Possible Vocabulary Errors in Academic Writing

Keeping in mind that I am looking at advanced users of English, all of whom have passed the English language proficiency requirements to enter the Univeristy of Calgary, here is a chart to go with a post I made a while ago when I was trying to think of all the different possible errors that can be associated with vocabulary in academic writing. I think I have basically narrowed it down to six categories: meaning, appropriacy, derivation, form, omission, and style. Out of those six categories, I think five of them have the greatest impact on the quality of student writing: meaning, appropriacy, derivation, form, and style. I'm thinking of leaving out omission from my final list when I begin to comb through the writing samples in my thesis project. I can then read through each of my writing samples, tagging the samples for five categories of vocabulary error. My plan to then to see if any patterns arise from the samples as a whole, and between the different groups in my corpus (native vs. non-native English speakers, different groups of NNES based on length of residence). I finally think I'm ready to start. Already, I'm fairly sure of what I'm going to find. So far, my NNES papers show are demonstrating a lack of depth of knowledge of vocabulary. The students seem to have a breadth of knowledge that stretches to about 11,000 word families of active vocabulary usage (compared to 17,000 for the native English speakers), but the problems lie in the categories of appropriacy, derivation, and form - in particular choosing the correct part of speech.

I'll keep you posted as to what I find. Enjoy my chart of possible vocabulary errors in academic writing.

P.S. It's May 4th. I just added spelling errors to my chart - I've decided orthography is an important part of vocabulary knowledge as well.

What University Student Corpora Reveal About Vocabulary

One of the best parts of the TESOL Convention this year in Denver was the Doctoral Forum. The Doctoral Forum is a chance for doctoral students from all around the world to spend a day together presenting and getting to know one another and what sorts of doctoral research are going on around the world. This year the Doctoral Forum consisted of two panel discussions, two poster sessions (with a total of almost 60 posters being presented), and a networking session with professor-mentors from a variety of different universities from Temple University Japan, to the University of Texas to my own University of Calgary (my supervisor, Dr. Hetty Roessingh was one of the mentors).

All in all, it was a really great time. I did a poster presentation on my research in progress, and it was a great opportunity for me to focus my thoughts and to pause and think about where I am currently in my thesis research project. This poster is the result of that pause, and I even won second prize for the best poster at the Doctoral Forum. I was really pleased, but I realised that I still have a lot of work to do before I get finished.

Anyway, here is my poster - enjoy!

Lexical Error in Novice Academic Writing

Lately, I have been thinking quite a lot about what can possible go wrong with someone’s vocabulary usage when they are writing an academic essay. I’ve started to keep a running tally of all the errors I can think of, and this is my list so far. I started off by looking at the detailed marking code for the Effective Writing Test (http://www.efwr.ucalgary.ca/markingcode), and I went on from there. I think some of the items in the list might overlap, but I think I’m off to a good start.

Semantic error
A word is used that had the wrong meaning for the context.

Miscollocation
Words are used in inappropriate combinations, as in the difference between a torrential rainstorm and a torrential snowstorm*, or highly educated vs. greatly educated*.

Topic constraints
Register constraints
Genre constraints
Certain words can only be used in certain situations, depending on the topic, register and genre.

Inappropriate synonym choice
Synonyms have different connotations. An example of this is the difference between Scott is a famous teacher at the University of Calgary, and Scott is a notorious* teacher at the University of Calgary. (or maybe I am notorious . . . )

Trite language
This involves the use of clichés and overused expressions such as rabbits are not a valid food choice because they are as cute as a button. Another example would be, it’s important to think outside the box when dealing with financial problems.

Excessive jargon
This occurs when overly technical and specialized vocabulary is used when writing for a general audience.

Pretentious word choice
Big words are not necessarily better words. Overly complicated words and language are not better than simple and precise more common words and language.

Immature word choice
This occurs when writing about daddies instead of fathers, bunnies instead of rabbits, and choo-choos instead of trains.

