Journal much?
Hello again! You might have noticed that I was silent for quite a long time and I’m going to tell you why. Too much of the same thing is never good, so it’s only natural that when I combined my passions for writing and making art into a part-time job and became an editor and content creator for Polymer Week magazine, I kind of lost the urge to write about teaching. Plus, I didn’t teach a lot in the summer, so there was little to share. September is just around the corner and, perhaps not surprisingly, my urge to talk with you about teaching and learning English is back!
To stick to the topic, I’d like to start with an article about journalling in ELT. Maybe you kept a diary when you were younger, just for fun or to have a place to unburden your mind, but have you ever heard of the positive effects of journalling in language learning? There are many benefits to this activity, so I’d like to tell you about them and, hopefully, spark your interest in journalling 🙂
First of all, I have a confession to make – I’m a journal enthusiast. I have a bullet journal for my daily planning, a personal journal to keep track of what’s happenning in my life, a teacher’s journal to keep track of what’s happening in my professional practice, and then there are journals that I keep in cooperation with my students. Oh, and the journals that I hand bind as a hobby. So why is it good to write a journal in a foreign language? Keeping a journal will help you to:
- improve writing
- improve reading
- improve grammar and vocabulary
- develop communicative skills
- develop reflective skills
- engage with the language
- improve teacher-student/student-student relationships
Now, let’s have a look at some kinds of journals from the point of view of the learner (although some of them overlap with the teacher’s perspective too):
Student’s reflective journal – this is a poweful tool that allows you to reflect on your own learning process. Your ideas become visible in writing, you can think about and comment on what’s going well, what you’re not happy about. You can set goals and track your progress in this kind of journal. You can sit down after each lesson with your teacher or each self-study session and put down your impressions. In time, you’ll be able to see how much progress you’ve made in your learning and this can motivate you to go further (or change the things that didn’t work for you on your learning path). You can ask yourself questions such as: What did I learn today? What did I want to learn and I didn’t? Which skills did I use? Was I engaged enough in the lesson? What would I like to learn next? What is easy for me? What do I need to work on more? Am I active enough? What can I do to make more progress? How much time do I spend on studying XY?
Teacher-student journal – this is my favourite. I was introduced to this concept by my dear friend Rita (you’ve already heard about her and you will definitely hear more) and I thoroughly enjoy doing this with some of my students. It’s basically an ongoing dialogue (thus we can say it falls into the dialogue category below) between you and your teacher. It’s like exchanging letters or emails, only it happens conveniently at one place. You can write about whatever and extend the speaking time in the lessons by following up on the conversation you had face-to-face. In my experience, this authentic form of communication with students is an excellent supplement to contact lessons, and not only from the language point of view. It helps both the teacher and learner(s) build and maintain a good relationship. It’s also fun because you don’t have to stick to writing only. You can draw, collage, paste photos and so on.
Student-student journal – obviously, a variation on the teacher-student journal; you can have a shared journal with one (or more) of your classmates.
Personal (everyday) journal – keeping a personal journal in English (or any other foreign language you study) is a great way to practise the language on your own. Depending on your schedule and time possibilities, you can spare 10 minutes with your morning coffee, on your lunch break or before going to bed and recount your (previous) day. You can focus on specific areas or even dedicate the whole journal to a specific topic (gratitude or happiness journals are in at the moment). This will give you the much beneficial everyday language practise and it’s also beneficial to your life in general because it makes you be more aware of what’s going on and how you feel about it.
Imaginary dialogue journal – I came across this kind of journal quite recently, I find it highly interesting and will definitely try it out soon. The idea is that you select a person, animal, thing or even concept/situation and write an imaginary dialogue with them. Such writing practice can be fun and therapeutical at the same time. How about having such an imaginary conversation with your ex-boyfriend, the lady who made you angry by cutting the queue in your favourite coffee shop this morning, or your dog?
Of course, there are many more options – you can dedicate a journal to whatever you like doing. For example, you can journal about the books you’ve read, the movies/TV series you’ve seen, you can also keep a travel journal with lots of pictures, maps and so on.
As a teacher, you might consider starting one of these:
Teacher’s reflective journal – in my opinion, keeping track of your teaching practice is extremely important. Journalling about your lessons and reflecting on how things are going is enormously helpful when it comes to continuous professional development. Recording and analyzing what happened in the classroom can help you become aware of your behaviour patterns, successes and failures and learn from them. It can help you see what you do, how you do it and why you do it, which is important if you want to improve. You can ask yourself questions such as: How did the lesson go? What made it a success? What didn’t work well? Why? Were the activities successful? Did the students enjoy them? Were my instructions clear? Was the timing right? Was I active enough? Did I give the students enough space? Keeping a journal can also help your mental health – emotions, both positive and negative, are a part of the teaching (and learning) process and sometimes we need an outlet for the emotions that bother us. Writing about them into your journal can bring you a peace of mind. Just try it!
Classroom journal – you may also introduce journalling as a regular part of your lessons. If time allows, spending the last 5 or 10 minutes writing together is a nice way to wrap up the class. Except for journalling in one of the ways mentioned above, you can aim at a more controlled writing. You can provide your students with a wide range of other writing prompts based on the vocabulary, grammar, genre or style you want them to focus on. Besides the language practice, such activity can help the students build the habit of writing regularly and possibly change their (sometimes) negative attitude to writing. You can light a candle and/or play quiet music in the background to create a relaxing atmosphere.
There are some more practical concerns regarding journalling that I should address. Since this post is long enough, I will talk about those in my new post next week. Meanwhile you can think about what kind of journal you’d like to try as a teacher or student. Just don’t forget to have fun! Do you have questions and would you like to know more? Just write your comment down below. Talk to you soon 😉
The photo taken by myself.