Currently I do not use blogs in my classroom. The reason being is that I am still very new to this form of technology. I want to make sure that I know what I am doing before I expect my students to do the same, that way I can answer their questions.

 When I do begin to use blogs, because I know that I will, I plan to use them to post question/answer sessions for the students. This way, if one student has a question about a grammar exercise or a reading comprehension passage, they have the chance to post their questions and it gives another student the ability to help answer that question. Sometimes, what we cannot learn from teachers we can learn from one another. I believe that it is very important to have a student commrodery within and outside of the classroom. This way, students are continuously learning, whether from one another or from the teacher.

 I also thought as using blogs to post language exercises and even videos dealing with pronunciation of words, vowels and consonants. It gives the students the opportunity to hear the sounds when they aren’t within the classroom setting. So in a way, it’s like bringing the classroom home with them!

I was really interested in commenting on the following link from  my bloglines account:

http://www.utm.edu/departments/french/flsat.html

One of the other classes that I am taking this semester deals with teaching foreign language to students in grades 7-12. The funny thing is, just last week we had to make an informative brochure that was geared towards the students. The brochure had to cover the idea of “Why study a foreign language”.

After reading through this blog, I realized that my reasons that i included in my brochure are all covered in this blog. But my question is, are there a limited number of reasons of why someone should study a foreign language? All blogs, books, websites and brochures will say the say thing: studying a foreign language improves your test scores, it’s good for traveling, you learn about another culture, it’s fun, better employment options, and it helps you understand your native language better. But are those the only reasons? I feel as though studying a foreign language has a plethora of reasons to study. Some of these reasons you will not realized until you are older and can appreciate the doors that knowing a foreign language can open for you. I just feel as though we are putting a limit on the reasons why students should learn a foreign language. Hopefully, one day we will realize that the reasons for studying a foreign language are limitless.