Over repetition
The same words are used over and over again. For example: Completing high school should be mandatory. Mandatory high school classes will keep young people off the streets. If high school becomes mandatory, students will learn more. If school is mandatory, society will benefit. If it is not mandatory, there will continue to be problems. That is why a high school education must be mandatory.

Artificial variation
Too many synonyms are used making the writing seem unnatural. For example, Cats are important pets for senior citizens. Without their kitties, many old people feel lonely. Once arriving in the golden years, a feline companion is a necessity. Without pussy cats, oldsters won’t have the same quality of life. Granny and grandpa can’t do without these mini lions and tigers.

Word form
The wrong part of speech is used. Scott is a success* teacher, instead of Scott is a successful teacher.

Derivational error
This occurs when words are put together incorrectly, usually with inappropriate affixes. for example: After completing my analization* of the problem, I realize there was no solution.

Inaccurate lexical bundling
Some words operate in lexical bundles that are fairly inflexible. For example: on another hand* vs. on the other hand.

Mixed metaphor
This occurs when two different metaphors are combined. For example: We need to stop swimming against the current and follow the herd.

Inappropriate metaphor
This often happens when metaphors are translated from the first language, but they don’t quite work in the second. For example: After making many mistakes the government took a different tunnel.

Omission
This occurs when the writing is lacking transitions and connectors.

Imprecision
This happens when a general type of word, such as people, humans, things and stuff, is used in place of a more specific word.

Omnibus words
This occurs when the writer tries to incorrectly bring together many different ideas into a single word such as factor, aspect, situation, or concept.

My New Favourite Book: Proust and the Squid

I just read an amazing book by Maryanne Wolf called Proust and the Squid. Basically the book is about the history of reading, how people learn to read, the implications reading has on people and the development of their brains, and what happens when people have trouble learning how to read.

While a lot of the book really struck me as I was reading it, one part in particular I found very interesting in relation to my work in the area of undergraduate writing competence. I often wonder about what are the implications of not being a competent writer in university. One issue is that students who are not competent writers are not going to be able to convey their thoughts in a precise and meaningful manner. However, Maryanne Wolf takes this one step further when she discusses the ideas of Lev Vygotski and how he believed that the act of writing does not just convey thoughts, but when spoken words and unspoken thoughts are put into writing, this act releases and, in the process, changes the thoughts themselves. He felt that as people learn to use written language more and more precisely to convey their thoughts, their capacity for abstract thought and novel ideas accelerates. In other words, there is “a germinating relationship between writing language and new thought” (pp. 65-66).

I really was intrigued by the idea of a generative relationship between word and thought and how the process of writing down thoughts leads people to refine those thoughts and to discover new ways of thinking (p. 73). Writing enables students to think of new things that they would not have thought of if they weren’t able to write with academic competency. Taken further, being a fluent writer is going to aid students in generating new thoughts they would never have had if they weren’t fluent. Based on Wolf’s interpretation of Vygotski, writing isn’t just about reporting what people think, it’s about generating new ideas through the act of writing.

The implications for my research would be that if students haven’t reached a certain level of undergraduate writing competence, it isn’t just about them not being able to convey their thoughts in a precise manner. They will be missing out on the generative nature of the writing act. The less able the students can write fluently, the less able they will be to come up with novel ideas as they write. It is the transition from laboriously reporting thoughts to creatively putting together thoughts as they write. This idea of a continuum from simply reporting thoughts to generating creative ideas has cast a new light on the Effective Writing exams I’ve been looking at in my doctoral research. There always seemed to be a certain panache to the papers that did very well on the exam. I am always struck by their novel way of putting together words and coming up with ideas. I am particularly struck by how easy it seemed for the writer to write compared to papers which did not pass. Thinking about it again, it looks like the better writers were coming up with creative responses to the essay prompts during the act of writing, while the poorer writers were perhaps painstakingly trying to write down what was in their heads, or they were going at it one idea at a time. Hmmm, maybe as I write, I’m generating new ideas . . . . Anyway, I’m going to have to think a bit more about this, but I’m starting to worry that the repercussions of not being a fluent writer are much greater that I first thought.

