacher interviews, student and teacher blog writing, and classroom observations, to ascertain young writers’ perspectives. The findings indicate these student bloggers’ reader awareness and appreciation of the reader-writer relationship. Student bloggers also benefited from emotional …

Establish Your Presence In The Blogosphere: A Guide To Blog Development For The Foreign Langauge Classroom, Peter B. Swanson, Patricia Early

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

As the wave of technology progresses, the static Web page has given way to the Weblog (blog) as a medium for delivering information. The blog has moved the technology forward with its bidirectional communication ability. This article discusses the evolution of blogs, important considerations when establishing a blog presence, and directions for creating blogs. Online examples are given to guide the reader.