and tips for new bloggers
This post is written in response to Adam Simpson's blogchallenge, which, he admits himself, is an act of "shameless self-promotion".
And this is a man who urged us not to vote for him when he was recently nominated for annual Edublog Awards and who was also the winner of last
year's TeachingEnglish blogathon! Anyhow, here is my Top 12 of 2012.
There is, however,
one difference. Seeing that it was really difficult for me to decide which posts are MY personal favourites, the list below, unlike that of Adam's, is a list of
the most viewed posts of 2012.
Hugh Dellar's anti Dogme series were enlightening and hugely
entertaining but there was one particular argument which I didn't quite agree
with and addressed in this post
which has had the highest number of clicks this year. I don't know if it's down
to an increased in interest in Task-Based Learning or because of the inclusion
of a buzz word in the title (Dogme)
I am happy that this entry was one of the most
visited. And I am quite proud that I invented a new use for this social
bookmarking tool. If you have a projector in class, do check it out. A bit
teacher-centred but you can't have it all.
An attempt to introduce terms from linguistic
semantics (syntagmatic and paradigmatic) into ELT although I've renamed them as
horizontal and vertical word relationships.
The word "technology", like grammar,
is an instant magnet. Write a post about technology in education and – no
matter which side of the debate you're on – lots of pageviews and comments are
guaranteed.
A classic activity for a classic song, which I've been using (for ages!) to introduce the concept of collocations - with students and teachers alike.
6. Teaching vocabulary out of context: conclusions
A wise man once said, "A blog is only as
good as the comments it gets". In a desperate attempt to engage with my
audience, I split this post into two, posing questions in the first part and providing
conclusions in the second part. It seems to have worked.
Written in one go, this post garnered the
highest number of comments (33) this year.
My venture into the world of online gaming (thanks
to Graham Stanley) and a lexical activity that stemmed from it.
Another song-based activity for the day that
for some reason is celebrated only once year.
What is the difference between a collocation
and chunk? And what is your favorutie chunk? It's still not too late to take
part in my mini-survey.
A personal story, interesting research findings and a useful (IMHO) template here, but stats on my
blog show most visitors stumbled upon this post by googling: "a guy with headphones
photo".
I've never written conference reports but this
summary of the closing plenary at the annual TESOL France colloquium is an
exception.
Thinking of taking part in the TeachingEnglish
blogathon and winning a trip to IATEFL (like Adam Simpson) or starting up your
own blog? Based on the above list, here are some ideas for blog posts that are
bound to guarantee success, exposure and lots of clicks.
Thank you to all my readers and happy
blogging to all new bloggers!
 |
| Photo by aclil2climb via eltpics |
This post is written in response to Adam Simpson's blogchallenge, which, he admits himself, is an act of "shameless self-promotion".
And this is a man who urged us not to vote for him when he was recently nominated for annual Edublog Awards and who was also the winner of last
year's TeachingEnglish blogathon! Anyhow, here is my Top 12 of 2012.
There is, however,
one difference. Seeing that it was really difficult for me to decide which posts are MY personal favourites, the list below, unlike that of Adam's, is a list of
the most viewed posts of 2012.
Hugh Dellar's anti Dogme series were enlightening and hugely
entertaining but there was one particular argument which I didn't quite agree
with and addressed in this post
which has had the highest number of clicks this year. I don't know if it's down
to an increased in interest in Task-Based Learning or because of the inclusion
of a buzz word in the title (Dogme)
I am happy that this entry was one of the most
visited. And I am quite proud that I invented a new use for this social
bookmarking tool. If you have a projector in class, do check it out. A bit
teacher-centred but you can't have it all.
An attempt to introduce terms from linguistic
semantics (syntagmatic and paradigmatic) into ELT although I've renamed them as
horizontal and vertical word relationships.
The word "technology", like grammar,
is an instant magnet. Write a post about technology in education and – no
matter which side of the debate you're on – lots of pageviews and comments are
guaranteed.
A classic activity for a classic song, which I've been using (for ages!) to introduce the concept of collocations - with students and teachers alike.
6. Teaching vocabulary out of context: conclusions
A wise man once said, "A blog is only as
good as the comments it gets". In a desperate attempt to engage with my
audience, I split this post into two, posing questions in the first part and providing
conclusions in the second part. It seems to have worked.
Written in one go, this post garnered the
highest number of comments (33) this year.
My venture into the world of online gaming (thanks
to Graham Stanley) and a lexical activity that stemmed from it.
Another song-based activity for the day that
for some reason is celebrated only once year.
What is the difference between a collocation
and chunk? And what is your favorutie chunk? It's still not too late to take
part in my mini-survey.
A personal story, interesting research findings and a useful (IMHO) template here, but stats on my
blog show most visitors stumbled upon this post by googling: "a guy with headphones
photo".
I've never written conference reports but this
summary of the closing plenary at the annual TESOL France colloquium is an
exception.
 |
| Cartoon by Dave Walker via We Blog Cartoons |
Thinking of taking part in the TeachingEnglish
blogathon and winning a trip to IATEFL (like Adam Simpson) or starting up your
own blog? Based on the above list, here are some ideas for blog posts that are
bound to guarantee success, exposure and lots of clicks.
12 blog post ideas for new bloggers 1. Write a response to someone (preferably famous) expressing your opinion 2. Write about a web tool or app you use 3. Take two pieces of jargon from another (even unrelated) field and apply them to ELT 4. Write something about technology (whether you're pro- or anti- doesn’t matter) 5. Blog about your favourite activity 6. Do a mini action research project in your class and post the results: preferably in two instalments 7. Rant 8. Write about something new you've learnt 9. There are many obscure "days" throughout the year: Honesty Day, Fun at Work Day, Dress-Up Your Pet Day and certainly loads of bad hair days. Pick one as a topic of your post. 10. Conduct a mini poll among your readers 11. Write an apology – even if you know the person it's addressed to is not going to read it 12. Summarise a conference talk / workshop / webinar you've enjoyed Blogger's block? Finally, if you have run out of ideas about what to blog, post a Top 5 or Top 10 list of your recent blog posts! |
Thank you to all my readers and happy
blogging to all new bloggers!
Comments
Post a Comment