Typing Away

I can’t believe that it is already about two months since my last blog. It’s amazing how time flies by when you are working on your PhD. The latest thing that I have been focusing on is typing up hand written essays for my thesis project. So far, I have about 800 essays, with about 250 having been written by non-native English speakers, and another 550 written by native English speakers. All of the students in my study are first year undergraduate students. Right now, I am focusing on typing up the essays written by the native speakers. It’s so fascinating doing this because I am really entering into the mind of a first year undergraduate student. It’s been almost 20 years since I first went to university, and I think I had forgotten what it was like to be a first year student. What has struck me the most so far is the ease with which they express themselves. I guess that with almost 10 years of looking only at papers written by non-native English speaking students, it was surprising how fluid and unlaboured the writing of the native speaking students is. Although I am focusing on a comparison of the use of less frequent vocabulary items between the two groups of students, again and again, it is the use of the simple clear language used by the native English speakers that is standing out. In addition to that, I have noticed the use of lexical bundling and collocations that provide clarity and precision to the native English speaking writing that seems to be lacking the non-native English speaking papers. However, taken as single words, these are not low frequency lexical items. Instead, the native speakers seem to be putting together the high frequency vocabulary differently than the non-native speakers. Interestingly enough, it seems to be the non-native speakers who are trying to use the “big academic” words, and then slightly misfiring with the meaning, while it is the native speakers who are using a high frequency set of vocabulary, but in such as way to convey precise meaning. I’ll have to think more about this.

Anyway, that is what I am up to right now. I figure I’ll be typing away for the next month (hopefully I’ll be done by the end of February). As soon as I’m done typing up enough native English papers, I provide some examples to support my musings above . . .

I’m officially a PhD Candidate!

These last few weeks have been really busy for me, but I’m really pleased. I had my PhD candidacy oral on November 4th, and it was successful. Now that I’ve finished that hurdle, I can’t wait to get started on the research for my thesis project. I’m just waiting for ethics approval and then I can begin.

For my candidacy exam, I had to prepare a paper based on one of three topics that were given to me four weeks before the paper was due, and six weeks before the oral exam. The topic that I chose was:

What arguments can you provide for focusing on vocabulary use as the underlying variable that may best reflect English language proficiency; how is lexical diversity and distribution measured and which measure (s) is most useful for providing the insights you seek for establishing thresholds for academic success at university both at entry and over time? What are the distal and proximal effects of vocabulary levels on student writing? What link do you expect to make to academic achievement as reflected in GPA over time?

In answering this question, I proposed that there is a rising awareness of the importance of vocabulary in the field of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). This can be seen in the increasing numbers of presentations being made at conferences on teaching academic vocabulary, as well as the rise in the literature about vocabulary as an key aspect of English language proficiency. This rise in awareness of vocabulary is accompanied by a rise in the populations of non-native English speaking (NNES) students in the English Canadian school system from kindergarten all the way through the post-secondary years. As increasing numbers of immigrants come to the English speaking parts of Canada and enrol themselves, and more especially their children, in local educational institutions, their success or failure seems to hinge on their ability to muster the linguistic resources to cope with an academic load delivered in English. That their educational success is vital to their newly adopted country is obvious. The benefits accompanying a successful educational experience are a worthy goal of immigrants and their children. However, the road to these educational benefits is one fraught with challenges. Vocabulary is one aspect of these challenges that can be isolated and examined with the purpose of developing ways to overcome these challenges and ease the success of NNES students, when all things being equal, it is English language proficiency that is preventing a full expression of their academic abilities at the K-12 and post-secondary level. Vocabulary can be chosen as an area of research and examination as it appears that vocabulary use is an important underlying variable that reflects English language proficiency, especially in writing. Rich or poor vocabulary production has a number of proximal effects on a piece of writing, with a rich vocabulary giving rise to precise and nuanced meaning and cohesion, and a poor vocabulary contributing to a sense of vagueness and awkwardness. The ways to quantify this rich or poor use of vocabulary are numerous, with lexical frequency profiling offering the best insights for establishing thresholds for academic success at university both at entry and over time. Furthermore, once quantified, there is strong evidence that vocabulary and academic achievement are interconnected, as seen in studies carried out on the distal effects of rich and poor vocabulary production in writing on not only individual writing assignments, but also on GPA, positive and negative university experiences, and other measures of academic outcomes.

