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Write a Blog – Improve Your English
It will soon be a New Year! This is a perfect time to pursue new projects and rekindle commitments to long held goals. Perhaps this year will be the year that you achieve the band you desire on the IELTS. Perhaps you have always secretly wanted to start a blog. Well I am here to tell you that one of these desires can help you achieve the other. Starting a blog, written in English of course, is a great way to improve your writing skills and achieve the band that you need in the IELTS.
Writing a blog will give you excellent and invaluable writing practise, and it can also give you a critical audience to both correct and enjoy your writing. All of these things will help you make great strides forward in your mastery of the English language. All you really need to get started is some ideas on interesting subjects to write about, a computer with internet access, and a healthy dose of courage!
Before you leap in and launch your blog to an unsuspecting audience you need to consider three questions:
- How?
- Why?
- Where?
How? that’s easy – just grab a blog site, sign up, throw down the ideas (think of a theme?) and away I go!
Why? – easy again – to practise my English (or another language) and network with people – hopefully someone will help me a bit with corrections?
What? – no sweat, I’ll just do a kind of stream of consciousness thing with stuff that comes into my head!
Where? – now this is a bit trickier, teachers would love to see it and so would other language learners – this could be really cool!
OK, now steady on a bit!!
Let’s consider these questions and the possible implications they might have on your prospective audience.
Right, let’s rewind!
How/Where:
Blog readers are quite a critical audience. They are looking for good, helpful and inspiring information and have high expectations in terms of language and presentation. If you are planning to launch your blog to the world at large then you have to be very confident that your level of language and breadth of vocabulary and usage is good enough. It might be better to start more modestly.
- If you are in a class, write for the class blog – what, there isn’t one? See if your teacher will set one up, or why not do it yourself? A class blog is an excellent way to write in a controlled environment where your audience will be appreciative and helpful.
- If you are a self-managed learner, then look for a site where you can experiment with your blog and get some feedback. Some English language sites allow this and sites like these typically have peer correction and teacher support.
- BBC (but you have to apply for this via email)
- English Club gives you a personal page where you can set up a blog
- Or you could set up your own blog community and correct and comment on each other’s work.
Why:
Making your language real is very powerful and satisfying. While it’s a good idea to write in class or for your teacher and have this corrected so you can improve your skills, it is more of a challenge to write for a real audience. With greater challenge comes greater possibilities for improvement! Blogging is a real and growing activity and it’s a good way to network, become part of a community, and also practise our English skills.
- If you are writing a real piece for a potentially large audience you will need to take extra care over it both for reasons of quality of language and personal pride. This in itself is a good learning exercise.
- It is very exciting to get comments on your blog from people you don’t know and this will help to keep you motivated.
- The more you do the better you become. A blog requires commitment – it will do wonders for your writing if you work at it.
What:
What you write about depends on you. What interests you? It will be easier to write about something that you are enthusiastic about. Think about your hobbies or your areas of interest.
- If you choose to experiment using one of the English sites, then see what other people are writing about. Do these themes attract you?
- Do you follow a particular sports team? You could write about them. See what others are saying about your team and come up with a different angle – something like this would help you to build a following and get comments. You can then build a network with other enthusiasts and use this to develop your English skills further.
- Above all, write about what you know and love! This way, it won’t become a chore and you will always have something new to say.
So now do your research. Look at other bloggers see what they are saying. Check out the sites and decide which ones would suit you best. Do a test run if you like – ask your teacher or a friend to check it for you. Now get going, have fun and improve your skills – I hope to swing by and post a comment one day!!
Another good resource for exercising your writing skills is our Facebook group which is open to students that enroll in many of our online courses and packages. Check out our resources, online courses, immersion workshops, or one-on-one training programme for more IELTS help. Make this year the year you achieve your IELTS goals!
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