The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers

Download your copy of The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers by Nicholas Walker and Helen Hefter.

Learn HTML while Blogging

The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers is intended to be self-explanatory. By following the directions, you will be able to create a web-log website (blog) that could prove useful and profitable to you. The examples are all relevant to ESL/EFL and will generate traffic, which will attract readers, advertisers and revenue to your blog. The principle goal of this cookbook, however, is to provide you with the confidence and momentum you’ll need to continue blogging and learning HTML, a basic web-programming language used extensively on the internet.

In this book, you will find the steps to follow to produce a 13-post blog of your own. The first three sections will simply introduce you to a free blogging platform called Blogger.com. Blogger is a Google property. It is free and easy to use. After a year of blogging, Blogger will offer to integrate AdSense advertisements into your blog, which will allow you to start making money from ads. (Remember that ads pay for content, so if you see an ad that interests you on someone else’s blog, click it. It will send the blog writer a small commission.) College students are usually chronically hard-up, so the fact that blogs can generate income is something worth mentioning to students. The next section is merely an illustration of the common HTML tags. The remaining sections will provide you with a number of adaptable mini-projects to include in your blog. Finally, the last section lists some resources that will help you learn more about HTML and blogging with students. 

All of the mini-projects in this cookbook use HTML rather than the what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) compose-mode of Blogger. The reason for this choice is to provide you with HTML resources that you can use elsewhere, like Wordpress, Moodle, email, or any website that allows you to use HTML code. Also, I have found that simply by looking at HTML code you can learn a fair bit of HTML programming without having to take a course or rely on programmers. Basic HTML is pretty obvious: <b> means bold, <i> means italics, <strike> means strikethrough, <br> means break, etc. Take the time to look at the tags. You will get the hang of it very quickly.

Yours to Share and Adapt in Accordance with Sharealike 2.5

Remember that you are free to share the code, text, and images in this Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers with your students and colleagues. You are also free to reuse and adapt any part of this document provided that you credit us, the original authors, Nicholas Walker and Helen Hefter. We also ask (but cannot insist) that you retain the links in the various mini-projects to our websites: VirtualWritingTutor.com, FieldRelated.com, BokomaruPublications.com, and Actively-Engaged-Online.blogspot.com. These links send a weak signal to Google and Bing to rank our websites a little higher in their search results. That helps us get our message out about our projects.

You can add your name as co-author to your adapted or expanded version of this document and even charge money for it, but you must retain the Sharealike 2.5 license on derivations. For example, you may want to add instructions for creating an account on Wordpress.com or Tumblr.com. Please do. Just add your name under our names on the first page. Remember that you can change the cookbook and pass it on, but you cannot prevent others from further adapting and expanding this document, too. Sound fair?

In any case, we hope you find The Blogging Cookbook for College ESL Teachers useful to you and your students.

Nicholas Walker and Helen Hefter
August 15, 2016

Pronunciation Checker

Use this speech recognition-enabled pronunciation checker to see if your pronunciation is comprehensible. If you are having difficulty being understood, type what you want to say into a text-to-speech pronunciation helper to get a clear model of the correct pronunciation of a word or phrase.

The Virtual Writing Tutor is the best online grammar checker for ESL learners.Find out how you can add digital literacy training to your CEGEP ESL course with a textbook from Bokomaru Publications.

How to Create a Blog on Blogger: Getting Started

How to Create a Blog on Blogger

Step 1

The first step to creating your own blog for language learning is to go to Blogger.com. You will need to create an account if you don't have a Gmail account already. It is easy and takes seconds. 

Step 2

The next step is a little more complicated. You will need to create a title and address for your blog. The title should be related to your field of study or the thing that you expect to be writing about most. If you are not sure what topic you want to blog about, consider creating a title and address related to your name. If your name is "Helen," name your blog Helen's Blog (title) at helens-blog.blogspot.com (address). You will also have to choose a template. Choose something simple because this part is easy to change later. 

Step 3

Once you have created your blog title and address, click "New post" under the word "My blogs" on the left. If your blog is in another language you can change the language setting here by clicking the "cog" icon in the top right.

Step 4

When you click "New post" you will see a blank page. Give your blog post a title, like "About Me" and write something about who you are and what you do.  Click "Save" and "Publish" on the right and click "View blog" on the left. Now, you are a blogger. 