It is based on the above that I am soon to start my research into vocabulary richness in first year undergraduate writing for both native speaking and non-native English speaking students at the University of Calgary. I raring to go!

EAP 3 - 02 Winter 2008 Students

Joanna
Ivy
Muhammad
Felix
Felicio
Nahid
Duaa
Yun
Richard
Nick
Anton
Suleman
Hadiza
Lisa
Martin
Lana
David S
Sharon
David W
Jack
Amin
Li

EAP 3 - 01 Winter 2008 Students

Hisham
Abdul
Jack
Helen
Oksana
Mahmoud
Jen
Yusuf
John
Natallia
Slava
Sam
Behzad
Eric
Maaike
Selina
Yao
Yolanda
Camille
Fan
Jason

Spring Summer 2008 EAP 1 Students

Nabil
Moutaz
Victoria
Faisal
Tabassom
Valentina
Roza
Fatma
Ahmed
Amran
Preet
Kohei
Kinki
Shabiha
Ines
Davaa

My Research Project

Hello English for Academic Purposes Fans! Here is a poster that I am presenting next week on some of the research I'm carrying out for my PhD. Basically, I'm looking at the vocabulary that students use for general academic purposes in their first year of undergraduate studies. Enjoy!

Stampede Breakfast Time

Oh no . . . I can't believe that the Stampede Breakfast and the pizza party are going to be on the same day. That's way too much high calorie food for a mere 3 hour period. Usually I love going to the Students' Union Stampede Breakfast. Oh well, at least I got to go to a Stampede Breakfast last Saturday. My local MLA was having his Stampede Breakfast right by my house at the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Centre, and I got to enjoy one of the best free breakfasts in town. The thing that makes it so good is that the breakfast always has excellent all-beef sausages every year. They also have hashbrowns, pancakes will all the fixings, and juice and coffee. The coffee is also really excellent too. Usually, at Stampede Breakfasts it's kind of watery and weak, but at the Hillhurst Sunnyside Stampede Breakfast this year, Higher Ground Coffee House (http://www.highergroundcafe.ca/) donated the coffee so it was strong and rich!

Anyway, I hope all the students manage to make it to at least two or three free Stampede breakfasts before Stampede is over!

Happy Canada Day!

It's July 2nd, and my legs are in pain! I went hiking yesterday to celebrate Canada Day, and I think this is the first time I have gone hiking in over a year. Anyway, I'm paying for it today. I kind of feel like an old man . . . maybe I am!

Yesterday I went to Lake Louise, and I climbed up to Lake Agnes. It takes about an hour an a half to climb to the top of the mountain, and it's so beautiful up there. There is a huge waterfall, and a lake. Once you get to the top, it feels so good to put your hands in the water and splash it all over your face. Also, at the top, there is a teahouse where you can get a pot of tea made with mountain water. After a long hike, it's amazing! It was the perfect way to spend Canada Day :-)

Back in Alberta

Here I am back in Alberta in the computer lab with my students. I arrived last night at about midnight, and I didn't go to bed until after 1 am, so you can imagine I was kind of tired when my alarm went off at 6 am this morning!

Anyway, I'm really glad to be back. I was happy to go back to Montreal to see my uncles, aunts, cousins, and Granny, but it felt good to sleep in my own bed last night. Also, it was kind of a hard trip too because my Granny is 92 years old, and she had trouble recognizing me. It also made me a bit sad to be walking around Montreal and seeing all the old places where I used to hang out. Probably one of the reasons I was so sad was because I have finally realised that I'm not going to be moving back to Montreal. I think for the past 18 years (holy cow - I've been living in Calgary a long time!) I have been thinking I could always move back to Montreal. However, this trip, I finally realised that it is highly unlikely I'll ever be going back to Montreal. It's time to let go, and that's a hard thing to do.

So here I am back. Actually, my poor students, I told them today that the EAP program has found a new teacher to take over the class starting on July 2nd. That means they will have had 4 different teachers by the end of the semester! The problem is that the university needs me to go back to my "real" job (academic coordinator). Because of that, there is a new guy starting next week. I met him before I went to Montreal, and I think he'll be okay. It's always going to be hard coming into a situation where you are taking over from another teacher, but I know that my students are SOOOOOOOOO great that they are going to be perfect model students for him :-) Plus, I'll still be around helping out in the background. I won't totally abandon EAP 1!!!!!

Also, I know they are going to blog and comment lots before the end of the semester . . . right???

Orange Julep, Smoked Meat, & Bagels!!!

Here I am in Montreal. I wonder if my students miss me. I hope they are all blogging lots! As for me, I am having a great time. I got to visit my 92 year old grandmother this afternoon. It was good to see her again. She is getting to be kind of forgetful. She asked me a couple of times who I was, and then she was amazed at how much I had grown. She also told me Uncle he was getting a big belly, so it was kind of funny.

Anyway, besides getting to see lots of cousins, uncles, and aunts, I'm also eating all the different kinds of food that I miss so much. Today I got to eat/drink the big three: Montreal Bagels and Cream Cheese, Smoked Meat, and an Orange Julep. The orange julep was so great. Orange julep is a kind of drink with some sort of secret ingredient that makes it so good. The restaurant itself is in the shape of a giant orange. You can't miss it. I have been going there since I was a little boy. The first sip of my orange julep brought back lots of memories!

Say tuned for more blogs about Montreal food . . . but now I have to go and check my students' blogs!

I'm Blogging Again!!

Hello EAP 1! I can't believe I'm teaching again this semester. I thought I was going to have a semester off teaching so that I could work on the curriculum for the EAP program at the University of Calgary. Unfortunately, the EAP 1 teacher who was supposed to teach this class is no longer teaching in our program, so I had to suddenly step in and start teaching EAP 1. However, I don't mind because this EAP 1 class is totally awesome! So far, I have only been teaching them for about a week, but I think we have already learned a lot together. Naturally, I had to get all of my students blogging!

Anyway, so far so good. It was a bit of a surprise for me when I found out that I had to teach this semester, but I guess it will be a good thing for me before I take my year off from teaching. Starting on August 2nd, 2008 I'm going to be taking a whole year off to finish my PhD. I hope I can get it done in just one year.

Anyway, I just wanted to welcome all of my new students to my blogging universe. I'm really happy that you are here!

Taking a loooong break

Hello World! I guess this just might be my last blog for a while. You see, I'm not teaching this semester. Instead I have been assigned to work full time on developing curriculum for the EAP program and also to be the full time "Academic Coordinator". That doesn't mean that I won't be popping in here from time to time to blog, but it just won't be as often as in the past. I can't believe that I have been blogging constantly for over four years now. It's amazing. Anyway, as for me, I'll be working in the EAP program for this semester as the academic coordinator, and then I am taking a one year "assisted study leave". It is kind of like a sabbatical for me to finish my PhD. Then, I 'm not sure what I'll be doing. One day at a time, eh?

Anyway, stay tuned for updates on the curriculum project I am working on for the EAP program!

The End of Another Semester

Well, this is the end of another semester. I’m going to wait until tomorrow to read the last blog entries of all of my students as I gave them until midnight tonight to finish their blogs. I really can’t wait to read them tomorrow. Usually I really get a sense of satisfaction at the end of a semester reading the students blogs and seeing their growth from the beginning of the semester until the end. If I ever do another presentation on blogs, I’ll be really proud to show off what my students did this semester. When I was in New York, a lot of people were very impressed with the work of my students from past semesters, and I think I may have even inspired some people to start blogging with their students. It’s amazing to think that I have been blogging for over 4 years now. That’s a lot of words written by both me and all of my students. It’s even more amazing for me to think that I have had 100’s of students since I started blogging 4 years ago, and I got to know them all so much better because of the blogs. I’m sure I became closer to my students because of the ability the blogs gave me to see into their world.

I guess the biggest news for today’s blog is that the final exam for the EAP 3 writing and grammar class is already over. I haven’t even looked at the final exams yet for my class, but I have finished looking at the term papers, and I was pretty happy – much happier than with the first term papers. With the first term papers, I had to come up with an emergency solution to prevent most of the class from failing (I wonder if the class knew I was giving them a “free” chance to pass). However, for this term paper, the vast majority of the students did quite fine. That made me happy because it was real evidence that the students were growing as English writers. My next job is to finish marking all of the final exams, and then enter everything into blackboard so that I can calculate the final grades. I have to get all of the grades into the office by the end of next week, and then it is up to the registrar’s office to process all of the marks.

After all of that, I have to get ready for next semester. It is going to be my last semester of teaching for a while because I am taking a year off from teaching in order to finish up my PhD degree. The big surprise from the spring summer semester is that I’m not going to be teaching EAP 3!! Instead, I’m going to be teaching EAP 1. It’s too bad because I was really looking forward to teaching all of the EAP 2’s from this semester. However, I’m sure I’ll have a great time with the new EAP 1’s. Also, Murray is going to be teaching EAP 2, and Regina is moving to EAP 3 instead. Oh well . . . they say change is a good thing!

Anyway, I want to wish the best of luck to this semester’s students. I’m sure you are going to take the campus by storm next semester!

One Down One to Go!

Today I finished my first presentation on vocabulary in university writing, and it really went well. You see, today I was part of a doctoral forum where doctoral students like me from all over the world presented their thesis proposals and the research they have been doing. I am still in the early stages of my research, but there were some people who are almost finished, and it was really interesting hearing what they had to say. It was a great opportunity to get some feedback on my research. It was also funny to hear that some Phd students hated APA citations!! It reminded my of my students in my writing class!

However, the best part of the conference so far has been the food! I have been to a deli every day I have been in New York. The sandwiches are amazing! I had a corned beef sandwich on rye bread with mustard that must have been one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten in my life. Corned beef is this slowly cooked meat that is cooked with spices and pepper. It is so good it melts in your mouth! I also have had pieces of New York style cheese cake as big as my head. They were the perfect balance of sweet and tangy cheese . . . so good! I have also had Matzo Ball soup, which is one of my most favourite kinds of soup, but you can’t find it in a restaurant anywhere in Calgary. On top of all that, I have eaten about 10 bagels and cream cheese since I got here. The bagels are so good and so chewy. I think I’m going to miss all of this great food when I get back to Calgary.

Last night, I went to the Broadway Musical “Chicago”. It was really amazing. I went with my doctoral supervisor and another grad student from the University of Calgary. I really felt like I was seeing a piece of real American culture. To be honest, I have never really understood musicals, and how every five minutes people seem to just burst into song for no reason, but having said that, I really enjoyed myself.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m not giving any presentations, but I’ll be in a lot of workshops. Friday is the big day for my presentation on blogs! I can’t wait to show off what my students have been doing this semester! And don’t worry, I’ll make sure I take time off from the conference to look for souvenirs for everyone (cheap ones!)

