Web-logs in Teaching English

How to entertain yourself

Title of the class: English Practice
Age of students: 18-19 (3^d year of studying )
General topic(s) of the unit that is being studied: Games and Hobbies
Topic of the class: Childhood hobbies
Goals of the class:

• Practical:to practice reading and writing skills; to train the skills of making a dialogue; to enrich the vocabulary concerning the topic  “Games and Hobbies”.
• Professional: to develop the abilities to express oneself freely; to train the skills of self-control and criticizing.
• Sociocultural: to develop the culture of communication on the Internet.

Goals of the activity: to practice writing skills (writing a letter/dialogue); to learn how to make posts by using web-logs.

Course of the lesson

1. The class starts with learning new material on the topic "Hobbies" - students do exercises to practice new vocabulary.
2. The next step is to read a small text and then play the game: the teacher gives each student cards with the hobby and he/she has to show it to the groupmates without telling the word.
3. Then students create a discussion about their childhood hobbies and answer the questions (briefly) by writing posts and comments:

  - What hobbies do you now regret not taking up when you were younger?

  - What activities do you consider to be the most appropriate for children?

   4. The next blog activity is to make a post in a form of a short letter (or the form of a dialogue): Write/Talk to a friend who is asking for advice on how to keep her child amused during summer holidays. After finishing, each student has to comment and evaluate his/her groupmate.
      The teacher then checks the posts and comments to them and makes his/her own comments for each web-log.

Home assignment: Students are to write an essay - "The craziest hobbies I've ever heard about" in their web-logs (discussed during the next class).