Step 5

You can leave your first blog post as it is, but serious writers look for feedback on their writing. Copy your first blog post and paste it into the VirtualWritingTutor.com and click "Check grammar" to see if it can detect any errors. If there are errors in your text, the VirtualWritingTutor will show you how to correct them.   

Step 6

Simply edit your post, make the necessary corrections, and click "Update." Now, you are ready to promote your blog. Why not join us a https://www.facebook.com/groups/learn.English.by.blogging and share your first blog post. The other members of this group would love to meet you and help you improve your writing. 

Find out more about blogging and digital literacy in ESL.

Facebook Group to Learn English by Blogging

Nicholas Walker

So, you want to learn English.  That's great! Maybe, you want to improve ability to communicate in your field, or maybe you want to improve your chances of finding a job. I want to help you.

My name is Nicholas Walker. I teach college English as a Second Language in Montreal, Canada, and I develop websites related to ESL in my spare time. Not only do I have many years of experience teaching English in South Korea and Canada, I also have an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and a B.A. in English Literature. I know English, and I know how to teach it.

I want to help you improve your English, but you have to help me.

Here's how:

1. Be active. 

I want to work with people who are serious about improving their English. You can demonstrate that you are serious about learning English in the following ways.

• Join my Facebook group: Learn English by Blogging. This is where we exchange links and advice to help each other. Promote your blog to other group members here.
• Visit the group page every week, liking and responding to the activity there.
• Arrange for video and audio chat conversations with other group members. 
• Do the exercises and blog writing assignments. Don't stop.  
• Create a blog on Blogger.com related to your field of study or passion. Make sure that your blog address and title contain words related to your field of study or interest. 

2. Help the other group members. 

There are a number of ways that you can be helpful to the other members of the  Learn English by Blogging Facebook group. Some ways are easy. Some take an extra effort. 

• Easy: start by being supportive. Everyone likes to hear encouraging remarks about their efforts to learn and express themselves. Click the like button when someone shares a link to a blog post they have written. 
• More difficult: write helpful comments. If you see a problem with someone's blog post, write a three part comment. 1) Thank that person for sharing. Say, "Thanks for sharing your blog post." 2) Tell the group member how to improve his or her blogpost with specific advice. For example, you could say, "You should write shorter paragraphs." 3) End with a specific positive comment, "I really like your title. Very catchy." Comments like these help writers feel good about the help they receive from others. 

3. Help the teacher.

You want to learn English. I want to promote my websites. In return for the opportunity to improve your English, I would like your help. Copy and paste the following links into your blog posts:

References

• Check your grammar with the best ESL grammar checker VirtualWritingTutor.com
• Check your vocabulary with FieldRelated.com
• Learn CEGEP ESL with BokomaruPublications.com
• Correct more, better, and faster with CorrectiveFeedback.com, an ESL power tool for teachers

4. Write blog posts

Create a blog on Blogger, and start writing blog posts with titles, images, text, and links. Here are some blog post writing assignments I recommend:

1. Introduction: write a paragraph about yourself and a paragraph about your professional goals for your blog. Explain why you are writing a blog and how you think it will help you.
2. Listicle: write a numbered list of items related to a theme. Click here to see an example of a listicle. Make sure to include an introductory paragraph (no heading) and 3 or more paragraphs with numbered headings.
3. Walkthrough: record yourself on YouTube giving a guided tour of a website related to your field of study or passion. Show your listener how to achieve a specific goal.  Embed your video on your blog with a short introductory paragraph. 
4. Summary: write a summary of an article related to your field of study or passion. Do not copy and paste. Say why you chose the article and how it relates to your field. Add a link to the original article. 
5. Glossary: Make a list of some technical or semi-technical terms related to your field of study or passion. Go to FieldRelated.com for examples. Do not copy paste a glossary entries. Make your own. Use Google and do a search using the the search term define + the word you wish to define. 

Once you have written each of these blog posts, share your link on the  Learn English by Blogging Facebook group. We will give you the encouragement and support you need to keep learning. 

