Friday, March 11, 2005
EFL105 - 2004-2005 Spring Semester
EFL105 - 2004-2005 Spring Semester
Thanks Seval for sharing your experience with us. It's really encouraging to see how you've started to use a blog. I had a look at the comments your students wrote--interesting to note that some chose to write in Turkish, while others wrote in English. Did you give them the option, or did you just leave it up to them? Perhaps it's just LAW students (but I think not!) that have an obsession with exam preparation and grammar, but it's really interesting to give students a forum like this where they express their needs.
In my group, Nazenin and Makbule were helping me out with the f2f contact while I was still at home. I was in the unique position of not having seen them f2f, so I used the blog as a sort of 'ice-breaker' - I was encouraged by the quality of the responses, even though only four found time to reply so far. But, like you, I find this blogging environment very easy and 'sympathetic' and even 'fun'! Now, if it actually makes our lives easier, and improves the service we try to provide to our students, I think we may be on to a winner...
If anyone else is attempting to use a blog with your students, don't hesitate to drop a note in this blog so we can share ideas and experiences.
Thanks again, Seval, for getting back to us with your blog.
[P.S. I'm really interested in getting hold of 'authentic' student writing-like the comments in your blog--to analyze from a lexical point of view. Would you be willing to let me have a copy at the end of the term? I suppose, we would also have to ask the students for their permission as well, since they have copyright on anything that they create in your blog. But, it would be a great resource, as we could not only get a profile of the productive lexis that students 'comfortably' produce by comparing it with the BNL, but we could also produce a concordance of these writings which would highlight a lot of the common problems in terms of grammar, syntax and lexis. In a few years time, with a few more blogs, we could have quite an interesting database. Let me know what you think.
Thanks Seval for sharing your experience with us. It's really encouraging to see how you've started to use a blog. I had a look at the comments your students wrote--interesting to note that some chose to write in Turkish, while others wrote in English. Did you give them the option, or did you just leave it up to them? Perhaps it's just LAW students (but I think not!) that have an obsession with exam preparation and grammar, but it's really interesting to give students a forum like this where they express their needs.
In my group, Nazenin and Makbule were helping me out with the f2f contact while I was still at home. I was in the unique position of not having seen them f2f, so I used the blog as a sort of 'ice-breaker' - I was encouraged by the quality of the responses, even though only four found time to reply so far. But, like you, I find this blogging environment very easy and 'sympathetic' and even 'fun'! Now, if it actually makes our lives easier, and improves the service we try to provide to our students, I think we may be on to a winner...
If anyone else is attempting to use a blog with your students, don't hesitate to drop a note in this blog so we can share ideas and experiences.
Thanks again, Seval, for getting back to us with your blog.
[P.S. I'm really interested in getting hold of 'authentic' student writing-like the comments in your blog--to analyze from a lexical point of view. Would you be willing to let me have a copy at the end of the term? I suppose, we would also have to ask the students for their permission as well, since they have copyright on anything that they create in your blog. But, it would be a great resource, as we could not only get a profile of the productive lexis that students 'comfortably' produce by comparing it with the BNL, but we could also produce a concordance of these writings which would highlight a lot of the common problems in terms of grammar, syntax and lexis. In a few years time, with a few more blogs, we could have quite an interesting database. Let me know what you think.
# posted by Steve Neufeld @ 1:38 AM 
