Start Blog Writing - Tools and Tips
Blog Tools
As English Language Teaching (ELT) has become more globalized, the demand for high-quality educational content has increased exponentially. Typically, textbooks and academic journals have served as the main sources of inspiration of new ideas in the classroom. But for some time now, ELT professionals have taken to blogging to provide valuable insights, tips, and resources to fellow teachers.
Blogging is essentially ‘diary-style text entries’ published online for readers to enjoy. Some popular blogs written by English Language Teachers include TeachingEnglish by the British Council, which offers a vast array of teaching resources and webinars. The Edublogger provides great prompts to help your learners to get started with their own blog writing, while Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day has been offering ‘news and resources in education for both teachers and students’ since 2007, believe it or not!
Personally, I subscribe to Sandy Millin’s Sharing, Supporting, Developing, Exploring and like to read Cecilia Nobre’s blog posts with great teaching advice and lesson ideas. Elena Mutonono’s blog is a treasure trove of smart online teaching ideas , while I will shyly mention my own Share Your Story With Confidence for those with a thing for critical reading and creative writing.
When it comes to creating a blog, several options are available. WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr are popular options that offer free hosting, but their customization options are limited. In contrast, Squarespace and Wix offer more customization options, but their pricing plans can be steep for beginners. Ultimately, the choice of a platform will depend on the your needs, preferences, and, of course, budget.
I started with Tumblr back in the day, but then upgraded to Wordpress, before finally landing on SquareSpace, which is quite straight-forward to set up, aesthetically-pleasing with a good amount of customisable options without being too overwhelming. Apart for those, I can highly recommend Edublogs as a great place to start a class blog. Back in the day, I co-wrote Teachers As Designers for a professional development project.
In terms of brainstorming ideas for a blog, there are a number of prompts that can help get the creative juices flowing. For example, you could write about your own experiences teaching English as a second language, share lesson plans or teaching resources, or discuss current issues in English language teaching, of which there are plenty.
Other ideas could include reviewing books or websites related to English language teaching, providing tips and advice for other teachers, or sharing your thoughts on language learning more broadly. Ultimately, the key is to find a topic that you are passionate about and that you believe will be of interest to your readers.
Well, I do hope these tools and tips have been useful and shown you where you could set up your blog and what you could start blogging about. This month, April, the theme in the Creative Writing Club is Start Blog Writing, so if you are ready to begin, feel free to reach out.