5 Great Reasons ESL Students Should Start a Blog

Digital literacy for ESL 

There are over 150 million blogs on the internet today. Why so many? People read blogs and rely on them for information. Reading blogs is great, but why should ESL students start blogs? It is a good question. Here are 5 great reasons for ESL students to create a blog in English.

1.  Improve your English

Blogs are a great way to communicate with people around the world about topics that interest you. Since languages are learned through the exchange of meaningful messages, blogging in English becomes a great way for you to master your English language skills while indulging your interest in your favorite topics.

Of course, you can learn about the properties of English by doing exercises and practice activities, but for grammar and vocabulary to really stick in your head, it is essential for those linguistic forms to be linked to meaning in your brain. Blogging in English is a very meaningful way to practice a language. Not only will you find yourself reading other blogs and watching YouTube videos in English for inspiration,  you will also want to make an extra effort that you are expressing yourself correctly and in a way people will understand. A number of useful tools are available to help you. 

1. You can use Chrome or Chrome Portable to help you with your pronunciation. If you don't know how to pronounce something, your browser can model how to pronounce words and phrases for you. You can also check your pronunciation is to see if is clear enough for some else to understand you by using Chrome's speech recognition system. Very cool.
2. If you want to check your English for common grammar errors, punctuation problems, and capitalization mistakes, use the Virtual Writing Tutor. The Virtual Writing Tutor, by Bokomaru Publications, is a free online grammar checker designed especially for ESL students. 
3. You can check your word choice on FieldRelated.com to identify conversational and academic vocabulary, as well as field-related vocabulary.
4. There is Google Translate which works like a bilingual dictionary but with speech recognition and speech synthesis.
5.  For video blogging, or vlogging, there is CamtasiaStudio and its free counterpart Camstudio and its portable version. Creating video tutorials, uploading them to YouTube and embedding them on your blog will give you an opportunity to practice your English speaking skills online. 

2.  Become an expert that people know and trust

When people have a question about something, they usually go to the internet to do a search. If you use the keywords they use in their search in your blog post, their search engine will include you in the search results. Once people begin to find you and read your blog, it will help to establish you as an expert in your field of study. People will come to recognize that you are a valuable source of information. 

You can't become a valuable source of information unless you have information to share. This means developing your expertise by exploring recent research and technological innovations in your field and presenting it in a way that people will appreciate. Search engines and Wikipedia will help you track down new research that expand or refine our understanding of topics related to your field. Following up on new products released by leading companies in your field is another great way to develop your expertise and communication skills in your field. As you learn more about your field and explain it to people in a way that people appreciate, they will begin to recognize you as an expert that they can trust.  

3.  Make money

When it comes time to search for a job or start a business, your blog will show prospective employers and customers what you know and what you can do for them.When people know you, trust you, and like you, they are more likely to buy from you. Affiliate links, ads and online stores will then become significant sources of income that can make money for you while you sleep.

Think about it. If people read your articles and watch your video tutorials, they will come to respect you. Since the information you provide is free, they will certainly appreciate what you have done for them. That sets up the norm of reciprocity. You have done something nice for them and they will want to do something nice for you. When you recommend a product and provide a link, they may take the extra few seconds to find out about that product. If they are curious, they are more likely to indulge that curiosity by clicking on ads in your blog post. If they are ready to buy, they will prefer to buy from you than a stranger, and pow! You have made ad-revenue, or a commission on a sale, or sold  your services. That's digital marketing in a nutshell. It takes time, but it works.   

4.  Join a virtual community that spans the globe

Perhaps money is not your thing. People who obsess about money are boring anyway. Interesting people know stuff, make stuff and connect with other interesting people who know stuff, make stuff and connect with interesting people. You will find that your blog will bring you into contact with faraway people who share your interests and have skills that complement your own. 

You will see that there are people who are more skilled and knowledgeable than you and and others who can learn and benefit from knowing you. Eventually, you will discover that you are in the center of a worldwide network of nerdy-cool people. Bloggers belong to a community that stretches beyond their family and gang of neighbourhood friends, a virtual community that stretches over the internet and out into the wider world. While your buddies are talking hockey or politics or fashion, you will look up to see an airplane flying overhead and realize, "Hey, I know a guy in Kuala Lumpur. If I got on a plane, I could go there and shake his hand. Cool." 