Going to New York Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the big day when I leave for New York! I feel bad for leaving my students for a whole week, but on the other hand, I’m really excited to get the chance to go to the largest conference of ESL teachers and researchers in the world. Hopefully, I’ll learn some cool teaching tricks I’ll be able to use with the students back home.

Basically, I am going to New York to do two presentations. The presentation that I am most excited about is the one that I am doing on blogs. I think that this going to be my last presentation on blogs for a while, so I really want to do a good job. I have been doing presentations on blogs for four years now. I can’t believe that I have been blogging for four years. That’s a lot of words. Anyway, for this presentation I continued with my blog survey that I have been doing for the last little while, and I analysed the vocabulary in the blogs my students did in the Fall 2007 semester.

The results from my vocabulary analysis were really interesting. I chose 10 students at random from last semester, and I then put them though a vocabulary profiling tool created by Dr. Tom Cobb (http://www.lextutor.ca/). The vocabulary profile told me how many of the words my students wrote were from the first 1000 most common words of English, the second 1000 most common words of English, the academic word list (570 word families – Coxhead, 2000), and words that aren’t on any of those lists. In order to see if there was any change in the way my students use vocabulary, I took approximately the first 500 words they wrote at the beginning of the semester, and I then compared that profile to approximately the last 500 words they wrote at the end of the semester. What was interesting was that 8 of the students showed that they were using a higher percentage of the academic word list at the end of the semester compared to the start of the semester (one student stayed the same, and one student used less). When I saw those results, I felt it confirmed my initial suspicion that blogs are a way for students to grow and consolidate their vocabulary over a semester. This is just a pilot study, and so far, I have only done a graphical analysis. The next step would be to run a statistical analysis to see if what happened with my students’ use of vocabulary is significant. However, in the meantime, I’m pretty impressed! Keep on blogging – it works!

I’ll report on the results of the survey in my next blog.

Wish me luck in NYC!

Blogging for Academic Purposes

Gosh, I'm starting to realise more and more that it is really hard to take over a class half way through the semester. There are a lot of little things that I take for granted, that maybe another teacher wouldn't even be concerned about. I guess one of those things would be how I see the role of blogs in an academic writing course.

For me, I take it for granted that blogs are a complete different genre than normal academic writing. That means, all of the rules and conventions that the students are learning in class might not necessary apply when they are writing their blogs. For one thing, blogs are a totally informal forum for the exchange of ideas. When writing a blog, it isn't a one way flow of communication like it is in an essay. Hopefully, in a blog, I can get lots of comments so that this blog is more like a dialogue between me and the world. Also, while the stiff formality of the traditional academic essay has it's place, I feel that worrying too much about academic vocabulary and formal ways of expression will stop the flow of ideas, which is the whole point of the blogs. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is okay to use your everyday language in a blog, and you don't have to worry about stuff like thesis statements, and topic sentences. Also the point of blogs is to get your ideas out of your head. Thus, I don't want people worrying about stuff like spelling, correct grammar, the perfect vocabulary word, or the right punctuation. The most important thing is just to get the ideas down into the blog. In fact, when it comes to vocabulary, if you can't think of the perfect word, just keep typing. You can type around the word, for instance. What I mean is, if you want to say the word "ladder" but you can't remember it, you can say this: I put a thing like some stairs up against the side of a tree and climbed up to pick an apple. See . . . it's the same thing, everyone knows what you are saying, and you don't have to waste your time looking words up in the dictionary.

Also, I find that when students type directly into their blogs, they tend to think in English. There isn't enough time to translate back and forth between their native languages and English. This helps to increase the speed the students can think in English, and it helps them get used to approaching writing tasks in English. However, if they start to worry too much about what they want to say, they might be tempted to start to think of their ideas in their native languages first. If that happens, I generally find that the grammar problems start to get worse and worse.

Anyway, I guess the point of this rant is that I take it for granted that blogs are an informal fun way to practice English and read what the rest of the people are thinking about in class.

Keep it fun!