a collaborative writing task using a google doc

the following post talks about a collaborative task I gave to my Armenian Elementary students during my internship in summer.

the task was based on their textbook. They were asked to write a biography of a famous Armenian.

"Firstly, the class was divided into three groups of four. Each group had one student who was more proficient in writing than the rest. I created the docs and shared them with the groups.
in every doc there was a from that students had to follow. the form helped them to figure out the main points they had to talk about. In class, I assigned one role to each student in the groups. One student (the proficient one) had to proofread and check the language of the work. Two students were searching the internet to find relevant information to their work. one student was typing. eventually, they had to do a poster presentation of their work."

Firstly, dividing the groups according to their writing proficiency levels helped me to recognize their weakness and their strengths and gave me feedback on how to go further through the course. Secondly, it wasn't convenient for all the students to bring their gadgets so I asked only one student from each group to bring their laptops or their tablet.
the task being scripted did help them to organize their thoughts and put them in a cohesive piece of writing.
assigning the roles was not that much uncomfortable especially that each one had to do something according to their abilities.

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would you give your EFL learners a podcasting assignment

it's recommended that EFL learners need to be familiarized and trained with the use of podcasting technology in language learning in order to get better gains. EFL teachers are suggested to integrate podcasting lectures into their EFL writing teaching.
 Copley (2007) stated that podcasting technology could be seen as a new innovative way of teaching and empowering the interest of a variety of teachers, and researchers. Rosell-Aguilar, (2007) illustrated a group of advantages of podcasting for learning such as being portable, attractive, motivating, easy access, and publicity. Researchers believe that podcasting technology is an effective method for teachers to deliver valuable instruction to their students and to improve the learning process (Beheler, 2007; Copley, 2007; Lord, 2008).

blog and/or twitter in teaching languages

the following writing piece provides two good and other two bad examples of using Blogs and Twitter in teaching Languages.

In a Writing Composition course at a university, the teacher gives the following tasks:

1- Read the following quote and post your opinion on your blog.

"Good people don't need the rule to behave respectfully, but bad people can find ways to go around the laws". this is a good example of using blogs in teaching free writing.

2- summarize one of the assigned chapters (e.g. the book is "Microeconomics by Daron Acemoglu, David Laibson, and John A. List (2016) for the next class reflecting on your personal experience in the field. this tasks could be another good writing task with the use of blogs. Due to the word limit on Twitter, this task would not be convenient to do using Twitter.

3- the teacher asks students to post their opinions about the World Cup 2018 in Russia under the #worldcup2018. This task motivates students to connect their language learning with a real-life situation. this also helps them to interact with their peers in a real-life communicative way.

4- However, the tasks mentioned above would be all considered as bad application of both Twitter and Blogs if the target students are less proficient with using blogs and Twitter (although Twitter is seemingly much easier to use even for younger students.)