Here is a quintessential summary of the ideas I have come across in my webquest.
ELT teachers tend to use blogs
- to post links to interactive online quizzes for their students to do
- to post links to reading matter & downloadable materials for their students to explore
- to embed videos for their students to watch
- to provide feedback after a F2F class
- to pre-teach vocabulary by posting links to online dictionary entries
- to publish their students’ work directly
- to publish their students’ work indirectly by providing links to all the students’ own blogs
- to initiate discussions by posting questions or texts and inviting comments
- to let their students know what the homework is
- to keep a record of the work done in class
There are also some other uses which primarily pertain to situations when the teacher’s target audience is not his/her own students. If that is the case, ELT professionals use blogs
- to post their random thoughts and observations to do with ELT
- to describe their everyday life and/or leisure pursuits
- to take notes when they google for teaching ideas
- to publish their responses when they enrol in Web 2.0 teacher-training courses
- to keep in touch with their colleagues, friends and family by linking to their blogs and/or allowing/inviting comments
