101 of keeping a language journal
Last week I talked about the benefits of journalling in language teaching and learning. We looked at possible kinds of journals in and outside the language classroom and today I’d like to focus on some practical aspects of keeping a journal. If you decide to take up this activity, or ask your students to start journalling, you should make it a habit. There are some strategies that you can adopt to make journalling a successful experience for you (and your students). Just like with everything in learning, engagement, positive emotions and consistency are key. And what does it mean in practice?
Make it your own – you know that I love the old fashioned pen and paper way of keeping notes and the same goes about all my journals. By the way, did you know that writing by hand has benefits for your brain and well-being? However, there are many people who love technology and they could never stick to a paper journal, they need a digital one. And it’s absolutely fine. The important thing is to make journalling pleasant for you personally, so choose whatever makes you happy. It can be a beautifully decorated journal your friend made for you, it can be a folder full of loose sheets of paper, you can opt for plain Word documents or a fancy app you like. If you want to make your journal public, start a blog.
Choose the right medium – we keep talking about writing, but journals don’t have to be limited to written word. You can consider recording yourself or even starting a video journal. Personally, I don’t have any experience with these since writing is what I love, but I can’t see any reason no to try these if you feel like it.
Get creative – whatever kind and medium you choose, unleash your creativity. You don’t have to write only – you can draw pictures, diagrams, glue in pictures, photos, shoot videos and so on. The more engaging your journal is, the higher the probability you will stick with it. And that’s what we’re aiming at, right?
Create a routine – regularity and convenience are of a great importance in creating habits in general. Sit down for a while, think about your daily schedule and allocate time for your writing. It can be early in the morning when all your family are still asleep, you can journal while having your morning coffee in your favourite coffee shop, on your lunch break or right before going to bed. All you need is a quiet place where you can focus for about 5 to 15 minutes, ideally daily (or weekly, depending on the kind of journal). Set reminders if necessary. If you have a less structured lifestyle, you might consider taking your journal with you wherever you go so that you can use an unexpected time slot to write a bit.
Get in the mood – journalling should be a nice, relaxing activity. You can create a sort of a writing ritual. Put on a quiet relaxing music, light a candle or an incense stick, make a cup of coffee or your favourite tea.
A word about feedback in journalling. For teachers – similarly to speaking practice, whether or not you should give feedback on your students‘ journal entries (and in what form) is crucially dependent on the kind of journal. You will probably want to give a lot more feedback on controlled writing tasks than entries in the students‘ reflective journals. In my experience, too much focus on error correction might take away from the power of self-reflection. Do I want the student to focus more on the reflection or worrying about bad spelling? I do code errors in the dialogue journals that I keep with my students but then it’s up to the student to deal with the mistakes. On the other hand, I try ty comment on the content and I tend to ask a lot of questions to provoke the students to write more. It is obvious that those who exchange a dialogue journal with me pay a lot of attention to the content and it’s nice to see that journalling helps them make progress in their learning. A little warning: engaging in dialogue journals with students is time-consuming. It is, however, time well spent.
For learners – there’s strong evidence that keeping a journal will improve your language knowledge even without getting any feedback at all. Imagine you’re going to capture the events of your day in your journal. Chances are there will be some words you don’t know or can’t remember. What do you do? You either look them up or find a way to do without them by describing, comparing, contrasting, etc. Both strategies are great. Most probably the same will apply to grammar. Not sure this is the correct tense? Go to your favourite grammar reference book or online and brush up your knowledge. You make conscious effort, you’re engaged in the activity and that’s great for your learning. If you insist on getting feedback from your teacher (or wish to get less of it), just talk to your teacher. I’m sure they’ll be willing to accommodate to your needs.
I hope that my two posts managed to spark your interest in journalling, whether you’re a teacher or student, and that you will consider giving it a try. And if you already have some experience with learning journals, share them in the comments down below. Thanks!
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash