E-journaling

In their article "A Web-Based Approach to Strategic Learning of Speech Acts," Cohen and Ishihara have documented their study of students' practice of and reflection upon speech acts that they had produced in Japanese. Students were able to practice different types of speech acts with web-based, self-access materials and provide feedback (via e-journaling) on the usefulness of the the materials and some of the challenges presented by the technology itself.

According to the article, a content analysis of the e-journaling entries indicated that a majority of the learners had found the curriculum to facilitate the learning of cultural/pragmatic contexts of speech acts (p. 15). A majority of the learners found the provided examples of speech and explanations of cultural aspects to be useful (p. 15). However, only 17% of the students found that the materials cleared up confusion about language and culture (p.16). About half of the students had no issues with the technology, and others generally had only minor issues (p.18).

I think that e-journaling could be useful in an ESL class. One possible use of e-journaling could be to create a student-generated electronic depository of vocabulary items. Students could compile a daily or weekly list new or interesting vocabulary items. For some of the days/weeks, the instructor could provide a topic and have students write all related words that come to mind (e.g. travel words).