Review of Randall’s ESL blog: For ESL/EFL Teachers and Students of English

Website Title: Randall’s ESL blog: For ESL/EFL Teachers and Students of English

Website URL: http://esl-lab.blogspot.com/

Grade/Age Level: wide range – not explicitly stated, but I have used the non-blog website (http://www.esl-lab.com/) partnered with this from our Level 2 (Level 1 is the lowest) up to Level 6 (the highest level with Communication class in our 7-level program); the blog seems to be more accessible to intermediate and higher level learners, but beginners could also benefit. 

Language & Content:                                        

English – blog for reading on a wide variety of topics and numerous links

I chose this blog because I regularly use the http://www.esl-lab.com/ website for my communication students of various levels. I really like the variety and types of listening activities and other activities on the side, so I thought the blog by the same “Randall” would also have good resources and information.

            The purpose of this website is (as the title explains) to provide information for ESL/EFL teachers and students of English. The entries generally include a link to a resource that Randall is recommending, which is great because visitors can feel like they are getting new info with each visit. The information is presented in standard blog format with entries and headings. There are links and contact information on the left side in addition to the links within the entries. There is no ‘guide’ per se, but the usage is the blog is pretty straight forward the numerous external links are definitely a strength of the site.

            One of the interesting factors for the target audience is the wide variety of topics in the various blog entries including Randall’s marathons, his children, cultural points (How common is reading for pleasure in your country?), gardening, health care, etc. I think both language teachers and learners appreciate the wide range of topics related to language and also not related to language classrooms. Of course, the language classroom is a big part of our lives, but there is a whole wide world of other topics. Also, by writing about his own life and activities, people who visit the blog can feel more of personal connection, which is part of the appeal of blogs. Randall has posted his email address so that blog-visitors can contact him directly.

In addition, the survey questions like “If you saw a classmate cheating on an English test, what would you do?” or “Would you rather be taught by a native or non-native teacher of English?” with multiple choice answers are an interesting hook to make students and teachers think about classroom, language, and cultural issues. By clicking on an answer and then being able to see the answers so far (of course, including yours), helps the student to make a personal connection and feel more invested. Also, because the questions change every so often (I don’t know how often), students could come back to the website partly to see what the new questions are. These questions add to the ‘playful’ or enjoyable features of using English on a blog.

The blog itself is good for reading, but the links are good for a wider variety of language practice websites and also informational sites. This blog offers many links to other language-related and non-language related links. There is also value to non-language related links because they are authentic English sources containing information (personal, cultural, etc.) as opposed to just language practice sites. This blog has several links to sites with language practice as I mentioned before in this review. These sites offer language practice including many levels of listening passages, comprehension quizzes, practice with grammar, slang, and phrasal verbs, etc.

            The layout is easy to use and has a simple, clean design.  As I mentioned before, one of the strengths is the links including the http://www.esl-lab.com/ site I mentioned using in my classes and also http://www.englishvoices.org/, which was also created by Randall. There is a convenient search function and thorough archives back to 2007 – a plethora of information!

My only suggestion for this site can be improved is that it is not very accessible for lower-level learners. However, beginners can also benefit. Realistically, it would be an arduous task to try to make a blog for the whole gamut from absolute beginners to ESL/EFL teachers. I think the blog is written in a style that is accessible to a wide range of English abilities. Overall, this is a solid site I would recommend to colleagues and learners. In fact, I’m going to add the blog to my resources on Oncourse for my communication classes this session and in the future.   

Reflections on Egbert (2005) and Warschauer (2010)

Please excuse my Oncourse message to slide in before the deadline!! Here is the same info in the right place!!

Reflection on Egbert (2005)

As I read the Egbert (2005) article, I found myself nodding my head often in agreement and also actually saying, “Yes!” from my experiences as a language learner and a language teacher. I especially identified and agreed with the 8 points - actually from Egbert and Hanson-Smith (1999):

1.       

Learners have opportunities to interact socially and negotiate meaning.

2.      Learners interact in the target language and with an authentic audience.

3.      Learners are involved in authentic tasks.

4.      Learners are exposed to and encouraged to produce varied and creative language.

5.      Learners have enough time and feedback.

6.      Learners are guided to attend mindfully to the learning process.

7.      Learners work in an atmosphere with an ideal stress/anxiety level.

8.      Learner autonomy is supported.

First of all, I like that the subject of the above sentence is ‘learner’ – it’s not about what we teachers are doing, but it’s about the students.  I absolutely agree with Egbert that student need to feel personally involved and invested in what they are doing and understand why they are doing it.  I also especially liked the focus on authenticity and practicing in social situations.

Overall, the article helped to talk the broad concept of CALL, and make it more clear and tangible with actually examples. I better understand the scope and variety of what falls in the realm of CALL.

Reflection on Warschauer (2010) article

Warschauer walks us through the evolution of approaches to CALL from structural to cognitive to sociocognitive approaches in a clear and easy-to-follow way. A key component of the sociocultural approach is that the object of communication is other real, live language users via the computer but the computer is not simply the medium for grammar or other practice as it had been in the past.  The applications of this today in the world of Skype, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and the internet in general seem limitless. Our students could probably teach us a thing or two! 

Multimodality is a key point of network-based language teaching (NBLT), and this is good not only for language learning but also for keeping students interest and helping them become more autonomous learners – let’s teach them how to fish. This is one appeal of blogs because the students are writing and communicating in the target language with their peers instead of the teachers because they are required to. I think we all can understand how this catches the students’ interest more than teacher-student forced homework communication.

This article, like the Egbert article, helped to broaden my understanding of what CALL was, is, and can be. I definitely feel more motivated to try out different mediums with my students. One point to keep in mind is that different people have different communication styles. For example, I have some friends with absolutely no interest in Facebook at all. Some post on occasion, and others post every thought, food choice, TV choice, general ponderance, and random thoughts. Students also have different communications styles, so we need to keep this in mind and provide a variety of options for students demonstrate their language abilities.  

I haven’t been able to properly access the Warschauer video, so my comments on that will be forthcoming.  

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Hi, all! This is my first official blog post!!