Using LiveJournal for Authentic Communication in EFL Classes

Aaron Patric Campbell ( The New Tanuki) has just published a short paper on the use of Live Journal in his EFL classes in the Internet TESL Journal for Teachers of English.

"This paper describes a way for teachers to set-up and facilitate authentic international communication in the EFL classroom using LiveJournal.com: a free, hosted weblog tool with a 1.9 million-member-strong community of active users and built-in social networking features. It also highlights the potential that social software, like LiveJournal, has for encouraging greater autonomy and self-direction in foreign language learning."

A community of practice for EFL learners is an excellent idea and blogs are a tool to maintain the contact and record the interactions and reflection.

Another great initiative to facilitate learning and increase the students' contact with teachers can be found at Study.com /EFI (English for Internet) led by David Winet (University of California at Berkeley) which can be coupled with Writing for Webheads (Vance Stevens, Michael Coghlan and Maggie Dott).