Publications

Publication details [#50771]

Compernolle, Rémi A. van and Lee B. Abraham. 2009. Interactional and discursive features of English-language weblogs for language learning and teaching. In Abraham, Lee B., ed. Electronic Discourse in Language Learning and Language Teaching. (Language Learning & Language Teaching 25). John Benjamins. pp. 193–212.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins

Annotation

This paper provides an overview of the nature of authentic (i.e., non-educational) weblogs (blogs) and offers a number a recommendations for using blogs in the English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) curriculum to promote second language literacy. The discussion centers around blog-writing as social practice as opposed to using blogs to help learners develop formal writing skills. Following a brief overview of a small corpus of diverse blogs, this paper provides a number of recommendations for integrating blog-reading and blog-writing in the ESL/EFL classroom. It extends Herring’s (2007) multifaceted approach to analyzing computer-mediated discourse to the field of second language (L2) learning and teaching, and discusses ways in which students and teachers can construct, manage, and analyze a corpus of blogs. It also presents a number of ways to design learning opportunities in the ESL/EFL classroom around the reading and writing of blogs.