Unicorn Sparkles #02

Hi everyone, we meet again in my second blog post. So this week, Madam Azidatun taught us about types of blog writing for English Language Teaching (ELT). There are 4 types of blog that we can find that are:

• Weblog: It is frequently updated website like an online journal. It is easy to set up and maintain the blog. Other than that, people can easily access the online resource and the blog will be much interesting if we put videos and picture.

• Tutor blog: This blog is run by the teacher of the class. For example, Madam Azidatun is the teacher of the class, so Madam Azidatun runs the tutor blog. The tutor blog consists of syllabus material. course information, homework, and assignments.

• Class blog: This kind of blog is actually accessed by class members and teachers. Teacher and students able to post in the main section as well as comment section. The class blog also can be used as a discussion place and as usual the teacher is the moderator of the blog.

• Learner blog: This blog is actually created by students themselves. It is used as an online journal where students are encouraged to share their thoughts, reflection on the lesson or write about their interests.

There are many reasons why we use the blog. It can provide an extra reading session for students. It can encourage shy students to participate because shy people have the tendency to express themselves more in words rather than oral. Besides that, it can encourage process-writing approach and collections of students works. Lastly, it can build a closer relationship between students and teacher. To keep it short and simple, it is cheaper and easier to create a blog and moreover, it's free as you can spread all kinds of information worldwide.

Last Wednesday, we learned about a new topic, Introduction to CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning). Basically, CALL is actually a tool/software that helps students to enhance their language skills. You can find CALL in web-based learning materials such as website, blog and wikis. CALL assists student in terms of their listening, speaking, pronunciation, reading and writing skills. In term of listening, the application usually consists of sounds and images where students can hear and at the same time recognize what kind of object they are looking at. They can gain access to authentic audio through the web. For speaking skills, they can participate in an online audio discussion boards and podcasting; for example Skype and other VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) application. Other than that, CALL also can improve pronunciation skills through Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) by listening to native speakers models, record and compare their own voices. By using ASR, they can judge how close a learner's speech is to native speakers'. Besides that, it can improves reading skills by accessing to an enormous amount of printed materials that can be found online; not to forget it also can enhance vocabulary and promote extensive reading. Students can build reading fluency and develop intrinsic reading motivation for reading.