5.  Develop your digital literacy skills

When you blog, you use the internet on a deeper level than most young people do. Most college students go on Facebook to flirt or joke around. They use only the buttons and tools that Facebook provides them. With a blog, you can switch from "Compose" mode to "HTML" mode and gain insight into how websites are made. 

As you gain confidence, you will want to embed media, links and buttons that add interactivity to your blog post. By switching to HTML mode, you see elements of the code that you can tweak and fiddle with. That is the beginning of web programming, a first step into a technology that is transforming the world before our eyes. You may start to wonder about Javascript, PHP MySQL, and Linux. Blogs will open your eyes to how the internet works, and you will go from being a consumer of digital content to a producer. Your blog will teach you how to read and write code. It will make you powerful. 

Even if you never switch to HTML mode, blogging will introduce you to concepts of hyperlinking, labels, URLS, alt tags, keywords and search engine optimization. These are important elements of a successful blog because of their influence on the way search engines find you and send traffic to your blog. Knowing how a search engine ranks one page above another will help you understand how machine determine the reliability of sources of information. 

These are 5 important reasons for college ESL students to start a blog. What are your reasons? Why not start your blog with a listicle explaining your reasons? 

I checked this blog post for common grammar, punctuation and spelling errors using a free online ESL grammar checker.

How do you pronounce this?

Are you unsure how to pronounce a word?
Use your browser's speech synthesis system to pronounce any word or phrase you type into the input box below.




Adapted code based on Jason Mayes' example here: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/xGXZaW
I checked this blog post for common grammar, punctuation and spelling errors using a free online ESL grammar checker.

Create Your Own Desktop Pronunciation App

Have ever wondered how to pronounce a word but have been unsure who to ask? Now you can ask your Windows desktop or laptop to model a word's pronunciation for you. Here are the mouseless steps to follow.

Why do it mouslessly? A computer mouse is a very convenient tool, but it is not as quick as the keyboard. You can be twice as fast as the average computer user at work if you learn these shortcuts, making you twice as productive. In other words, you will deserve twice the salary of the guy sitting next to you when it comes time to negotiate a pay raise from your boss.

Step 1: Create a new text document with notepad

Press Windows + d to go to your desktop.

Press Ctrl + Spacebar to deselect any previously selected icons.

Press the menu key to open a context menu (the same as a right-click).

Use the arrow keys to navigate to "New," right arrow over to the second menu, and down-arrow to "Text Document."

Step 2: Copy/paste the code and rename the file

Name your new text document "Pronounce" and press enter. Press the menu key again and select "Edit" to open it for editing.

Navigate to your browser window using Alt + Tab.

Navigate within the window using the Tab key.

Keep pressing it until your cursor appears in the text area below.

Dim Message, Pronounce Message=InputBox("Enter a word to hear how it is pronounced","How do you pronounce this word?") Set Pronounce=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice") Pronounce.Rate = -3 Pronounce.Speak Message

Select all (Ctrl + A) the code in the text area above as shown below.

When you select all, the text will be highlighted in blue.

Copy (Ctrl +C) to copy the code. Navigate to your open text document window using Alt + Tab.and then paste (Ctrl + V) the copied code into the blank text document.

This is what it should look like.

Press the Alt key to access the menu bar. Press the down arrow to "Save As" and press "Enter."

On some keyboards, the "Enter" key is called "Return" or simply has an arrow with a right angle. In any case, it is just above the right hand "Shift" key. 

Save the text document as "Pronounce.vbs" Navigate to the desktop to see how it looks.

The file will look like this after you have saved it with its new name on the desktop.

Step 3: Test your new pronunciation app

Make sure that your speakers are on, open the application, and type in a word you want to hear pronounced.

Hit "Enter" and listen to the speech synthesis pronounce the word for you.

Step 4: Be proud of yourself

Not only have you created an application, you did it without a mouse--a true sign of computer proficiency. If English is not your first language, you should be extra-proud of yourself because you followed a complex procedure to its end producing a concrete result--a true sign of reading comprehension and second language competence.

What this exercise demonstrates is that skill with a computer is largely the result of reading and following written instructions. People who cannot or do not read instructions carefully will not succeed with this task.

I checked this blog post for common grammar, punctuation and spelling errors using a free online ESL grammar checker.