Hello, everyone.
This is my first blog on Blogger. I have done some other types of blogs before. For example, I keep a travel blog on a Japanese social site called Mixi, and I have blogged a few times on Yahoo.
As far as professionally, I have my writing students at university keep blogs on Moodle. The problem that I have had with this, though, is getting everyone to participate fully. Since blogging is usually only about 10% of the grade, many of the students don't take it seriously. They think, "Oh, 10% is just not worth the effort." What they do is just upload a photo with a few sentences, and then they think they are done. They don't truly interact with other classmates, but just leave some simple comments like, "That's cool." It also seems that they expect me to edit everything they write, even though I explain to the students that blogging is to help develop fluency and to encourage group discussion. I don't want to spend time correcting all of their blog entries. I want the students to feel "free" to write what they like, whether the grammar or spelling is correct or not. Does anyone have any ideas about how to encourage students to blog more freely?
I am interested in using Blogger and seeing how I can apply it to classroom settings.
Hi Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteI clearly understand your problem. Writing is not really appealing to students and they identify blogging with extra work.
When I want to make sure that the introduced 10%-assignments, such as essay writing, blogging, quick-tests, etc. are taken seriously, I first try to challenge them with some truly interesting topic. If that does not work, I have to resort to unpopular measures.
For instance, among other things, I teach Legal English and they take it for 3 semesters. In the last semester they have to write an essay, which is allocated only 10 %. You can imagine how difficult it is motivate them to write something in Legal English. First I tried to make it interesting and created an online forum-kind of workspace where they could submit their writings and discuss each other's ideas. An alternative was to submit the essay on paper and have the discussion in the class. In time, in both cases, they would steal from the Internet. Then I threatened I would punish their plagiarism so they dropped the essay writing altogether as they realized I always find everything. They said they did not need the 10 %. Unfortunately, I had to resort to unpopular measures in order to make sure they complete this part of their obligations, not because I am irrational, stubborn or persistent, but because they need the writing. Therefore, two years ago, I decided that they cannot take their final oral exam if they have not submitted the essay. It works. In the beginning I got all sorts of bad writing and I actually had to assign 0 points to some assignments. Two years later, they submit decent essays on topics they can choose themselves as long as the topics relate to the content of the three-semester Legal English course in any way whatsoever. Furthermore, I give the assignment at the beginning of the third semester and let them know the deadline is the last week of the semester.
I do not know whether you are permitted to impose restrictions or conditions to the marking system in your course. Maybe you can think of some other 'small' penalty measure to have them take the blogging seriously. It is sad to have to admit that they need to be punished in order to make the effort to learn something, though.
I hope my experience is helpful to at least some extent.
Jasmina
Dear Jasmina,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience. I think that there has to be consequences as well for not completing assignments. I like the idea of not allowing students to sit for the final exam if they had not submitted their essays, or in my case, their blogs. I may have to resort to something along these lines.
The university I am teaching at now in China is supposed to be an all-English medium university, but so many of the content professors use Chinese in class that students often feel that they don't really need to improve their English in order to survive or graduate from here. It is sad. Like the saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child." I also think it takes a whole community of teachers to educate a student, so without the cooperation from other departments, it is hard to encourage students to improve their English writing skills.
Thanks again!
Evelyn
Dear Evelyn,
DeleteI know exactly what you mean. It is what it is. Students all over the world take the easier road and the few enthusiasts among them cannot motivate the rest. I like to refer to those good students as the members of my personal nerd club! I know, it is funny and the students laugh when they hear this. It is an internal joke.
Do not give up. I am sure that rewards do come. At least occasionally, don't they?
I guess this will be a topic yet to be explored in the future.
Jasmina
Hi Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteThe way our assignments and participation are weighed in this course is interesting:
Discussions: 10 points per week - 20% overall
Blog posts: 5 points per week - 20% overall
Tasks: 5 points per task - 20% overall
Project Tasks: 10 points per task - 20% overall
Project Report: 50 points - 20% overall
As you can see they have equal weighting. Maybe you could do something similar for your course. Or increase the task's weighting after of course you consider which skills + knowledge of subject come into use in order for your students to be able to deliver a blog + comments that are satisfactory.
See what works best in your case...and I must say I love Jasmina's approach.
This is why I like networks/platforms- you know, I had a similar problem with my students when I used a Facebook group and only now after chatting/blogging with you guys, I can see a
a way out.
Mireille
Hi Evelyn
ReplyDeleteAn interesting post and issue that you'd raised here.
I've seen blogging gaining popularity in many YL classes and teachers using the SM platforms to ask other colleagues to leave comments on the kids' posts. I believe that works in a way. The rationale here could be like this. It always encourages us to write more when we find that people read what we write and leave comments/thoughts etc which builds the conversation. In other words, when we realise that there is audience for what we write I believe it works.
Jasmina's and Mireille's suggestions can also to be considered.
Cherry.
Hi Evelyn!
ReplyDeleteWhat you described has also happened to me. I also used a blog for my students to interact in my pronunciation classes several years ago. It did not work either because of different reasons. I think that rewarding positively to your students by giving them more grades on discussions and different activities on the blog will motivate them to work. Besides, you can expose to them the advantages of using technology through blogs, so they can be more conscious of their leaning process.
Regards!
Thank you guys for your feedback. It is nice to know I am not alone. I will experiment with other methods. Perhaps just making small groups instead of entire class blogrolls might be one good answer. Then, they would not get overwhelmed in reading so many and commenting so much.
ReplyDeleteThanks!